A gentle, two-blokes-on-a-motorbike, travelogue concept, the Long Way shows have unfurled with four series over two decades, starting as tough-travel drama with Long Way Round. The fourth, Long Way Home, is the least ambitious, reflecting the aging of buddies Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman (who in particular has had horrendous off-show bike crashes), and chronicles a loop from Scotland up through Scandinavia to the Arctic Circle and back home via the Baltic States. With a consistent set of producers and directors (and support vehicle guys and cameramen), these shows have a pleasing familiarity to them. We see the two chatting on good bike days and bad bike days, we experience moments of drama, there is plenty of “interesting tourist stuff,” and the cinematography is superb (increasingly, of course, enriched through the use of drones). The ten episodes of Long Way Home hit few stirring pinnacles but are instead warm and fascinating. Comfort watching.
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