The Grand Tour

[stumpage]

For the first time ever I turned off a car program. Evans Top Gear, 5tth Gear, Car SOS, Wheeler dealers the lot watched them start to finish.

But this episode of GT was uncomfortable to watch. They really are trying to hard to get a laugh and the natural banter between them has vanished. Clarkson stuck in a window was the end for me.

[AnotherClarkey]

stumpage said:

Clarkson stuck in a window was the end for me.

Indeed. At last we have a replacement for 'jumped the shark'

Edited by AnotherClarkey on Friday 25th November 21:24

[MarshPhantom]

Paddy_N_Murphy said:

DeadInside said:

However the army thing was just utterly pointless and boring. Not relevant to South Africa or cars. Why didn’t they take some cars out along the coast road from Cape Town to Port Liz and catch some shark diving or the penguins for a bit of culture? It was almost pointless it being in South Africa and that is a pity.

Excellent point right there - up the coast, Grand Tour, or to a Safari or such ? In fact when the three 4x4's carrying all the 'Tent crap' were seen on the trail I thought it to be the start of the Africa Adventure.

It was to be honest originally touted as a Tour of all these wonderful locations.
So why Jordan ?

Budget problems ?

I made a similar point last week. Why go to America when they made nothing of the fact they were actually there.

[carl_w]

I did wonder if the whole "reset after dying" thing was a way of extending the length of that segment by showing the same footage again and again. However, I did find Clarkson and May reviewing the S8 whilst "being shot at" amusing.

[PhantomPH]

Well....that sucked.

[GarageQueen]

South Africa seems like a long way to go for a just a wallpaper backdrop no? No getting out in the country or touring about, strange

[poing]

Good episode but not a great episode.

Same as it ever was, they can't be brilliant all the time and I've never watched any TV series where every episode was 10/10.

[5678]

GarageQueen said:

South Africa seems like a long way to go for a just a wallpaper backdrop no? No getting out in the country or touring about, strange

I'm not alone in this thinking then. Theyve missed a trick not doing exactly that. World wide locations, in location themed cars, doing the stuff they do best.

[Leroy902]

Well that's confirmed my thinking that I WON'T be getting Amazon prime to pay to watch that st.

[Shaoxter]

Reached for my phone half way through, that was dire. They seem to have just lost their enthusiasm, the studio bits seemed very scripted.

[anonymous-user]

I enjoyed it, some of it was painful to watch, the day after tomorrow gag went on too long and Jezza is far too old and fat to do slapstick, Hamster is trying too hard but Lots of subtle humour which made me laugh

[Balgair]

Well I didn't expect to like it, as the "silly" episodes are usually too silly for me, but the clear video game parody was really funny for me, even as someone who doesn't play shooters much I've seen enough to get it: the resetting every time they die, the shooting the sniper with a handgun and the fantastic (not) physics as the sniper fell down the cliff - straight out of any one of many games of that type. Although I'll agree with the people who felt it was too long; I thought it didn't really need to continue much past clearing the airliner and maybe a little bit of "review the Audi while being shot at", but still, gave me a lot more laughs than I expected.

Vulcan review was entertaining, spinning cars was pretty interesting (and funny to see May's reaction), would've been nice to see a lot more of the local country though - if it's a "Grand Tour", it'd be nice for at least one good length film (more than 5 minutes!) to be from the general area. I thought I heard mention of a Namibia film; why wasn't that in this episode then - yes, it's not South Africa but it's only next door, a lot more relevant than Jordan anyway. More local flavour would be great, and maybe a bit less studio chat, but overall I'm enjoying it.

[ninja-lewis]

MarshPhantom said:

I made a similar point last week. Why go to America when they made nothing of the fact they were actually there.

For the audiences.

This isn't a British motoring show - what Amazon have bought is basically Top Gear Live and they've made it a key part of their international expansion plans for Prime. When they announce new locations, there's local media coverage, a rush for tickets locally then the social media posts from those who attend. It's all designed to build the anticipation for the show and also build momentum around the world for Amazon Prime.

From a production point of view, it probably makes more sense for the crew to start with the ideas and find locations that make them possible rather than vice versa. The logistics of local permissions, crew schedules, manufacturer buy-in, budgets, filming segments months in advance and editing them together into approx 1 hour packages almost certainly makes a go-native approach unsustainable over the course of the contracted 36 episodes. And the complaints would simply be "I don't care about car culture in country x, let's see Jeremy jump a hyper car through a burning ring of fire on the other side of the world" instead.

What's happened isn't too dissimilar to BBC Top Gear: yes there are weak areas but some expectations are so high and disconnected from reality that they could never be met no matter what they do.

[cib24]

The second episode was absolutely trash. I have never been that disappointed from any previous episode with these three. The Vulcan was cool but the track doesn't showcase a car like that well enough. The scripted BS in Jordan really needs to not be in any other episode ever and they need to get rid of the American NASCAR driver.

[joema]

I was hoping they would just do road trips in each of these places. Not sure what I just watched but they need to realise why people like them before. IT wasnt the car reviews. It was the road trips like in africa

[numtumfutunch]

digimeistter said:

I enjoyed it, some of it was painful to watch, the day after tomorrow gag went on too long and Jezza is far too old and fat to do slapstick, Hamster is trying too hard but Lots of subtle humour which made me laugh

Pretty much this except I didnt particularly enjoy it and skipped segments in fast forward

[FourWheelDrift]

Remember that was the first one they recorded so it was bound to be a bit new until settled.

It's Whitby next week, which was a recent recording.

[irocfan]

the live, die, repeat thing was on too long (cut half of it and it would have been ok) and wasn't too far from what he did a few years back in an SLK 55 (IIRC)

I think I must be the only one on here who actually likes the fat American

loved the Vulcan segment <drool>

[mattyn1]

Disappointed. So much so I had a conversation with the wife!

Why can I not get (or find) the Amazon Prime app for the Apple TV, yet can get it on the phone & Ipad and mirror through the Apple TV to watch on the big screen?

[ashleyman]

I wish they'd had a proper track rather than their sloppy ebola virus road. It's rubbish.

The American is rubbish.

The celebrity death bit is rubbish.

I am enjoying The Grand Tour but I wish they'd taken it seriously and made a great show instead of poking fun at BBC & Top Gear.