Imagine you just drove 15,000 miles, and halfway through you realize you left the

bathroom sink on. The Long Way Down is a TV series documenting Ewan McGregor and
Charley Boorman embarking on a motorcycle journey from John O’Groats in Scotland to Cape
Town in South Africa in 2007. It is a follow-up to a trip the two took in 2004, from London to
New York via Eurasia and North America.
The show does a great job of showing a grounded approach to a travel show, where you
can clearly see the grittiness to the mission Ewan and Charley are on. The way they use helmet
mounted cameras really helps the viewer feel like they are on the bikes too. However, to me, this
show lost me once I looked deeper. With only 6 episodes, the show is more rushed, and that is
very clear from Ewan and Charley, who are constantly bemoaning their rush, and that they've
always gotta go, gotta keep pushing. The show takes a while to get started, and only really
caught me on episode 4 of 6. Because of the lack of episodes, each one has such a load to bear in
terms of plot, since the trip took 85 days, which mathematically suggests that each episode
covers roughly two weeks, which is a lot of time to cover in a 30 minute episode. Episode 1
mainly covers the start of the trip, and the complication that emerges when Ewan broke his leg
just weeks before their scheduled departure. Episode 2 covers the team crossing Europe through
France and Italy, and the U.S. citizens in the crew being denied Libyan visas. Episode 3 shows
the crew start to turn miserable after sandstorm after sandstorm, with enthusiasm quickly falling.
Episode 4 is where things start to get interesting, when one of the bikes breaks down in the
middle of bandit country, causing further increased tensions in the team. Episode 5 shows the
bikes crossing a wide muddy river, with Ewan seeing his first wild zebra. The finale shows the
team finally arriving in cape town, after 85 days and 15,000 miles. A few flaws with the show:
The helmet cameras quickly got covered with mud, obscuring the viewers vision of the african
landscape; and the show spent too much time focusing on the teams interactions with UNICEF,
which would be great in a bonus content menu, but takes up too much time on the show
constantly telling the audience they've gotta keep pushing and rushing to the end.
All in all though, despite these small small annoyances, I would give this show a definite
8/10. It's a great travelog that shows a grueling journey through a beautiful part of the world. The
show does have its flaws, don't get me wrong, but looking back on it, the show left a mark, and
reinvigorated my interest to buy a motorbike at some point in my life.