Picture this: You're the host of the most popular car show on television, and then you do some stupid things that get you fired—deservedly. What do you do now—and what becomes of your loyal audience? If you're Jeremy Clarkson, you find someone with a huge pile of money and talk him into paying you millions of dollars to re-create your car show and stream it on a website, that's what.
If you’re Jeremy Clarkson, you find someone with a huge pile of money and talk him into paying you millions of dollars to recreate your car show and stream it on a web site. Then you talk your two former co-presenters and show producer into going along with you—also for millions of dollars.
What about the loyal fans? Well, someone has to pay the multi-million-dollar salaries of Clarkson and company, and that someone is everyone who ponies up $99 a year for an Amazon Prime subscription. If you already have Amazon Prime, then it’s essentially free. If you don’t, and you will never order any merchandise from Amazon.com that offers free shipping with Amazon Prime, the question is whether twelve episodes of The Grand Tour each season are worth $99. Of course, The Grand Tour isn't the only original programming on Amazon Prime, but you get the idea.
Being streamed on Amazon Prime means viewers with Prime subscriptions can watch the program on their computers (be careful at work), or on their mobile devices, or on their home televisions if their home televisions have an Internet connection or can mirror their computers or they have an Amazon Fire TV Stick. No, the Fire TV stick is not included with Amazon Prime; it’s extra.
Since The Grand Tour is streamed, viewers are not slaves to a TV network’s broadcast schedule. Not that it was a huge issue anyway, what with digital video recorders and on-demand television and such. Still it’s nice that viewers may watch the show completely at their convenience on whatever device they choose.
So cost and viewing logistics aside, is the grand experiment that is The Grand Tour a success?
We’re not going to spoil the excitement of watching the first episode by telling you what’s in it. Let’s just say there are lots of cars, lots of dust, jet planes, a burning caravan, and the same three guys driving hot cars. And that’s just the opening sequence.
Clarkson and his pals James May and Richard Hammond seem unchanged by the transition from the British Broadcasting Corporation to Amazon Prime. They could have rehearsed their bits a little more (or at all), but we understand they might be a little nervous at the start of a huge project. We were somewhat underwhelmed by the News and celebrity driver segments, but they more than made up for it with their road test and comparison drives.
Again, we will not give away any results but the comparison drive featured a McLaren P1, a Porsche 918, and a Ferrari La Ferrari. Yes, three hybrid supercars.
Even more interesting to those of us with an inclination toward BMWs was the road test. For the inaugural show, The Grand Tour wisely and appropriately tested the BMW M2. The test track was, for lack of a better word, interesting. Not the kind of place we would normally hold a driving school or a club race, but—interesting. Since the Stig belongs to the BBC, The Grand Tour hired ex-NASCAR driver Mike Skinner to do the timed laps in the M2. That worked out about as well as you would expect.
The most surprising element of the show came when Jeremy Clarkson revealed to all the world his opinion of what is the best M car that BMW has ever made. No, we’re not going to spoil that for you, either.
Watching the premiere episode of The Grand Tour was like driving a car that’s no longer your daily driver, but you keep it anyway to take out on special occasions because it’s so much fun to drive. Watching The Grand Tour was fun.—Scott Blazey
[Photo courtesy of The Grand Tour/Amazon.]
