There are a few good visual sequences in this episode. The iron ore train at the beginning is pretty impressive.
Titled, with their usual schoolboy humour, Sand Job (Seamen, Massive Hunt, etc.), this is rumoured to be, poss’, the last Grand Tour ever. Sad. So here’s to enjoying it, while it lasts.
Jeremy Clarkson has said on this show, in a previous Special (?), that he’s ‘never as happy as I am in a desert’. This episode takes place in Mauretania.
The trio drive their stoopid cars through a segment of The Sahara. In a kind of low budget partial Paris Dakar rally. As usual, I don’t really care about the vehicles. The fun is watching these clowns goofing around in exotic locations.
These ‘special’ style episodes are the best aspect of The Grand Tour. Mostly ‘cause they’re mildly interesting and mildly exciting travelogues. A welcome dose of no expenses spared globetrotting fun, quite attractive for the penniless sofa-bound traveller by proxy.
This episode has Jezzer fretting over Ebola (remember the Ebola-drome test track?), land mines, African war-zones, and the lack of alcohol in Muslim countries, such as Mauretania.
Hammond is his usual chirpy self, May his normal slightly clever slightly curmudgeonly persona, and Jezzer’s the big n’ beefy naughty public schoolboy, who simply refuses to grow up.
Frankly, they face better challenges in other episodes, frankly. This isn’t the best of The Specials. But it’s ok. And for me, with this show, that’s alright. So, kind of business as usual?
As well as beaucoup (or encore?) le desert, they visit towns and cities: starting in Choum, they visit Chinguetti (famous for its ancient libraries, and busily being gobbled up by The Sahara), Nouakchott, and very nearly get to Dakar… ‘and on that bombshell’, almost too literally, it all ends.
As a wee footnote, here’s a piece in The Independent about Jezza. It came up when I was trying to find which Special it was in which he said words to the effect of ‘I’m never so happy as I am when I’m in a desert’.
Clarkson would almost certainly be utterly contemptuous of the ‘tofu eating knit your own muesli’ vibe in the linked piece. And it is pretty awful and pathetic in some respects.
But it also touches upon genuine problems, re his loutish bully-boy ignorance, and problematic position as public figure, and therefore, to use the current parlance, influencer.