Is It Just Me, Or Was The Grand Tour A Bit Boring?
After wrapping up at the LA Auto Show today, I went straight back to my hotel room, whipped out my laptop and headed straight for Amazon Prime. Yep, there was no way I was going to wait to watch the Grand Tour - wherever I was, I was going to get stuck into Clarkson, Hammond and May’s hugely anticipated car show.
However, from the drawn out, rather self-congratulatory and apparently very expensive opening scene onwards, it just didn’t excite me all that much.
Perhaps the problem was the Holy Trinity test that made up much of the episode. Sure, in the final days of Clarkson-era Top Gear we were all desperate to see the LaFerrari, McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 Spyder have a massive showdown, but that was rather a long time ago. And anyway, Chris Harris did that same test with the same cars and on the same track over a year ago, and I’d argue he did a better, more entertaining job of it.
Elsewhere, the celebrity segment trod a fine line between being amusing and downright stupid, and ‘The American’ was thoroughly unfunny. Suddenly I get why the Stig never utters a word…
There was plenty to like, though. The cinematography is stunning, for a kick off. It was cool seeing ‘our’ BMW M2 longtermer get damn good thrashing in the road test which apparently wasn’t a road test even though it was kind of a road test around the new, brilliantly gnarly ‘Eboladrome’ track too. But overall it just didn’t quite live up to the massive hype.
It’s far too soon to judge, of course: we have a 12 episode run to enjoy in this series alone, and perhaps after a few installments the trio will settle into their new environment a little better. As it stands, everything just feels a tad forced.
What did you think of the episode?
Growing up on a diet of World Rally Championship highlights and lengthy Gran Turismo 2 sessions, a life in cars was as good as inevitable for Matt.
Comments
I’m the biggest fan of these guys but this episode was a bit to cheesy for me 😣
Please dont kill me but some top gear episodes were boring to
so wrong…
Can someone tell me the name of song used in opening scene
as a French, I was laughing my ass out with the messed up subtitles :D
I thought it was a bit cheesy just saying
I think a lot of people are getting way to hyped. Like expecting every moment to be full of comical calamity and mischief. But remember top gear is and was above all else, a car program. And I think amidst all the drama that’s happened since the Clarkson incident we have built top gear into a show that it never was. Then when the new tg episodes came we would think “look at how bad this is” and “remember how good it was before.” Only building the hype more and more. Top gear was great because it was simply a car show that was entertaining watch. That’s it. It wasn’t this non stop action comedy that I think some may be expecting from gt.
With that said there are a couple things I don’t like. Like the American, I don’t want to be represented by some lame one lining no name exNASCAR driver. I would have preferred tanner foust for example. Seeing that tg us was cancelled I’m sure he could use the work. And I don’t like the celebrity guest thing, I know we didn’t really see it yet but I never really liked it in tg so I’m sure I won’t care for it in gt.
In short yes there were some awkward moments, but it’s a new show, that’s to be expected. And it’s still pretty much the same show as top gear so don’t overhype and expect constant hilarious punch lines and explosions. And if you really want to be bored watching a car show, try motorweek. It will give you some perspective of how good gt really is.
These guys are legends in their own right. The whole episode was awesome, way better than what Chris Harris did.
You’re an attention seeking douche.
I complete disagree.