The Grand Tour (Clarkson, Hammond, May)

he also plays the free speech card,which is uhhhh

Yeah, I saw, though at least he distances himself from Clarkson's claim that all men his age are like that.

Ah yes, it's the fault of people for calling out blatant misogyny, not the fault of the misogynist.

"Oh it was a Game of Thrones reference" yeah no, he was literally talking about how much he hated Markel and referenced that scene for shock value. It was a crass thing to do.

Even just in A Scandi Flick, Clarkson is at his absolute worst. The end of his prank war with Hammond, even if it was scripted, is one of the most mean spirited things any of them have done to another, and it happens AFTER May almost gets killed.

And like I said, that scene was in turn referring to a very real practice that still happens today in some places.

This is the very worst kind of "it's just a show, don't take anything it does seriously!"

Edited by Redmess on Jan 31st 2023 at 12:40:33 PM

James May is pretty infamously milquetoast about pretty much everything (there's stuff about him guesting on things and behind the scenes getting asked to at least pretend to be more excited and just going "but I am really excited") so his reaction is pretty extreme by his standards.

And yeah, Clarkson has been known as a really nasty misogynistic blowhard and going "but it's from Game of Thrones" is an idiotic defense because he didn't need to say anything at all.

I wonder if Amazon would let Richard Hammond and James May present one last filmed special of The Grand Tour before letting them go, similar to how they presented the final episode of the 22nd season of Top Gear without Jeremy Clarkson (replacing him with Jeremy the elephant), showing off segments that were filmed prior to Clarkson getting sacked?

From what I've read, the three presenters have filmed a special in Eastern Europe about a year ago, and it would be shame to see the footage go to waste. I'd imagine the special would be preceded by an introduction from Hammond and May, and after the Eastern Europe movie ends, there would be a farewell segment where Hammond and May bid goodbye to the viewers.

Unlikely, Richard and James have always said there would be no Top Gear (or equivalent) without Clarkson. It was always the three of them or nothing.

About two weeks ago, we've heard that the BBC will pull the plug on Top Gear for the time being. Now, its spiritual successor, the Grand Tour, will be ending after its fifth season, with two final specials set to air sometime in 2024. Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May will depart from the show to work on personal projects and will leave the automotive TV industry. However, Jeremy also said that the show might continue with new hosts.

And on that bombshell (or terrible disappointment, depending on how you look at it), the automotive journey of Clarkson, Hammond and May has come to an end (on TV, that is). And what a journey it has been for the trio, going for 20 years from the Top Gear days (or 35 years in Jeremy's case) up to the Grand Tour. Good things don't last forever. As for the "new hosts" of the Grand Tour, I wonder if Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond will get their kids to succeed them as hosts in a Passing the Torch moment, or will the show get other automotive experts to be the new hosts (i.e. Chris Harris, who was one of the new Top Gear hosts from 2016-2023), maybe a mix of both? Whatever the case is, I wish Jeremy, Richard and James best of luck on their projects.

I don't think Richard's kids are particularly interested in running that show, from what I've seen of them on Hammond's garage show.

The show's licence has been picked up by a new studio and a reboot is in the works

Edited by Zarius on Apr 5th 2024 at 10:07:23 AM

With the same hosts, I assume?

Clarkson, Hammond and May are done with the motoring industry and won't be returning.

So now a new team has to try and revive the ripoff of a once popular car show that has itself massively declined since the trio left that show to create this one?

Good luck with that...

I have a feeling this will go about as well as the post-CHM episodes of Top Gear - not so well.

That said, I hope they'll try something different with the new hosts of The Grand Tour instead of rehashing material from when Clarkson, Hammond and May were the program's hosts.

Edited by IvanovTroping97 on Apr 6th 2024 at 5:22:42 PM

I'm not even sure what the show would me now. It was so much the trio's brand of car adventures at the end, it is hard to imagine anyone filling those shoes.

I'm not sure about the point of recasting for The Grand Tour. At least for Top Gear, Clarkson, Hammond and May weren't the first hosts: the show wasn't specifically about them (they just slowly became the thing many people watched it for). A 'recast' was probably still the wrong move, but it's not like those are the only 3 people on Earth who could be enjoyable to watch together talking about and playing with cars. I won't comment about the quality of the replacements because I haven't see any of the episodes with them in, but 'recasting' Clarkson, Hammond and May, though still a mistake in my eyes (not a mistake to fire Clarkson, assault is a crime after all, but a mistake to bother recasting), wasn't too much of a stretch.

However, the entire point of The Grand Tour was that it was the Top Gear from the Clarkson, Hammond and May era. 99% of people watching it from the start will have watched it for the continued antics of them 3: it's the entire reason it got made. Is it impossible that 3 new people could work well in the roles? Of course not. Does it still seem strange to recast, given that, unlike Top Gear which didn't start out about the three of them, Grand Tour was always about Clarkson, Hammond and May? Definitely.

Edited by king15 on Apr 6th 2024 at 5:08:50 PM