Critic Reviews

There’s no doubt that Clarkson is one of the best motoring journalists on the planet and it’s in this expertise and not his increasingly flabby prejudices that his true wit lies. The producers obviously think we need some more of the latter, however.

Clarkson, Hammond, and May’s chemistry and on-camera talent can’t be denied. They are very good at what they do, and the show itself would be innocent fun for car buffs and reality fans alike. But the question The Grand Tour invites in, with its brash mockery of past controversy, is how comfortable you are watching arrogant, wealthy, white men traverse the globe in insanely expensive toys and behaving like 12-year-old boys.

Clarkson, Hammond, and May’s love for machinery--and what human machinery indicates, which is adventure and expansiveness--is still present, pure, and appealing, even with the shift in networks and formats. ... Its ethos is also wrapped up in Clarkson’s glee at having escaped punishment, and in his mockery of the Prius and the bicycle for not being devoted to consuming fossil fuels as quickly and loudly as possible. The show is an embodiment of the self-righteousness of wrongheadedness.

Time to gingerly crack open the shed door and see what they’re up to in there. Nothing of great note is the answer, at least in the opening episode, which takes the barnacled bros to Detroit to mess about in muscle cars. As always, it’s lushly filmed, with a fine eye for a startling location.