#CarTV

The Grand Tour returned this past Friday with the fourth special of its fourth season, entitled “Carnage a Trois.” The French-themed episode follows “ Lochdown” of August 2021, “ A Massive Hunt” from December last year, and “Seamen” from December 2019. “Seamen” was the first installment of The Grand Tour’s new format where the tent, audience, track, and stupid time-wasting went by the wayside in favor of a specials-only format with grand adventures and less choppy segmented content. How does “Carnage a Trois” fare in that mold? Pas bon.

July 30th saw the streaming release of the third installment in The Grand Tour Presents series, Amazon’s installment rework of the formerly tent-based automotive series. Following up their “Seamen” premiere (which I liked) and “A Massive Hunt” ( which I didn’t), Clarkson, Hammond, and May get back to their basics of years ago with “Lochdown.” And there’s not a lot wrong with that.

After a COVID-induced delay of several months, Amazon finally released The Grand Tour’s new episode “A Massive Hunt” on December 17th. Its intended release date was the 18th, but someone at Amazon decided to foist the episode on an unsuspecting public a day early.

What a dumpster fire.

Audi released a new concept sketch of the Q8, but the Hot Wheels aesthetic doesn’t give us much to go on. We doubt the production model will come adorned with 30-inch wheels and balloon out toward the bottom, as illustrated. However, the drawing does appear to indicate an adherence to a taillight design not all that different from what we’re seeing on the A8.

Extending across the entirety of the vehicle’s rear, Tim Cain compared the sedan’s brake light styling to the now dead Dodge Dart. While the colorful Q8 draft indicates something a bit more angular, the basic shape remains intact and makes us wonder if this aesthetic will eventually spill into the rest of Audi’s stable.

That theory will take some time to pan out, but discovering the final decision on the SUV’s taillights won’t. Despite the official reveal still being a few weeks away, Audi has announced an original, adult-themed five-part video series — called Q8 Unleashed — starring the vehicle. The first episode is scheduled to drop May 21st.

The concept is derivative of the BMW film series The Hire, which initially came out in 2001 to showcase Clive Owen manhandling the brand’s fleet. The series returned for a brief run in 2016, which makes us wonder if a marketing manager at Audi was a fan.

I’ve said before that automotive television is frequently terrible. Cars don’t have a lot of on-screen charisma without someone inside them, meaning most automotive presenters are forced into awkward acting attempts to “add drama,” despite not being actors.

The exception are shows that don’t rely on gimmicks and allow endearing hosts to be themselves. Top Gear has been a prime example of this since the mid-2000s, improved further by having presenters that act believably in unbelievable ways.

However, when the team that originally made it great left to create The Grand Tour, it wandered dangerously close to becoming an unintentional parody of the old show. Thankfully, most of the past month has been littered with news proving they’re shying away from hokey antics for more substantive programming.

Automotive television has developed some extremely bad habits, the worst of which is creating false reality show-style drama among characters with no appreciable personalities. Build shows are the absolute worst for this, yet the agreed-upon recipe seems to be to force one-dimensional characters to argue with one another, intercut with B-roll footage of people working on a car. Rinse and repeat.

While shows like Top Gear and The Grand Tour manage to avoid this problem — by providing entertaining short films, product reviews, and humorous banter — most programs where the host touches a wrench becomes painful to watch within the first few minutes. There are, of course, mainstream exceptions. Mighty Car Mods and RoadKill are both project-oriented shows that remain enjoyable due the presenters’ enthusiasm, authenticity, and willingness to fail. However, neither of those examples exist on a major television network and persist as online-only affairs. And there isn’t really a build show on cable that anyone should consider on par with either.

However, there could be a contender when the Discovery Channel airs its first episode of Car Saviors tonight.