Episode 1: The Next Generation

Episode Summary & Review

The handover episode. The new trio pitch up at Clarkson’s Cotswolds pub, The Farmer’s Dog, wander into his butcher shop Hops & Chops, and ask for the Grand Tour tent back. Clarkson sends them off with three words of encouragement: don’t mess it up. From there the season proper begins in southern California, putting the newest American performance metal through the Mojave, drifting past the sunken weirdness of Bombay Beach, borrowing Jenson Button for a lap at the Thermal Club, and closing with a relay race against a team of aerobatic jets.

Our take: the cleanest possible passing of the torch. The pub scene is genuinely funny and a little emotional, and the California photography is stunning. The presenting still feels rehearsed in a way Clarkson, Hammond and May never did, but the car testing is proper Throttle House territory and Bourgeois’s glee is irresistible. A solid start that earns the next five hours.