The Grand Tour (TV series)

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The Grand Tour is a British motoring television series for Amazon Video, presented by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May, and produced by Andy Wilman.

The four agreed to produce the series following their departures from the BBC series Top Gear with an initial agreement of 36 episodes over three years. Episodes are released weekly to those with Amazon Prime Video accounts, repeats of the first series began airing on traditional broadcasters in late 2017. As of December 2016 the show was made available to an additional 195 countries and various territories. Studio audience segments for the first series were filmed in the travelling tent between 17 July and 11 December 2016 in various countries, while for the second series the tent was stationed permanently in the Cotswolds. Series one was filmed over the course of mid- to late 2016 and premiered on 18 November 2016. Series two was filmed over the same time period the following year; however, filming was set back due to various illnesses and injuries suffered by the presenters. Due to this, it premiered on 8 December 2017.

In the days following the launch, "The Holy Trinity" became Amazon Video's most watched premiere episode. Overall, the show has received positive reviews from critics.

Video The Grand Tour (TV series)

Format

The Grand Tour is presented as a mix of pre-recorded television films and live-audience segments presented in a large tent to an audience of about 300 members. The show and its segments are hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May. The show is presented from a pair of large tents on a Grand Tour around the world. The presenters sit around a trestle table, with the studio audience seated in front of them.

Films

Each show is generally bookended by two television films, or two parts of the same film, produced by one or more of the hosts. Similar to the films from Top Gear, these may focus on one or more cars and their features, including how it performs on the test track. These have also included similar Top Gear-like challenges, such as building their own eco-friendly car chassis atop a Land Rover engine base and undergoing challenges sent by text message by their producer Mr. Wilman, unconventional races between the hosts in different forms of transportation, selecting and driving certain types of cars along a route in a foreign locale in the same manner as the Top Gear specials, or other motoring-related segments.

Test tracks

Eboladrome

The show has a dedicated test track called the "Eboladrome", at the former RAF Wroughton. Clarkson states in the first episode that the name is due to its shape resembling the structure of the Ebola virus.

It is designed to "trip cars up", according to Clarkson. Section names include the "Isn't Straight", "Your Name Here", "Old Lady's House", "Substation" and "Field of Sheep". In the first episode, the track was said to have been modified following the discovery of an unexploded Second World War bomb.

In the first series, the cars were driven by former NASCAR driver Mike Skinner, known as "The American"; Amazon had requested that their test driver be American, according to the hosts. "The American" was portrayed with a stereotypical redneck accent and viewpoints, and prone to tangential speech and calling several things communist. Due to poor reception, for series two Skinner was replaced by British racing driver Abbie Eaton.

Prior to the airing of the first episode the lap-board had been pre-populated with ten lap-times by a selection of cars. The laps themselves were not shown, only their lap-times. The first car to be shown, with an on-screen lap-time, was a 2016 BMW M2 with a time of 1:26.2 set by Skinner. The Eboladrome is also used for general filming and testing by the presenters, meaning that other vehicles - such as a Ferrari 488 used in episode one - may appear on the track, but do not set a lap-time set by the racing driver.

Enstone

For the second series, a new test track was created at Enstone Airfield, close to the fixed studio tent location, and which the production team had previously tried to use for Top Gear. The main Eboladrome track was planned to continue to serve for the testing of loud and fast cars.

Celebrity Face Off

Following complaints regarding the "Celebrity Brain Crash" segment in the first series, this segment was replaced by "Celebrity Face Off". Two celebrities join the show each week, with a similar background or connection and often from different countries, to see which one of the two is faster. The car used for this segment is a Jaguar F-Type R-Dynamic coupe, racing around a half gravel, half asphalt track at Enstone. Prior to showing the lap results, Clarkson interviews the guests.

Conversation Street

Introduced by Hammond using a car analogy to often take a left and park on the street, the trio discuss car news. Running jokes in the first series include Hammond "oversharing" intimate personal information, and Clarkson being cut off after asking "Can I talk about...?" before either Hammond or May introduce the next segment; frequently, the subject he attempts to raise is Alfa Romeo and their new cars. The video introduction to the segment shows the men, in silhouette talking animatedly: in each episode the silhouettes change in various ways. The music used in the intro is a jazz piece called "Heavy Berry" by Scott Robinson

Due to show specials this segment doe snot appear in shows 1.7,1.8 or 2.11

Running gags

The first series included several running gags. During the opening titles of each episode, a camera drone was destroyed. From episode three onward, one of the presenters' names is always seen misspelt during the opening. For "Celebrity Brain Crash", celebrity guests are humorously "killed" in an accident while making their way to the tent. After each "death", May asks "Does that mean he/she's not coming on then?" to which Hammond deadpans "No James, they're not" while bluntly outlining how "dead" the celebrity is. This element of the show reflects the BBC's efforts to stop The Grand Tour from interviewing celebrity guests, as had been the focus of the Top Gear "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" segment.

It was announced on 16 November 2017 that both "The American" and "Celebrity Brain Crash" would not be returning and will be replaced for the second series as they had been unpopular with the viewers. The segment was replaced by "Celebrity Face Off" in which celebrities compete for the best lap times around a new track in a Jaguar F-Type. Abbie Eaton replaced "The American", being billed as "Driver". Hammond's crash in Switzerland and Clarkson's pneumonia, both of which were talked about between series, are also often used as a joke.

Awards

Episode 4 of Series 2, Conversation Street was turned into an awards ceremony as this was the last episode of 2017. Clarkson, Hammond and May gave out awards (also known as the "Nigel Award") to cars and moments in 2017 on various aspects. The nominee and winners are:

Maps The Grand Tour (TV series)

Episodes

Series overview

Series 1 (2016-17)

Notes

Series 2 (2017-18)

Notes

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Production

History

Clarkson, Hammond and May had been presenters on BBC's Top Gear, both as part of the rotating hosts of the original, and permanent hosts for the 2002 rebooted series up through 2015. Under them, the show had an estimated worldwide audience of 350 million, and listed by Guinness World Records as the highest-viewed factual television programme. Due to several incidents involving Clarkson, the BBC chose not to renew Clarkson's contract with the show in March 2015. Both May and Hammond affirmed they would not return to Top Gear without Clarkson, even though the BBC offered them lucrative salaries to remain on for additional series. Along with their departure, their long-time producer and Clarkson's classmate Andy Wilman also opted to leave at this time. BBC retooled the show for 2016, bringing in new hosts Chris Evans and Matt LeBlanc.

Shortly after his separation from the BBC, Clarkson stated his intent to start a new car show, saying "I have lost my baby but I shall create another. I don't know who the other parent will be or what the baby will be like." Rumors that Clarkson, Hammond, and May were developing a new show through discreet meetings with various networks emerged starting in April 2015. These rumors pointed to a potential American broadcaster, as the terms of Clarkson's non-compete clause with the BBC stipulated he could not make a rival car show on a BBC competitor, like ITV. Among those that had been approached included Netflix, who felt Clarkson's team wanted too much money for what they were worth, and BT Sport, believing this show would be a better fit on a network with a more global reach.

In July 2015, Clarkson announced he had signed a deal with Amazon to develop a new car show that followed a similar format as Top Gear, with both Hammond and May joining him as co-hosts, and Wilman directing. The deal included 36 episodes across three series which would be available to Amazon Prime members starting in 2016. Wilman stated that Amazon promised them to have the freedom they wanted to make the show how they wanted along with the necessary budget. Additionally, by using a subscription-based service over an advert-based network, they would not be beholden to commercial pressure for their advertisers. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, said he was "very excited" about bringing this program to Amazon, and that producing the show would be "very, very, very expensive", but added, "[Clarkson, Hammond and May are] worth a lot and they know it." According to insider information reported by The Daily Mirror, Amazon paid GB£160 million for all three series. Wilman denied the show cost this much, but did admit the show was costly, partially due to Amazon's intent to have it filmed in 4K resolutions. The production of this show would be based in the United Kingdom, and done by W Chump & Sons, a company set up by Wilman, Clarkson, Hammond and May.

The show's name, The Grand Tour, was revealed in May 2016. Clarkson said the name brought to mind the tradition of Grand Tours, and reflected how the show would travel to several different countries to film. There was speculation that the show could be called Gear Knobs after a trademark application was made for that name by an associated company, but Clarkson stated in October 2015 that this would not be the title. He explained in April 2016 that the word "Gear" could not be used for legal reasons.

Initially, the show's format was to present individual television films, using location shooting without studio segments. They later came up with the idea of using a traveling tent to provide a mobile "studio", to go along with The Grand Tour name. They would be able to use local audience members, and would give the hosts the opportunity to explore the local culture around cars. According to Wilman, the idea to film audience segments in a tent came from Clarkson, who had seen an episode of True Detective that took place at a Baptist revival ceremony.

Legal issues

Wilman said that lawyers for Amazon were very mindful of any perceived similarities in segments to Top Gear, requiring changes to the format and regular segments. Named elements from Top Gear like The Star in a Reasonably Priced Car, the Cool Wall, and the Stig could not be used at all, but they also had to clear other legal concerns. For example, the lawyers said they could test cars on a test track, but they could not post the times using hand-written signs as they had done on Top Gear; instead, they used a digital leaderboard. Wilman said that some of the lawyers concerns "got funnier and funnier", such as whether May could say "cock", or whether during one of their exotic roadtrips, if they could stop and admire the scenery by saying "it's beautiful" as they frequently did on Top Gear.

Many outlets falsely reported that the BBC had explicitly told the crew they could not have celebrities come on the show and race around a track. This was later confirmed to be false, with the crew admitting that the real reason for the nature of the segment was a last-minute panic.

"Celebrity Brain Crash" was replaced in series two by "Celebrity Face Off" where two celebrities compete to be fastest around a track, avoiding the legal complications with the BBC.

Filming

United Broadcast Facilities (UBF) in The Netherlands won the contract for the outside broadcasting tent segments. Fourteen microphones are used for recording the audience reaction laugh track within the tent. The mobile studio audio setup uses Lawo mixing desks connected via MADI for live sound mixing, recording and talkback intercoms.

During the first series, the studio segments were filmed in various locations around the world. Studio recording for the first series began in Johannesburg, South Africa on 17 July 2016. Recording in the United States took place on 25 September 2016 in Southern California, with further recording taking place in Nashville on 21 November 2016. Studio recording in the United Kingdom took place in Whitby on 13 October 2016, with further recordings taking place at Loch Ness in December 2016. Further studio recording took place in Rotterdam on 22 October 2016 and Lapland on 3 November 2016. Stuttgart (Ludwigsburg) was also a filming location. The final studio filming took place in Dubai in December 2016.

For the second series, following Clarkson's pneumonia and Hammond's car crash, the producers decided that there would no longer be a travelling tent. Instead the tent would be in one location near Clarkson's home in the Cotswolds as this would be more convenient for the crew to operate. It also would be useful for new features such as Celebrity Face Off. In September 2017, West Oxfordshire District Council gave planning permission for three months of filming from a fixed tent location on the Great Tew Estate, near Chipping Norton. Two-hundred parking spaces already used for hosting the Cornbury Music Festival on the same site would be used to accommodate 350 guests per week, plus 80 members of staff. The time window allowed for the series 2 filming was between October and December 2017.

Promotion

Following the public naming of the show, Amazon offered new customers a £20 discount for their first year on Amazon Prime during 14-16 May 2016. A trailer announcing the release date of the show as 18 November 2016 was posted on the show's YouTube channel on 15 September 2016. A second, full-length trailer, was released on 6 October 2016. Trailers for series one have used the music "Come with Me Now" by Kongos., while series two trailers have used "Live and Let Die" by Wings.

As part of their marketing campaign, Amazon placed crashed Toyota Prius cars at Hackescher Markt in Berlin, in front of London King's Cross railway station, and on the Hollywood Walk of Fame outside the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

Sponsorship

In mid-2016 DHL began sponsoring the transport costs of the tent and mobile studio. In June 2016, in connection with the sponsorship deal, the presenters had uploaded videos of themselves attempting to assemble DHL-branded shipping boxes. The first episode stated that "promotional consideration" had been given by the Breitling Jet Team, DHL and Samsung. Eight of the Breitling Jet aircraft took part in the opening sequence flyovers. For episode 2, the list included 5.11 Tactical. A DHL Boeing 757 was featured in the opening sequence of episode 5, the tent was located in Rotterdam, and the DHL logo is featured on part of the crash barrier at the Eboladrome.

Technical Issues

During filming for some episodes in the second series of the show, the production team suffered major technical issues with the tent lighting, which threatened to derail filming. Nonetheless, all episodes were released on the correct dates, with all delays having been averted.

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Reception

As of November 2016 the show has received positive reviews from critics, with The Guardian saying "Jeremy Clarkson and co leave the BBC in their dust".

Daily Express TV reporter, Neela Debnath commented that the first episode "resembled a Hollywood blockbuster" and added that "[The Grand Tour is] basically Top Gear on steroids". However, BBC Arts Editor, Will Gompertz said of the opening that "there is no irony. It feels uncomfortably hubristic" but once the presenters were in the tent "Normal service has been resumed" and that "It seemed to me that Grand Tour is a TV show that wants to be - and quite possibly should be - a movie" The Independent described The Grand Tour as "the best of Top Gear but with a greater budget" TheWrap reported an estimate by Symphony Advanced Media that the opening weekend viewer count for The Grand Tour was three times the size of the opening weekend of The Man in the High Castle.

Episode 2 was somewhat less favourably received by fans and critics. The Telegraph wrote about the Jordan segment: "[...] a tedious action movie segment suggested that they were in danger of losing the run of themselves slightly and that Amazon's hands-off policy towards the production had potential downsides." Radio Times said that "many of the viewers were disgruntled to say the least, branding the show as dull and not funny."

Richard Hammond was criticised by Stonewall, Peter Tatchell, and Olly Alexander, amongst others, for a comment he made in episode six where he implied that men who eat ice-cream are homosexual. It was later revealed that the comment was an in-joke for the Finnish audience as a reference to a controversial TV commercial that aired in Finland.

The Grand Tour received a nomination in the Original OTT Streamed category at the 2017 Television and Radio Industries Club Awards.

Kevin Yeoman of Screen Rant gave the show a positive review, stating "Fans can rest assured Top Gear hasn't gone anywhere, it's just hiding out at Amazon under a different name." Sonia Saraiya of Variety was also positive of the show, stating "When it comes to the cars, The Grand Tour delivers gearhead porn in spades... Clarkson, Hammond, and May's love for machinery... is still present, pure, and appealing, even with the shift in networks and formats."

Conversely, in April 2017 Brad Anderson of CarScoops stated that he prefers Top Gear to The Grand Tour. According to Anderson, Top Gear had "become even better", whereas The Grand Tour "seemed more scripted, less natural and at stages, forced... attention is often skewed away from the cars as the presenters, namely Clarkson, seemed to chase controversy and headlines". Anderson continues that in-studio segments became repetitive quickly, particularly "Celebrity Brain Crash", also noting that all three hosts seem to spend far too much time needling each other, and test driver Mike Skinner offers no worthwhile commentary.

On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the first series of The Grand Tour has a "fresh" rating of 86%, based on 7 reviews, with an average rating of 8.0/10.

Digital Spy was positive of series 2, episode 1, calling it "An understated premiere for a show that feels like it's finding its feet." The Times was also positive, giving the show 4 out of 5 stars, stating "Some parts of the show are flat but mostly it works, the production values remain high and it has clearly been hit with a juggernaut of money." The Daily Telegraph, while not as positive, still approved of the episode, stating "The writing is still rather ropey. Clarkson's suggestion of a new nickname for May - "Dingleberry Handpump" - failed to raise a titter even among the super-fans gathered for the London premiere" but also said that "for each wobble, there are just as many moments when The Grand Tour manages the clever trick Top Gear could pull off at its best: raising a chuckle while sneaking in a bit of serious journalism at the same time." and ultimately gave the episode 3 out of 5 stars. Jeremy Clarkson himself believed that they had "hit the ground running with series 2 of the Grand Tour".

Radio Times has criticised the gender balance of guests on the "Celebrity Face Off" segment. There was only 1 woman guest in the episode "Oh Canada"; Paris Hilton.

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Broadcast

Australian free-to-air network Seven Network started broadcasting the first series of The Grand Tour in mid-October 2017.

French channel RMC Découverte started broadcasting the first series with the Namibian special episodes on 29 November 2017 and L'Équipe (TV channel) broadcast episodes 1 and 13 on 15 January 2018.

At the start of 2018 high-speed Eurostar train services between Paris or Brussels and London began to feature The Grand Tour as part of the available on board entertainment package.

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See also

• List of original programs distributed by Amazon
• DriveTribe, an automotive enthusiast website by Clarkson, Hammond and May.

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References

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External links

• Official website
• The Grand Tour on IMDb
• The Grand Tour's channel on YouTube
• Geographic data related to The Grand Tour's "Eboladrome" test track at OpenStreetMap
• Geographic data related to The Grand Tour's Enstone gravel test track at OpenStreetMap
• Quotations related to The Grand Tour at Wikiquote

Source of the article : Wikipedia