The Grand Tour Surprises With Two Part New Years Special
Going against conventional streaming again, The Grand Tour announced they are dropping a two-part special to end 2016!
The gang at The Grand Tour wanted to make one more headline before the end of 2016. Having dominated the year’s car show landscape, they are making another splash to end the year. A two-part special that premiers on Friday and Saturday.
It seems that Richard Hammond, Jeremy Clarkson, and James May are heading to Namibia for a grand adventure. The preview of them crossing the expansive sandy landscape in off-roading buggies is a reminder why we loved Top Gear so much. What could go wrong with three aging Englishmen crossing the South African frontier?
As much as I have enjoyed The Grand Tour so far, the show needed to break away from the studio. It would have been hard to imagine it surviving staying with the tent format every show. Every list of Top Gear favorites was dominated by their specials. Well, The Grand Tour wants to give the fans what they want.
In all the rumors leading up to The Grand Tour’s premier, one was the BBC telling them they could not do a Christmas Special. Long a Top Gear tradition, the holiday specials became a staple. Well, this is not a “holiday special”, it just happens to air between Christmas and New Years! Not to mention that last week’s episode was Christmas themed, there can be no confusion.
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It remains to be seen if they do a special a series or just occasionally. The idea of two-part specials released daily is interesting for a streaming series. Again, The Grand Tour led by three old guys is shaking up the streaming format. I would not be shocked if this was just a thumb in the face of the BBC. All I know for sure is the preview of the special looks incredible. Having filmed all the shows in 4K, all the viewers with new 4K Christmas TV’s will get an even more spectacular view of the guys traversing the African desert.
Having just wrapped filming of the first series in Dubai, this has to be an especially great holiday for The Grand Tour family. By all means, the show has been a resounding success. While ratings are not available, the social media impact has been huge. The launch of The Drive Tribes has generated a constant buzz around The Grand Tour landscape. The risk Amazon took in the show seems to be paying off.
For those of us in the USA, we get the first part of the Namibia special at 7pm eastern standard time on the 29th. Having the second part on December 30th saves the day with nothing but bad college football bowl games on. Leave it to a trio of Brits to save the day.