The Grand Tour S2 E1 Made Me Forget About The Disappointing First Series

Just over a year ago, I made the Internet quite angry by voicing my disappointment about the first ever episode of The Grand Tour. It seemed popular opinion was well and truly against my view, but here’s the thing: pretty soon, that started to flip the other way.

People found ‘The American’ annoying. The Celebrity Braincrash ‘deaths’ got old by episode two. Some of the segments - like the one at the military training camp in Jordan - could only be described as ‘puerile’.

Having now watched the first episode of the Amazon Prime vehicle’s second series though, all is forgiven. What hasn’t worked has clearly been taken on board: the jokes don’t seem as forced, there wasn’t anything childish going on, and they even admitted that Celebrity Braincrash hadn’t really worked out. As Richard Hammond bluntly put it “you all hated it.” Kudos has to be given for them being so honest.

The final 10-15 minutes of the show leading up the huge accident we’ve all been expecting to see from Hammond were genuinely gripping. Particularly with the presenter uttering foreboding phrases like “this could go so wrong.”

Sure, a proper conclusion to the argument of past, present and future that brought together a Lamborghini Aventador S, Honda NSX and Rimac Concept One in the first place might have been nice. But as it’s always been with these three, it’s about the journey they take you on, not the destination. And the journey was pretty awesome. I even - for the first time in a while watching TGT - actually laughed out loud. More than once.

The new celebrity segment is good fun to watch, and I like the concept of putting two famous people from the same field against each other. It’ll be entertaining to see that inline-four F-Type - TGT’s own version of their old ‘Reasonably Priced Car - being thrashed around over the next few weeks, too.

You know what the feeling I had watching The Grand Tour S2 Ep1 reminded me of? The first time I saw the second revamp of post-2001 Top Gear, after Chris Evans had left. Just like TGT it was coming back from a shonky season. Just like TGT it had shed itself of the parts that didn’t work, and refined what did. And just like TGT, it wasn’t perfect.

As good as this latest episode is, it’s still not Top Gear glory days good. It’s possible Clarkson, Hammond and May will never get back there. But it was in another league to what we saw in that debut season, and it fills me with hope for the next few episodes.