Oh my. The Grand Tour - formerly Top Gear - has officially confirmed it will begin screening from November 18.
The Grand Tour episode one - a strong, albeit familiar, start
Accompanying this announcement is a 30-second teaser, part highlights, part scene setter and tension builder. And while you’d rather hope Messrs Clarkson, Hammond and May plus team had managed to rustle together 30 seconds of decent coverage in the past 12 months or so, it looks absolutely sensational.
Yes, it’s as plain as plain can be that nobody has tried to reinvent the wheel - Clarkson shouts, Hammond looks excited, May looks wryly amused, there are flames, slow motion shots of wheels spinning and big cinematic shots of supercars and hypercars.
But there’s also drama, excitement and a lavish quality to it that screams ‘we know what we’re doing, and we’re going to do it bigger and better than ever before’. It’s quite an achievement to make that statement in 30 seconds, but watch it and judge for yourselves.
Personally - and I feel oddly compelled to apologise before I write this, because it's not fashionable to admit to liking these things - I cannot wait.
No doubt the comments section below will fill up with naysayers, but I’m not among them.
The car industry thrives on exposure, and while The Grand Tour crew have plenty of history for often offending and occasionally cocking it up, having three bona fide, cut-me-and-I’ll-bleed-oil blokes on screen, and a team of people who share the same quality behind the scenes, counts for a lot. They live and breath the subject and they do an astounding job of conveying that fact, which is a pretty good head start over some oppositon.
I’m over-excited of course, and the real challenge lies in making show after show that is just as compelling, visual and exciting as this tiny video. But this clip alone has given me hope that car shows on television really can thrive. My Amazon Prime subscription is bought and paid for, and I can't wait.
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Christmas is coming.....!!!!!!!
No excuses
Is success really so hard to accept?
BBC should have fired that lazy producer that did not do his job (he had ONE job, to fix warm food), which unfortunately was too much for a genius with very low blood sugar to handle. And they should have given Clarkson and Co at least 50% of BBC's annual budget so they would stay. It would have saved BBC and England.