I've watched the new series twice over now and have really enjoyed the new presenters.
The main thing that Amazon (presumably powered by Wilman and Clarkson's experience) realised that the BBC has utterly failed to take on board, is that you need real, dedicated, petrol-head nerds. You need car journalists, not just shouty 'tv presenters' who quite like Ferraris.
The Throttle House guys are exactly that. They know cars inside out, just like the three previous car journalists, Clarkson, Hammond, and May knew cars.
And, of course, Francis is a revelation! He's an absolute petrol-head. And he's also a diesel-head (if the diesel is a 2,000 HP Class 40 locomotive). And he can out-nerd James May six days a week.
My only reservation is how safe they played it: every episode felt like it could have been from the CHM era. I hope they did this deliberately for the first series, to ease the old fans in, and will innovate more as time goes by. I hope they will, I hope that it will become far more their show.
And I certainly have far more confidence that this will run for a few more series than whatever they're doing over at the BBC. We've all read the rumours that Jimmy Carr is in the running for the main host. Don't get me wrong, he's fine presenting '8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown' or 'The Big Fat Quiz', but does he really know very much about cars? There's a reason that Chris Harris was the best post-CHM Top Gear presenter, and it's nothing to do with what other TV shows he's presented.
4 Comments
kahjtheundedicated@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 4d
The 1st and parts of the 2nd episode felt a bit awkward, but it was fantastic for episode 3-6. The episodes felt very short to me, which is probably indicative that they were good enough to really hold my attention.
I do still miss the tent/studio and new car lap time testing. Maybe in the future they can work a bit of that in for a few episodes. But them being “homeless” felt more than a bit wrong.
Francis really shone, and I do like Thomas and James, but I don't think their review segments in The Grand Tour were as good as what they usually do on Throttle House. Which I find strange. In The Grand Tour, a lot of the reviews felt forced and overly scripted, which is odd, because their Throttle House reviews are certainly scripted. Maybe someone else wrote the scripts for the review segments in The Grand Tour? Idk, just weird that the YouTube videos feel higher quality than the big money Amazon production. Hopefully they’ll figure that out for the next series.
Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk · 4 pts · 4d
The first episode was certainly the one I enjoyed the least, but then I've never been much of a fan of the tyre-smoking hot laps in million pound hypercars. My favourite Top Gear episodes tended to be the 'budget' challenges.
Let's see what happens in series two because I'm sure it will be picked up for at least another couple of seasons.
kahjtheundedicated@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 4d
Oh yeah absolutely agree on the budget challenges. And while I do like the track testing/lap time board, I do realize there aren’t many drivers cars that aren’t ludicrously expensive anymore.
But I would like a few episodes per series that are a collection of a few smaller segments, more like the older Top Gear episodes. And I wouldn’t mind them using Thermal Club as their standard track, since they already have 3 lap times on that. It is a very wankery track, but they could definitely get some racing driver to flog a handful of notable cars around it once or twice a year.
Robomekk@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 4d
Yeah; I had seen enough Throttle House to know they likely couldn’t go wrong with Thomas and James.
Was just hoping that the choice of Francis would work well with the other two. Seems pretty good from what we’ve seen.
Hopefully this series runs on a more regular schedule with one season per year for a few years at least. Would love to get more episodes now.