The Not Very Grand Tour

To be fair, this was a duo of Hammond and May presenting clips from the trios legacy. But I miss Clarkson with the other two. It's great revisiting the show, and I'm gonna rewatch very soon, or well, now. As my title says, I really do miss the excitement of new releases of the three of them, but I also understand that there is history between them and also the aging aspect of humans as a species.

So in conclusion, thank you guys for an epic youth. I'm now in my early '40s and you three is pure nostalgia for me, and many more. Thank you and I hope to see you guys all three together in some setting in the future.

I've been a TG fan since James May was introduced as the new presenter, and have avidly watched all of The Grand Tour. I don't understand the purpose of this series.

Before today, I knew it was going to be presented by May and Hammond, and knew it would be a clip show. But that's literally all it is: A clip show. I was hoping for some commentary and BTS insight on the featured episodes; Something, anything new. But the studio inserts were just rehashes of well-known opinions of the two presenters, and there was barely any of it.

Back in the days of television and before DVRs, clip shows were the only way to re-visit your favorite moments from series that were off the air or between seasons. But all the episodes featured here are available in full on Amazon. If you can watch the clip show right now, you can watch the actual episodes right now. What's the point? It's little more than a 1 hour trailer for the show. And not a very good one, because..

Clip shows can also be a good introduction of a series to new viewers, highlighting the best and most interesting of what the series has to offer. Based on the first episode, if I were to put together a clip show of the most skippable Grand Tour segments, these would have been on the list. The 918 vs. TheFerrari vs. Fax Machine was exciting, though! When it first aired. But that was adjudicated around 8 years ago. I'm not sure how it would entice new viewers, as any car enthusiast would already be aware of the outcome and anyone else wouldn't be invested in the result nowadays.

All this episode made me want to do was watch classic TG or some GT road trips. But only because I'm already a fan and this left me wanting. I loved both shows, but I don't need segments re-presented to me out of context with nothing new added. It's a shame, because the format would've been at least somewhat interesting if done in a "commentary track" format, or at least had more scripted (or unscripted) embellishments in the studio segments.

It's not interesting for long-time viewers, and it's not going to help entice new viewers. So why does this even exist?

While I always enjoy seeing the original trio in any form, Jeremy's absence really leaves a noticeable gap. Without him, Hammond and May don't seem to bring much new to the table - aside from revisiting old clips we've already seen. It would've been far more engaging if they shared untold behind-the-scenes stories or offered fresh commentary. Even better, they could've introduced new content, like discussions about recently released cars or innovations in automotive technology. Honestly, if it's just recycled footage, most of us would prefer to rewatch old Grand Tour episodes instead. Hope the future episodes have something to keep the viewers hooked.

Watching Hammond and May present a clip show from a deserted hangar with a few cars filling the void around them feels somewhat familiar.

Only two types of people would watch this from beginning to end : those who've never seen Top Gear or The Grand Tour, and those who've watched pretty much every episode (possibly more than once).

As someone from the latter group, I can't help but to think this show has been produced as a nod to the last Top Gear episode featuring Hammond and May, without Clarkson.

The 'studio' segments are certainly given much more serious thought, with some semblance of scriptwriting and performance; and the atmosphere isn't as drab. However, this missing elephant in the room is blatantly odd.

If I were more cynical, I'd argue that some sort of contract dispute might have forced Hammond, May and Wilman to deliver a few shows to honour their commitments and not have to give back a bit of their Amazon money; something that Clarkson didn't care to do or didn't have to do because of his other Prime hit show... But I'm not that cynical, so I'll just allude to it.

Almost everything we like in Grand Tour is non present.

Live and unscripted dialogues (they only had a direction in TG / GT) are replaced with a soulless reading from a prompter. Even the "jokes" and "verbal lunges" feel so plain and artificial, that I couldn't smile even once.

Instead of 3 emotionally arguing men we got 2 boring old dudes reading a script.

THERE IS NO NEW FOOTAGE AT ALL. We could see some behind the scenes cuts, or the material that was edited out before, but instead of that amazon production team showed us exactly same shorts that we have seen before. And those were not even the most thrilling ones!

Very very very lazy job. Very poorly done. There is something of 5-10 minutes of new video (May and Hammond dialogues) in a hour long recompilation of old material.

The only person who would have enjoyed watching this is the one who has never seen the original Grand Tour series. I was so much into a new release and I have got that one... It feels somewhat as mix of a spit in the face and arrogant charity donation.

I am disappointed by that more, than by any season of new crews in Top Gear. It feels THAT BAD.