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 couldnt disagree with you more. I thought it was hilarious, entertaining, and very well made. I think one of the reasons you got bored was because it was 1 hr and 10 min of straight show, no commercials. Usually it totals at about 40 min for the actual show. They had to fill in that extra time, and theu sis so while talking a lot. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Overall I enjoyed it, funny to watch all the little digs towards the BBC in there. For a first episode it was decent, even back in the TG days the first episode of the series wasn’t that great compared to the others. So I’m hoping it’s gonna do the same.
The only thing that I could think of anybody who wrote this article is either he/she was paid by the BBC, mental, craving for attention, or all of them at the same time.
Yes, it was just you.
I think it’s great that Matt Robinson has a different opinion in CarThrottle. He should be featured in more videos because it’s important not to become part of the mainstream and it’s good to see people’s different opinions. He may not be right all the time but nor is Alex Kersten.
Like you said, the holy trinity was interesting, but less entertaining to watch given that the test has been done several times now. The celebrity segment, I feel that they did that to iterate that they aren’t going to be doing celebrity segments anymore…..but choose a less than stellar way to do it. The American needs to go. Besides that, I thoroughly enjoyed the episode :) Really loving that track as well
Am I the only one who new from the beginning that Clarkson would lose his bet, because some weeks ago he blew his house up?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/09/jeremy-clarkson-blows-up-his-old-home-to-make-way-for-new-cotswo/
Writer needs to be shot.
hype train was too big no wonder your disappointed
its a good emotional transitiion as to clarkson TG was his baby.
however it just feels like a long opening episode, lunacy will continue as normal in the next episode i guess