If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again, right? The first season of the hyped Grand Tour left me a bit… underwhelmed. It was exactly what I, and many others expected, the continuation of adventures that the three idiot hosts started at TopGear. But somehow, for me, it wasn’t ideal. I hoped for improvement with each new episode but it didn’t happen. Sure features were amazing, the video was great, and there were lots of funny bits. But those were overshadowed but dumb stuff that most people just didn’t like or didn’t get.
It was the penis and other kindergarten-level bathroom jokes. Silly as it may sound, the occasional R-rated words wouldn’t allow me to watch it with my 4 and 9 nine year old kids. The American Stig substitute was basically just one big WTF moment. The celebrities dying on the way to be interviewed was beyond weird. It was these things that turned a possibly amazing show into just another TopGear knock-off.
Last night season 2 premiered on Amazon Video. At first glance it was a huge improvement. It wasn’t improved because it was better in any way. No, it’s still the same TopGear-like theme. It was improved because none of the negative things listed above were present. Watching in the middle of the night, my somewhat low expectations were surpassed. It wasn’t anything mind-blowing but it was good entertainment. And the absence of this dumb stuff made into something that I can watch with my kids.
The Grand Tour – Season 2
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17 responses to “The Grand Tour – Season 2”
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Season 1 was definitely m’eh. I stopped watching around the middle of episode 12 last year, and only just went back to finish the season since the new one is coming out.
I think maybe a lot of the issue was it was a new venue, restrictions on some stuff they could/couldn’t do. I’m hoping this season is better.-
I am only just now seeing it because it is on broadcast tv and I’m glad I didn’t take the time to watch it before (big contrast to TG 15 years ago, at a guess). The Namibia special for example should have been part of a show, not two whole shows on its own.
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I’d have an opinion if I subscribed to Prime. But, I can’t afford to subscribe to every media outlet, nor do I really want to spend that much time watching TV.
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Solid point about additional subscriptions. I’m not sure I’d watch if my wife didn’t have amazon Prime.
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I have Prime, and still can’t be bothered to watch it anymore. It’s little more than awkward mugging for the camera at this point.
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First I’d like to thank Jeff for those new porn links. That’s what you get because I’m too cheap to pay for Prime. I watched the whole episode and it’s pretty much Top Gear all over again. There are some fun bits, but there is also some boring bits. Specifically that part in the middle where they just rag on each other. Then the video/audio became un-synced but I was afraid to click on anything because when I did it before it restarted from the beginning and loaded more porn. So like I remember it’s still an okay show with some funny bits that I’ll watch when I get a chance.
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Thanks for your porn review, I’ll stay with Netflix’ old TG then…
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You’re welcome and I hope y’all enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I’ve NEVER had porn’ issues with gostream/123 and I’ve been using them for years. As for the video/audio, that rarely happens and only if my internet is having a bad day (it did happen to me during the TG S2E1 though, I just hit the 10s back button). Shame y’all had a bad experience. I won’t pass on my link for Live F1 races now as that one DOES get sketchy.
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The thing that turned me off most about the latter seasons of TG, and the first season of GT, was how it evolved from “blokes having fun” to “crazy spectacle.” While it was never exactly completely spontaneous/unscripted, the last seasons just were so…phony. The joke delivery was terrible, because these guys aren’t actors…but they were essentially acting.
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This was also my thoughts on it.
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I enjoyed it and they seem to be finding a happy medium. I feel that last season had some good moments but also many teething problems.It is interesting to see how they have been able to creatively dodge some of the intellectual property of Top Gear.
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This season 2 episode 1 was amazing! Production values off the scale. And I was actually laughing most of the way through it! This is back to “Top Gear” at it’s peak. Looking forward to more
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I’d like to see average people given a shot on the track. Maybe not a head to head of B-list celebrities, but an Ubermensch vs. Lumpen Proletariat thing.
“Is Rowan Atkinson faster ’round our track than Sophie Bolding, a Tyne and Wear shop girl with over 100 speeding tickets? There’s only one way to find out!” -
You know what the problem with later TG was that even TGT can’t fix and might possibly even worsen? It’s become too global. For most of its history TG was a show by Brits for Brits. Now it’s a show by Americans featuring Brits for a global audience. The greatest adventures by the three weren’t had in Switzerland in Lamborghinis, they were had going through the Midlands in British Leyland cars for 1200 quid, or drowning self built amphibious cars in a pond.
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“Now it’s a show by Americans featuring Brits”
–Pretty sure Andy Willman is still British, as is the whole crew…and the Stars. From what I understand, the only thing American is the currency in which they are being paid to produce the show.
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Its the one show that truly makes me guffaw. I don’t sweat the little stuff.
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