My Take On: The Grand Tour's (Unfulfilled) Potential


Around 15 years ago, the BBC started a new car-themed show called Top Gear. The show had 3 hosts, named Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond. I started watching the show around 12 years ago, and I loved it, simply because it was about 3 men having fun, driving great (and ridiculous) cars, and bringing some humor while doing it. I've been watching this show for 11 years! Regularly.

Then came a time when many people complained about some of the jokes being repeated over and over again. And despite feeling the same thing, I continued to enjoy what was the best motoring show....... in the world.

During their many years, they made us laugh by tripping over themselves, made us cry (remember the Aston Martin video?), raced a McLaren F1 against a Bugatti Veyron and raced a Veyron against a Jet fighter, and some washing-machine style aircraft. They made us realize that cars are more than just something to get us from point A to point B, and why we love them so much.

But over the last few seasons, I've often wondered if there was more from this show. Yes, they tested the lastest supercars and hypercars, but apart from that it felt like a comedy show with some cars in it, rather than the other way around (just like the Fast and Furious franchise).

Then the Clarkson punching incident took place, and the BBC was left without any hosts for Top Gear.

The three car nuts went to Amazon, made their own show and while they were doing that, BBC brought out an all-new Top Gear, featuring 5 hosts instead of 3. Among them was an annoying Brit (Chris Evans), a fast German (Sabine Schmitz), an ex-F1 racer (Eddie Jordan) and American car-guy (Matt LeBlanc) and two really keen (and great) car guys (Rory Reid and Chris Harris). The new show received a lot of criticism-and I admit Evans, Schmit and Jordan were pretty much useless-I realized that Top Gear became a show about cars again. Good thing then, the three good ones are staying on for another season-and I can't wait for it.

Meanwhile, Clarkson, Hammond and May started their own car-themed show, and called it ''The Grand Tour''. The trailer was really promising when it came out, and the show isn't bad either. But I hoped for a lot more than James May's typical jokes being carried over from TG. And what irritates me is that this show can be a lot more than this, they can go on amazing adventures, review the latest and greatest cars, and get a massive audience just by being themselves. They're not the best of friends in real life, but if they treat each other the same way on The Grand Tour, this show would become a lot better than Top Gear. If I were to give them some advice, I'd say ''just be yourselves''.

In that sense, both TG and TGT need to learn a thing or two from Top Gear USA. A lot of people don't like the show but I'm not one of them. That show is just about 3 guys, who go through crazy challenges while driving cars and having a lot of fun doing it. And they all make mistakes every now and then, not just one guy getting lost all the time, exactly the opposite of what they are-probably-in their normal lives (Captain sense of direction, anyone?). And one guy endlessly hating the Porsche 911 (Clarkson said he doesn't hate it in real-life).

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