The Grand Tour Debuts

The Amazon Prime series The Grand Tour, starring the former Top Gear triumvirate of Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond, made its long-anticipated debut on November 18.

It had its moments.

The show incorporated a mix of the familiar and the new.  A tent, for example, which will be transported to and erected at whatever site the show is visiting in a given episode, is a fresh twist on the Top Gear’s studio-in-an-airfield-hangar.  Guest stars, on the other hand, remain an unanswered question:  On Top Gear celebrity guests drove timed laps in “a reasonably-priced car;” on The Grand Tour an extended segment “killed off” three guests even before they made it to the stage.

The gag needed to be killed, too, after the first celebrity “death” which was amusing, but instead the idea was belabored through two more star corpses.  Similarly, a segment in which the hosts “brawled” with audience members over the issue of military superiority was simply an additional waste of time.

But the opening, in which Jeremy Clarkson, famously replaced as host of Top Gear last year, is seen ruefully turning in his BBC keys and traveling to the US, and joined subsequently by his colleagues, worked nicely.  Two segments on a trio of hybrid hypercars also worked well while hewing very closely to a familiar Top Gear formula of having the three hosts bicker about each car’s merits amid high-quality videography.

A video scoreboard for laps times is a welcome change from the scribbled chart of the old show.  Scenes of Clarkson driving a BMW M2 on a closed course was both familiar and unfamiliar – the premise and execution was familiar but the track – dubbed the Eboladrome by Clarkson – was new territory.  Unfortunately, this new territory was no more compelling than the dreary airfield used by Top Gear.  Won’t anyone rent these guys a proper home circuit?

Still, the evident chemistry among the hosts, each of whom has a distinct style and personality, and the big-budget production values, made Top Gear a success for the Beeb and we think will make The Grand Tour a success for Amazon.  A mix of the familiar and the new is, frankly, exactly what was needed.  Top Gear needed a reboot after so many years and the Chris Evans – Matt LeBlanc incarnation was not it.  For automobile enthusiasts, The Grand Tour may prove to be a new pair of comfortable old driving shoes.

Image Selected from Grand Tour