The Grand Tour

ironclaw

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

close to the BBC format and tried to steer away from this albeit only slightly so they wouldn't get sued.

They were. There is a lengthy interview with Andy Wilman detailing the issues they faced, even down to some of the scenery shots in the the desert

bear1

Tbf, I think (the episode based on edge of tomorrow being an exception) GT did pretty well for a first attempt.
It started strong, went downhill a bit and then ended very well.
I'm starting to enjoy the celebrity braincrash segment and conversation street even though I didn't like tchem at the beginning.
The American I just can't stand, utter idiot. Put Tiff Needel on it and it would be much more interesting.
Their Xmas special was entertaining as well.
All in all I'd give it an 8 and I suspect their season 2 will be more on the ball.

Northern Monkey

Reports coming in that Hammond has been seriously injured in a crash in Switzerland.

OldMrBrennan83

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ads20101

Oh, not again

_Kaiser_

Official TGT Twitter says he's ok:

https://twitter.com/thegrandtour/status/873576371179708419

_Kaiser_

Clarkson says:

https://twitter.com/JeremyClarkson/status/873577127043637248

Autosport

Thank god for that. Was dreading reading the story

bear1

I wonder if they will show it like when he had the crash with the dragster

markc1184

Good to hear he is ok. Hopefully the spare part they were trying to find on Friday had no bearing on this incident. No idea if this is the car it was needed for or not.

X6.430macman

Saw the video and it just looks like he lost control..was going fair quick through a bendy narrow bit

bazz26

For anyone interested. Season 2 Episode 1 aired tonight. Haven't watched it myself yet.

OldMrBrennan83

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OldMrBrennan83

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duffman3833

Patww79 wrote: »

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yea delighted the celeb bit where they all die is gone, waste of time. I think tho the jag they use for the track seems slow, especially at changing gears, or was it just me thinking that

pa990

Is it available in 4k ?

OldMrBrennan83

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bazz26

Just finished watching it. Hammond was very lucky to walk away from that crash, the car catching fire upto 5 days after the accident due to the batteries would not inspire me with much confidence. Overall there was enough in the episode to keep me interested.

OldMrBrennan83

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bazz26

They didn't seem to discuss the accident much at all and were very coy around it other than showing the post crash third party youtube video.

Joeseph Balls

Any talk of piracy will result in a ban

bkehoe

pa990 wrote: »

Is it available in 4k ?

Yes but Amazon Prime is still extremely user unfriendly as you still have to find the separate 'UHD/Ultra HD' version of the Grand Tour.

If you select any of the prominent links to the Grand Tour on your device when you log in to Amazon Prime, you just get the HD version. So find the one with UHD in the title - sometimes they have a selection of '4k' series gathered in a group when you scroll down more which makes it easier to find initially.

ofcork

Saw a trailer today I see they got their hands on a chiron.

eeguy

bazz26 wrote: »

Just finished watching it. Hammond was very lucky to walk away from that crash, the car catching fire upto 5 days after the accident due to the batteries would not inspire me with much confidence. Overall there was enough in the episode to keep me interested.

Watched it there. Far too much talking. Same scripted nonsense and tired jokes.

Car bits were great as usual. Id take Clarksons comments about the fire with a pinch of salt. They wouldn't just leave the car burn in someone's garden.

Mike Litoris

I enjoyed it. Still a bit too wooden and scripted in places but it seemed better than last season. They've all gotten mad old looking or is that just that they we're all ill this year?


Anyone know what happened to May? He looks dreadful. Heart scare maybe?

ads20101

Found the first ep brilliant

IMHO they're moving gradually back to the format that they had in top gear

(Wonder how close they'll get before the Beeb bites)

Phil.x

May looked so fat. I guess that's what happens when Amazon pay you millions.

mikeecho

Joeseph Balls wrote: »

Any talk of piracy will result in a ban

Last edited by LIGHTNING; Yesterday at 18:55.

Ten Facts About Pirates

Yaaar! Here are ten facts about Pirates! Shiver me timbers!

Fact One
A pirate is a person who commits a crime while at sea. The crimes could be anything but usually involve robbery or violence. Arr!!

Fact Two
Although people generally associate traditional pirates as those that caused trouble and mayhem in and around the Caribbean in the 17th and 18th Centuries, drinking grog and rum and speaking with some kind of Cornish accent, pirates have existed and still exist wherever there is water, which is just about everywhere. For example, the Vikings were also pirates.

Fact Three
One of the most famous pirates is Blackbeard. His real name is Edward Teach, and he went around frightening people into giving him money and suchlike. Despite having a reputation of being a bit of a troublemaker, there is no record of him actually murdering any of his prisoners. However, he apparently walked around with lit fuses on his hat. He also had a peg leg due to losing one of legs through diabetes.

Fact Four
Another famous pirate is William Kidd, also known as Captain Kidd. Although there is doubt about whether he was a proper pirate, he was still hanged in 1701 for getting up to piratey antics. After his execution, his body was displayed in chains hanging above the River Thames for three years as a deterrent to other would-be pirates. Nice. Captain Kidd is said to have buried some of his treasure and thought that he may have been spared execution in return for revealing where his treasure may be located.

Fact Five
A favourite tipple of pirates was grog. Traditionally, grog was rum diluted with water or weak beer. It could be consumed cold or warm. To give flavour to this drink, sugar, lime juice or cinnamon would be added to the mixture.
Fact Six

The Jolly Roger, a flag featuring a skull and crossbones, or variations on the same theme (skeletons, death, and other fearsome imagery) is often associated with pirates. They were basically designed to frighten potential victims to surrendering their loot without having to put up a fight.

Fact Seven
Most pirates didn't actually use a Jolly Roger as their flag. Instead, they just used black flags.

Fact Eight
Pirates feature in many forms of media. In literature, Treasure Island and Peter Pan use pirates as their inspiration. In video games, pirates inspire games such as Sid Meier's Pirates! and the Secret of Monkey Island and its sequels. There are also numerous pirate movies, including Hook and of course the Pirates of the Caribbean series of films. Ahoy me hearties!

Fact Nine
Every year on 19th September, it is International Talk Like A Pirate Day, when it becomes perfectly acceptable to spend the day talking like a pirate. If you want to do it all year round and you're on Facebook, you can change the language to Pirate in the account settings.
If you want more information about International Talk Like a Pirate Day, visit its website here. This is an external link and the site has no association whatsoever with Ten Facts About...

Fact Ten
Pirates wore earrings because they thought that they improved their eyesight - not as fashion accessories. Garr!!!

mikeecho

ads20101 wrote: »

Found the first ep brilliant

IMHO they're moving gradually back to the format that they had in top gear

(Wonder how close they'll get before the Beeb bites)

I dont think the Aunty Beeb will be too bothered anymore.
Beeb changed the presenters of TG, and it lost viiewers, they changed the format of TG and they lost viewers.

No matter how good any shows script is, its the actors/presenters that people tune in for.

I for one would watch the weather forecast on TV3 is it was presented by Brian Blessed. .. that would be funny

The BBC are taking TG down a different rd (pardon the pun)
TGT is more or less sticking to/ slipping back to the old TG format.

ironclaw

I have mixed feelings on the episode. It's better, so far, than season one but it still has some painful moments. The lads aren't funny in a scripted environment, I don't understand why they insist on multiple minutes of 'conversation street' and studio time.

The laps were painfully boring, I figure they made a track but didn't realise it would look so slow with B list celebs at the wheel.

Oh, and one film. ONE. For an hour of content, they had one film and three cars. Also, why do they insist on living in a fantasy world of 'well, we had to take a gravel track, twice, because Hammond planned it' and they had to drive 'straight through a town, because of Hammond'? Honestly its insulting to viewers intelligence as every last moment of TV is planned in advance and it's a tired joke that one of them actually planned it. Why can't they just go for a drive? Take some good shots, talk about the cars? Even the wheel coming off the Lambo would have been an exciting few mins, but alas they just show the aftermath.

C'mon lads, some of us have brain cells and don't want History Channel reality TV.

tossy

Utter ****e. Wasn't expecting much too much though.

H3llR4iser

eeguy wrote: »

Watched it there. Far too much talking. Same scripted nonsense and tired jokes.

Car bits were great as usual. Id take Clarksons comments about the fire with a pinch of salt. They wouldn't just leave the car burn in someone's garden.

I think they meant the car kept catching fire while in storage or wherever they moved it after the crash. Lithium battery fires are no joke - I've seen a phone catch on fire and being reduced to a puddle of smoldering plastic in seconds, Hindenburg-style. Also, ask Boeing.

I quite frankly don't understand why people act surprised when something that carries a bazillion Li-Ion cells catches fire...

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Motor journalism has moved to youtube, as a entertainment the grand tour and top gear are repetitious. I think the age of watching a group of aging and jaded millionaires crack jokes about each other in contrived situations has been and gone.

Quazzie

I was willing to give this a chance, but it's the same old, same old. And it looks even older now. HD isn't helping these guys at all.

An hour long show, and we seen 3 cars. That's ridiculous for what it's meant to be. The scripted bit's in the Studio are by far the worst parts of the whole show.

166man

Quazzie wrote: »

I was willing to give this a chance, but it's the same old, same old. And it looks even older now. HD isn't helping these guys at all.

An hour long show, and we seen 3 cars. That's ridiculous for what it's meant to be. The scripted bit's in the Studio are by far the worst parts of the whole show.

It genuinely boggles me how they can get it so wrong with the Grand Tour. It was a chance to change up the whole formula but they insist on trying to go with the old one??

The celebrity car lap thing was always my least favourite part of the show.

The best cars were the proper car reviews and the challenges using cars that your average Joe Bloggs can afford, all in my opinion of course.

It doesn't need more money, and more locations to be more successful.

Atlantic Dawn

Watched it there, thought it was brutal compared to the last season opener. On the studio track what is the point of using a Jaguar sports car to go around a track with partial gravel, why not instead use a turbo charged SUV to let the guest drivers go proper wild?

liam7831

I think people will tire after a while of watching wrapping and re wrapping of the same cars. Most of the car YouTubers are good for 6 months or so but I'm bored of them now. They give everything a great review for fear of not being asked again.

They love using phrases such as content and dropping, yawn.

Stallingrad

Had to fast forward through most of it, utterly predictable and boring. Only three cars on the whole show and precious little information on any of them? Totally wasted opportunity, even the lads look bored by the whole thing. And what has happened to May, has he had plastic surgery?

H3llR4iser

So I'm not the only one who thought May looked completely different from usual! Maybe it's the haircut (some people's look changes a lot depending on hair), but still...

As for the show itself, I still think it's got its own place - I would still take the old geezers over most Youtubers; If you take out a select few, it's really only a bunch of rich snotty (or steroid laden) kids rubbing their cash in the internetz collective face.

That said, I did find the episode slow moving and quite light on action - the celebrity guests has always been the most boring part of the show, since the early Top Gear days. Unless they happen to be race drivers, it's basically "sit through 10 minutes of pointleaadrivel about their new movie or album, watch 1 minute montage of them driving".

However I feel there's very little they can do without meeting BBC's solicitors - stuff like the challenges, builds, SIARPC et all are probably strictly guarded by the British broadcaster's legal guard dogs. Plus, Amazon is probably trying to cater to a, how to say, younger and more American audience...

Tzardine

Agree completely regarding youtubers. The content they put out these days is serious quality (some of them lol, some are dire).

There was an old thread on it, I bumped it and added some up to date thoughts.

LollipopJimmy

That wasn't James May, they got Eamonn Holmes to stand in and pretend to be May. It didn't work though.

bear1

I thought it was a good episode.
They have little room to manoeuvre without infringing top gear so I admire that they have some thing entertaining to offer.
The previews do show challenges whick fun to watch.
This will be a good season I think

.red.

I was tired watching it and fell asleep about 30mins in, finding it very hard to go back and watch the end of it.
I didn't think season 1 was too bad, not great but easy viewing. I was hoping they'd cut the crap out and work on the better bits, they've tried but its gotten worse if anything.

bear1

LIGHTNING wrote: »

You see they already tried that. The challenges/trips were the best things about Top Gear. They figured that out then made a complete balls of it. Watch the earlier ones, they are actually funny and a lot of the things that happen are by mistake. Then they tried to make "scripted" funny parts and it was painful i.e the India special.

India was terrible I agree but I found most of their challenges fun.
Patagonia I really enjoyed for example or the Bolivia one.
I agree that a lot is scripted but I think we would have to see what challenges or trips they do in this season before we can come to that conclusion.
Same goes with the current top gear, scripted ****e and unfunny interactions between presenters.

X6.430macman

Someone on here said last season that they would do celebrity braincrash for a while and then eventually the celebs would make it into the tent and talk ****e about some book they had coming out or something... they were right

Mc Love

Bad sign if you fall asleep watching it

OldMrBrennan83

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LollipopJimmy

Patww79 wrote: »

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I agree, it's light entertainment for all the family, Top Gear and in turn The Grand Tour stopped being a car show many many years ago. If you want a review of the latest Korean Hatchback the off to youtube with ya, if you want to see a heavily scripted light entertainment show that is loosely based around cars then TGT is for you

dastardly00

LollipopJimmy wrote: »

I agree, it's light entertainment for all the family, Top Gear and in turn The Grand Tour stopped being a car show many many years ago. If you want a review of the latest Korean Hatchback the off to youtube with ya, if you want to see a heavily scripted light entertainment show that is loosely based around cars then TGT is for you

Is it too much to ask for TGT to be in the middle-ground though?
TGT could do some semi-serious car reviews along with scripted light entertainment.

mikeecho

dastardly00 wrote: »

Is it too much to ask for TGT to be in the middle-ground though?
TGT could do some semi-serious car reviews along with scripted light entertainment.

You're asking for too much.

TGT, & TG, are general entertainment.
They are not consumer information shows.

TG & TGT are both heavily scripted, and have been for some time.

Try 5th Gear... if they still make it.
(5th Gear was a great show.. i stopped watching when they went to disco )