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The Grand Tour. The Last Hurrah?

12/13/2017

1 Comment

 
The Grand Tour is finally back on our screens (well it is if you subscribe to Amazon Prime anyway). I eagerly tuned in last weekend and watched the first episode of the new series - it was relatively good, if predictable, fun too. But my lasting take out from the show will be that Jeremy Clarkson and James May are both looking old. Clarkson didn’t even look well if you ask me. Even Richard Hammond seemed like he was trying too hard to fight off the age related challenges – Mrs Baldwin’s comments “his hair is badly dyed”.

For the first time ever, I watched the chaps and was thinking that the end is in sight for the grand trio. I don’t mean death, though Hammond used up another life in Switzerland driving the Rimac. Rather that in looking old, overweight, tired and grandfatherly even, they are just not quite so “hip” anymore. If this episode of the GT had been shot in India rather than Switzerland, I’d have been thinking about the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Clarkson and May looking like suitable residents.

Then Clarkson went and interviewed David Hasselhoff who looked thoroughly ready for retirement.

Let’s be frank, seeing an old, fat bloke (like Clarkson more than Hasselhoff) in a high performance sports car is a bit sad really and it might not be that long before the likes of Lamborghini decide that there are better brand advocates out there.

Of more concern, and maybe this is just me, the juvenile humour seems too contrived/unconvincing coming from blokes in their mid-fifties. I am much the same age as Richard Hammond (mid-late forties) and if that’s my feeling, what will it be like for those with a couple less decades straining at their belt buckles?

I suppose Amazon must know what target audiences it is keen to appeal to. In my opinion, the nation’s youth can’t be relied upon to think that father figures are cool and they certainly can’t be relied upon to think that grandfather figures are. If Amazon’s target audience for the show are blokes like me then there is still some hope … but then again, I am a fan and the above are my observations.

There were others too. I wondered if the permanent grounding of the GT Marquee in the Cotswolds was an effort to contain the costs of the show, Amazon less sure of its investment perhaps? Or if the global travel schedule was just exhausting the presenters too much? All had been in hospital during the filming, Clarkson with pneumonia apparently.
   
All however is not woe. “Celebrity Brain Crash” has been dumped (it was rubbish and needed to be) and some of the future episodes look like they will be better than the first.

I will of course watch the lot and will enjoy The Grand Tour while I can. I guess the presenters will enjoy delivering it while they still can too.  And in that is an observation about life in general, enjoy it while you can because nothing lasts forever. Just ask Cheggers!

Will series two of the Grand Tour be the last hurrah?

Well no because three series were commissioned, but I wouldn’t bet my hard earned cash on a fourth.

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1 Comment
John
12/30/2017 02:55:40 pm

I gotariund to watching the first episode today and tone honest, it was predictable. I think the BBC did well to lose the show and Amazon,if you have that much money to waste,

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