I've enjoyed Top Gear for their stunts but now they've moved on to "Grand Tour." I reviewed the summaries of the first season and didn't see anything terribly interesting. But I understand they've snagged a Tesla for another report. So my question is: Anyone out there watching the "Grand Tour" series? Any value in content? Production quality? Thanks, Bob Wilson
Without the 'millennials' humour of Clarkson & Co I've found the Grand Tour rather dry and stopped recording it. If you need me to I'll get it off Big A and let you know, but I expect somebody will be watching avidly somewhere in the world and shout back to you.
It's free on Amazon Prime, but probably still overpriced from what I've heard....although I have not watched it myself. For a while, my phone (an Amazon device) kept nagging me to watch it, and even delivered an episode or two into my downloads folder for off-line viewing which were promptly deleted. Since I tend to be contrarian about nag-ware this may be clouding my opinion. Either 'Lady A' got the hint, or I'm not the only one who was deleting the downloaded content, because I just checked and although they're currently pushing something called "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" I've noticed that they're not putting anything into my bit bucket lately. Markets Respond.... I'll be keeping tabs to see if people rave about this "must-see TV" but...honestly, I probably spend less than 4 hours a week watching such things. I used to use "Top Gear" as a reference when curious about a particular car, but I've probably only watched a half dozen episodes all in.
I watched some of season 1. It really wasn't very good. It's not about cars so much as their "hilarious" japes. It's basically taken the worst of Top Gear - the schoolboy humour and the casual racism - and got rid of the interesting bits about cars. They go off on contrived adventures with hilarious consequences, and that's about it. I'd probably watch it on a plane if I couldn't find anything else to watch and my tablet was out of charge and I'd finished my book. That's about as far as I'd go in terms of recommendation. New Top Gear, on the other hand, is excellent now that they've got rid of Chris Evans and Eddie Jordan. Matt LeBlanc, Chris Harris and Rory Reid (and occasionally Sabine Schmitz) work together well: they're funny and they have good chemistry. And they actually talk about cars.
I'm just glad the b_stard Clarkson is gone. He's been a total tool lately spouting his antiquated and ridiculous 20th century beliefs on the world about electric cars, energy usage and politics. Not worth one second of anyone's time watching on YouTube, or anywhere else.
I think I got through about two episodes of season one of Grand Tour. I felt about like @hkmb did. It had some humor that made me chuckle now & then but was mostly pretty lame humor or else over the top ridiculous. Learned very little about the cars they were supposed to be featuring.
You are right, of course, but the thing is - Clarkson's just a living caricature, a parody of the things we find disagreeable and occasionally distasteful. There is a place for this kind of humour akin to the banana skin joke in the British psyche tho it probably won't mean much to everybody. I'm not biased one way or the other, but just so you can have an idea of what he's doing. It's an act!
First episode of season 2 was rather OK, they compare Lambo, NSX and Rimac, we all know how Rimac ended.
