QOTD: Are You Watching 'The Grand Tour'?

Top Gear had been the most popular car show in the world for a decade. It was one of my favorite things to watch — all the way back to the awkward first season where 15 people who liked the WRX showed up to a studio at a rural airport to watch three men discuss cars. (The show unceremoniously exchanged one of those three men in season two for James May).

Watching over the years proved very entertaining, even though toward the end of the run the script poked holes in the Joking Car Guys illusion we’d mostly been able to believe in seasons past. Still, I looked forward to the Cheap Car Challenges and the adventures of the three as they’d drive across foreign lands in whatever falling-apart heap they’d selected from the local Bolivian version of AutoTrader.

And then a one-two punch happened, and Amazon promised us more. More cars, more of the trio, more gags — all the things we wanted, things that made so many rage against the BBC when it fired the controversial Clarkson.

But more is the primary issue with The Grand Tour.

I won’t use my QOTD to go on a tangent with a review of each episode thus far (though I really, really could). I’ll just report that our trio has already been to exotic locations around the world, just as promised. There are lots of explosions, crashes, supercars, comments about immigrants, and a quest to “murder” all of Britain’s celebrities. The show has really got it all!

But that it has it all is not a compliment. Somewhere in the midst of their huge budget and Internet show freedom (insert reference to pleasuring horses here), the show’s forgot what it set out to be — a different sort of car show. Pay special attention to those last two words there. Aside from a few shining moments when the Top Gear of old shines through, the rest of The Grand Tour is a variety show — a nice, cinematic take on an idea that was worn out in 1978.

Pretending to murder celebrities with someone in a lion costume? Yeah, we’ve got that.

Ridiculously scripted studio banter between hosts, complete with pauses for canned laughs? Yep.

One character who must carry on a shtick being dumber than they are for the sake of the comedy? Hey, James May — you’re up!

Another character (NASCAR driver in this case), playing up to every stereotype of “Stupid Redneck American” ever known? Yee-haw!

We already know The Grand Tour will be with us for at least three years, as Amazon has contracted for thirty-six episodes with each lasting roughly an hour. The show carries a shocking 9.4 over at IMDB.

The show has apparently and immediately found a wide audience who’s up for an hour of entertainment filled with tortured sketches that go on too long and overworked characters who’ve been stretched beyond recognition by whichever geniuses are writing the script.

And they are geniuses. By turning The Grand Tour into an extreme sketch comedy show, Amazon is appealing to the widest audience possible and getting the most for its money. The show’s really lost it for me, and I can’t see myself carrying on watching after this first season. It’s only an option when I’ve reached the bottom of the Internet bucket and I’m not quite ready to turn off the TV. The earlier, fun show about car guys is as far in the distance as William Woollard with his foot on the bumper of a Jaguar XJS.

Tell me what you think. Maybe I’m just not viewing it through the right lens here. It’s got to deserve that 9.4 rating on IMDB, right?

I’ll be right back. Amazon Prime is at the door with my Soma.

[Image: The Grand Tour/Amazon Prime]