I've been a massive fan of Jeremy Clarkson's for years. "Top Gear" used to be one of my comfort shows, and watching him run around with James May and Richard Hammond was one of my favorite things to do, especially episodes where they traveled abroad.
When the trio went to Amazon after Clarkson was fired from "Top Gear" by the BBC, and the other two quit, I watched "The Grand Tour" religiously. Little did I know that both "Top Gear" and "The Grand Tour" wouldn't be my favorite thing Clarkson ever did.
The man would go on to create a show called "Clarkson's Farm," which I originally ignored when it first came out. It's a decision I'd come to regret, but when I finally got around to it, I was rooted to the couch.
Clarkson could make reading the phonebook entertaining, so watching him try to learn to farm was so fun that I couldn't get enough of it. What's more, he brought out the characters of those around him, and soon many of them, like Caleb, became famous in their own right. Not only that, the show was educational in the best kind of way. It showed you the difficulties, successes, tragedies, and untold intrigues of farming.
The show was both familiar and completely original, and what's more, it feels like an event. Since the invention of streaming, television no longer feels like something we collectively experienced and talked about at the water cooler the next day. "Clarkson's Farm" is one of those shows, though. I've been asked on more than one occasion by a friend or family member if I've seen the latest episode, an answer that is usually always "yes."
I think we love it so much, not just because Clarkson's constant attempts at improving anything he touches, like he used to do to his cars on "Top Gear" and "The Grand Tour," but because he makes it all so relatable. He's taking the things that we all deal with constantly, such as dealing with overbearing bureaucracy, bad weather, or horrible luck, and making you feel like you're not alone.
We gravitate toward the show because it's fun, and we feel like we're welcome in it.
*Language Warning*
Clarkson is relatable and does it without trying or pretending.
Now, here's an interesting piece of news that recently came to light.
Behold!
And on that bombshell… pic.twitter.com/j3ynkX2ysL
— ClarksonsFarm (@ClarksonsFarm1) June 16, 2026
The numbers don't like. "Clarkson's Farm" is pulling in somewhere around four to five million viewers, and in a matter of days, as reported by Deadline. Meanwhile, Amazon's atrocious "reimagining" of Tolkien's universe with "The Rings of Power," which cost $1 Billion to make, pulled in 3.2 million viewers and then experienced a massive 60 percent drop-off on season two.
As reported by That Park Place:
The Luminate TV and Film Report for 2024 paints a grim picture for Amazon’s The Rings of Power, with season two performing a staggering 60% worse than its predecessor. Despite Amazon’s efforts to spin the narrative, the billion-dollar series appears to have been abandoned by a significant portion of its audience, cementing its place as one of the most costly entertainment failures in recent memory.
I think this is a very telling piece of information, and it's something I've been highlighting lately.
People don't want corporate creations that seem to be geared more toward pleasing people with a socio-political itch to scratch and lorded over by HR departments. It feels fake, sterile, and most importantly, unrelatable.
This is one of the big reasons YouTubers have been dominating over corporations lately in the entertainment space, and not just on the website itself, I mean, the YouTubers who actually get picked up by lower-end studios and put out movies of their own.
Read: A Starvation of Creativity and the Era That's Ending It
It's amazing to me that a major corporation can purchase the rights to a very popular character you've known all your life, and then when they create something "for a modern audience," you fail to recognize the character at all.
Yet, people turned on "Clarkson's Farm," never having met any of the ancillary characters, and yet you feel like you've known them all your life. You relate to them in a big way, and you realize that even if the show didn't have half the budget it did, you'd probably still watch it because you actually feel something for these people.
A billion dollars doesn't buy relatability. Nobody wants safe and sterile.
