The Grand Tour

[popeyewhite]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

I do find it odd how several on here refer to 'the Lads'.

It's not odd at all. They're frequent viewers, they know the 'in' jokes, feel part of the TG or TGT crowd and like the presenters. Much like a football team they may support and call 'the lads', why shouldn't they call them 'the lads' too?

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

They are 50 plus millionaires taking the piss, yet the use of Lads makes it sound like one 'know' them. Strange

They are good at what they do, which is provide televisual entertainment sometimes involving cars. They have been doing this a long time, which is perhaps why people feel they 'know' them. Not really strange at all. If you want to carp about their age or how much money they earn or whether they're taking the Michael you should ask yourself why Amazon are paying them so much in the first place, and why TG is one of the BBC's best selling exports, second only to Keeping up Appearances.

[Yipper]

768 said:

A 9.1 on IMDB is quite impressive. Plenty of great TV series with lower ratings than that.

The trend is not so good.

Ratings for GT on Amazon and IMDb have tumbled from roughly 9.8 to 9.0 in 2 months (assuming they are real)...
Illegal downloads of GT worldwide have declined roughly -50% in 2 months...
PH posts for GT have swung sharply from "mostly positive" to "mostly negative" in 2 months...
And global viewership for GT is roughly 10-15m, compared with 100-350m for old Top Gear...

[paulguitar]

So, which is worse, ‘new’ Top Gear, or ‘The Grand Tour’?

What does everyone think?

[anonymous-user]

Quickmoose said:

techiedave said:

We have just had a relative over and watched the 2 Beach Buggy episodes together (7 and 8 I think). If you didnt know they were from TGT you could quite easily think they were old Top Gear ones.
The point is the chemistry is exactly as it was the humour is the same its contrived but funny the scenery is superb.
I think these work so very well as they are specials. I hope that the lads go on to make many more series

Not me, you obviously feel that way, but the mass majority (admittedly on this thread alone) certainly don't feel that way. Even the majority of level headed positive reviewers wish for something more...on each and every level of the programme, CHM are falling short of what has been done before...and falling short of what the pre-hype suggested was coming.

They are of course wanting a large audience, but in focusing on that one aim, the broadest possible church... you get committee based stuff.... the Toyota Corolla or Vauxhall Corsa of TV entertainment....they were, are and will hopefully prove to be better than this series one.

As for IMDB, I have no clue about conspiracies, Amazons ownership and their use of it, badly weighted scores due to die hard fans...
Marvel films in particular seem to get the same use, comic book fans jump on each installment and score high and it's not until later when the hype and hoo-har has died down that things settle and something more akin to reality is seen.
Following on from that, as can be seen on TGT's page, the score is nosediving.

And yes I've stopped watching it.
And from the comments made by others since I stopped, nothing has changed and my time has been better spent watching better quality TV...such as TG repeats on DAVE.

Well unfortunately I must not part of your majority. I didn't feel the latest Sherlock was all that good and I said so but then I didn't (unlike some) feel the need to keep coming back and going into quite long detail about why I wasn't watching it .Maybe all the people really really want it back to how it was and are upset its different ?
Now if its realism you want they have reruns of London Chop Shop on one of the more obscure freeview channels shall I pop round with a bag of chips and some jellied eels and we can join in and watch Bernie and the boys together ?

[768]

Yipper said:

768 said:

A 9.1 on IMDB is quite impressive. Plenty of great TV series with lower ratings than that.

The trend is not so good.

Ratings for GT on Amazon and IMDb have tumbled from roughly 9.8 to 9.0 in 2 months (assuming they are real)...
Illegal downloads of GT worldwide have declined roughly -50% in 2 months...
PH posts for GT have swung sharply from "mostly positive" to "mostly negative" in 2 months...
And global viewership for GT is roughly 10-15m, compared with 100-350m for old Top Gear...

Sort of.

I think the first episode was probably the highest rated. The lowest wasn't the last though, or even one of the last. It was the second. So the trend isn't that clear and you'd always expect it to drop from 9.8.

Global viewership will take time, much as it did with old Top Gear. The model's different now though so I doubt it would reach the same level.

As for what the PH opinions are... the reason I've posted so much on this is I couldn't see the opinions for the same few posters trampling over everyone else. Ironic now, I know. An end of season poll might be interesting.

[MarshPhantom]

Nardiola said:

MarshPhantom said:

Top Gear, season 12, episode 1. On Dave this evening, a very good reminder of how good TG was and how underwhelming Grand Tour is.

Also the Middle East episode on now. Scary to think where they modified their cars, Al-Raqqah, is now completely under ISIS countrol.

In Grand Tour's favour, they have at least never had Michael "Parky" Parkinson as guest.

[Marty Funkhouser]

Just ff through the awful bits. The only thing I watched on the last ep was the Alfa review. The rest of it was dire.

[Quickmoose]

paulguitar said:

So, which is worse, ‘new’ Top Gear, or ‘The Grand Tour’?

What does everyone think?

easily tGT

nTG promised little and over delivered - apart from a screetchy CE and an over played celebrity bit.. the content was there.. and bits of humour.

tGT promised the world, literally, and has under delivered, aside from small percentages of show time dedicated to good content, as repeated by quite a few now. The rest is dire.

[jhonn]

^^^ That's pretty much my thoughts on it as well.

The acid test for me is would I happily watch an episode again - having viewed both series my conclusion is I'm more likely to watch a repeat of nTG than I am of the tGT.

There were good bits in both series of shows - however, in terms of achievement and meeting expectations tGT fell waaay shorter than nTG.

Having said that I am looking forward to series 2 of tGT and the return of NTG also - having a FF button and now, lowered expectations, is the answer.

[p1stonhead]

I think the second series of New Top Gear without Evans is going to be quite good.

It cant be less enjoyable for someone interested in cars than The Grand Tour.

[768]

Nothing's worse than anything Chris Evans has done.

I have hope for the second series though, but then I had some hope for the first.

[Nardiola]

jhonn said:

^^^ That's pretty much my thoughts on it as well.

The acid test for me is would I happily watch an episode again - having viewed both series my conclusion is I'm more likely to watch a repeat of nTG than I am of the tGT.

There were good bits in both series of shows - however, in terms of achievement and meeting expectations tGT fell waaay shorter than nTG.

Having said that I am looking forward to series 2 of tGT and the return of NTG also - having a FF button and now, lowered expectations, is the answer.

Same here really, I've re-watched some of the nTG car reviews, not the other ste though. Similarly, I've rewatched the first episode, just to see what the P1 did to Richard Hammond's face, it looked like he was about to burst.

[MarshPhantom]

I was no fan Evans era TG but I have to agree. Some episodes of Grand Tour have had me turning off half way through.

[popeyewhite]

paulguitar said:

So, which is worse, ‘new’ Top Gear, or ‘The Grand Tour’?

What does everyone think?

The Grand Tour is easily better than TG. All pretence at delivering a serious car program has gone (it hasn't been there for a number of years anyway - just an uneasy mix of attempted comedy and serious car stuff), the jokes and stunts are genuinely amusing and the photography is excellent. Some of the car features are quite good too. Stig was better than the American and the celebrity thing is rubbish. The other 50 minutes is very good.

[MarshPhantom]

popeyewhite said:

The Grand Tour is easily better than TG. All pretence at delivering a serious car program has gone (it hasn't been there for a number of years anyway - just an uneasy mix of attempted comedy and serious car stuff), the jokes and stunts are genuinely amusing and the photography is excellent. Some of the car features are quite good too. Stig was better than the American and the celebrity thing is rubbish. The other 50 minutes is very good.

Top Gear - Car show

Grand Tour - Car crash

[popeyewhite]

MarshPhantom said:

Top Gear - Car show

Grand Tour - Car crash

[768]

I think that's perhaps the difference in viewer preferences.

TGT viewers get light entertainment, of which there isn't much but refreshingly among the various murder dramas usually on there is some. nTG viewers get to see a few cars and presumably have it muted during Chris Evans, MLB and Eddie fking Jordan.

[Quickmoose]

768 said:

I think that's perhaps the difference in viewer preferences.

TGT viewers get light entertainment, of which there isn't much but refreshingly among the various murder dramas usually on there is some. nTG viewers get to see a few cars and presumably have it muted during Chris Evans, MLB and Eddie fking Jordan.

I agree with that.
You watch TG to see some car content
you watch tGT to see some CHM content

[Having A Barth]

It has been like an average series of Top Gear. Bits of it have been really enjoyable like the DB11, RR and Hellcat drive through Italy, the review of the Alfa this week and the NSX a few weeks ago. As ever the quality of filming and editing etc has been absolutely first class.

I've wanted to enjoy it more though, the Beach Buggy episodes bored me as did the reef building in Barbados. They could have done more with those.

Celebrity Brain Crash is awful, such a waste. Either kill the celebrity interviews off altogether or bring them on so we can get some interesting stories etc.

The American is just another bloke doing fast laps in a car. I don't find him overly annoying but do prefer the Stig.

They had to change from Top Gear though and although the changes haven't all worked with some fine tuning they aren't too far away. I don't envy the producers and script writers though, as through Top Gear of old and the GT they've customized an old knackered vehicle into anything from a camper van to a space shuttle, had a go at just about every type of car race going etc and visited pretty much every corner of the planet! There is only so much they can do with a series based on cars.

[bodhi]

paulguitar said:

So, which is worse, ‘new’ Top Gear, or ‘The Grand Tour’?

What does everyone think?

Not even a competition for me, I got more laughs in the first 10 minutes of the first tGT episode than I did in 6 of the new Top Gear. I have every episode of CHM era Top Gear on my media server upstairs - haven't felt the need to put any of the Evas era TG on there as they were too painful to watch. They even managed to ruin some of the better reviews (I'm thinking of Harris and the M2, and that stupid grin measuring thing they tried).

Pretty sure I've watched most of the GT episodes twice now - once when first available, and again with the OH over the weekend, haven't found the second viewing an especial hardship if I'm honest - not quite as many laughs as I know what's coming, still entertaining enough though.

When our 4K telly gets delivered on Thursday I expect I'll be able to tell you what they're like on the 3rd watch through as well

(awaits fanboy comments, as clearly that's the only reason anyone likes The Grand Tour)