I must admit, nobody is more surprised at the fact that Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May are still doing car programs together in the year of our lord 2022. Back in 2015, when catering issues caused the papers to have to dig down their thesauruses to look for a word that wouldn’t get them sued for libel (and ending in “fracas”), I thought that they would honestly be very close to the end. There’s only so many epic roadtrips in crappy cars, challenges involving hilariously ludicrous objectives, and similes so complex they make Blackadder’s writing look like a rushed first-grader project that a body can resist. And those limits get reduced the closer you are to being an actual pensioner (Jeremy Clarkson is about three or four years from that).
But their content has actually never been better. Clarkson’s Farm is a landmark show. One that somehow managed to turn Jeremy Clarkson into one of the most prominent advocates for the agriculture sector in the UK, no doubt to the surprise of many a farmer. James May’s travelogues manage to leverage his personality into an asset, never letting you forget that he is very much a fish out of water while at the same time using that same thing to make the content much more human. And Richard Hammond’s Workshop is…not on Amazon, which is a point against it, but at the very least it’s still some chill TV to have on if you don’t want lo-fi beats and can deal with the distraction of cool cars and cool people working on them.
However, all of these programs seem to have the rather surprising effect of making the Grand Tour Specials look a bit…pedestrian in comparison. It shouldn’t be burnout. After all, they have ceased doing multiple-episode seasons and now we’re only getting 1–2 specials a year, the ones they can squeeze between making gin, having a farm shop, and running other businesses. So even if we have seen the gags, they don’t necessarily feel dated and repetitive.
Their latest special, A Scandi Flick, somewhat helped me to hone in in what is it that makes them feel that way sometimes. And, at the risk of belittling hundreds of hours of work by what remain some of the best professionals in the business, it really has to do with the script. On this special, rather unfortunately, the scripted bits rather get in the way of the natural flow of the special. May’s well-publicized accident (and another that I will not share here for fear of ruining it for someone else) are real moments and so, you get immediately invested in them. You also get invested in them driving through a frozen, featureless wasteland…and then all of that goes out the window when, oh shock and surprise, the wasteland was actually a gift shop! And oh look, their harebrained idea for shelter is now causing them trouble Isn’t this hilarious?
Not really. Not anymore at least, it was back in 2009 when HD was new and “accidentally” parking at the bottom of the dam was unexpected. That ship sailed right after the *Costa Concordia*.
The worst that I can say about the special, and it is technichally a very good special with amazing photography, is that everyone involved in TGT knows how to do a much better special than this one. And they demonstrate it. but not here.
But on their last special, Carnage A Trois. Do not watch them back to back.
