Jeremy Clarkson now has a farm and restaurant that he’s tending to, and James May has a pub and also his own travelogue series with Amazon, while Richard Hammond has a car restoration shop that he seems really into. And yet, they still make new Grand Tour specials, even though they haven’t done anything original with them in years. I suppose I would too if Amazon paid me a lot of money to travel the world and dick around with my friends.
The latest is called The Grand Tour Presents: A Scandi Flick. It’s trailer was released Thursday, and, according to a tweet from James May, will be out September 16 on Amazon.
Clarkson, Hammond, and May spend the trailer making silly jokes, driving cars across ice and snow, and also towing unconventional objects to seemingly disastrous effect. They are treading lots of old ground, in other words, though my only question about this new special is that, if one is to go somewhere to dick around and make a dumb TV show with your friends, why go somewhere so unpleasantly cold? I’d rather do my mailing in from the Mediterranean, if one must. And it’s not like anyone at Amazon seems to care, because if they did they might push Clarkson, Hammond, and May to do something a little more interesting than what they have been doing.
I will still, in the end, watch Scandi Flick, because James May remains untarnished in my heart, though I expect I will watch it in the manner of background music, while doing something else, like gambling. As for Clarkson, Hammond, and May, I’m not sure if anyone would notice if after this they returned to their other hustles and never made another Grand Tour special ever again.