Grand Tour Season 2 Ep 1 available now

Anyone else watching the trio kick off?

Yep.  Standard stuff from the boys, pretty entertaining.  This one includes Hammond's incident in the Rimac.

Not too bad.  One of the guests was kind of a surprise.  

Yeah, speaking of guests, IMO the news is good and bad.  The good news is that they dropped Celebrity Brain Crash.  The bad news is that they found away around the BBC's copyrights and are doing actual celebrity interviews again.  CBC may have been stupid, but at least it didn't waste 10 minutes of screen time with inane "interviews".

Standard protocol from the boys. Still not a fan of the guest interviews. I ended up fast forwarding through that part. The rest was quite good though. That Rimac is fuggin fast. 

I guess I know what I'll be doing tonight.

I am waiting for the consensus from the hive. GT was such a diabolical suck-fest that I don't want to ruin my outlook of the three any more if this sucks too. 

I know cbc and The American are gone. Is it watchable now?

I thought it was excellent--as a tv show, not as a car show. I even thought the interview was great.

sweet, thanks for the heads up.  been too sucked into Fallout 4 again lately to pay much attention to the latest tv programming. 

I was turned off by the first season.   It’s just more of the same. 

I haven't watched it yet but I actually enjoyed many of the interviews on Top Gear so I am glad they brought that back.

I watched the first episode of last years series, thought to myself, "This is worse than the last few years of Top Gear" and checked out. Their schtick is aging like warm milk.

I'll check it out tomorrow early sometime.  Please be better than season 1.  (Coming from a guy with all available seasons of Top Gear on DVD, 11-20something)

I had forgotten about the rimac crash. I had a total oE36 M3 moment when Hammond kited it

The celebrity segment has the potential to be really awesome when you get some solid drivers behind the wheel.

"Traction control off.....no Traction control on actually". ...That was a good episode. I liked that they owned up to Celebrity Brain Crash being terrible, I dig the new track with gravel (for reasons). And I didn't realize how much after the finish Hammond crashed.

In reply to Jerry :

I was surprised by this too.  It seemed like he had plenty of time to slow down... He just didnt... 

In reply to NordicSaab :

It was weird. The last in car shot was almost like Hammond had a stroke or something. Just totally blanked. 

A big step up from the first episode of last season. If you declare it's not good enough for your time without checking it out, you're the only one who's losing out. I'm looking forward to the rest of it, and not just because they were in my stomping grounds filming with old Jaaaaaaags.

I'd love to know, from all the "it's not as good as it used to be" people - what's the best episode of Top Gear? I've been reading that it's not as good as it used to be for years, and I've seen every episode. Tell me how good it used to be.

Anybody else notice the reworked theme song?

Streetwiseguy said:

I watched the first episode of last years series, thought to myself, "This is worse than the last few years of Top Gear" and checked out. Their schtick is aging like warm milk.

That's where good cheese comes from, so it's not a bad thing. Take the time.

I enjoyed the first season. Maybe not enough to watch it again but it was no worse than most of what passes for prime time tv in recent years.

The second season had a better start for sure. CBC is gone which is good, interviews are back which I like, as well as the new track with it's unpaved bits. 

I recommend watching it. But then again I would recommend watching the  star wars prequels too...

barefootskater said:

I recommend watching it. But then again I would recommend watching the  star wars prequels too...

(Me too, with appropriate warnings at least.)

I'll probably wait until February to start watching just in case there is a several week "pause" in the middle...

Is there somewhere to stream the first season of the revised Top Gear with LeBlanc as host?

The new episode felt a bit long with just the big super car segment and a lot of talking. Those three are entertaining to watch no matter what they are doing.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

IMO the best seasons of TopGear are 12-15, with season 13 being my favorite.

We watched it last night and fast forwarded through the celebrity portion, which has always been painful since day 1 for me, even on Top Gear.  The rest was decent.  Watching that oaf Clarkson try to maneuver the Lambo through town was hilarious.