Clarkson and crew are back!

[wodin]

The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime.

[timebug]

Have it downloaded,will watch later today!
Got to be better than the abysmal Top Gear that
motormouth Evans fronted earlier this year!

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by timebug

Have it downloaded,will watch later today!
Got to be better than the abysmal Top Gear that
motormouth Evand fronted earlier this year!

It is. Substantially.

It feels quite a bit like early Top Gear Mk.II. They've kept the Mk.II groundwork but have discarded a lot of the baggage that the BBC program had accumulated over the years.

[AnotherCat]

Even though it was the first episode where things are still shaking down I thought it a pretty good effort. Certainly, in my view, much better that the screechy BBC Evan's effort.

[wodin]

I hadn't watched it when I OPed this thread, after work I ran home and fired up the Roku; and LOVED it. Especially the parts where Jeremy skewered BBC as only he can do.

I watched in on the 18th when it premiered. Pretty much like the old Top Gear under that trio, but with a few changes due to separation requirements, I'm guessing. For example, no Stig as BBC owns the rights to him. I really like it, though it is a love hate situation with Clarkson. He is usually okay and very funny, but his prejudices come out on occasion. I often quickly tire of his anti-American rhetoric, but that was tame in the premier episode of GT.

The only complaint I have is they are stuck on thinking the only cars worthy of their show are super cars that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They need to get over that BS and move on to checking out a greater variety of cars that some of us can actually afford. Plus the best part of their old TG show was when they wrecked things and what not. I hope they have more of that and less of my super car is better than your super car.

The BBC sacked Evans from TG, and supposedly Matt will be back. So it might improve drastically without Evans there to ruin it.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jswinden

The BBC sacked Evans from TG, and supposedly Matt will be back. So it might improve drastically without Evans there to ruin it.

Actually they didn't. It was he himself who decided not to do another series. He wasn't sacked.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Actually they didn't. It was he himself who decided not to do another series. He wasn't sacked.

I knew that he said he was quitting, but a lot of companies, at least in the USA, will allow an employee that needs to be replaced to fall on his own sword rather than suffer the greater humiliation of being escorted from the building. I'm not that familiar with the inner workings of the BBC, but I have to wonder if he was given the choice to quit or be fired. He was horrible at that job, though good at other jobs I hear. Sometimes companies take a good person and put them into a role in which they cannot perform well. Evans was definitely not good in that particular role. To be honest the big orangutan and his two sidekicks was a hard act to follow, but still Evans sucked at it much more than he should have.

[HarryT]

I understand where you're coming from, Jack, but in this case I think it really was his decision. He realised he wasn't cut out for the job.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by wodin

The Grand Tour on Amazon Prime.

Now they can go away again.

[wodin]

Amazon has hailed The Grand Tour as its biggest TV success after saying it has broken viewing records - but they won't say how many watched people it.

Amazon Prime says its first episode has become the subscription service's biggest premiere, beating previous number one show on the service, 2015's The Man In The High Castle.

Fans were sent into meltdown on Friday when the show was released.

Ardent car enthusiasts loved it. Viewers loved it. Even naysaying social media fans loved it.

But only one organisation in Britain, it seems, did not fall for the spectacular charms of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May's The Grand Tour – their former employers, the BBC.

The corporation was accused of being po-faced, as it singled out the trio's new, big budget Amazon show for criticism.

Whilst fans were awash with praise for the first show in the £120million 12-part series, the BBC's Arts Editor Will Gompertz called it 'uncomfortably hubristic', before comparing it to a middle-aged sitcom and suggesting a rift between the stars.

The popularity of the show shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who has watched TG over the years. The BBC often bragged about how many viewers TG had worldwide when that trio were the hosts. I think they said it was the most watched show on TV worldwide, though we often hear over-inflated stats like that from various media. TG was better though. The format of GT has them spending too much time in the tent around the table. TG had very little airport time, mostly relying on their field videos. GT is mostly my car is better than yours, captain Slow. TG had a lot of silly video stunts that served no purpose but were very entertaining. If they keep this current format, I doubt I'll keep watching for long, it will get tired quickly.

[AnemicOak]

Non-US residents can now sign up for Amazon Prime in the US and stream Amazon Originals

Amazon is currently working on an upcoming global expansion of Prime Video, which at the very least will bring The Grand Tour to 200 countries in December, but it looks like some of those changes have already gone into effect. It appears that customers not living in the US can now sign up for Amazon Prime through Amazon.com without any of the warnings and restirctions that were previously present. These non-US customers can use their actual non-US addresses and credit cards without any issues. Once signed up, non-US residents can then stream Amazon’s original shows without any geographic restrictions, and without needing DNS/VPN masking services. There is confirmation of this working with Canadian residents and Australian residents, but it likely works with other countries as well, if not globally.

http://www.aftvnews.com/non-us-resid...zon-originals/

[ratinox]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I think they said it was the most watched show on TV worldwide, though we often hear over-inflated stats like that from various media.

That comes from Guinness. Top Gear Mk.II is (or at the time was) the most-watched factual TV show in the world. They have the certificate to prove it.

TG was better though. The format of GT has them spending too much time in the tent around the table. TG had very little airport time, mostly relying on their field videos. GT is mostly my car is better than yours, captain Slow. TG had a lot of silly video stunts that served no purpose but were very entertaining. If they keep this current format, I doubt I'll keep watching for long, it will get tired quickly.

You're comparing a show with more than a decade of history to the first, single episode. I hardly think that's fair, especially when the entire first series of Top Gear Mk.II was pretty bland and the last 2 (21, 22) were so deep in a rut that the Lads and Andy Wilman were planning to use the next three series (23-25) to wind down and retire the show.

[oren64]

Big like!