by John Tillyard, Contributing Writer
Jeremy Clarkson is back for a second season of his documentary, Clarkson’s Farm, covering his attempt — emphasizing “attempt” — to run his farm in the Cotswolds. Returning for the second season are farm worker Kaleb Cooper, the incomprehensible Gerald Cooper (no relation to Kaleb), cheerful Charlie Ireland, and Clarkson’s girlfriend, Lisa Hogan.
When the first season of this series dropped on Amazon Prime, I had zero interest in watching it because, like most of the British public, I think Clarkson is a bit of a tit. But then people who dislike Clarkson even more than I do were saying how good the series was, so I gave it a watch and enjoyed it. The main reason it works is that it embraces the fact that Clarkson has no idea what he was doing, coupled with characters like Kaleb and Charlie constantly calling him out on his incompetence. But can something like that work for more than one season?
Early in Season Two, I was worried it would be a rehash of the previous season. It picks up nearly a year after the end of the previous season, which means it is harvesting time again. So anyone binging these two seasons back to back will see harvesting followed by the next year’s harvesting. Couple that with the central dilemma being the same as the previous season — the crop is too moist — and it all feels too similar. Fortunately, this is the only part of the season that feels this way. The focus in the remaining seven episodes is all new aspects of running a farm.
I’m unsure if the decision to take nearly a year off from filming was due to COVID. Still, I think it serves the content of the series well, because by the time the film crew returns to the farm, the first season has dropped, and there is noticeable backlash from the people of the nearby village of Chadlington due to a large amount of traffic there has been for the farm shop. It becomes an extra complicated in Clarkson’s attempts to expand the farm’s business by opening a restaurant.
Like the previous season, Kaleb ultimately steals the show with his annoyance at Clarkson’s inability to do basic farming (if you enjoy Kaleb in this series, you might be interested to know he has written a book titled, The World According to Kaleb). I particularly love how Clarkson often doesn’t even seem that fussed. In one scene, he messes up trimming a hedge along the side of a road with his tractor. Despite, as usual, not being able to understand Gerald, Clarkson can work out that he doesn’t like the job he’s doing. Then after another telling off from Kaleb, and being told to leave before he makes things any worse, Clarkson casually remarks, “I didn’t think I was doing a bad job.” There are also many times when Kaleb abruptly shows up to Clarkson doing a lousy job and, for a moment, gives him a look to say, “What the hell are you doing?” before laying into him with a proper telling-off. These are some of the most enjoyable parts of the series. Clarkson and Kaleb’s camaraderie together is very compelling. I’ve heard some people ask if they are father and son. There is even a moment where Kaleb messes up, and Clarkson sees the chance to turn the tables on him.
If the first season was sheep season, this one is cow season, as Clarkson looks to open a restaurant at the farm with an all-beef menu. It’s an exciting process to see the different stages of birthing and breeding cattle, as well as the difficulty of getting the cows pregnant in the first place. On top of that, there are issues with badgers in the area, potentially giving the cows tuberculosis.
Later in the series, Clarkson and Charlie work together through various red tape obstacles to try and get the restaurant built and be up and running in time for the summer season and deal with an ongoing problem with traffic to the farm shop. It was probably the most stressed I have ever been watching a documentary, and I found myself incredibly engrossed in the building and running off the restaurant. Some viewers have pointed out that the later part of the season doesn’t have much to do with farming. There is displeasure from some for the focus on starting a restaurant, as there are already tons of documentaries about restaurants; this is true, but what are they supposed to do if that’s the direction Clarkson decided to take his farm business while the documentary crew were there?
Certain parts of the series feel a little self-indulgent, and I also thought they were going out of their way to show Clarkson’s difficult life. After two seasons, the novelty of laughing at the antics of Clarkson being hopeless is starting to wear off. There are only so many times it can be funny to watch him get annoyed at Charlie bringing bad news, argue with Lisa, have no clue what Gerald is saying, or not know what to do in his tractor. This same-y feeling about the series may be why they have confirmed that the next season will be the last. But at its heart, the series continues to show the different farming areas and explain how and why it’s not as easy as you might think. Furthermore, there are just as many times this season as there were last that I found myself laughing quite hard.
Score: 8/10
Clarkson’s Farm is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video
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