David Farnor | On 21, Nov 2016

The Grand Tour has become the most viewed Amazon original series to date.

The show, which premiered on Friday 18th November on Prime Video, sees ex-Top Gear trio Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May reunite for motoring shenanigans around the world, with episodes filmed as part of their global tour in a gigantic, roving tent.

Those tent-based studio segments have ranged from Johannesburg to California, Scotland to Rotterdam, Lapland to Nashville, Whitby in North Yorkshire to Stuttgart and a final stop in Dubai. The first episode kicked off in California, when Jeremy, Richard and James took their famous studio tent to Dry Rabbit Lake. Thousands of fans from across the US travelled to the desert near Lucerne Valley, outside of Los Angeles, for The Grand Tour’s very own Burning Van festival, which was part of the show’s opening.

Already, the show has broken viewership records on Amazon Prime Video, racing into pole position for site’s most-watched original premiere – taking the number one title from The Man in the High Castle.

Millions of Prime members streamed the first episode in the US, UK, Germany, Austria and Japan over the programme’s debut weekend. Additionally, on Friday 18th November, total new Prime membership sign-ups exceeded all previous days, with the exception of Amazon’s annual Prime Day.

Amazon says the show is receiving “unprecedented customer and critical acclaim”. Indeed, the show is the top rated TV show or movie on IMDb with an overall rating of 9.6 and over 10,000 votes, is rated 4.9 out of 5 stars by over 15,000 customers on Amazon, and has a score of 97 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.

“The guys are back, doing what they do best – the chemistry between Jeremy, Richard and James is what makes The Grand Tour so entertaining,” comments Jeff Bezos, Chief Executive Officer of Amazon. “Their creativity, along with the amazing production quality and 4K HDR streaming, has Prime members responding in a big way. Kudos and congrats to the whole team.”

Further episodes will be released weekly over the next 11 weeks on Fridays for Prime Video subscribers and Amazon Prime members in the US, UK, Germany, Austria and Japan. In December, the show will premiere worldwide for Amazon customers in over 200 countries and territories.

For our review of the first episode, click here – or to start watching the show, hit the button below.

Add to Watchlist