Hansen
The Grand Tour’s episode 10 titled “Dumb Fight at the O.K. Coral” is now available for your viewing pleasure on Amazon Prime. Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May flew over to Nashville, Tennessee for this episode and came out alive! We gave it a watch and baked the following SPOILER filled cake for you. And yes, Clarkson pees in the ocean for this episode.
Dumb Fight at the O.K. Coral
Let’s first start by saying we are big fans of old Top Gear when these three stooges were manning the show. The program about cars was a delight to watch, and the adventures they went on were quite memorable and hilarious. When these three signed up for The Grand Tour we were warned that this new show was going to be about three old men acting like children, while cars just happen to be on the screen.
[button color=”red” size=”medium” link=”https://www.shiftinglanes.com/news/its-official-say-goodbye-to-another-piece-of-top-gear/” icon=”” target=”false”]Say Goodbye To Another Piece Of Top Gear[/button]
With that said, if there was one episode that could be dropped from the entire first season of The Grand Tour, this one is it. The Desert Stumble episode comes in a close second place. When we watched that episode we got a sample of what Clarkson, Hammond, and May might be like when they’re not talking cars. It turns out that while their chemistry is still on point, the scripting can feel borderline cringeworthy.
With Dumb Fight at the O.K. Coral we got to see The Grand Tour Trio attempt non-car related adventures again. This time they tried their hand at marine life conservation. This being a show about three old gentlemen acting like boys while being around cars, naturally there had to be cars. So they used five used cars, that have been stripped completely to its bare metal, as a means for shelter for fish and for coral to grow.
We’re noticing a pattern with The Grand Tour that we’ve seen on old Top Gear before: Bring attention to real world problems while providing very poor solutions to said problems.
[button color=”red” size=”medium” link=”https://www.shiftinglanes.com/videos/review-dont-watch-the-grand-tour-special-you-will-die-from-laughing/” icon=”” target=”false”]The Boys Tries To Save The Rhinoes[/button]
As per the recipe, the hilarity of the show stems from these guys trying their best to do what seems like a very simple task: Sink a car into the ocean. Throughout, we got to see the typical caricatures. James May was the engineer in the room, Richard Hammond was always panicking, while Jeremy Clarkson is never wrong. It turns out transporting the stripped cars was a lot more difficult than these guys signed up for.
The constant fumbling, mishandling of equipment, and general jumping into the water because whatever they were standing on just disintegrated, is a treat to watch. Unfortunately, a lot of this segment was filled with fluff to fill the time. Seeing Clarkson and Hammond enjoying water sports while May is stuck in a diving suit, or seeing Clarkson abandon his mates to see Team Concise, the UK’s fastest offshore race boat, was disappointingly unbelievable. It had us asking “What’s this episode about?”
Combined with the show’s ultra long and chatty opening, staged fighting, and dull Soccer vs. Football discussion, this episode was quickly becoming the worst one of the season, potentially of all time. The only saving grace was the segment on the Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio.
[button color=”red” size=”medium” link=”https://www.shiftinglanes.com/general/italian-muscle-alfa-romeo-giulia-quadrifoglio/” icon=”” target=”false”]It’s Not Quadriplegic, It’s QUADRIFOGLIO[/button]
Much like the other car review segments, this one was prepped with excellent Clarksonian editorial, shot with dramatic camera angles, and driven on one of the world’s best road and world’s best backdrop. The white Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio, with its strangely tiny front doors and shaky engine, looked amazing. The Grand Tour did a wonderful job in this department, as always.
After the airing of The Desert Stumble, reviewers from all corners of the internet, yours truly, came out and blasted the clumsy episode. Jeremy Clarkson responded to everyone by hinting that they might get disappointed again in the Barbados episode. The silver lining to this is remainder of this season should be excellent. As Jeremy hinted at the end of this episode, the next one has the trio going to northern France with three old cars. That should be a great one and we can’t wait to see it.
What did you think of “Dumb Fight at the O.K. Coral”? We want to hear your thoughts.
Leave a reply