'The Grand Tour'..

Yeah Evans is annoying. LeBlanc is ok but I find him a bit dry and monotone.

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Originally Posted by BMKal

What they don't tell you is that many (some reports say "most") of their other shows are geoblocked and cannot be viewed in Australia. So - my understanding is that you can fork out their subscription cost - to effectively watch one program a week for as long as the season lasts. If you want to watch other programs on Amazon that your subscription would normally cover, and those programs are geoblocked - stiff ****.

:D

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Could you please post where you saw that information.

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Originally Posted by BMKal

Yep - I thought the same. The Grand Tour came across as the three of them taking up where they left off ............... except that they had a bit of difficulty in getting their celebrity guests onto the stage. :o

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Clarkson & Andy Wilman sold the right to most of the Top Gear format to the BBC back in 2012 (for more money than the GDP of some countries it is rumoured), so a lot of the Top Gear features & format are off limits to them now. This was because Clarkson & Wilman were making mad stacks of money from licensing and May & Hammond were being left out as they were not part of the production company. The BBC already owned 50% of their company, Bedder6, so when all the hosts' contracts were renewed the remaining 50% of that company was sold to the beeb putting all presenters on roughly similar contracts.

Some of the things that have been reported to be protected parts of the Top Gear format include:
- Having the show in a static location (hence the Grand Tour's mobile tent format)
- The Stig (we will probably be stuck with the overly talkative American for some time)
- Star in a reasonably priced car (it is possible that the whole celebrity interview segment is also protected so now the Grand Tour has fun just killing them off before they get into the studio).
- The cool wall (although this was quietly dropped several series ago)

It is likely as time goes on we will learn what else they have been legally prevented from doing. Probably by omission or just through obviously careful wording -and on that "major disappointment" (bombshell) it's time to end, for example.

The loss of most of the format is not actually a real loss since it has freed them up to fully refresh the show, and they now have more money than God so I don't feel sorry for them.

But I am not sure why Ben Collins was not chosen as their new Stig, since he doesn't have any love for the BBC. They have also used him for one of their Top Gear Live segments (see below).

https://youtu.be/rvt_4Uii5AU

Ben Collins appeared in a Grand Tour segment I saw on Youtube last week.

Episode 2 was pretty ordinary IMHO. Too much time spent on that SWAT thingy, and not enough on cars.

as an aside the boys from the Grand Tour have setup DriveTribe

sort of like twitter for automotive people..

i have setup a AULRO.com tribe

you can visit it here...

AULRO.com DriveTribe

sign up as i think it would be a handy thing if your out and about and need a hand or are just looking for more stuff to browse...

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Originally Posted by DiscoMick

Ben Collins appeared in a Grand Tour segment I saw on Youtube last week.

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If it's the clip I linked above, that was done for one of the Clarkson, Hammond & May live shows but it has been posted on their Grand Tour Youtube channel. No Ben Collins involvement in TGT as far as I know.

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Originally Posted by incisor

as an aside the boys from the Grand Tour have setup DriveTribe

sort of like twitter for automotive people..

i have setup a AULRO.com tribe

you can visit it here...

AULRO.com DriveTribe

sign up as i think it would be a handy thing if your out and about and need a hand or are just looking for more stuff to browse...

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Signed up to AULRO and there is a LR one further down, also an Overland touring one.

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Originally Posted by Ranga

Episode 2 was pretty ordinary IMHO. Too much time spent on that SWAT thingy, and not enough on cars.

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Certainly a different episode, but I did like it - although apart from that awesome Aston Martin there wasn't much on the cars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXeDeUjqPmo

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Originally Posted by Ranga

Episode 2 was pretty ordinary IMHO. Too much time spent on that SWAT thingy, and not enough on cars.

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to quote mr clarkson

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Hello everyone
Show two of the Grand Tour is very car light. And that happens again in the Barbados film later in the series.We do this on purpose to entertain the countless people who invariably say, when I sit next to them at a party, "I like your show but why do you put cars on it?"

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