8 Actors Who Knew Their TV Show Was Doomed On Day 1
6. Chris Harris Knew Top Gear Reboot Was Doomed From The Start
Unexpectedly picking up speed to the point of becoming quite possibly the biggest original BBC show on air for a time, news of the trio who helped turn the petrol-head delight that was Top Gear into the household name it eventually became not returning to the show on the back of Jeremy Clarkson decking a producer over some steak, left the series' future in doubt.
Hellbent on keeping the Top Gear legacy alive, despite Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond opting to take their brand of calamity to Amazon Prime, the BBC ultimately decided to relaunch the show with a completely new line-up of hosts. But from day one, one of said new faces in the form of Chris Harris could sense this particular attempt to keep the Top Gear brand going was doomed from minute one.
As Harris would admit to Metro when talking about how the show managed to eventually strike the right balance with later attempts at recapturing some genuine chemistry between the hosts:
"...the first time I did this in 2015/2016, I thought, “oh god, what have I done?”’
Noting how former Radio 1 host Chris Evans in particular "was doomed" because "people were always going to hate it because it wasn’t Jeremy", Harris was understandably relieved to find that the BBC had "got the chemistry right" upon his eventual first day alongside current co-hosts Andrew Flintoff and Paddy McGuinness.