TAR Oz S4 E4: can anyone stop Tom & Tyler from winning?

G'day and xin chào! Yet another leg run in the beautiful Ninh Binh district and we say goodbye to yet another team. This episode certainly took me by surprise and the teams that I thought were going to do well struggled and there were plenty of silly mistakes as well - we saw our first big squabble by Chris & Adrienne as the stress got to them in Vietnam but let's have a look at the average ranking statistics now as the teams have had a bit of a shuffle after the fourth leg in Vietnam.

Average ranking statistics after leg 4

Tom & Tyler: 1

Viv & Joey: 3.25

Hayley & Mikayla: 3.25

Tim & Rod: 4

Jasmine & Jerome: 4.75

Sid & Ash: 6.25

Chris & Adrienne: 6.75

Femi & Nick: 7.25

Rowah & Amani: 8.5 (eliminated in Hoa Lu)

Congratulations to Tom & Tyler who claimed their fourth victory in a row and seem unstoppable, but they benefited mostly from the mistakes of others in this leg. If Tim & Rod had stayed calmed and completed their fast forward, then they could have easily won this leg. But no, they gave in to blind panic and gave up, resulting in a very mediocre 5th place. Unfortunately, that means that in spite of their sheer muscle power (they did complete the joss stake challenge before anyone else), they don't quite understand how this race works. Likewise, at one stage, Sid & Ash were actually in the lead, being the first team to have found the statue of the monk with both feet on the animal, but once again, they got hopelessly lost in the vast temple complex whilst trying to find the bell tower and fell to 3rd. Phew, you know I don't like Sid at all. Tom & Tyler did perform very well on the stilts detour but apart from that, they could have easily finished in 2nd or 3rd given that they did make a silly mistake in wasting precious time trying to find first challenge and only got out of the joss sticks challenge only in 5th place. So actually, they didn't run a perfect leg - there were moments when they did let their guard down but they have seen that they can still take it easy and cruise to victory again, so I do wonder if they would get more complacent going into the next leg? It would take a massive dose of bad luck to slow Tom & Tyler down! 

So I was wrong about Viv & Joey doing well in this leg.

Goodness me, talk about bad luck. None of the other teams had any problems with their taxi drivers despite not speaking a word of Vietnamese - then you have Joey who is totally fluent but still unable to do much when his clueless taxi driver got totally lost. I do wonder how much control a racer has over that kind of situation, when your taxi driver insists they know where they are going but you feel that they don't - at what stage do you intervene by stopping and either asking for directions from someone else or simply switching taxis? Despite their poor performance in this leg, they are still statistically the second strongest team along with Hayley & Mikayla - though the question we should be asking is if these are the top three teams at this stage, are either Viv & Joey or Hayley & Mikayla ever going to outperform Tom & Tyler? Or are we looking at a record breaking season with Tom & Tyler winning every single leg if they continue being this brilliant? 

Oh dear, Tim & Rod just don't get it do they? 

Tim & Rod made three gross errors of judgement in this leg - firstly, they threw away a hard earned early lead by abandoning the fast forward. Oh come on, they are so strong, it would've been easier for them! Had they persisted, they not only would have won this leg, but they would have taken away the precious lifeline that Jasmine & Jerome were thrown, thus eliminating a rather strong team. Instead, Jasmine & Jerome took full advantage of that lifeline and a weaker team got eliminated instead - but to be fair, starting in last place with a roadblock to overcome, the odds had already been stacked against Rowah & Amani and they were counting on another team like Femi & Nick to have a complete meltdown again. Furthermore, Tim & Rod think they are in an alliance with Sid & Ash, who made it very clear that they fully intend to use Tim & Rod until they outlive their usefulness. So for example, when Sid & Ash finally helped Tim & Rod, they could have simply given them the correct answer and sent them to the bell tower, but no, instead they told them where to find the correct statue. This was a very calculated move on the part of Sid & Ash because they want to help Tim & Rod, but they want to make sure they still maintain a comfortable lead ahead of them. And all this while, Tim & Rod just don't get it - why are they so trusting? Perhaps there's just a bit of naivety on their part about just how devious this race can get, don't get me wrong, they are sweet and innocent, that's a good trait actually. Quite unlike Sid & Ash who will lie and cheat and do whatever it takes to avoid elimination, but this simply suggests that Tim & Rod probably haven't done enough research for TAR and don't quite understand how it all works. Then lastly, they clearly picked the wrong detour - given how extremely strong and sporty they are, they would have done the stilts detour faster. 

What if Rowah & Amani had tried the fast forward? 

Rowah & Amani were already behind because they had a speed bump (after having been spared elimination in the last leg) which required them to prepare an extra bundle of joss sticks - however, as they arrived at the painting task, Tim & Rod were already there painting and they could have easily checked if anyone had attempted the fast forward. Given that they were already in last place, they should have rolled the dice and gone for the fast forward the way Jasmine & Jerome did. But no they played it safe by going for the detour - that was an unwise decision which led to their elimination. I blame this on poor strategic planning - they knew there was a fast forward, they knew they were behind yet they didn't want to go for it or did they not even realize that it was an option? Either way, it does suggest a lack of understanding of how TAR works; well at least the same can't be said about Jasmine & Jerome who knew exactly what they had to do to stay in the race. Good for them, I am so glad it paid off for them. What a shame about Rowah & Amani though- they are a very likable duo indeed but unfortunately, I'm afraid it was only a matter of time before they got eliminated given their weak performances. The statistics don't lie, they were a weak team I'm afraid - most of the time, the weaker teams get eliminated first. I'm not saying it can never happen, but strong steams rarely get eliminated in the early stages of TAR.

Did the Vietnamese shrimp traps look quite familiar? 

This is because they were featured relatively recently in TAR US S29 E10 when Floyd collapsed from heat exhaustion whilst trying to complete that roadblock. He dramatically passed out at the side of the road from relentless tropical heat. But the American version of this challenge in S29 was somewhat different: they had to attach only 15 large and 17 small shrimp traps (a total of just 32) to the bicycle and then cycle 1.6 km to complete the task. But in the fast forward in this episode, they had to attach 320 of those shrimp baskets to the bicycle, but some of them are rather small - so it would take far longer to assemble all 320 baskets on the bicycle whist the racer only had to cycle a much shorter distance of just 200 meters. I'm not saying that the American version was a lot easier - it was brutal enough for one of the strongest racers Floyd (of Floyd & Becca, aka team fun) to collapse and get eliminated as a result. But good grief, 320 shrimp traps? Okay, even I thought that seemed a bit excessive but I'm glad that Jasmine & Jerome did succeed in that challenge as they proved that it was doable with a big dose of patience and persistence. Whilst no one collapsed from heat exhaustion in this leg, you have got to feel for the racers having to do these very physical tasks in the tropical heat. 

Detour: painting or stilts? 

That would be a hard choice - clearly the stilts were never going to be easy. I am so glad some teams attempted and even succeeded with this challenge. In TAR Latino America S3 E5 in Montevideo, Uruguay, the stilts were featured as one of the options in a detour - teams simply had to walk 200 m on stilts to receive their next clue. It looked straightforward enough but every single team who tried it gave up within minutes and switched to the other side of the detour which was rollerblading 200 m with the team members tied together. The painting was always going to be the slow and steady option - it was not about any kind of skill or artistic talent - notably, Jerome said to Jasmine, "I can't paint, can you?" Nobody is expecting you to be Monet or Renoir on this task, it's just a painstakingly slow task where you need to pay great attention to detail. The stilts of course involve an extremely high level of physical dexterity and balance - now that's the kind of task that I would have imagined that Tim & Rod would have been able to perform quite well at, but instead, they were there for about five seconds before switching detours. Had they stuck with the stilts, then they probably would have finished in a much stronger position in this leg - but for these two, it was one bad decision after another in this leg unfortunately. Personally, I would have rolled the dice and gone with the stilts because you know the teams who manage to complete that challenge would definitely be ahead of those who opt for the painting. I'm so glad Jasmine & Jerome managed to survive this leg despite their gamble not paying off - I'm beginning to like this team a lot.

Adrienne loses her cool and everyone runs for cover. 

Good grief - this is the first time we see a racer truly lose her temper in this season and it is our fiery -firefighter Adrienne. She made herself no friends by barking at the other racers during the joss sticks challenge and by the time they got to the Bái Đính Temple, the working relationship between Chris and Adrienne had well and truly broken down. Some racers manage to channel their anger and frustration into a kind of more positive motivation to do better on the race, whilst others simply self-destruct. I'm still not quite sure which category to put Adrienne into yet - certainly, as a firefighter, she must be used to coping with stressful situations at work all the time, so that's why I am somewhat surprised to see her crack under pressure in this leg. Mind you, I am sure many of you would remember TAR S29 which was won by Scott & Brooke, those two never had a great working relationship, they argued a lot, they yelled at each other and Brooke annoyed the hell out of so many viewers, yet somehow they managed to channel all that negative energy into getting their act together when it mattered the most in the final leg to win that season. However, looking at the average statistics after 4 legs of this season, Chris & Adrienne are at the bottom of the pack and they are only going to be comfortable as long as they were weaker teams around. Rowah & Amani have been eliminated but Femi & Nick are still around, so let's see if Chris & Adrienne will get their act together or if they will just turn on each other when the pressure gets too much.

Who will be eliminated next in Mongolia? And who would win the next leg? 

Okay, I admit, I made a mistake last week by predicting that it would be either Femi & Nick or Sid & Ash who would be eliminated when Rowah & Amani were setting out in last place and had a roadblock to overcome - I liked them very much so I didn't want to see them eliminated and that did cloud my judgement. So right now, I am going to purely look at the statistics and take into account the fact that the teams are probably going to set out in Mongolia in the order they finished this leg, that would of course mean giving Tom & Tyler a head start and more crucially, Femi & Nick would be the very last team to set off. The would put them at a massive disadvantage hence by that token, I am going to predict that it would have to be Femi & Nick who would get eliminated next. The preview doesn't really tell us anything obvious, I'm sure they're carefully avoiding spoilers of course. The only thing we know for sure is that camels do feature in this next leg in Mongolia, so perhaps Chris' experience in running an alpaca farm in Australia would help. It seems almost a forgone conclusion that Tom & Tyler would win this next leg (and the season) but I am going to also look out for Jasmine & Jerome who have been very impressive as well as Hayley & Mikayla as well - if anyone is going to challenge Tom & Tyler in the next leg, it would be these two teams. Hey but we all know that it would probably be Tom & Tyler once again. 

Wait, isn't this getting boring? Did the producers get it right? 

I know it can be boring and predictable if a super strong team like Tom & Tyler builds up an early lead and keeps on winning because they have that advantage of being the first to set off on each leg, but there are two things that the producers can do to level the playing field. The first is to simply give the teams a clue which instruct them all to take the same mode of transport at the same time, like "take the next train/bus/flight to (insert name of destination)" whilst making sure that there is only one train/bus/flight departing for that destination much, much later in the day, hence allowing even the slowest teams to catch up as a result. The other way to do it is simply to send the teams to a location (like a museum, a library, a shop) at night only to be met with an 'hours of operation' sign, so that all the teams would be waiting outside the location at the same time whilst waiting for it to open. So far, neither of these methods have been used by the production team as of yet. The last method of course is the 'random' challenge which depends entirely on luck - now this has been done in the previous leg already when teams had to open and eat packets of green rice cakes until they find one with the lucky gold coin before receiving their next clue. There's no skill involved, you're just completely dependent on luck - but even then, that luck-based challenge did little to slow down Tom & Tyler as they got lucky at that challenge as well, finding the gold coin in the first packet of rice cake they opened. Let's see if the producers will try to artificially slow down Tom & Tyler's progress and level the playing field - just a little, before they win every single leg of this race!

Mongolia? Wow, has any TAR from any country ever been to Mongolia before? 

Yes, just once: TAR US has been there back in TAR S10 E2 - that was in 2006. No other TAR from any other country has run a leg in Mongolia, so yes - well done to TAR Oz for picking an unusual country off the beaten track for this season. 

That's it from me on this episode, let me know what you think please, leave a comment below. Many thanks for reading.