TARA S5 E7: This changes everything - or does it?

Hello again everyone, jiat pa-bueh? In this episode of TAR, we visit Singapore - my home town and a favourite with TAR Asia, US and Australia (too many episodes to name). Ironically, it's kinda weird watching this episode from London as I currently have my family from Singapore visiting me and so watching the episode made me feel somewhat nostalgic. Once again, JK and Mike triumphed in Singapore - winning two legs in a row despite having struggled so much in the earlier legs of the race. This is a hat trick only matched by Treasuri and Louisa who pulled off three wins in a row - does this change everything in terms of the dynamics of the race? Have JK and Mike emerged as one of the strongest teams? I usually save the statistics for the end of the review but I'm going to start with it this time.

TAR returns to Singapore (again).

The stats: average positions after 7 legs.

Treasuri and Louisa 2.29
Yvonne and Chloe   3.43
Eric and Rona          4.28
JK and Mike            4.57
Parul and Maggie    4.57

For those of you who thought everything has changed after Singapore - no, it hasn't really. Despite their stellar performance in the last two legs, JK and Mike are still statistically the (joint) weakest team because of their poor performances in the earlier legs of the race. Treasuri and Louisa are still the best despite a mediocre showing in Singapore only coming in third and the only team who can come close to them are Yvonne and Chloe. If you were to disregard's Yvonne and Chloe's disastrous 9th place finish on the first leg, that still gives them an average of 2.5 - which is a lot closer to Treasuri and Louisa but still not as good. My favourite team (oh yes I'm playing favourites, so sue me) Eric and Rona had a complete meltdown in Singapore when they messed up big time on the Skyline Promenade but they are still statistically in the middle of the pack in third position.

So does JK and Mike's win in Singapore change the game - proving that they are a true force to be reckoned with in the finals? I'm not convinced. The statistics simply do not support this theory, but I am willing to concede that in any reality TV show, contestants often manage to learn the way the game works and improve over time if they manage to stay in the show long enough. Have JK and Mike improved that much or did they benefit from some good luck (such as finding the moving pit stop so easily)? Certainly, they have done remarkably well in the last two legs. But let's take into account of the fact that the other teams have improved as well and have also learnt from their mistakes along the way, so I still think the final is effectively a two horse race between Treasuri and Louisa vs Yvonne and Chloe with Eric and Rona having just an outside chance as the underdog team. But I am still ruling JK and Mike out at this stage.

Finally, some home ground advantage? Or not? 

This leg was the first time a team actually capitalized on home ground advantage and won a race ran in their home country - something that surprisingly has not happened thus far. However, JK and Mike ran a good race in Singapore - none of the tasks were particularly 'Singaporean' at all and being reliant on their Grab taxis rather than using public transport took meant hardly any home ground advantage for them. The only time when it may have benefited them was in choosing which jetty to go to first, because they could have directed their taxi to the nearest jetty - but even then, there was an element of luck as to where the moving boat was. So really, I doubt being Singaporean actually helped them that much in this leg (which is only fair, of course) - they earned this win the hard way.

JK is at it again - does he ever learn his lesson? 

Good grief. At the SEA Aquarium in Sentosa, JK perved at the beauty queens in their bikinis. That is just sickening and even Mike told him off. Does JK not understand how reality TV works? How many people are going to be offended by the way he leers at the other attractive contestants like a dirty old man? At least Mike has a bit more class and refrains from doing so - JK is a married man on top of that, how would his wife feel watching him stare at other women in bikinis on TV like that? Gosh, I feel very sorry for her - but perhaps there's a segment of the population which does think that such behaviour is acceptable. After all, Donald Trump got away with his 'grab them by the pussy' gaffe - I'm surprised he got any votes from any American women after that. Still, I think it is awfully stupid to say the things he has on reality TV. It's just plain crass and offensive. Please. I would think twice about mouthing off like that on reality TV!

Sentosa again - duh. Come on. 

How many times has TAR visited Sentosa? Don't get me wrong, I do like Sentosa but I fear people watching TAR who have not visited Singapore would start thinking that the real Singapore is just like Sentosa - when of course, it is not. Sentosa is like a holiday playground where people spend their holidays. I remember the TAR US S3 E10 when they had to find Phua Chu Kang in Choa Chu Kang - now that was fun, making the Americans travel deep into the Singaporean HDB heartlands. Whilst I do enjoy the many theme parks of Sentosa, I always felt that setting TAR challenges there felt a bit cheesy - almost as if you were paid to endorse these tourist attractions in the show. But having said that, I actually did write a review of the SEA Aquarium last year for Asia361 and it was a pretty impressive location. I would have totally loved to have done that challenge and swam in that aquarium!

Scuba diving is harder than it looks. 

Quite a few TAR challenges have featured scuba diving before. It is a lot harder than it looks because many beginners would panic the moment they go underwater and feel like they can't breathe. I remember how in TARA S1 E4 Howard totally had a meltdown and could not do the scuba diving task at Oceanworld Manly. Credit to all the racers who did this challenge to have actually done it without any major problems - well, apart from Eric's flipper which kept coming off. I felt bad for him as that really shouldn't have been his fault - his scuba diving instructor should have checked that he did put on all the equipment properly before diving. The task however, proved to be a case of more haste less speed. Some of those fishes are more easily identified than others - thus I was shocked the Treasuri and Louisa messed up so badly on this task when they are usually the ones who know how to exercise the best judgement so far.

SEA Aquarium - been there, done that!

Why didn't you go into the Gardens by the Bay?!

Come on! The Gardens by the Bay is one of Singapore's most interesting new attractions and TAR has yet to do a challenge there. I actually really like the gardens and visited it last year - truly amazing and worthy of TAR. But what did the racers do? They didn't enter the spectacular conservatories and all we got is a passing shot of the Supertrees (it lasted like a second or so, blink and it may have missed it). Couldn't you have made the racers enter either the flower dome or the cloud forest to pick up a clue or get the racers to spot the flag from atop a Supertree? It was such an amazing location for TAR but it felt like such a missed opportunity when all they did was stand by the bay with a pair of binoculars, staring across the bay whilst effectively ignoring the splendid gardens behind them.

 Grab is featured again - but whoops, bad publicity? 

Once again, Grab was featured in this leg of the TARA but things went wrong in Singapore for Treasuri and Louisa when their Grab taxi driver took a wrong turn on the way to the OUE building. I understand that taxi drivers are human and can make mistakes even if they are locals - but surely that is the kind of thing that the producers should try to edit out of the final cut rather than risk tarnishing the good name of one of your sponsors? This is hardly the first time something went badly wrong with contestants in a Grab taxi: flashback to episode 2 when Alphaeus and Brandon had a total catastrophe in their Grab taxi in Bandung. Surely Grab would want to be portrayed in the best possible way?

Finally an alliance! But did it pay off? 

I was wondering when the first proper alliance would be forged. JK and Mike formed an alliance with Yvonne and Chloe - that worked to the benefit of JK and Mike, because they effectively managed to overtake Yvonne and Chloe the moment they persuaded the beauty queens to share the binoculars. If Yvonne and Chloe had hogged both pairs of binoculars until they had found the flag atop the OUE building, that would have given them a bit of a lead over JK and Mike coming out of that location and may have given them enough of a buffer to win the leg in Singapore. Never form an alliance when you don't trust the other party - perhaps they thought that JK and Mike's local knowledge may have proven useful at that point, but it was a 'spotting a needle in a haystack' task. Being local really didn't help much, you just needed an eye for detail. I wonder if Yvonne and Chloe regret working with JK and Mike?

Eric and Rona having a bad day in the office. 

Good grief. It was so painful for me to watch Eric and Rona totally mess up this leg in Singapore when they are the team I am supporting. In fact there was a big flag on top of the Standard Chartered building (it just wasn't the TAR flag) and since Standard Chartered had been a sponsor of TARA previously, Rona simply jumped to the wrong conclusion (having watched every episode of TARA again prior to the race). This is a classic example of a racer overthinking a task and jumping to the wrong conclusion because they are trying to interpret irrelevant things that just happen to be there as clues rather than sticking to the obvious. This reminds me of how in TAR US S14 E3, Victor dragged Tammy on a wild goose chase up a mountain in Brasov for two hours, following a local hiking trail instead of simply looking for the marked path with the distinctive TAR colours. That almost got them eliminated in Romania (they finished 8th out of 9 teams on that leg) but fortunately they survived to eventually win that series, after having learnt a very important lesson from that bad mistake. So you see, it is entirely possible to come back from a huge mistake and still win!

If you wondered why they didn't just get the taxi to return to the Gardens by the Bay to try to spot the flag again when it was clear that it wasn't at the Standard Chartered building and that they had made an error. Well, Eric wanted to go back but Rona thought she also saw something on the OUE building so she was determined to try to find it. In any case, they had their own binoculars, so they weren't reliant on the ones at the last location to find the flag. To put things in perspective, they only lost about 30-40 minutes driving around to find he OUE building - it wasn't like they were driving around for hours, but that was enough to sink them to last place with no hope of recovery. Eric and Rona are one of the best prepared teams - they even had their own binoculars (which other team packed something like that), but what can I say, they just had a really bad day in the office. But even as their day went from bad to worse, it was sweet to see that they supported each other and didn't give up - so many other teams would have just imploded and self-destructed at that stage already. Rona simply prays when she gets frustrated (remember how she kept praying out aloud as they were searching for the pit stop in Phuket) 

The Turf Club's carpark? Aiyoh! Who's your location manager in Singapore?

When the teams were directed to the Singapore Turf Club, I thought okay, a challenge to do with horse racing or at least gambling. But instead, they ended up in some dingy carpark? Who the hell is your location manager in Singapore? I don't even live in Singapore anymore but I'm sure I could have easily found you a hundred far more interesting, beautiful locations to have showcased Singapore to an international audience than that dingy carpark at the Turf Club! What on earth were you guys thinking? We've already had some pretty dodgy locations on this race so far - Sentosa may be a bit on the cheesy, touristy side, but the Turf Club's carpark just takes the piss really. Okay you're dealing with drones and electric skateboards - it's a high tech theme, why not use one of Singapore's many universities and educational institutes or even go to the Singapore Science Park or the Singapore Science Center? What had the challenges have to do with the Turf Club? This location was a rather odd choice at best.

I can think of plenty of nice locations in Singapore...

Switching detours is usually a very bad idea. 

It was clear that neither sides of the detour were easy especially if you have neither flown a drone or learnt how to skateboard before. Having said that, in the last leg, it turned out that the karoke challenge was a lot easier than the sausages challenge - so you never know. If possible, have a look at both sides of the detour once you get to the location: once you've picked a detour, the best thing to do is to simply stick with it and persevere until you figure it out. Parul and Maggie gave up on the drone challenge and switched to the skateboard just as they looked as if they were beginning to get the hang on it. That puzzled me as it would have meant starting from scratch on the other side of the detour. Interesting fact: despite being last, Eric and Rona were the fastest team to complete the drone challenge. So you see, they do have their moments of brilliance despite having made a grave error of judgement on this leg.

I called it - it was a non-elimination leg in Singapore. 

Eric and Rona were spared elimination in Singapore - phew! In my last blog post, I had successfully predicted that this leg was going to be a non-elimination leg and I was correct. Even Eric and Rona had a gut instinct that it was quite possibly a non-elimination leg. I suppose if you're going to mess up on a leg, Eric and Rona were fortunate that they messed up in Singapore and not elsewhere. They do have a speed bump to complete on their next leg - but given what Rachel and Vicky were given in Phuket as a speed bump, I hope it won't be something too difficult or time consuming as they are my favourite team by far. Fingers crossed, they will be able to survive the next leg and make it into the finals - where they can have a good chance to emerge the winner. The odds are stacked against them though, but given that JK and Mike have just won two legs in a row, I predict that the next team to go will probably be a Filipino team (not sure which one though) - that's such a shame as I love both Filipino teams. They are all very likable.

I fear a Filipino team may be eliminated next. I hope I'm wrong.

On to Yogyakarta in Java next. 

The next leg will take the teams back to Indonesia to the city of Yogyakarta which I had visited in 2013. I recognized Prambanan from the trailer and it should prove to be an interesting leg in a stunning location. Will Eric and Rona be able to make a stunning comeback in Yogyakarta? Would the Filipino teams be at a distinct disadvantage given that they don't speak Indonesian/Malay (whilst the Singaporean, Malaysian and Indonesian teams have no language barrier)? Will JK learn to keep his big mouth shut eventually? Will the dynamic duo Treasuri and Louisa be able to hit their stride with some home ground advantage and finally win another leg? Will there be more odd and unsuitable locations used inYogyakarta? And most of all, would anyone remember this woman called Tara Bosco who will mysteriously reappear next to Allan Wu in Yogyakarta? Let's see what next week holds. Thanks for reading. Kum siah!