Tom & Tyler: 1.4
Tim & Rod: 3.1
Jasmine & Jerome: 3.5
Viv & Joey: 4.1
Femi & Nick: 5.5 (eliminated in Lilongwe)
So I was wrong about Viv & Joey being eliminated in this leg and I am so glad to be proven wrong because they are a very likable team. There were no surprises in this leg in that the weakest team got eliminated whilst the strongest team won - I told you that the statistics are a pretty reliable guide because they take all emotion out of the equation. We tend to support the teams that we like and we want the teams that we dislike to be eliminated, but in predicting the outcome it is far better to just use straightforward statistics. With this latest win, Tom & Tyler have now equaled the all time record of the most number of legs won in one season by Rachel & Dave of TAR US S20 and Marc & Rovilson of TAR Asia S2. These boys ran a brilliant leg to snatch yet another victory from Viv & Joey who arrived at the pit stop first, but had to serve a longer time penalty because Viv made a shocking 9 mistakes on the quiz, dropping them from first to third. I was really hoping that Femi & Nick were in with a chance to knock Tim & Rod out after having done really well on the quiz, but alas they had fallen too far behind with the sandal-making detour. At least when Femi & Nick do something stupid, they admit their shortcomings to the camera. I don't even think at Tim & Rod realize just how ignorant and dumb they come across to the viewers - certainly it wasn't brain power that got them this far in the race, it has been their massive muscles. But once again, another team has proven that Tom & Tyler are indeed beatable - again, it was Viv who let her team down with her awfully poor performance on the quiz, but I hope this leg has boosted their confidence somewhat.
I am wondering if Viv & Joey got away lightly with a rather easy speed bump in this leg - all they had to do was to empty their canoes of water before starting the first challenge. This was something most teams had to do anyway for a few teams since their canoes would fill up with water in the rather choppy lake and if they capsized, it would fill up with water. Compare this to the last two speed bumps that Rowah & Amina and Sid & Ash had to do in this season, this seemed like the easiest amongst the three - or at least the one that took the least amount of time. Maybe the producers thought that they would struggle with the canoes in any case since it was a very physical task, so giving them a death sentence in the form of a more difficult and time consuming speed bump would make the episode more boring if it was clear from the start that it was a foregone conclusion as to which team would be eliminated. Note that the teams only set off in intervals of just 2 minutes each in the order they finished in the last leg, that meant that Viv & Joey only set off just 8 minutes after Tom & Tyler, slashing the time deficit they had from their awful performance in the last leg when they were so far behind all the other teams and finished last. If you thought that Viv & Joey did get quite a few favours from the production team in this leg, then I would agree with that. Not that I am complaining though, I like them very much and I wish Viv would keep her cool and not crack under pressure - did totally messed up the Chichewa language challenge at Lake Malawi in the last leg (which dropped them to last) and in this leg, she cheated her team of first place with her terrible quiz score.
Detour: smelly vs dirty
It looked like the fish sorting side of the detour (ie. smelly) was definitely harder given how long Tom & Tyler took to figure out that there were three kinds of fish and to sort through that vast quantity of fish. Washing the dirty laundry was just hard labour that teams could power through with some muscle and a lot of determination. It was interesting that Tom & Tyler didn't switch the moment they realized just how challenging their side of the detour was, I would have taken a good look at the fish and said, forget it, we're washing the laundry instead. But aha, Tom & Tyler did save Viv & Joey a lot of time by telling them exactly how to identify the three different species of fish in the challenge - I think that was interesting and tactically smart. Viv & Joey are one of the weaker teams statistically who would always struggle with a physical challenge, Tom & Tyler are being tactical in helping a weaker team gain an advantage in the race in order to get a stronger team out. It is pretty obvious that the two teams that are the biggest threats to Tom & Tyler are Tim & Rod and Jasmine & Jerome. In keeping Viv & Joey in the race, they were probably hoping for a stronger team to get eliminated but in the end, they didn't quite go far enough to ensure that Tim & Rod were eliminated - if they really wanted to retain full control over the situation, they should have gone over to Nick during the sandal-making roadblock in Lizulu market to tell him exactly what he needed to do, but they just left Nick to his own devices as he struggled with making the sandals.
Oh I don't like the sight of blood! This wasn't the first time a racer has sustained an injury during a TAR challenge, but fortunately it didn't look too serious and there's always a first aid team close by to attend to the racers. It looked like the scissors slipped as he was trying to use it, causing a cut to his finger and it looked far more serious in the trailer than it actually was. TAR does have a duty of care to their racers to make sure that they do not sustain any serious injuries during any of these challenges (so for example, in leg 6, the dig in the desert sand was limited to 4 hours), so Tim's mishap with the scissors pales in comparison to come of the more epic injuries we've seen in TAR's history. Here's a list of ten memory injuries from TAR US' history - though the list was dated 2014 so I suppose we can include Floyd's heat exhaustion in Vietnam from TAR S29 E10. Most of the injuries on that list do relate to slips and falls which is inevitable given that the physical nature of the race, but we have also a car accident in the list, an electrocution and then the famous "watermelon in the face" moment with Claire from TAR S17 - ouch. It wasn't an equipment malfunction, it was simply Claire simply an unlucky accident with the angle she released the catapult. Mind you, despite becoming an internet meme with that watermelon incident, Brook & Claire actually went on to finish a close 2nd in that season. Thus in comparison, Tim's injury was unfortunate but not that serious, so he was able to continue racing and complete that leg.
The memory task coming in leg 10? Interesting.
Okay this was a break from the norm, the memory task is traditionally the very last task on the entire race but this is the first time we see such a memory challenge in leg 10. But why not, I don't think that the traditions of TAR are sacred and every season the producers are always trying to give the viewers something just a little bit different and new to surprise them. There were ten questions and two minutes, just 120 seconds to answer them all - that's 12 seconds of thinking time per question. That's not a lot of time and I did think that it was way too harsh to rush them through the task like that - if the task is ultimately about memory, then racers should be given a bit more time to try to recall what happened without the pressure of running out of time. On the other hand, have a look at the questions below: there's an element of "either you know or you don't know." If the team wasn't there to witness an event, they probably would have no idea. However, I note that each answer can only be used once and if you have figured out say 6 or 7 out of the 10 questions, then there's a bit of intelligent guesswork involved for the rest of the questions. As a viewer, I don't recall seeing Sid & Ash taking two clues leaving a team with none (something which they really ought to be penalized for), it simply wasn't shown but even if I didn't witness Sid & Ash doing it - I can probably guess that there is really only one team capable of trying to do something like that by process of elimination after having gone through all the other questions. So the quiz is not a bad idea at all, it is just that given the racers only 2 minutes with very little thinking time did seem somewhat harsh - Femi & Nick did do so well on this quiz with just two wrong answers, but alas, that wasn't enough to save them from elimination.
| # | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Who jumped the elevator queue in Namsan Tower? | Tom & Tyler |
| 2 | Which team attempted a Fast Forward, then gave up? | Tim & Rod |
| 3 | Who gave up the stilts for shrimp baskets in Vietnam? | Jasmin & Jerome |
| 4 | Which team was second to arrive to build play equipment in Zimbabwe? | Femi & Nick |
| 5 | Which team took two clues leaving a team with none? | Sid & Ash |
| 6 | Which team took four attempts to sing their Mongolian wrestling song? | Hayley & Mikayla |
| 7 | Which team spent the most time in a taxi in the first leg? | Alana & Niko |
| 8 | Who was overtaken in the last 30 seconds of the second leg? | Judy & Therese |
| 9 | Who successfully stacked cups and paddled with their feet? | Rowah & Amani |
| 10 | Who nailed flyboarding in under two minutes? | Chris & Adrienne |
Time for a costume change?
Many of you on social media noted that the teams seem to be wearing the same clothes in practically every leg. You have Tom & Tyler in their distinctive orange T-shirts, then Viv & Joey in their red tops, Tim & Rod with their flannel shirts with the sleeves cut off, Jasmine & Jerome in those black T-shirts with Australian Aboriginal flag and of course Femi & Nick were usually in blue T-shirts but for a change in this last leg, they were in white T-shirts. It does make one wonder: did the producers ask the team to pick their outfits prior to the race so they appear to be wearing the same clothes in every leg? Just how many orange T-shirts did Tom & Tyler pack with them - do you have a production assistant with a big bag of orange T-shirts, ready to throw them a new one after they have played with animal poo in Zimbabwe? Or were teams desperately trying to wash and dry their clothes in the hotel room between legs? After all, they have raced through some hot and sweaty countries - this was filmed in August to September 2019: so it would have been sweltering in the northern hemisphere and the countries in Africa would have been hot regardless. Some challenges like the clay-brick making task in the last leg and the Bootcamp obstacle course in leg 2 would have left the teams totally covered in dirt, so there must have been a lot of dirty laundry to be washed along the way if the teams were to appear in the same clothes in every single leg. Nonetheless, the teams do appear relatively clean and fresh at the start of each leg, so at least they appear to be getting some help on the laundry situation! Imagine having to wear the same dirty clothes day after day!
Wait a minute, how many roadblocks has Jerome done?
According to the Wikipedia page for this season, Jerome has done five roadblocks whilst Jasmine has only done one out of six. That basically means that there are no restrictions about how many roadblocks each team member has to do - that does seem somewhat unfair because in the American version, a new rule was established pretty early on in TAR US S6 where each team member can complete a maximum of six roadblocks, but that's because in the American version, there are 12 roadblocks over 12 episodes. In TAR Oz S4, we're currently up to the 10th episode but there had been only 6 roadblocks so far, that means there were 4 episodes (2, 4, 5 and 9) without a roadblock. So the "maximum of 6 roadblocks" American rule is meaningless here, given that there are far less than 12 roadblocks in this season. This rule was introduced after season 5 when the three final teams were male-female duos and it just got silly with the roadblock ratio being 11:1 - the male racer in each team did 11 out of 12 roadblocks. They are a lot more strict about enforcing this fair split of roadblocks rule in the American version, but it does appear to be an oversight on the part of the Australian production team in this season. Jerome is obviously physically stronger than Jasmine, but I do think that it is unfair for one team member to do most of the roadblocks. Would Jasmine be forced to do the last one or two roadblocks or would Jerome just continue doing them all? I blame the production team for this, heck if there is no rule about this in this season, Jasmine & Jerome just need to do whatever it takes to win - again, more bad decisions by the production team. They really suck. Oh yeah - I never put the production team on a pedestal, I do hold them accountable for their mistakes.
Am I being a demanding diva? Moi?
Oh some people have told me that since the franchise is new to Channel 10 Australia, they are learning as they go along and they're bound to make some mistakes along the way. I say hell no, we're not dealing with a bunch of 16 year old teenagers on a school project making a short film for Youtube in their summer holidays. These are professionals from the production team, they are being paid good money to get it right, not make mistakes and learn along the way! I have a job and I would get into big trouble with my boss if I fucked up, because he pays me to get things right the first time, he is not hiring me to learn along the way whilst making one bad decision after another. I don't know why some of the people on social media are so forgiving to the Channel 10 production team when they totally mess up and make really stupid decisions when it comes to the production! The fact that the show is new to your channel is simply not a valid excuse! For crying out aloud, TAR has been around since 2001, it has a global franchise in so many languages in so many countries - if you are given the opportunity to produce a season of TAR, the first thing you do is loads of research, watch loads of seasons and understand how the format is meant to work, find out what it means to the fans who love TAR. Can you imagine going to a restaurant and being served a totally burnt pizza, you ask the waiter why your pizza is totally burnt and he shrugs his shoulders and says, "oh it is that new chef, sorry - it is his first week here, he has no experience making pizzas before; he's still learning so he has made some mistakes, you know. Enjoy your pizza." Would you even eat that totally burnt pizza, never mind pay for it? Hell no. You would complain and kick up a big fuss - and that's exactly what I am doing here. Channel 10's production team sucks ass big time, the production on this season has been simply awful compared to the American and Canadian versions. And no, I don't think that doesn't make me a demanding diva!
Who will be eliminated next in Bangkok? Who will win the next leg?
Let's deal with the easier question first: of course Tom & Tyler are going to cruise to yet another victory - they have already tied the TAR record for most number of legs won and there's no doubt that they will establish a new all time record with 9 legs won. I do like this team very much - they make everything look effortless and they are not arrogant, they have a wide enough variety of skills to overcome anything the race has thrown at them so far and they are even good at the social aspect of making friends and alliances. I'm sure many TAR fans want to see them go down in history as the best team on TAR of all time, so yeah they're definitely going to win in Bangkok if the producers don't do another bullshit leg like in Ulaanbaatar in leg 6 when they forced a lot of luck into the outcome of the leg. I think there will be a massive uproar on social media if you did deny Tom & Tyler their rightful victory as the best team of all time and the win for this season. But as for the next team to be eliminated: goodness me. My heart is saying Tim & Rod - I don't think they deserve to make the final because they have been all brawn no brain. Even like the incident where they referred to the local language as 'African', were they being racist? No, they weren't - they were just being extremely stupid and ignorant, they probably didn't even realize they had caused offence, there was certainly no malice involved but just for that, I don't think they deserve to be in the finals because TAR should be about both brains and brawn, this isn't a programme like 'Australian Ninja Warrior' which I imagine Tim & Rod would actually be really good at given the nature of that programme.
However, putting aside my personal feelings, with Femi & Nick now eliminated, statistically the weakest team is Viv & Joey and logically, they would be the ones to fall at the final hurdle before the finals. We have seen that in most cases, the statistics never lie: the strongest team will win and the weakest team will get eliminated. As much as I adore Viv & Joey, they are not a strong team - they really struggle with the physical tasks and that was especially evident in leg 8 when they had to carry a big bucket of water on their heads to the pit stop. Likewise, Viv has had a few major meltdowns - in leg 9, she got struggled with the sewing challenge and took longer than Joey to complete that detour, then she completely messed up the task at Lake Malawi when she had to get the instructions in the local Chichewa language, leaving poor Joey searching randomly in the lake without a clue where to go. She got flustered and made 9 mistakes in the quiz in this leg (9 mistakes = a score of 1/10 in the quiz), which was a horrendously bad result. She isn't stupid, she comes across as very intelligent - but her track record does suggest that she would crack under pressure even on a mental task like a quiz. The teams had been on the road for weeks by this point, I can sense she is mentally and physically exhausted. Tom & Tyler and Jasmine Jerome should therefore go out of their way to make sure that they drag Viv & Joey to the pit stop in this next leg because they are clearly a statistically a much weaker team than Tim & Rod and you would rather race against a weaker team in the final leg. Will the teams be strategic and help Viv & Joey or will they get eliminated in Bangkok? My heart wants Tim & Rod to be eliminated next but unfortunately my head says Viv & Joey.
So, that's it from me on this latest episode. We look forward to the exciting finals next week! Many thanks for reading.
Many of you on social media noted that the teams seem to be wearing the same clothes in practically every leg. You have Tom & Tyler in their distinctive orange T-shirts, then Viv & Joey in their red tops, Tim & Rod with their flannel shirts with the sleeves cut off, Jasmine & Jerome in those black T-shirts with Australian Aboriginal flag and of course Femi & Nick were usually in blue T-shirts but for a change in this last leg, they were in white T-shirts. It does make one wonder: did the producers ask the team to pick their outfits prior to the race so they appear to be wearing the same clothes in every leg? Just how many orange T-shirts did Tom & Tyler pack with them - do you have a production assistant with a big bag of orange T-shirts, ready to throw them a new one after they have played with animal poo in Zimbabwe? Or were teams desperately trying to wash and dry their clothes in the hotel room between legs? After all, they have raced through some hot and sweaty countries - this was filmed in August to September 2019: so it would have been sweltering in the northern hemisphere and the countries in Africa would have been hot regardless. Some challenges like the clay-brick making task in the last leg and the Bootcamp obstacle course in leg 2 would have left the teams totally covered in dirt, so there must have been a lot of dirty laundry to be washed along the way if the teams were to appear in the same clothes in every single leg. Nonetheless, the teams do appear relatively clean and fresh at the start of each leg, so at least they appear to be getting some help on the laundry situation! Imagine having to wear the same dirty clothes day after day!
Wait a minute, how many roadblocks has Jerome done?
According to the Wikipedia page for this season, Jerome has done five roadblocks whilst Jasmine has only done one out of six. That basically means that there are no restrictions about how many roadblocks each team member has to do - that does seem somewhat unfair because in the American version, a new rule was established pretty early on in TAR US S6 where each team member can complete a maximum of six roadblocks, but that's because in the American version, there are 12 roadblocks over 12 episodes. In TAR Oz S4, we're currently up to the 10th episode but there had been only 6 roadblocks so far, that means there were 4 episodes (2, 4, 5 and 9) without a roadblock. So the "maximum of 6 roadblocks" American rule is meaningless here, given that there are far less than 12 roadblocks in this season. This rule was introduced after season 5 when the three final teams were male-female duos and it just got silly with the roadblock ratio being 11:1 - the male racer in each team did 11 out of 12 roadblocks. They are a lot more strict about enforcing this fair split of roadblocks rule in the American version, but it does appear to be an oversight on the part of the Australian production team in this season. Jerome is obviously physically stronger than Jasmine, but I do think that it is unfair for one team member to do most of the roadblocks. Would Jasmine be forced to do the last one or two roadblocks or would Jerome just continue doing them all? I blame the production team for this, heck if there is no rule about this in this season, Jasmine & Jerome just need to do whatever it takes to win - again, more bad decisions by the production team. They really suck. Oh yeah - I never put the production team on a pedestal, I do hold them accountable for their mistakes.
Oh some people have told me that since the franchise is new to Channel 10 Australia, they are learning as they go along and they're bound to make some mistakes along the way. I say hell no, we're not dealing with a bunch of 16 year old teenagers on a school project making a short film for Youtube in their summer holidays. These are professionals from the production team, they are being paid good money to get it right, not make mistakes and learn along the way! I have a job and I would get into big trouble with my boss if I fucked up, because he pays me to get things right the first time, he is not hiring me to learn along the way whilst making one bad decision after another. I don't know why some of the people on social media are so forgiving to the Channel 10 production team when they totally mess up and make really stupid decisions when it comes to the production! The fact that the show is new to your channel is simply not a valid excuse! For crying out aloud, TAR has been around since 2001, it has a global franchise in so many languages in so many countries - if you are given the opportunity to produce a season of TAR, the first thing you do is loads of research, watch loads of seasons and understand how the format is meant to work, find out what it means to the fans who love TAR. Can you imagine going to a restaurant and being served a totally burnt pizza, you ask the waiter why your pizza is totally burnt and he shrugs his shoulders and says, "oh it is that new chef, sorry - it is his first week here, he has no experience making pizzas before; he's still learning so he has made some mistakes, you know. Enjoy your pizza." Would you even eat that totally burnt pizza, never mind pay for it? Hell no. You would complain and kick up a big fuss - and that's exactly what I am doing here. Channel 10's production team sucks ass big time, the production on this season has been simply awful compared to the American and Canadian versions. And no, I don't think that doesn't make me a demanding diva!
Who will be eliminated next in Bangkok? Who will win the next leg?
Let's deal with the easier question first: of course Tom & Tyler are going to cruise to yet another victory - they have already tied the TAR record for most number of legs won and there's no doubt that they will establish a new all time record with 9 legs won. I do like this team very much - they make everything look effortless and they are not arrogant, they have a wide enough variety of skills to overcome anything the race has thrown at them so far and they are even good at the social aspect of making friends and alliances. I'm sure many TAR fans want to see them go down in history as the best team on TAR of all time, so yeah they're definitely going to win in Bangkok if the producers don't do another bullshit leg like in Ulaanbaatar in leg 6 when they forced a lot of luck into the outcome of the leg. I think there will be a massive uproar on social media if you did deny Tom & Tyler their rightful victory as the best team of all time and the win for this season. But as for the next team to be eliminated: goodness me. My heart is saying Tim & Rod - I don't think they deserve to make the final because they have been all brawn no brain. Even like the incident where they referred to the local language as 'African', were they being racist? No, they weren't - they were just being extremely stupid and ignorant, they probably didn't even realize they had caused offence, there was certainly no malice involved but just for that, I don't think they deserve to be in the finals because TAR should be about both brains and brawn, this isn't a programme like 'Australian Ninja Warrior' which I imagine Tim & Rod would actually be really good at given the nature of that programme.
So, that's it from me on this latest episode. We look forward to the exciting finals next week! Many thanks for reading.
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