Unpopular opinion: I don't like the Grand Tour

Before I get started, I have watched every episode of The Grand Tour and every episode of Top Gear (post 2002), so this opinion is based on 14 years of happy viewing. Another thing I need to get out of the way quickly is I enjoyed the most recent episode of Top Gear. Sure, episode 1 wasn’t great and Evans was too loud, but the core elements were there, and I am very confident the next series will be a great watch.

Like most of you, when I found out the release date of The Grand Tour, I began counting down the days until they boys were back! When the day came, I sat down at my computer and launched the video through Amazon Prime and sat back with a cup of tea. The intro sequence was spectacular, it really was! Then… well…. nothing happened! They faffed around in the tent for a very long time establishing nothing. It all felt like time wasting to me, which is a very worrying thing for a format that felt like it had run out of ideas years ago. The main film was decent, can’t really complain much about it but Chris Harris released the same review a year before and did a much better job in my opinion.
It just felt like they were trying to be entertaining instead of making it about the cars, constantly finding ways of making James the outcast. It just felt forced.
They then introduced “The Ebola Ring”, which is a good concept, as the track features on Top Gear were where the show was at its strongest. A film about the car, no mucking about. But again, they were just trying to stick jokes in places that just weren’t necessary. The track didn’t need the long introduction it got, and the American just made it all worse.
Because they couldn’t use the Stig and get him to listen to silly music as he did the lap, they decided instead of just showing the lap, they’d put someone in the car to say “controversial” things to try and make it funny. It seems this feature is very unpopular, so I can see it being dropped for the next series.
Celebrity Brain Crash was funny the first time it happened, but they just felt the need to repeat it several times (and it KEEPS appearing in every episode).

Overall, the first episode just left me feeling cold. I couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t worth the wait, as it was a bunch of forced jokes and a tired format. Then again, the second episode would be better, right?

Good grief no.

They managed to lower the bar they set from the first episode (which wasn’t high, trust me). In my opinion, it was by far the worst episode they’ve ever done. It was a case of making a 10 minute film into the feature of the episode. Repeating the same parts several times, it just got very tedious and boring. You felt that you were being told where to laugh as they would make the same joke again just to make sure you didn’t miss it. When they told James to go and get the car for the 10th time and he got sniped, I seriously considered giving up on the episode.
This episode proved more than anything that the chemistry of the presenters doesn’t mean anything when they are being scripted into saying silly things to each other.

The 4th episode had the same problem. They took a film that easily could have been fitted into 15 minutes and stretched it into the whole episode. The episode felt long, tired and very, very boring. Once again, they repeated the jokes in case you didn’t get it the first time. James’s car fell apart, hahahah! Laugh at the joke. No? What if we try it again. Funny that time? Surely?! This is also the case with Celebrity Brain Crash. They keep using the same joke over and over in case you missed it the first time. That said, the Porsche vs BMW segment at the start was very good. Managed to be about the cars and entertaining at the same time. More of the same and I wouldn’t be as critical.

I think episode 3 annoyed me the most. It had the potential to be a great episode, but it was completely ruined by the “Hammond being American” joke that, once again, they repeated over and over. It just makes you feel that they can’t put in a film without it being wacky, funny and in your face.

The show has not captured the essence of the original show that made it the hit it was. It felt slick, whitty and fresh. The Grand Tour is none of these things. It is slow, disjointed and not funny.

In fact, I’d go as far as saying it has been dumbed down.