The starting line for episode 1 is in Seoul Plaza, in Seoul, South Korea rather than actually in Australia. Instead, we are shown the finish line in North Territories in the opening sequence - now this is a huge difference from any other version which usually starts in the home country of the programme, with racers starting at an iconic landmark that the viewers of the country can easily identify. The only version in the international franchise of TAR which does this is actually China, where the producers have decided against allowing racers to arrange their own travel arrangements and would start each leg in a new city in a similar manner. By the way, it seems that the Chinese franchise of TAR (last done in 2017) is now dead in the water, due to poor viewership figures. This has its own pros and cons, because a lot of us who have been watching the American version of TAR do remember how much drama there used to be in the airports when teams were desperately trying to find the fastest flights to get to the next city - but then again, there were episodes which were mainly focused on those dramatic moments during the journey - the arguments at the travel agents and airports rather than the more interesting tasks they actually did as part of the race. I would have loved to have seen the teams being flagged off in Australia and for there to have been a mad scramble to get on the first flight to Seoul - but that's just me being nostalgic about the good old days of TAR. Also, where's that familiar TAR theme tune that we all know and love?
I guess you Aussies can't be bothered with the Korean language?!
Good grief. Most TAR hosts would make a genuine effort to pronounce the place names correct - at least Phil Keoghan in the American version does a respectable job of it. But I cringed the moment Beau mangled the name of the iconic Nam Sam Tower, for those of you who don't speak Korean, it should sound like Num Sum with a distinctive 'uuh' vowel sound rather than the painfully high pitched and nasal A sound that Beau produced with his thick Australian accent. I am not going to fault Beau for speaking English with an Australian accent but in this case, this is the name of a well known landmark and you just sound like a dumb foreigner when you get the name hopelessly wrong. But it wasn't just Beau - good grief, I only hard the two teams manage to say 'Kumsahamnida' (thank you) in Korean and no one managed the greeting Ahnyonghaseyeo - perhaps it is because I have been a big fan of K-pop for many years, so I have a basic grasp of conversational Korean and whilst I don't expect the teams to be able to speak much Korean at all, surely they could have at least tried to say hello and thank you in the local language when encountering Korean people? Is that what Australian tourists do when they are abroad - just shout at the locals in English regardless of where they go? Good grief, this usually irks me a lot when I am watching the American version of TAR, but it seems that the Australians are just as bad and I am disappointed. There are so many teams who are not white and of Anglo-saxon heritage: we have at least four teams which are of non-white ethnic minorities and would probably speak another language, yet they couldn't be asked - not even Viv and Joey who are have Vietnamese heritage. Oh come on guys, you're Asian for crying out aloud!
It all went wrong for Alana & Niko when they looked at the postcard the nuns were holding and just assumed that they had the right postcard but they didn't check what the nuns did next, they simply dashed off to Lotte World Tower. Now Lotte World Tower isn't actually that far away as the crow flies - it is approximately 12 km away but of course, this is central Seoul and the taxi had to drive through crowded streets, get over the river and it was a 2 hour round trip for them, leaving them at the back of the pack. It was a case of more haste less speed - if they had actually spent a little bit more time looking out for the red and yellow flag at the Stone Time Capsule, they would have been found it eventually. After all, there was a point in the race when as many teams were all at the Nam Sam Tower observatory deck (with the exception of Sid & Ash), if they had tried to work with another team at that stage After all, it was so early in the race, it wouldn't hurt to form an alliance and avoid elimination over something like that. It was also rather evil of the production to place a red herring like that amongst the postcards, after all, if Alana & Niko had gone to a wrong location that wasn't too far from Nam Sam Tower, then they would have had half a chance to stay in the race. I think that this is bad planning on the part of production, the red herring shouldn't have been that far away. Looking for a clue from a high point like this is nothing new in TAR: for example, TAR S19 E8 when the teams had to climb up a very high church tower in Copenhagen and search the city skyline for their next clue. Did they actually do any homework and research to prepare themselves for the race? Probably not enough, but I am somewhat surprised to see them eliminated first but such is the nature of the game.
Was the flyboarding challenge too easy?
I did think that the flyboarding challenge too easy: all the teams had to do was raise 2 meters out of the water and the moment they reached that height, they passed. In a recent episode of TAR Canada S7 E11 in Ontario, the teams not only had to rise 4.6 meters out of the water but then had to throw a beanbag into a target area before receiving the next clue. Now the Canadian version was way harder than the Australian version of the very same task but why? Note that in the TAR Canada flyboarding challenge, at leg 11, there were only three teams left as it was the final leg. If you made the challenge way too easy, then the three remaining (very strong) teams would fly through that challenge and you wouldn't get enough drama for the episode. But in this Australian episode, you had 11 teams of which there were some who weren't that physically fit and consisted of older racers - no offence but take a look at Chris, he is probably the least fit of all the racers this year. A consideration for the production team would be whether or not every racer could complete such a challenge and if it would simply be out of reach for someone like Chris who is older and clearly overweight. Furthermore, I did question the choice of flyboarding - there's nothing Korean about it, it is just a fun thing to do, surely the spirit of TAR would be to get these racers to a new country and have them participate in activities that represent the local culture - sure we got some views of the Han River but that was about it. Was it a particularly good choice by the production team? I don't think so. We have seen far more 'Korean' challenges in the American TAR episodes, such as in TAR S29 E11 when they had a Kimchi making challenge: a bit of a stereotype but it is very Korean.
Oh I was shocked that so many teams chose to make the dumplings, otherwise known as mandu in Korean. This is a very popular snack in East Asia and has different names in different languages (gyoza in Japanese, sweekao in Cantonese, jiaozi in Mandarin and mandu in Korean) and clearly, it was going to take longer than the cup stacking side of the detour. Perhaps it is because I have actually made dumplings before so I know how long it can take to make 50 of those and as for the cup stacking, it is simply a question of muscle memory. There's no strength required, you only have to memorize a pattern of what to do with each cup and you have 8 seconds to complete the challenge - you simply repeat it again and again until you stop making mistakes. This challenge had already been done in TAR US S29 E11 at the very same venue in Hanyang University. 8 seconds isn't actually that demanding: in the American version, they had to complete the exact same challenge in 7 seconds! So that's another example of recycling a very similar challenge but making it easier for the Australians - what the hell is going on here? Are the producers of TAR Oz assuming that the Australians simply cannot handle the challenge as well as their American counterparts? Both sides of the challenge are meant to be equally difficult and the fact that the teams who did the stacking challenge manage to finish in the top 3 meant that the producers got it wrong again - they really should have made it 7 seconds as in the American version in order to level the playing field as it became clear that one side of the detour was much easier than the other. Again, I blame the production team for such bad decisions. Do try it at home yourselves - 7 seconds is quite doable, believe me!
Should Sid & Ash have been penalized for stealing a dumpling?
I saw quite a few messages on social media, saying that Sid & Ash really should have been hit with a time penalty for stealing one of Judy & Therese's dumplings when the nuns went down for more dough. Let's look at this more closely: both Judy & Therese went downstairs to speak to the chef when really, one of them should have stayed behind and guarded their dumplings - the dough isn't exactly heavy and it wasn't like either of them could speak Korean anyway, so there was absolutely no reason for the both of them to leave their station and allow Sid to steal their dumplings in the first place. A good comparison would be the controversy in TAR Canada S7 E5 when Dave couldn't figure out the answer to a puzzle and decided to cheat by looking at another racer's answer - Trish had accidentally left her answer for Dave to copy after she had solved the puzzle. So what Dave did was unethical and unpopular, but technically speaking it didn't constitute as cheating as it was Trish's responsibility to erase her answer after she had figured out the puzzle. Dave wasn't penalized though that act had clearly made them the villains of TAR Canada S7. In any case, Dave's cheating made a big difference in avoiding elimination on that leg - if he didn't cheat, they may have faced elimination as all the other teams figured out the answer to that puzzle. But in Sid & Ash's case, they only stole one dumpling and it was evident that they were already ahead of the nuns regardless, so the theft didn't alter their positions in this leg. So they probably shouldn't have been penalized for it since it didn't give them much of an advantage; otherwise where do you draw the line? Do you also have to penalize Hayley and Mikayla for stealing Tom & Tyler's taxi just after the starting line?
Yeah I was very surprised that Tom & Tyler didn't get a prize for winning the first leg! I thought that they would have been given something, even an Express Pass (which has been done in so many versions of TAR before). But no, not even a little gift from the sponsors, just the thrill of knowing you can win a leg. Heck, even in the Ukrainian TAR, one of the winners were Carlsberg and there was always at least some cans of beer for the winners of each leg. Not much, but better than nothing at all. In contrast, the American and Canadian versions of TAR usually have quite respectable prizes for the winners of each leg. Come on! So what is going on TAR Australia? Couldn't you get any sponsors for the prizes?
Who will be eliminated next?
It is hard to say: looking at the performance on the first leg and basing this on my gut instinct, I say the nuns struggled in the first leg and were spared elimination only because of Alana and Niko's disastrous mistake to go charging off to Lotte World Tower. They are not physically strong given their age and the next leg looks really physically demanding - in the preview, I see an obstacle course involving ropes and some white water rafting, I'm afraid that is going to be an awfully challenging leg for the nuns. Don't get me wrong, I think they're cute and make for good TV but how on earth are they going to catch up with the younger racers when they are made to do such physically demanding tasks? Likewise, another team which has a physically unfit racer is Chris & Adrienne - I'm sorry but Chris does looks rather overweight and no, I just can't see him negotiating that obstacle course with ease, so if he has to do something quite physical, it could be their downfall. Likewise, Sid is a big guy, it doesn't look like muscle to me, it looks like fats so I am wondering how the hell he is going to cope on that obstacle course? So based on what I have seen in the preview, I am guessing that one of these teams are going to have to take a penalty on obstacle course and it would lead to their elimination. Probably the nuns I think, but it might just be Chris & Adrienne as well. But then again, Alana and Niko were eliminated because they made a dumb error and the other team who made an equally stupid mistake was Sid & Ash who couldn't figure out where the observatory was in Nam Sam Tower, so if they make a similarly stupid error in the next leg, they could go home too.
I'm basing this on the fact that the next leg is presented as a very physically demanding one, so I am guessing that Tom & Tyler probably have a huge advantage in this leg, along with Tim & Rod and Femi & Nick. But then again, any advantage they may have in overcoming a physical task could be evened out by a non-physical one like flying the drone (as seen in the preview) - then there are other factors like encountering a taxi driver who speaks some English as opposed to one who doesn't speak a word of English. Mind you, these racers have a chance to rest before the next leg, if I was in a hotel in Korea, I would seek out the first English speaking member of staff I could find and then get a bunch of useful phrases in Korean like, "can you drive faster?" Hence looking at the racers who look like they understand how the race works, it is hard to pick a particular team who come across as more race-savvy than the others. So I am going to park that thought aside for now and just go with Tom & Tyler for my winners for leg 2, with my second choice being Tim & Rod. But please, I love to be surprised and I would be delighted if I could be proven wrong. I'd love to see Tom & Tyler get stuck with a taxi driver who doesn't speak a word of English and for them to be punished for being monolingual Australians whilst another team sneaks ahead of them to win leg 2. Now that would certainly put a big smile on my face.
Okay, so that's it for me on this episode - the next leg will take the team up to the DMZ on the border very close to North Korea, it is going to be a lot of fun. And for all the fuss they're going to make about being so close to North Korea, note that TAR Vietnam has already run a full leg in Pyongyang, North Korea (TARV S6 E9) this year though back in TAR Oz S2 the teams did go to exotic Cuba. So let me know what you think by leaving a comment below - do you have a favourite team yet? Are Sid & Ash the villains of this season yet or are they forgiven? Will Sid go to hell for stealing a dumpling from our beloved Australian nuns? Who do you think will win this season of TAR Oz? Many thanks for reading.
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