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Jeremy Clarkson's Amazon Show To Be Called The Grand Tour (theguardian.com)
Jasper Jackson and Dugald Baird, writing for The Guardian: Amazon's new motoring show starring Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May will be called The Grand Tour. In a statement, the former Top Gear trio thanked fans for taking the time to send in their suggestions for the name, which they said were "much appreciated". "Thing is," said Clarkson, "we'll be travelling the world hosting each episode in a different country, from a giant tent. It's a sort of 'grand tour', if you like. So we've decided to call it The Grand Tour." May said he was underwhelmed by the name. "I wanted to call it 'Nigel', or 'Roger'," he said. "We needed a name, and they're names." Hammond was more positive. "I already love camping," he said. "But this is something else. We are like our pioneering and prospecting forebears, sallying forth into a new frontier of broadcasting, and making our home where."
No, they took 6 months to come up with the format of the show, figure out the logistics of filming it, and presumably start filming it. Now it's time to start hyping it in preparation of starting to air it later this year, thus they announce the name.
All we want to know is when it will hit Prime. What it's named is as uninteresting as watching Top Gear now that these three aren't on it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Considering Clarkson's record on international diplomacy and pissing off the natives, is a world tour really a good idea?
He only pisses off the natives that were already pissed off before he got there. Particularly those who lack any sort of sense of humor, perspective or ability to laugh at themselves.
It was May and Hammond who carried it, and maybe the other new presenters will carry Evans.
Jeremy was undeniably the star of the show but not in the usual sense. What really made the show work was the chemistry between all three of them. Jeremy was kind of a first among equals but take away May and Hammond and it just didn't work as well. That's a hard thing to replicate. Take the US version of Top Gear. All three of the hosts aren't Ferrera, Foust and Wood are all fine individually but they simply don't have the same chemistry as Clarkson, May and Hammond and the show simply isn't as good as a result.
The other thing that made Top Gear work and I think Clarkson was the driving force behind is because they didn't pull a lot of punches. Whether you agreed with their take on something or not, they definitely HAD a take and didn't seem to hold back much. Clarkson seems to be the driving force behind that. If they thought some million dollar supercar was crap, they said so. They didn't pretend to be fair, or objective or even competent but they did seem to say what they thought. Frankly their negative reviews were usually more interesting than their positive ones. Other shows like the US Top Gear version seem to be more hesitant to give a bad review, presumably for fear of pissing off advertisers or incurring lawsuits. But without those strong takes the show just isn't as good.
Bah! They should've gone with Gear Knobs, it's motoring related, self mocking and kinda close but no too close to the old name
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