Critic Reviews

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.

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.

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.

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.