The Grand Tour - S1-E1 - Spoilers, Natch.

Holy crap, that was great! Even spots with pacing problems seemed to be intentional to say to us they knew.

 

kinda disappointed myself. opening and the films were great, the rest kind of sucked

 

The fight sequence was overly long, they could have done a couple less cuts. The celebrities bit wasn't super funny, but it did leave me wondering if they'll actually have one or if it was their way to kill the idea of celebrities on the show.

I liked the bit about the track. I do wonder if anyone will step up for "Your name here corner". Nice workaround for the Stig too.

 

Nice to have Top Gear back! Not perfect, a few bits went too long, Jeremy looks like he's in his third trimester, the table and chairs they sit at look...janky? Hopefully, they'll get the celebrity bit together moving forward so I can easily skip past oit like I did on the old show. Still, it has what that copycat version this past spring missed....many horsepowers and poo jokes. They miss stated the American driver's name too. As any NASCAR watcher from back in the day knows, he's Mike Spinner! They spent a lot of money, and it showed.

 

Top Gear is back.... Well sort of. It's great to have the boys back. The chemistry between them was sorely lacking in the revamped BBC version. Like many I thought the show was great, but had a few bits that went on too long (Fight/Celebs). But as this is a new show so to speak I'll let the slide. I liked how they handled the Stig issue, and all in all it's not as different as I'd heard it was going to be.

Can't wait for the rest of the season.

 

The expectations for this show were so high am not sure it was possible to reach them in reality. Good show, it caused me to sign up for Amazon Prime (that was the goal for Amazon), will keep watching.

 

Overall a nice start to the new series.

On a side note.....I thought the show looked fantastic on my 1080p tv using the Amazon app on my TiVo. Puts my crappy Comcast signal to shame.

Curious, anyone here watch it in 4K? If so, how was it?

-Kevin

 

It was like an old comfortable chair. As soon as the short, ape, slow jabs started it was back. I don't think anything can live up to the expectations, but once they do a couple of shows and settle on some of the bits it'll be great. I've probably looked forward to this premiere more than any other show.

 

I have to say the 2 areas I'm most disappointed are the track and the Stig replacement. Mike Skinner?!? Really that's the best they could get? I watched it being a little embarrassed. As for the track, I think the biggest letdown is the overall size, especially when/if they start having more cars on the track at once. The large runway straight will be missed for getting the cars up to max speed.

-Kevin

 

I really don't think Mike Skinnner will be a regular driver for them.

 

Sadly....it looks like he is

Who is Mike Skinner? US NASCAR racer and The Grand Tour's 'new Stig' From the UK Sun NSFW

Former NASCAR driver is The Grand Tour's version of the Stig From Fox Sports

Mike Skinner (racing driver) - Wikipedia From Wikipedia

-Kevin

 

FWIW, that first link of yours is NSFW.

 

Updated.

 

Loved the intro, Unlike most of you I think Mike Skinner is a good fit. He can drive very good and I do like how he's vocal, (which he is in real life lol) that adds a bit more to the show in my opinion.

 

I enjoyed the episode. I like the concept of the show traveling around. I thought the celebrity introductions were pretty funny. Not liking Mike Skinner so far, if they seriously wanted someone American, couldn't they have gotten Jeff Gordon or Michael Waltrip? The Ferrari v. McClaran v. Porsche races were sort of lame where they all finished first equally. I am sure that was some compromise because one of the companies still don't want them to straight up race, probably Ferrari.

I watched it on my iPad and thought the quality was really good. I also enjoyed the Amazon X-Ray feature where when you tapped on the screen it gave you info about the presenters or other folks on the screen and tidbits about whatever cars they were driving.

 

Their new track is at an abandoned airport, though. Looks like they have three runways they might be able to use.

Google Maps

 

I really enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed the ending.

 

Nice find! Didn't even think to look it up.

EDIT: Looks like the old main runway was about 6,000ft and the new tracks main runway is about 4,500ft.......so they'll have to break a bit sooner

-Kevin