>Clarkson continued: “I do hope, however, that my old mates who run the show can find a way of saving it. Because in these days of soft and cuddly eco-madness, we need programmes like it more than ever.”

Manages to do it in the most-assholeish way possible, which is what you'd expect.

That's pretty much its tone. If anything it gets slower in the second season. It's not an action show. If you were looking for the next Hannibal or such, this is substantially different.

Probably not, but it can't possibly be worse than just regularly mining and processing them. If they can get the small quantities of rare earth elements present in other deposits, say the copper or gold we're already going to be mining, and get them out in an economical way, that's still a net plus.

IMO, they're pretty average. There are better retellings of Arthurian fantasy, but there are also worse. I read them as a teenager in the 90s because they were one of the few series on the store's shelves, but I doubt I'd read them again with so much other and more accessible media available these days.

The only really interesting novel by Lawhead I've read was Byzantium, a story of Irish monks on a pilgrimage drawn into an extended series of adventures.