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
Complete opposite! I absolutely adored the new structure
It was BRILLIANT, just like meeting with old friends
Is It Just Me, Or This Article Is a Bit Boring?
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Nissan 420sx kicked in yo
I think what people need to remember is that any new show will have teething problems; in the case of Chris Evans’ Top Gear, the first Episode was a complete mess, but by ironing out what didn’t work (though it took until the end of the series to address the obnoxious elephant in the room) and actually focusing on the cars, I honestly thought it had matured into a pretty decent show by the end of the series. Even though I haven’t seen The Grand Tour yet, it seems like they threw everything at this opening episode, and hopefully in subsequent episodes they’ll figure out what worked and focus on that.
Ya… It’s just you…
Nah, it’s definitely just you Matt
How do you veiw episodes on amazon prime? Please answer!
What happened with Jennifer bet [Jeremy renaming himself]?
I haven’t had the chance to watch the brand new Grand Tour. However, I think that most of us were expecting to see the trio to do something similar as they did on Top Gear. I would not judge the whole show right now as they just released a pilot. Let’s hope that they come up with something original soon!