The Grand Tour season 4 premiered today on Amazon Prime Video

[OtinG]

The Grand Tour season 4 premiered today on Amazon Prime Video with their first “special” named “Seamen.” No live audience this year. Unfortunately not many laughs either, at least in the 2/3 of it I watched after midnight. I was looking forward to season 4. I’ve been watching them since their Top Gear days. But season 4 is looking awful at the moment. Its as though they aren’t even trying to produce good work any more. It also looked like there might be signs of the actors not getting along that well. Maybe this is Clarkson’s way of getting the show sacked so he can move on to something else. The three certainly looked out of their form and elements, and this episode (so far) has been a huge disappointment. I sure hope they do better in the other episodes.

[Bilbo1967]

Personally, I thought it was alright. Not their best work, I'd agree, but enjoyable.

I hope we'll see better, especially given the budget they have with Amazon, but I'm not as disappointed as you.

[timebug]

I liked it too. This series is only two episodes long,and classed as 'specials' so the chaps do what (IMO) they do best,ie have some sort of contrived adventure and a few laughs along the way.

[OtinG]

Surely there are more than just two episodes this 4th season. I need to check on that. It is possible they only have two listed as available currently or in the near future, but haven't finished final editing on the others yet. Seasons 1 through 3 had about 10 or so episodes each. I really can’t imagine Amazon paying them that much money for just two episodes. At any rate their same old show format for adventures is getting worn out and overly predictable after all these years, especially now that they are aging. At least in the past seasons they were good enough to at least feign interest in what they were filming. I think at this point it has become little more than a tired, old job to them, rather than fun, and it shows. I’m sure Amazon is way more controlling than the BBC was too, and I imagine that has aggravated the situation. They kept trimming out features each year until we wound up with adventures only--no more guests, no more banter with an audience are chats about cars. After two decades the show has been whittled down so much that it just doesn't have much appeal any more.

I much prefer watching May and Hammond in their own specials to what I saw in S4 E1 of The Grand Bore. I never watch Clarkson in anything else as I have never really cared for his opinionated BS on or off camera.

[OtinG]

Well it looks like @timebug was correct. According to an article I just read, the shows producer Andy Wilman said there will only be two episodes per year. That is hard to believe. Those guys aren't worth that much money for two lousy episodes per year. They will each be making other specials and shows on their own too though, so I look forward to seeing what May has in the works, and to a lesser degree, what Hammond has in the works.

According to Andy Wilman his first cut of TGT S4 E1 was nearly three hours long, but Amazon whittled it down to less than two hours. Probably smart on Amazon's side since it clearly wasn't TGT's best effort. To be fair it was their worst effort to date. Even the terrible American versions of Top Gear were better than TGT S4 E1. Both of the American versions of TG were pretty bad, especially the first cast they had. British TG with Matt LeBlanc post season 1 was pretty good though. Too bad he left the show.

For those who like the older Top Gear seasons, MotorTrend has a bunch of those seasons now.

[timebug]

I only knew there were two episodes, because I was unaware that it was back on TV, until I read an article online, and that was where it explained that there were only two per year.

[OtinG]

I had no idea it was back on either until it suddenly popped up on the Amazon Prime Video screen a day or so before it premiered. I knew that it generally started its season (what the Brits call a "series") in late Autumn or early Winter, so I had been wondering when it was coming back. Oh well, if they are only doing two specials this year, then that is pretty much no longer even a series IMO. Amazon slowly cut out features over the years, now they've effectively turned it into an occasional special. I wouldn't be surprised to see it disappear completely after this year or next. I wonder what the ratings had been like. I know that tracking ratings on streaming services is nearly impossible as most streaming services won't release that information.

I saw an advertisement for an upcoming James May series, hopefully that will be good. Most of his stuff is pretty good. Richard Hammond has made some decent shows in the past too.

I really never cared for Clarkson much. He is funny and talented, but he is also extremely insulting and abusive both on and off camera. I know he pissed off several countries while filming TG episodes due to comments he made, and got chased out of one South American country, supposedly. Just like reality TV shows, much of what is shown is likely fabricated or greatly exaggerated to improve ratings. In other words, it is scripted. So I wouldn't be surprised if the TG producers exaggerated a lot of that stuff to get better ratings.