G+: Clarksonism: Angry White Guys Talking Trash Is Still Sort Of Funny
This Guardian review of the Grand Tour is pretty tepid. The show itself runs hot and lukewarm. Unmasked American "Not-Stig" is kind of annoying; they should have poached Tanner Foust from the old American "Top Gear." Foust would have been annoying in a way that could stand up to Clarkson's guff, send Hammond into a "My American Bromance" tizzy, and make May spout surly but erudite insults. But no, they cast some NASCAR guy and there's no interaction between his sequences and the hosts.
The humor between the three hosts is familiar, comfortable, and still quite funny. Some of the tasks have been big budget, the traveling venue tent and local crowds have injected a lot of energy, and sometimes the hosts actually talk about cars.
The running joke about the big celebrity stars that are supposed to be guests but end up getting killed off in ludicrous ways was funny the first 2 times. That was about 4 or 5 episodes ago.
To be honest, we've watched, we've laughed hysterically (except when some of the skits go on too long) and we like the changes.
But we keep forgetting to watch, because it's on Amazon Prime and we have to log into it via TiVo in a fairly involved way. To be honest, I usually have my husband David tinker around to find it and start it.
That said, because of my newfound Twitter addiction, we stumbled upon the series premiere a day early, because the (subversively brilliant) social marketing team "released the full episode by mistake" instead of the preview teaser. This fact was "oopsied" on Twitter by Hammond, and we logged in quickly, queued up from the beginning, and watched it a full day earlier than the announced "premiere date".
Brilliant work, lads. I bet that fueled the "illegal downloads" statistic, too.
Here in the future, I now have an app on my iPad mini and may be able to watch the show from the comfort of anywhere with Wifi, so I'll try to catch up on the last 2 or 3 episodes.
At least these angry older white guys make me laugh. They're a great distraction from the ones in the States.
The Grand Tour: Clarksonism goes global! | Television & radio | The Guardian
