The Amazon Prime Not Topgear Show That From Now On Will Be Called "The Grand Tour"TV 

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Thank god they ditched that American driver and the Celebrity Braincrash. I still don't like it that they sit behind a table, because I think the TopGear setup was way nicer and more open. But still....it just went from horrendously bad to enjoyable again, which is nice
 
First episode of this season was great. Glad they canned the American and I like the new Celebrity Face Off. The gravel bit on the track is a nice addition. It’ll be interesting if it rains.

Not sure what else to say other than this is one of my favorite car shows ever. ‘Jay Leno’s Garage’ comes in 2nd.
 
Gotta say I wasn't too pleased with the episode. The studio bits still need sorting out because the banter just doesn't seem to work. The celebrity lap was bad. The good thing about Dunsfold was that the corners were quick and the straights were long, so the reasonably priced car looked fast. Now, a fast car looks so slow because it has to do tight corners and gravel sections - plus the aforementioned RWD vs FWD problem. Why they didn't just use the Eboladrome I don't know.

The Swiss parts were quite good, but the health resort joke was a bit too forced and there wasn't really enough info about why Petrol, hybrid and Electric are better/worse than each other.

A lot lacking from the episode, but glad it's back and I prefer having it than not.

Still preferred the last Series of Top Gear though.
 
Overall, it was another good episode. Yeah it's still sort of scripted but other than that I enjoyed it a lot.

Also the new test driver is Abbie Eaton.
 
...So, I caught the first two. And my overriding first impression is...

"Wait, did I stumble into unaired episodes of old New Top Gear somehow?! I mean, they are exactly the same!!"

I enjoyed both a lot, but really, it's all rather familiar. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you. More please.

Oh, and I am also slightly shocked at the amount of swearing going un-bleeped in the show. I haven't checked the age rating of TGT, but it can't surely be something like PG13 or whatever...
 
First episode is pretty weak (the whole past vs present vs future thing gets tiring pretty quickly). I suspect the finale they planned couldn't happen because of Hammond's crash, so that may affect the flow of the piece somewhat.

The second episode though, is basically pure old Top Gear. It's the closest feeling I had watching TGT to watching the old shows. Pretty surprised about their choice of driver as well, but it's a pretty cool choice to buck the trend.

Celebrity face off is an improvement, but I agree that the car and track choice will make it hard for some guests to set competitive times.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the episodes now. Especially the XJ220 vs EB110 and the Monza banking segments.
 
JKgo
but it can't surely be something like PG13 or whatever...
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Both episodes are TV-14.
Chameleon
I am slightly confused as to why everyone hated the celebrity brain crash thing.
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Because after the first one when you knew they were going to die, it served no purpose besides as a time killer.
 
Chameleon
I am slightly confused as to why everyone hated the celebrity brain crash thing.
Click to expand...
I personally disliked it as it just felt pointless. They brought celebrities on the show just to be killed off in some odd way, all for just a joke. Because of that format, the joke becomes boring and predictable imo after doing it a few times in a row.

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I think I'll like this season more than the previous season now that they got rid of the "American" and "Celebrity Brain Crash" segments. I loved the Ford GT vs airplane challenge.
 
Second episode felt like old Top Gear. Seems like a return to form. Like the choice of the new driver, though it would've been brilliant to have it be Ben Collins as himself and not as the Stig as a way to make amends.

Overall, looking forward to the rest of the season
 
I actually quite enjoyed the second episode. As others have said, it does bring back old Top Gear. Though as I fear, there must be something to counteract these.... Judging from the season 2 montage, there will have to be the fooling around episodes. (I'm sure it's to "balance" out the show)

But...it seems like they're on a roll. Next one looks pretty good.
 
Well that wasn't great, the Kia Stinger 'review' was particularly disappointing. Whats the point of shipping the car and everything else out to Majorca and not even properly reviewing the car itself, it was mostly May squealing and grunting. And the car park race thing.........no.
 
That race during you lunch hour thing felt like something from the early 2000's TG, like 03/04/05, the early years of them as a three.

A decent show but nothing really special, found Conversation Street quite funny though and I LOL-ed when James said the cross on top of the tree would be a plot spoiler. :lol:
 
The way the M3 driver drove with the drifting, makes it look fake, same random office worker can drive on the limit like that risking their own personal car it's hard to believe.

Im looking forward to the Jaguar road trip in america though the rest looks a bit meh though.
 
It's not as good as the second episode for sure, but it's still not that bad. I thought the Office Lunch racing was pretty cool. Obviously they're not lay people since they can drive pretty fast through narrow and bumpy streets. It reminds me when I was a kid and everytime I look a a street map, I would always try to draw a racetrack from the existing roads :)

The only complaint is the Chiron seems pretty underused for such a significant car. I wonder if it will return for some more challenges later in the series (the Veyron came back 4 times IIRC - Eurofighter race, Top Speed run, another Top Speed run in SS guise and finally a Power Lap). That blow off valve sound though :drool: And the Rendesvouz tribute is also pretty neat I thought.
 
...That Chiron segment does kind of feel weird. It's as if something was left out of the editing room - maybe it was supposed to be one of those "car vs. something else" race but then Hammond got injured and was in recovery so they had no choice but to go with what they had on hand.

Just a speculation.
 
They (Top Gear) raced a Veyron against James in a Cessna. I would guess the original Chiron segment would have been a race against Hammond in a helicopter, but because of Hammond's lack of driving ability, they had to change it. They alluded to the helicopter a few times during the episode.
 
I loved that episode with the Office Cars race and James May challenging skateboarders in a Kia Stinger. The office part is scripted, but I honestly don't care. I found it entertaining.
 
This is proof that episodes feel that bit better when you know just about everywhere they're going in the feature film because you're on holiday there every year.

So, from my totally unbiased self, I say this episode was rather good.
 
Again not a great episode, the series started off fairly well but has dropped off quickly. In a car show the only bit I found entertaining in this episode was Clarkson interviewing the two guests, that shouldn't be happening.

More forced jokes, more staged 'comedy'. They are making a point every episode that they are listening to the viewers and taking their criticism seriously but they are still getting more things wrong than they are right. Where are the cheap car challenges? 3 super cars blasting across continents? Etc it seems like most people enjoy watching them when they are motoring journalists with some humour thrown in for good measure, as opposed to the entertainers/comedians they are trying to be now but still they persist.

I think I'm done with this series now apart from the Jaguar Xj220 part I've seen in trailers.
 
It's one thing to be unscripted, it's another to just not know how to use Google to look up places to go...

And James May's Fire Truck thing wasn't unscripted it was random for the sake of random and his continuing to do it just got more tiring as it went on.

But otherwise really good fun!
 

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