The Grand Tour (Clarkson, Hammond, May)

Well, I just saw the first episode of the new season, and it was pretty ok. It was better in the sense that the show stopped looking over their shoulder for BBC lawyers and felt more comfortable just doing their own show, without constantly winking back at Top Gear.

At the same time, they are slipping back in their old Top Gear routine, and all that is missing now is the Stig. Just how bad this is depends on whether or not you think the old Top Gear formula was getting stale. I think they got a good balance with the interview bit not being too long and interesting reviews and road trips, so I think they pulled it off well in the end.

And they put in Richard's crash, and the aftermath, which was probably the best way to deal with it.

So a good episode overall, though it seems to become more and more Top Gear: The Amazon Reboot.

That's all most Top Gear fans who followed them across when that ginger-haired accused recently of being a sex offender (who I'm not going to "dignify" by naming) took over and fouled up the show really wanted. I.E. more of the stuff we liked without that odious little shit's gurning face and beady eyeballs staring at us through his NHS spectacles. That the BBC decided not to fillet the bastard like a Finnan Haddie shows how much blackmail dirt HE'S got on them.

The thing is, and this is well known, Hammond, Clarkson and May were only going to be staying on at Top Gear for another couple of years before quitting anyway. I really doubt that the trio are going to be doing "The Grand Tour" thing until they all hit pension age.

edited 2nd Jan '18 2:15:39 AM by TamH70

Episode 2, and... it was ok. Nothing terrible, but nothing special either, about what you would expect from pre-punching-incident Top Gear on an average episode. It makes you wonder just where that fabulous budget went. Did Amazon quietly dial the budget back after what may or may not have been a dissapointing season 1 run? It certainly feels less expensive than last year.

It is also pretty safe to say they have abandoned all pretense of making a different show, and are now basically making Top Gear, again. They even have their own Stig in all but name and tired old introductory jokes now. Her name is Abbie Eaton, according to the news, but you wouldn't know that from the show, where they inexplicably don't mention her name, though her face IS visible. If you are ditching the anonymous racing driver shtick, then you may as well give their name, too.

Most noteworthy is that Richard spends the challenge on crutches and in a wheelchair, and even gets James to run while pushing said wheelchair. Richard seems fully recovered in the studio segments, which were probably all filmed after his recovery.

And, uh, oh yeah, the cars were nice, I guess.

edited 15th Dec '17 3:06:53 PM by Redmess

So the American's gone then?

Yes, because, as Richard put it, we hated him.

Finally got caught up.

Spoiler - I loved it. More of what I wanted and less of the stuff I didn't, like that (in retrospect poorly advised) Celebrity Braincrash thingy.

By the way, no Christmas special, apparently. I think it is pretty clear at this point this season is very much hampered by the ailments of the presenters, especially Hammond.

Well, it seems I missed last week, somehow, and didn't post on episode 3, so here goes.

It, um, was ok, I think. I honestly forgot what it was about already. There was a Christmas tree. And presents (mostly ironic ones for Richard). *looks up episode* Oh yeah, there was sort of an office car park race for a random office's staff. There's a race across San Tropay, where Jeremy pretends to be an insufferable rich snob from the jet set, and goes skiing on a kiddie slope and pretends like we should be impressed. It was all serviceable enough, I suppose.

Episode 4 revolves mostly around some unscripted adventure, where the trio (pretend to) have a fully unscripted road trip to demonstrate how impractical that would be for a TV show, with Jeremy flubbing metaphors, an airport race not being possible because they didn't arrange it beforehand, etc. Of course they still have their full crew with them, and still end up doing the usual stuff, with just enough subversion to get the point across that you do need some sort of script, and planning ahead, to make a decent episode. And James May decides to follow a non-existent challenge and builds his car into a fire engine because... insanity. Who knows. James holds a competition with it, on his own, and obviously, the others lose. And he tests his fire engine by starting a bush fire, which of course goes a bit out of hand (its just a bit of grass on a wide open field, not much danger to anyone, and no doubt the real fire brigade was standing by off screen the whole time, and they do put it out with a water plane). Said water plane manages to destroy James' car with the force of impact of the water alone, which is quite a sight to see.

In episode 5, Richard tests a super dune buggy and a tiny one person tank in Dubai. Of course he causes property damage to the city, as well as driving it through a mall. James tests some hot hatchbacks. And Jeremy imitates some Youtube video to show that he, too, can look impressive without any actual effort. And then show the making-of of that same clip, with a gag blooper reel.

Oh, and the cars were nice.

Episode 6 was pretty good. Hammond wrecked YET ANOTHER car (not quite as dramatic this time, but still). Also, a bit less script, showing a bit more genuine tv making. Its great to see Clarkson go out of character to chastise Hammond for forgetting to take it easy on the old rickety car, taking the challenge too far and actually wrecking his car, and then corpsing as the engine makes a clanging noise as Hammond tries to start it again. And then they drive along straight faced with Hammond in totally-not-a-different-car. Of course that one breaks, too, though this time it was not Hammond's fault.

There is also a rather terrifying challenge involving a 0 to 100 start and stop on a runway ending in a thousand meters of wide open air. May's car is the one to make airtime this time. A lot of airtime.

The last challenge is skiing in cars, with all three cars chained together with metal poles to drive up the mountain, and this works amazingly well. Then they ski down, which is really terrifying as well. Imagine having your car pretty much drive sideways along a snowy cliff. Also, May's car drives into a lake.

The punchline is that Jaguars don't suck, really, they don't, honest.

This was a great episode, minimal studio shenanigans, and focussed for the most part on having a fun adventure in shoddy old cars. If you're willing to forget the huge budget and promises of innovation and grandeur, this season is doing very well.

I just hope Amazon put this out on DVD as it would save me buying Amazon Prime when so far there's nothing really worth subscribing for.

Today is the start of season 3. Is anyone going to watch?

So from what I've heard, the show is pretty much done and over. Any verdicts?

Any viewers left? Anyone?

I think they've still got one special left in their contract with Amazon. What happens after that is really anyone's guess given how COVID affected production of the most recent ones.

Honestly it depends on how Amazon decides to view the COVID affected specials. If they choose to treat them as anomalies they may decide to commission at least a few more specials to see if there's any staying power to them

The hosts seem to have moved on to other projects, though, and they seem pretty happy to have done so. Perhaps they finally got the Top Gear blues out of their system.

It seems this series' death was prematurely called. "A Scandi Flick" is the latest episode released on Sept 16, 2022. Though after Clarkson's recent comments about Meghan Markle, the series is actually expected to conclude in late 2024 according to Variety.

Because it's been some time since the episode's debut, official Amazon channels have uploaded their own clip compilations from it.

Edited by XMenMutant22 on Jan 30th 2023 at 2:13:28 PM

Why, what has he been saying?

Something about having her run around naked and beating her in the street or whatever.

That's a bit of an understatement. It was some deeply unpleasant and misogynistic stuff to the point his own daughter denounced him and more pertinently May has also publically stated he considers it a bit much.

Edited by jakobitis on Jan 30th 2023 at 7:46:14 PM

I couldn't remember the whole statement, I just remember it being really gross.

I think he was referring to the Game of Thrones scene with Circe being paraded through the streets with the nun chanting "shame". And as usual people over-fucking-reacted.

Granted he has a habit of running his mouth kinda reckless.

Edited by MarkVonLewis on Jan 30th 2023 at 3:55:08 AM

It doesn't seem like much of an over-reaction when even Amazon Prime finds it beyond the pale. Apparently they have discontinued working with him altogether now.

And yeah, saying that a woman should be driven through the streets naked and shamed is pretty fucking nasty. That's some medieval mysogynist shit right there (where do you think Game of Thrones got that idea from? It sure isn't fantasy!).

I don't get his excuse, either. What does it matter if it refers to Game of Thrones? Game of Thrones was referring to a very real practice in medieval England of punishing and humiliating women in this way. And Game of Thrones was actually the milder version, if you can believe that. In the past, women would be chained in pillories while walking, or with head cages on, stuff like that.

But of course a thick-headed sexist like Clarkson wouldn't know that, I guess.

Edited by Redmess on Jan 30th 2023 at 1:38:48 PM

He went into extreme, gross detail about how much he hated a woman he has most likely never met, whose greatest sin is being black. He went so far as to say he hated her more than he he hatred Rose West-a serial killer and child murderer.

Nobody "over-reacted" by calling him a gross, misogynistic racist.

Yeah, agreed. And he published it in The Sun, too, which is itself a rather mysogynist rag.

> And as usual people over-fucking-reacted.

The sheer vileness of his comments meant there was no way he was'nt going to get attention.Clarkson lives from getting attention by being provocative

Even James May thinks Clarkson's comments are too creepy, though he doesn't seem to want to go so far as to say Clarkson went too far, citing that old "free speech" chestnut.

Edited by Redmess on Jan 30th 2023 at 1:52:48 PM