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
Guess I’ll just watch it on kodi.
All the short seasons start a bit boring, and leave the cool trips and challenges to the last 3 episodes of the season.
It was definitely just you
WHAT?!?!?!?!? i LOVED it
Still better than new top gear
They really need a consistent driver like the Stig since its much cooler to not know the name of the driver yet knowing that he’s awesome and has insane driving skills.
I think you all expected it to be like Top gear was
But you guys cant let go of that and realize that ITS A BRAND NEW SHOW.
Which means:
New concept
New segments
New advetures
New screw ups.
Jeremy’s Top gear is gone.
And while it was amazing, ts not coming back.
Just move on.
I mean, I think that the dead celebrity part was them poking fun at the “star in a reasonably priced car” skit and how most people hated it anyway. Even though I didn’t like the American Racing Driver, it may also be them poking fun at the stig and having a racing driver that is the complete opposite.
It’s interesting to see how sh*tfaced you need to be to say stuff like that. I mean who the hell are you to judge? IF someone should step up their game a little it’s car throttle itself.
Reposting content twice a day at times and than making a fuzz about a new show lacking evolution. Laughing my ass off Matt. Next time do us all a favour and think before you speak. At least a little. Or shut up.
I personally loved it, it’s the first episode of a new show. Of corse it’s gonna have some kinks and problems but they’ll fix that.