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
Overall i enjoyed the episode but those 3 cars have really been done to death. Compared to how boring their last seasons of top gear were getting i think this is a hell of a lot better
wasn’t the music too loud?
i couldn’t hear the engines properly…
Looks like the author of this article got some serious funding from BBC.
Well, im on my 5th time repeat.
It was just you. Next question?
Just wait for it. It´s the first episode of a brand new show. Let´s not forget, Top Gear worked because of them and now they have to come up with something that isn´t allowed to be Top Gear because of legal reasons etc. It was a pretty good start with a new show and as every first episode it was more introductory.
Loved it so far. But if you overhype something it will always be a disappointment.
still alot better episode than the first one of the new top gear
The ‘massive’ introduction scene was a massive let down
Communist*