The Grand Tour (2026)

Bourgeois, however, is a trump card more than a wild card, fitting in perfectly by not so much overcoming his eccentricity as embracing it and making it empowering. .... It’s still three white blokes bantering about who’s got the most impressive engine, but within that conservative framework the presence of Bourgeois makes the show’s sense of humour feel new. All that aside, it’s pretty much business as usual.

After just six episodes, I don’t know these blokes anywhere near as much as I know the on-screen personalities of Clarkson, Hammond, and May, but I think I might like to, and that’s a very pleasantly promising restart.

The “car porn” that “Top Gear” heralded and that producer/creator Andy Wilman perfected is still very much an addiction for some. But the bloom has gone off that rose, and when it’s hot enough and the bees are dead, it won’t be blooming again any time soon.

For now, the trio makes for a decent, if slightly anonymous, presence. .... This is probably the right way to do it. The returned Grand Tour feels deliberately low stakes, as if all involved have realised that the best way to grow an audience is to simply let the show develop at its own pace.

It might sound like a strange complaint, but they’re also overly car-fixated, endlessly reeling off stats about cylinders and speeds. Sure, the originals were motoring journalists who knew their stuff, but they wore it lightly.

It is all rather safe. Engelsman and Holland clearly know each other well (the latter, a Canadian, is the most polished on-screen performer), but most of the charisma is left to Bourgeois. He might be an acquired taste (his enthusiasm for trains is either charming or irritating, depending on your cynicism levels), yet he clearly offers something distinctive.

Fresh new faces for the next generation. This series will surely anger old men and the boys who are infatuated with Clarkson, but damn if the reboot doesn’t nail that classic chemistry that young Top Gear brought to the screens. It blends new adventures and classic Grand Tour stories with new hilarious faces. Loved the Pagani vs the Eurostar and the Kei car episodes. This version of the show is a bit more accessible to a wider audience, while staying true to its core. I look forward to many more seasons with this trio! And for the skeptical, give it a chance! By the last episode you’ll want more.

Reviewer: Cody Hiebert — Totally Hypeless on Substack Score type: Hypeless Score, episode-by-episode, opinion only HYPELESS SCORE 50 SUMMARY Six episodes dumped in one shot, each reviewed immediately after watching. The verdict: this is a bigger-production Throttle House wearing a TGT doily — mechanically assembled, nicely funded, and missing the one thing you can’t order a replacement part for: chemistry forged under real pressure. The trio plays a two-person game with three people. Francis figured out that being weird, alone, is a dominant strategy; Thomas and James are pooled into one deferential signal that makes them invisible. The show isn’t about cars — it’s about guys having adventures in cars — and the reboot keeps making it about the cars. Episode 1 — “Mechanically, it is assembled, but…” — Dumped in a 6-episode trouser accident like an ill-advised midnight Taco Bell run: all the parts are there, in the way Taco Bell is vaguely food. The genesis anchor of Grand Tourism — three blokes, Botswana, beat-to-death cars — is absent. Three millionaires, ultra-wealthy metal, coma-inducing voiceovers. The presenters aren’t good enough actors to fake chemistry, so forge it: drop the budget, force interaction, add hardship. None of the replacements are arrogant and opinionated. That’s the problem. Episode 2 — “…Forgettable…” — Contrived, reductive, safe. TGT is affection through friction; a bunk alternator on a 370-mile drive is not friction. Missed friction points (an HR blow-out, an opinion that bites back) killed the episode’s one good opening. The geriatrics are retired; Prove the replacements deserve the drive [spot in the show]. Episode 3 — “Stackelberg, Not Chemistry” — Best episode of the run. Kei cars in Wyoming, Kei pride, the horn approximation. But: a “homogenous aus jus of stride finding,” voiceovers too polite for 66% British coverage. First formal diagnosis: not an escalation ladder, a Stackelberg game — Thomas and James arrived as a committed pair; Francis moved second and owns the leftover space. The fix belongs to the leader: take a real position, be willing to lose it. James is the swing vote. Episode 4 — “Why Politeness Is Killing the Reboot” — No one moved at all. An alpha in an Alfa was the symmetry of the season — and Thomas chose amiable again. Announced a position, then folded when the Subaru beat him: cheap talk, twice in one episode, on screen and off. The producers deleted the cost of losing; no rational player stands his ground in a game that pays nothing for conviction. Autoblog restated the thesis; the model is winning. The first laugh took ~3 hours and belonged to Hammond. Pitch: one real Grand Tour a year — ruined cars, 1,000+ miles, lap the old guard legitimately. Episode 5 — “The Lazy Nash Equilibrium” — “An abomination of epic proportions.” A 200+ mph car on speed-limited motorways, recycled classics on repeat, a writer’s-room Nash equilibrium of reduce-reuse-recycle that guarantees the mid-tier ceiling where Amazon shows go to die. The numbers: sub-65 Metascores average 1.6 seasons; 75+ averages 4.5. At 65, TGT sits on the S1–S2 cliff — softened only by its Unscripted-Originals category (70–85% realistic S3 odds). Best moments: Francis’s helmet-cam gag and the BMW history story. Everything else had the whiff of Wilman. Zero imagination. Episode 6 — “The Pooling Payoff” — The finale feels better and is genuinely different — but the “goodness” is scripting, undermined by a lack of acting chops. Thomas unremarkable, podiumed and still invisible; James could be sharp and fast but still in the Throttle tar pit. Final mechanics: this isn’t just Nash, it’s a pooling equilibrium — the twins send identical harmonious signals, the audience can’t tell their types, and only Francis sends a separating signal. You can’t talk two grown men out of a pooling equilibrium. You change the payoffs: ruin the cars, add an antagonist, make competence the only currency that matters. PROS: Francis — the only separating signal in the show, and it lands. Occasional genuine physical comedy (helmet cams)The underlying chassis: three real petrolheads with pedigree. Episodes trend upward in craft, if not in stakes/risk. CONS: Chemistry is scripted, not forged — casting pooled two identical archetypes. A leader who folds three challenges in a row. Zero stakes: no score, no forfeits, no table that carries overA YouTube comfort strategy running on an Amazon budget, exposed to renewal math. THE VERDICT: A tribute band cranking out the old hits with a different spin. Safe play has a ceiling: 65 Metascore, the middle of the highway to the danger zone. The fix was never more budget or more time — it’s friction with a price tag. Ruined cars, a finish line, an antagonist, and beat the old guard fairly. In racing, the drive isn’t given. It’s taken. Full episode reviews: Ep 1 · Ep 2 · Ep 3 · Ep 4 · Ep 5 · Ep 6 found on ****/s/essays

Where is the speed and the driving that gives you that adrenaline rush? Everything seems scripted and lacks spontaneity. It doesn't convey the sense of adventure I expected to see in this new generation of presenters; it lacks speed and adventure. And it lacks that sharp sense of humor. In short, it lacks everything that the classic trio had.

YAWN! GT as an offshoot of Top Gear worked on the chemistry of the trio. With the 3 new hosts, much like any of the plethora of new trios do not have any chemistry. What needed to happen was retool it to focus on new car reviews and let them and us develop chemistry and rapport. So the reviews of older niche cars is not interesting. I tried to watch and 3 minutes in I hit fast forward. Kept fast forwarding until I saw Jenson Button do laps, episode 1. Every other episode i fast forwarded through the whole thing. You cannot replicate challenges as you cannot compete with antics of the originals, Driving the Pagani on a challenge to get somewhere faster than a train uses what aspects of a Pagani? After "speeding" through the entire series in 15 minutes I do not remember anyones names and none of the bad jokes!

Where to begin… As everyone is aware, the GT worked because of the decades-long friendship between Clarkson, Hammond and May. This feels somewhat forced, similar to how Top Gear went post the original trio - the banter, the balance of car reviews without feeling like reading off of Chat GPT and the antics are natural, even in the scripted moments and I know Francis is very Marmite, personally, it feels wrong to have a “character” or alter ego on the show, why doesn’t he go by his real name and real personality, because if you look at early clips of his; this is all a persona.