The Grand Tour

The Grand Tour Episode 13: A Not So Final Finale

This week’s episode was the last in the series, and the tent is stationed in Dubai. The view reminds me of the Bellagio fountains in Vegas, the fountains being very similar and decorous for the occasion of ending the series.

After some here and there about how far Dubai has come in the last twenty years we got down to the nitty gritty of modern hatchbacks. There’s still some debate over the electric versus petrol powered vehicles, but nowhere does this get more serious than in your small hatchback range, such as with the contenders, the BMW i3 and the Volkswagen Golf GTi. In the end, we learned exactly the same thing that we had learned in the Top Gear episodes that tried to get this across as well: With an electric car, you’re going to be stopping for charges and taking longer to charge than if you were in a gas powered vehicle. Electric batteries simply don’t have the sustained range one needs to make long journeys. And those journeys, because you have an electric vehicle that takes an hour to charge to go so many miles, are going to take longer and you consistently run out of charge over the course of the trip. But one was rewarded for their diligence in viewership.

“Waiting for them at their destination in Devon would be Who singer Roger Daltrey, crooning in a pub just for their benefit.” Ed Power, Telegraph UK

Richard Hammond was something of the star of the show this week, as much of the film shown featured him. Once, in a Celebrity Brain Crash escape, where he cleverly raced a Bugatti Veyron in the Porsche 918, and again where he admitted he didn’t know how to drift a car, then went to France to learn how.

Once he does learn how, he goes back to England and shows off his skills against a man with no arms and a boy. That’s right, a man with no arms and a kid without a license to drive go up against “driving god” Richard Hammond in a drift contest. I’d give you three guesses to who won, but I don’t think you’d guess correctly.

In the end, for this episode being the finale, the general consensus seems to be that the viewers expected more. The premier was an explosion, literally and figuratively. The finale, however, was understated, to put it nicely.

“It started amid a high-octane rumble of expectation, but after 13 episodes has gone out on something of a quiet note with far less incident, controversy, or even talked-about moments…” Nadia Khomami, The Guardian

But whether the purpose was to say they’d made their point already, or just an attempt to be mature, it doesn’t really matter. The Grand Tour will be back. The antics will continue. The wow factor will be there. And we will enjoy it.

I give this episode a 4 out of 5 bald tires, as I most likely will be watching this episode again, if only to refresh my memory for the new season.

Related Articles

2 Comments

  1. This was the best episode by far. They seemed much more comfortable in themselves, close to being an episode of good old top gear without all the fake TGT crap.

    1. yes, you, some of the GT CRAP was fake and tiresome… still, worth waiting for each Friday… Look forward to next season… As for new TG, yawn, no desire to watch it…

Back to top button