A tale of two car-shows ... or why I'm sorta giving up on TGT

Unfunny "comedy", over-reliance on scripted "mayhem", out of nowhere "controversial jokes" and general lack of originality (read: new ideas) aside, here's one of my main gripes with the new show. And I'm not ashamed to admit that it took me a while to figure this out.. ;)

The show is called "The Grand Tour", implying mobility, change of scenery, a certain sense of cosmopolitan attitude and "exploration". However: This whole premise lasts for about 5 minutes after the main titles have rolled in each ep. Map shows the tent's current location, presenters (or someone) drive past some local landmarks in three cars, then JC cracks some jokes about the current location to the studio audience's delight (or in some cases to the sound of a laugh-track).

And then we get to the first film which completely kills the "grand tour"-aspect of the whole concept. "Here we are in Memphis, TN ... and now for the new Alfa Giulia - which I've been driving in Wales!".


Considering the huge cost and work that's required to move the tent and all the equipment around (for one thing, they actually need two identical tents to pull off their schedule), I'm kinda flabbergasted that they use their "traveling circus"-gag for nothing more but a few visuals and cheap laughs on each show. It's almost as if they were producing two different shows and splicing them together in editing - hence the title of this thread. I mean: You could probably pull 90% of their films from their original eps and dump them into a different ep and it wouldn't make any difference.

Or what about the three cars we see during the credits? Why not use those as the centerpiece for a new, "local" standard-feature of the show? Put them into the studio and tell us about those cars, tell us why you chose them, tell us what they mean to you and how they relate to your current location, etc .. I'd swap something like that in for the mostly unfunny studio-banter and the terrible celebrity-BS in a heartbeat.

Plus there's the fact that the presenters don't seem to be on board with this whole "GT"-thing themselves. A lot of the time, they present the show as if they were still filming in the UK, with a British audience in the studio. Maybe this was to be expected ... I (being German) wouldn't dare to propose that I could talk to a British or a Spanish audience the same way I could to a German one. Languages aside, it's a matter of the culture you grew up in, shared experiences, etc.

Before this gets too long, let me close by saying that I do like the *idea* of a "grand tour"-carshow. Sadly however, TGT is one in name only.

Yes: It would probably be very difficult to fill each ep with films shot only in the country where the tent currently is deployed, but the show doesn't even seem to try to make good on the "promise" it gives us in the main titles.

If I were to wear my "super-cynic"-hat, I'd say the whole point of the tent and the GT title was to be able to produce Top Gear 2.0 with enough differences from the original in order to avoid legal troubles. As far as I can tell, the only people who really "benefit" from the tent-idea are DHL (who organize transportation) and the few hundreds guys who make it into the tent at each location as the studio-audience.


S.