Too Good To Be True; The Grand Tour: Sand Job

“This is a Channel 5 thriller so we’re expected to suspend our incredulity by a few notches. But the tale is pacy and well constructed, and Charlie Hodson-Prior as Liam creates a believable motive for Rachel to want to escape her life of drudgery and fling herself into the arms of a millionaire.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“Too Good to Be True was never going to come close to True Detective: Night Country or The Tourist for originality, but its generic cogs were well oiled. In fact, there’s more than enough intrigue here to keep me watching, which is surely the point of any self-respecting mystery drama. And while the characterisation may have been skin deep (Rachel aside, I wasn’t sure I believed in these people), the storytelling was so tight and confident, it didn’t seem to matter.”
Gerard Gilbert, The i

“Juvenile programme title? Check. Snickering puerility? All present and correct. Clarkson’s dodgy jeans? Why, yes. We even got an opening joke from Hammond (possibly the least funny amigo, but a fan favourite to some) wondering whether Mauritania was in fact a made up country. Just imagine BBC editorial policy wrestling with that joke.”
Ben Dowell, The Times

“When the wide angles and the drones are let loose on the vast horizons of the Sahara the show’s production values touch the heights. Unfortunately it then plummets back down to a series of erection jokes that would flatter a primary school toilet wall.”
Benji Wilson, The Telegraph

“It’s perhaps no bad thing that health and safety has got its hands on The Grand Tour, especially as Clarkson and May are both now in their sixties. But the whole thing ends up feeling very camp; a pantomime enacted for middle-aged men. Which isn’t to say that ‘Sand Job’ is unenjoyable. For those who find the dispassionately third-person approach employed by most nature documentaries anaemic, The Grand Tour serves as a zippier depiction of humanity’s intersection with geography. A drone shot of a train pulling into Choum is as remarkable as anything David Attenborough could cook up.”
Nick Hilton, The Independent