Average ranking after leg 7 in Elin Pelin
- Carson & Jack 2.57
- Alyssa & Josiah 3.28
- Jonathan & Ana 3.28
- Brett & Mark 4.28
- Melinda & Erika 5.14
- Han & Holden 6
- Nick & Mike 7.42 (eliminated in Sarantsi)
Yes Nick & Mike didn't even finish this leg of the race as they were eliminated in a hay field in Sarantsi whilst the rest of the teams went on to perform one more roadblock before going to the pit stop in Elin Pelin. I really felt sorry for Nick & Mike, it sucks to be eliminated under such circumstances, They narrowly finished behind Melinda & Erika at the roadblock because they were just 1 kg short of their 200 kgs target for their firewood roadblock. It was a foot race to the U-turn board by the church and Melinda & Erika had just enough of a lead to beat Nick & Mike to it. Melinda & Eika didn't even have much time to think about it, it was a rushed decision and I honestly didn't think Nick & Mike were eliminated at that point given that they simply U-turned Han & Holden as well who were right behind them. However, it was their lack of attention to detail that sunk them to the bottom of the pack when they simply couldn't find that yarn bracelet in the hay - add to that an unusually large dose of bad luck and that sunk the brothers to last place. In a scene that was so similar to TAR S6 E3 in Häggvik, Sweden when Lena & Kristy failed at that roadblock - Lena spent over 8 hours unrolling hay bales in a field but failed to find a clue envelop in the hay stacks. Phil travelled from the pit stop to that field to eliminated Lena & Kristy and that was exactly what he did in this leg in Bulgaria as well - it was brutal and heartbreaking. Nonetheless, it gave Carson & Jack a lifeline - they got hopelessly lost leaving the airport, trying to find their way to the village of Negushevo that they fell over 3 hours behind the other teams. Once they actually got to where they needed to go, they were perfectly fine with all the tasks they had to perform but now we know they can't read a map. Yet despite their worst ever performance in this season, yet they're still statistically the strongest team. Talk about a really bad day in the office!
Did Melinda & Erika make a strategic mistake?
Sort of but not really, they weren't in any danger of elimination in this leg. They finished 5th after slipping behind Han & Holden after having encountered some navigation errors on the way to farm, but otherwise they had no idea that Carson & Jack were that far behind since they had not seen Carson & Jack since leaving the airport in Sofia. After all, Carson & Jack are usually at the very front of the pack so perhaps Melinda & Erika just assumed that they were way ahead - after all, the teams did get very spread out on the drive from the airport to Negushevo. If they had not used the U-turn, then Nick & Mike would have probably survived this leg and it would have been Carson & Jack who would have gone home instead. As a result of that decision, the strongest team in the season survived this leg and the weakest team was eliminated. As a racer, you'd want to get rid of your strongest competition, but I believe there was just no way Melinda & Erika could have guessed that Carson & Jack were driving so long in the wrong direction. Man, that was unreal to watch.
How did Carson & Jack get so lost?
Well, they left the airport and headed on the highway A1 heading south-east away from Sofia, towards the city of Plovdiv, that was a mistake. They needed to get on the highway 6 heading due east - the journey is 33 km (20.5 miles) from the airport and depending on traffic, it should take you about 30 to 35 minutes to drive. If you're not sure whether or not you're headed in the right direction, you should always stop and ask - which Carson & Jack did eventually at a hotel, but why didn't they do so a lot earlier to save themselves so much time? I'm guessing that it was a case of you don't know you're lost until you realize it too late - I remember once I got hopelessly lost in Tallinn on a business trip. I had bailed out of a party and decided to be sensible to return to my hotel, my colleague gave me detailed instructions about how to walk back to the hotel and of course, I made a mistake. I was supposed to go up the hill where there was a junction then go straight across the junction, instead for some reason I turned left at the junction (honestly, I still don't know why I made that mistake) and in hindsight, it was so obvious that was a dumb mistake but at that time, perhaps I was distracted by the beautiful scenery I had no idea that I was walking in the wrong direction. It was only after about 15 minutes that I finally realized that I was totally lost, so I stopped some friendly locals to ask for directions and realized just how far I had drifted from the route I was given earlier. But my point is simple, there are times when you can get hopelessly lost but be still oblivious and blissfully unaware of just how lost you are because you're either distracted or you're just very optimistic that you will somehow end up at your destination. It was clear that Carson & Jack really had no idea where they were and perhaps there was an element of, "maybe we are still kinda heading in the right direction?" Some of the other teams like Melinda & Erika and Han & Holden also had some navigation issues - but none quite as serious as Carson & Jack.
Is it really that hard to navigate in Bulgaria? Do the locals speak English?
Yes and no. Bulgaria is a modern country in the EU, many tourists do rent a car whilst on holiday there. Yet somehow, the self-drive turned out to be the biggest source of drama in this episode! There is a language barrier of course and some signs will only be in cyrillic, the script that the Bulgarian language is written in but most modern signs will also have the English equivalent next to it so foreigners who don't speak Bulgarian won't get lost. So you could see at the airport, there were signs for the exit marked "Изход" and "Exit". But once you get out into the countryside, the English signs might become a lot harder to come by but I could see that even in the library, that sign was also in English as well. English is the default second language in Bulgaria, hence many younger people in Bulgaria will speak some English, though that's a lot more unlikely with older people who were educated before the fall of the Berlin Wall, when Bulgaria was still a communist country. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989, I was 13 then. So when I was in Bulgaria, I would speak English to those who looked younger than me but with those who looked about the same age or older than me, I would speak Russian. Yeah, I actually speak Russian quite well and it is from the same Slavic family group of languages as Bulgarian and many Bulgarians will understand Russian fairly well. Most of the locals that the racers encountered spoke English reasonably well and were able to give them all the help they needed. In any case, the racers were only about 30 minutes or so outside the capital, hence they weren't really that deep in the countryside yet. But of course, a lot of it boils down to being able to read a map and we are so reliant on technology these days. The racers were also suffering from jetlag, they were exhausted and hot; under those conditions, one can easily make an error of judgement.
Yes we see some local culture in Negushevo, but what was the deal with the apples?
I have said this before quite a few times during this season already, we really don't like tasks which are so simple that teams leave in the order they arrive in. In Negushevo, the teams were treated to some local culture in the form of the Kukeri dance, but otherwise, they merely carried three crates of apples a short distance to receive their next clue? That task was so simple that nothing could have gone wrong in that task. Whilst I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about the local culture, what was the point of the task with the apples? If you're going to make them do something with the apples, then at least make it difficult enough for there to be the possibility of some teams being stuck there for a long time whilst other teams who have the skill can jump ahead - we want to see situations where the order of the teams can change dramatically. So allow me to put on my producer hat and make a simple suggestion to introduce that element of drama to this scene in Negushevo: instead of simply delivering the apples, each team will be given a massive barrel of apples, the teams will have to count the apples in the barrel and present their answer to one of the dancers, only when the team gives the right answer will they be awarded their next clue. Counting apples may seem straightforward but try doing it when you have the Kureri dance ritual happening around you, it will be a sensory overload and harder than you think. We have seen counting challenges on TAR before, mostly relating to the number of steps in a tower or in a castle. Teams who rush through it will often make a mistake whilst those who take their time will be only need to count once. This is just me sitting at my laptop and I easily came up with a much better idea than those very highly paid producers.
How long did it take for the racers to drive from Negushevo to Osoitsa to get their clue at the library?
The distance was 8.2 km (5.1 miles) and it would have taken them only about ten minutes.
They searched for a clue in a small local library, but why?
Good grief, another dumb idea. I had gotten my hopes up when I heard that they were going to a library and I thought, okay a small town library, surely there wouldn't be anything in English and the teams would have some kind of language related task for them to try to figure out something in the Bulgarian language in order to find the clue, right? But nope, they simply ran in and found the clues randomly sitting between the books on the shelves - they didn't even try to hide them, they were sticking out very conspicuously. What was the point of that? Let me put on my producer hat again and tell you how I would have improved this scene: I would have hidden the clues in a specific place like a book about Bulgaria in the travel section. Upon entering the library, the racers would be told (in English) the name of the book they are looking for and which section to find it, but then be informed that everything in the library is in Bulgarian. The racers would then be given an English to Bulgarian dictionary to help them figure it out - whilst this doesn't sound particularly difficult, don't forget that Bulgarian is written with a totally different alphabet, the Cyrillic alphabet. So the racers who are able to get their heads around a new system of writing quickly would be able to find their clue a lot faster who are fazed by foreign languages and at least that would have spiced things up a little in that forlorn looking library in Osoitsa village.
How long was the drive from the library at Osoitsa to Sarantsi village, where the detours were?
Just 6.7 km (4.1 miles) and it would have taken them about 7 minutes.
Detour: Haystack or Woodstack?
Both sides of the detour were brutal, considering this was filmed in late May last year and it would have been so hot in Bulgaria. 200 kgs (440 lbs) is a lot of wood and looking for that bracelet in the haystacks would have really tested the teams' patience. Evidently, there was an element of luck to the haystack challenge whilst carrying wood was a safer choice as you had a clear objective, but it could potentially take much longer if you had to make 3 or 4 trips. Note that it was only Nick & Mike who really struggled with the haystack detour whilst every other team who did it managed to complete it without much drama. It wasn't impossible, but it did require a certain level of patience and attention to detail which clearly, the brothers lacked. It was unfortunate and I don't want to be harsh on Nick & Mike as I can totally empathize how one can be so overwhelmed with frustration and fatigue under such conditions, causing them to miss it.
Jonathan's abusive behaviour is once again the topic of discussion on social media.
Look, I do a lot of research prior to writing these blog posts and one of the things that I do is read what people have been saying on social media about the how the racers behave. Many of you have pointed out that Jonathan got frustrated quickly when he couldn't find the bracelet quickly and started to blame Ana for choosing that detour when it had been a joint decision - it wasn't like she forced him to do it against his will, he gladly went along with the decision but when he got frustrated, he simply vented his all his frustration and anger on her. That was just ugly to watch and that certainly hasn't gone unnoticed on social media where so many of you have condemned Jonathan for the way he had behaved towards his wife. But then again, it's nothing new - we have already seen him behave like that in previous legs on the race and this just gets harder to watch every time. Even when Ana was doing a relatively simple roadblock with no other team present, instead of encouraging her, he still berated her for not milking the goat faster. He is the complete opposite of what you want in a partner on this race, but it gets much worse: she is married to him so this is the crap she has to face everyday at home. This then begs the question: what on earth was the casting directors thinking when they picked Jonathan & Ana for this season? Was this a risky, calculated decision to have a villain on this season for extra drama, or did they have really no idea that Jonathan was going to behave this badly on the race? I've the answer to that question.
Let me offer a little insight into the casting process for such competitive reality TV shows.
Having some industry experience (I'm not allowed to talk about what I've done - I have signed loads of NDAs), I can tell you this much about the casting process. Step 1: it all starts with filling up a very long form and you have to submit a short video along with your application, usually most applications go no further than that but if you have something that the casting directors like or are looking for in your application, then you move onto step 2: you will get a call from one of the junior members of the team for an initial interview and they will have a standard list of questions to ask you, to get to know you better. Then if they like the answers you gave, then you will move onto step 3: when you will get a video interview with the real casting directors and it is an even more detailed interview to see how you come across on camera. If you performed well on the video interview, then they will invite you in for step 4:an interview in person where they will chat with you on camera in a studio and get you to perform some simple tasks, to see how you communicate whilst trying to perform a difficult task together. If you really ace step 4, subject to a full background check, then congratulations, you're in! If there is a situation whereby they can't quite decide, there may be a step 5 where there will be a further interview (which is essentially a repeat of either step 3 or s 4). During steps 1 to 5, the casting directors only have a very limited amount of interaction with the applicants and the applicants will always be on their best behaviour during those steps - so during an interview, Jonathan would never ever say, "I must warn you, I will lose my temper and be really abusive towards my wife if things don't go well." Instead, during this part of the process, applicants are conditioned to say exactly what the casting directors want to hear, to "give the right answers" to the questions as they really want to be picked to go on the show. Hence my theory is that Jonathan performed very well in the casting process, he gave all the right answers to assure the casting directors that he was going to be the most supportive and loving partner and husband on TAR, so even the casting directors are totally shocked at his behaviour during the race. But it is then a case of, oops too late, we made a terrible mistake, what do we do now with the narrative? Do we try to show that he learns something about his relationship during the race? Can we salvage some kind of narrative about the race making Jonathan a better person or do we make a villain out of him in this season and hope that it's the kind of drama that will draw more viewers?
Are you seriously suggesting that the casting directors made a big mistake with Jonathan?
Yes, I am! In the corporate world, this happens all the time. It is standard practice to have a probation period written into most contracts and this applies even to senior hires as well. This is because we are more than aware that it is possible to project a very good image during the interview process but behave very differently once you start your job - hence this probation period allows the employer to simply say, look this is not working out, I'm sorry but we have the right to just terminate this employment here and now because the contract has a clause that allows us to do just that. Allow me to give you a case study from my own experience: some years ago, I was working at a company and the boss decided to hire this guy called Paul. On paper, Paul looked impressive having worked at a few big companies in very senior positions and he was brought in as our new COO to make everyone a lot more efficient and productive. However, Paul had a nasty temper and if you didn't do exactly what he asked you to do at once and get it right the first time, he would get angry; he would mock, belittle and scold you. Within the first two weeks, he lashed out at a few younger women in the office and there were so many complaints made about his creepy, bullying behaviour towards younger women. Given how it was obvious that Paul was going to be more of a liability than an asset, the boss then used the clause in Paul's contract to get rid of him whilst he was still within his probation period. The boss admitted an error of judgment when it came to hiring Paul in the first place, but of course, please note that Paul would never raise his voice and yell at the boss during the recruitment and interview process. This happens all the time in the corporate world but in the world of reality TV, this would be handled differently - you can't replace a team once they have officially started the race, so what would happen in this case then? Allow me to put on my producer hat again: what would usually happen is that one or more of the producers would sit down with Jonathan and explain to him why the way he has behaved would provoke the audience into a certain response and why he ought to modify his behaviour. Whether or not this conversation took place with Jonathan during S37, how it happened, how many times it did happen or what form that conversation took, I can't tell you as I wasn't involved in S37 but what I can tell you is that it would be highly unlikely that the producers simply observed all of this, stood back and said nothing. But even if they did give Jonathan a stern warning, whether he would alter his behaviour as a result is another matter altogether - you can bring a horse to water but you can't make it to drink.
But on social media, Jonathan claims that he is autistic - that makes it okay, right?
No it doesn't! Good grief, as someone who is autistic, I find it really offensive that anyone can believe that being autistic turns you into an obnoxious creep who is abusive to your spouse! Autistic people struggle with social skills, that means we will find some social situations awkward and difficult to cope with - that usually means that the way a genuinely autistic person would react is by retreating into their shell and saying very little. So for example, when I was in primary school, I was very quiet and didn't speak up much, I didn't have many friends as I was very nervous about social interactions - people often just dismissed it as "he's just an introvert, he is the quiet kid who prefers reading a book to playing in a group." However, Jonathan is loud, abusive and often, the complete opposite of what a typically autistic person would be. Instead, I can see what is going on here - Jonathan has another flaw, a different one which isn't even a case of being neurodivergent at all. He is someone who refuses to take responsibility when things go wrong and will automatically blame others around him. Now this may stem from a fear of punishment when he was a child, like if his parents would punish him severely for making mistakes, he may then be conditioned into having this, (I'm quoting Bart Simpson here) "I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, you can't prove anything." default response to such social situations when things go wrong. I have also seen this in cases where the individual has very low self-esteem, where they are terribly afraid of people blaming them, looking down on them or losing respect for them if they were to admit that they have done something wrong - so they have this rather irrational response of never ever taking responsibility for their mistakes, even though it is painfully evident to the rest of the world that the normal response would simply be to take responsibility for the mistake, accept the blame and simply move on knowing that most people would respect you for having done that. It takes some self-confidence to be able to say, "I messed up, that was my fault, I'm really sorry, please forgive me for that mistake." Now we can talk about that personality trait for a long time since I have a few people in my life who are like that, but that's definitely not the same as autism! Being autistic does not excuse the way Jonathan has treated Ana; no, he can't simply play the autism card as if it is some kind of get out of jail card that let's him off the hook.
Let's talk about how Jonathan & Ana's car ended up in the ditch.
Some of you talked about this on social media. Firstly, it was Jonathan's fault as he was the driver then - imagine if Ana had been the one who made that mistake, he would've given her hell for it, yet when the shoe was on the other foot, he explained it away as if it was an honest mistake. The designated parking area did not have any potholes or ditches that would have caused any problems, but Jonathan didn't follow the instructions. There was even talk of whether or not they ought to have been penalized for parking in the wrong area - my take on this is that they were barely ten feet outside the designated parking area, there was no real advantage with the place they had chosen to park their car and getting stuck there for a long time was punishment enough for them. Furthermore, there was talk about whether or not they should have been allowed to accept help from the locals - allow me to clarify please: there are no rules against accepting help from locals in this kind of situation, we have seen other teams accept help from locals when they asked for directions. The teams cannot ask the locals to help them complete a detour or roadblock, but otherwise accepting help from locals when your car is stuck in a ditch is perfectly fine within the rules of the game. Did the production team play some part in helping them out? No, it looked like what had happened was quite organic because when you film in a very small town like that, the locals naturally get excited because this is highly unusual, you are simply not going to get a big, international film crew show up in a small village like that often! So the locals are curious, they want to know what is going on and thus they will be far more likely to want to get involved by helping - this will be quite different from filming in a big city, where most people wouldn't bat an eyelid if they saw another film crew on the streets. Would the production crew have eventually called for a tow truck to get Jonathan & Ana's car out of that ditch? Perhaps, eventually, but they probably took one look at the situation and thought, you can fix this, you don't need a tow truck to get out of this mess. And besides, it was not like their car had broken down, it was Jonathan who drove into that ditch so the production crew were not obliged to do anything to help them out of that rather difficult situation, which they had created for themselves.
How long was the drive from Sarantsi to Belopoptsi (Snezha's farm)?
It was just 15.1 km (9.4 miles) and it would have taken them about 14 minutes to drive that.
What was the point about going to Snezha's farm?
The local fixers found a nice farm with a cute 102 great-grandmother but the task was surprising easy! The teams left in the order the arrived at since the task was so straightforward - all they had to do was to milk the sheep, get half a litre of milk then eat a small bowl of yoghurt. It was impossible to mess up this task: there was a demonstration, there were two farm workers holding down the sheep to make sure the sheep didn't try to run away, half a litre is a relatively small amount and the bowl of yogurt was equally small. Like there was literally nothing that could have gone wrong with such a simple task and that is why I don't think it was a well constructed roadblock! Especially since there was a double U-turn on this leg, you want to have a particularly roadblock at this stage to give the teams who were U-turned some realistic hope of catching up, just in case one of the teams in front struggled with the roadblock but in this case, that was clearly not going to happen. Whilst I realise that they are trying to showcase various aspects of life on the farm in rural Bulgaria, surely they could have given the teams something a lot harder to do that could have changed the order of the teams with that roadblock. As a producer, I would have organized the task like this: this was yogurt made from sheep's milk. It has a very distinctive flavour compared to the more common yogurt made from cow's milk. I would make the racer doing the roadblock have a taste of the yogurt that the 102 year old great-grandmother was eating, then the racer would have to run to the other side of the farm (cue loads of beautiful shots of the racers interacting with different farm animals) where they would be confronted with 20 different pots of yogurt (with different flavours, made of different kinds of milk etc). The racer will then have to pick the one pot of yogurt that matched the one they received from the old lady. This would be difficult enough to truly mess up the order of the teams at that farm, whilst still featuring this aspect of Bulgarian culture.
How long was the drive from Snezha's farm to the pit stop at Elin Pelin?
It was 22.7 km (14.1 miles) back towards Sofia, it would have taken the teams about 23 minutes.
Why did the greeter say welcome to Sofia instead of welcome to Elin Pelin?
Well, it's sort of an eastern suburb of Sofia, given that it is just 10 km (6.2 miles) outside the city limits of Sofia city. Many people who work in Sofia choose to live in the sprawling suburbs where housing is a lot cheaper than in the city centre, so it wasn't unreasonable to say that they are still in Sofia there. But they will be heading into Sofia City for the next leg.
Were we happy with this leg in Bulgaria?
I'm going to say no for the following reasons: firstly, there were two activities (carrying the apples and milking the sheep) that were pointless as they were so easy and straightforward that teams simply left in the order they had arrived in. Whilst it was nice to see some life in the countryside in sharp contrast to the last episode in the bustling city of Dubai, I was kinda bored with some of the tasks. The teams were carrying firewood for crying out aloud, how's that good television? I also questioned the locations such as the library in Osoitsa, what was the point of going to that small library? If I saw something like the Museum of the Future in Dubai on TAR, I'd be like "that's amazing, I wanna visit there!" (I've already been there, for the record.) But frankly, there was really nothing in this episode that made me want to book a holiday in Bulgaria. People go to Bulgaria for a range of reasons: there are beautiful beaches, there are stunning mountains with great ski resorts and there are also cities with such amazing historical monuments but somehow, we did not see any of that and we were instead shown what life was like in some quiet, little villages. It was only when the teams getting lost whilst driving as well as Jonathan parking that car in the ditch that added some much needed drama to this episode but otherwise, I was once again, pretty disappointed with what the production crew had come up with. Am I being harsh? No I am not, I recently finished watch Jet Lag S13 - in case you're not familiar with this, it is a low budget version of TAR with different rules, but even though you know they are a bunch of Youtubers trying to do this all on a shoestring budget, the viewing experience is brilliant, their format is faultless - such games are only fun and watchable if the rules make complete sense to the viewer. So if a group of young people in their 20s can come up with such a high quality product on such a tiny budget, I would expect the production team on CBS to do a lot better but somehow, even I can easily come up with much better ideas than the CBS production team - it just makes me shake my head in disbelief.
Who will win next in Bulgaria? Who will be eliminated next?
The teams stay for one more leg in Bulgaria - I know they will go to the capital Sofia because in one of the previous previews, we see an interview with Alyssa & Josiah in front of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Sofia. It looks like there is some kind of dancing challenge, we see Melinda & Erika and Carson & Jack in a library. There is also a chance for a team to win an express pass on this leg by walking over hot coals. But we don't get any obvious hints of a team getting into big trouble, we just see Carson & Jack leaving the library without helping Melinda & Erika, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Melinda & Erika are going to be trouble.But here's my theory: since the teams are going to Sofia, it might be a keep on racing scenario - hence the teams at the front of the pack will keep their time advantage whilst the teams at the back of the pack will have the odds stacked against them. Given that Alyssa & Josiah won this leg with a comfortable margin, they are going into the next leg with a big advantage and I think they will win this next leg as well. However, I also know that they will go for the express pass too (that was already revealed in the previews, with Josiah taking off his shoes in front of the hot coals) and now this will depend on the location of the task for the express pass. The task will be completed very quickly as you can't make teams stand on hot coals for a long time - they will simply walk across a short section of hot coals and that would take less than 30 seconds. If they have to take a massive detour to another location 30 minutes away to attempt this task, then it may drop them to the middle of the pack, opening the door for a team like Brett & Mark or Jonathan & Ana to win this next leg. But if the location is conveniently located near or at where they needed to go to anyway, then Alyssa & Josiah could potentially get the express pass and also win the next leg as well. As for the teams at the back, we see Carson & Jack catch up with Melinda & Erika, then finish the task at the library first and leaving them behind - these were the two bottom teams from E7 so logically speaking, that leads me to conclude that Melinda & Erika will be eliminated next. Guys, you know I love Melinda & Erika and they are not even the weakest team statistically at this stage, but I am leaving my emotions at the front door and simply following the clues from the previews hre. That's it from me on this episode, have a great Easter break everyone and thank you for reading.
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