Tom & Tyler 1.636 (eliminated in Bangkok - ouch!)
Tim & Rod 3.181
Jasmine & Jerome 3.454
Viv & Joey: 3.909
Good grief. I knew that Tom & Tyler were going to be U-turned because that was leaked in the previews on social media last week, but at one stage, they had overtaken Jasmine & Jerome and had quite a lead over them until they got to the last task involving covering the statue with gold leaf. Both statues were already good to go but for some bizarre reason, Tom & Tyler made their biggest mistake in the entire race which cost them a place in the finals. But it wasn't one mistake - it started with them being so engrossed in the task they missed a valuable opportunity to see what the finished product was for the two teams Tim & Rod and Viv & Joey who finished ahead of them. The viewers could see that the statues were hardly the finished product - this is because in standard practice when applying gold leaf, you need to let the glue set after you had put on the gold leaf before finishing it off with some more polishing to remove the rough edges. Clearly, this step was not required in the process, teams were simply required to apply the initial layer and that was it - if you were to look at the product that Tim & Rod and Viv & Joey came up with, it was imperfect but passable. Tom & Tyler had two golden opportunity (yes pun intended) to take a look at the minimum standard required to pass but they were so engrossed in their task they missed that opportunity. Secondly, they lacked the guts to simply call for an inspection when they were neck and neck with Jasmine & Jerome - yes you risk losing a few second of working time if the judge takes his time inspecting, but the moment Jerome asked for an inspection, I knew Tom & Tyler were defeated. This was their first big error of judgment in the race but it was the wrong time to mess up and I am so disappointed but credit to Jerome for pulling his team through when it mattered the most. They had more than their share of bad luck with the Bangkok traffic.
Were the producers determined to eliminate Tom & Tyler?
I am surprised that Tom & Tyler didn't see the U-turn coming - they had dominated this season so far with a record breaking winning streak. We're getting down to the wire now and this is the last chance for the teams to get rid of their biggest competition. I do question the decision to have a group U-turn at this stage of the game - after all, it would be pretty darn obvious that Tom & Tyler would be U-turned and it almost feels contrived to eliminate them at this leg, leaving three far more evenly matched teams in the final three. This would make a far more exciting final leg rather than have one team obviously a lot stronger than the rest. So when the opportunity was given to the teams, they did the obvious thing and U-turned Tom & Tyler. But I think that this feels almost too construed against Tom & Tyler in this format - the producers should have simply put the U-turn board in the middle of the race, at the end of the detour so that the team that completed the detour first earns the right to U-turn another team. Of course, it would have meant that Tom & Tyler would have been spared the U-turn and that was not the outcome the producers wanted. That was frustrating for me of course and it did remind me of TAR Asia S5 in episode 9 when the producers ensured that the strongest team Treasuri & Louisa did not make it to the final leg. Don't hate the player, hate the game - but in this case, I would encourage you to blame (and hate) the producers for creating an unfair situation. I do feel that Tom & Tyler had the odds stacked against them, but in the end it was a dumb error of judgement that eliminated them rather than the U-turn. What a shame guys.
Let me point out that so far Jerome has done 6 roadblocks and Jasmine has only done 1 so it looks like there is no limit to how many roadblocks a racer can do in this season. I see this as a massive oversight on the part of the producers who really should have put a limit and ensured that each time member did about half the roadblocks. Seriously, how can the producers allow this? This oversight has given Jasmine & Jerome an advantage in this race and if Jasmine had been forced to do some of the roadblocks, they may not have made it into the finals. Mind you, even for seemingly easy ones like the denture fitting task, they still elected Jerome to do it even though I am sure Jasmine would have found it simple.
Century eggs are not that bad, I really like them.
I have to say I really like century eggs, the salty preserved eggs that the teams had to eat in this leg. When I was at a conference with a group of Australians in Shenzhen last year, the Aussies were offered century eggs in various dishes (in a rice congee, on tofu, in a salad with other vegetables, with pickled ginger etc) and none of them actually reacted negatively to it, in fact they rather liked it. However, even someone like me who adores century eggs would never eat it in on its own just like that - it is an ingredient you use in Asian cooking rather than a snack you would eat like that. So let me use an analogy for my Australian readers: you guys love Vegemite and apart from spreading it on toast, there are many different recipes you can use Vegemite in which would be utterly delightful. I'm okay with Vegemite I suppose, I don't hate it but it's not exactly something I would spend good money on. I actually grew up with Marmite since my parents actually liked Marmite for some reason and it is very similar. But imagine if we had a TAR roadblock whereby you had to eat a jar of Vegemite, no toast provided, just a bottle of water and a spoon. You have to somehow eat a that whole jar of Vegemite and even the biggest fans of Vegemite in Australia would find that hard to swallow because it would simply be way too salty and a downright unpleasant experience. The same principle applies to the century eggs: no one ever just peels it and eats it like that - you use it as an ingredient in a recipe and I assure you that it tastes pretty good.
It was pretty obvious to me which task was the easier in the detour: would you rather take a fun sightseeing cruise on the river or assemble a tuk tuk? It was obvious that the water side of the detour was much easier, perhaps the teams could have been given more landmarks to remember, so as to create the possibility of the teams failing the test on the first attempt and having to take the cruise again - but both teams who did that detour seemed to sail through it effortlessly.
What's with the denture-fitting task?
You know, like so many of you, I have visited Thailand and find it fascinating but what's with that denture fitting task? These task are meant to either showcase a fascinating aspect of Thai culture or take advantage of a stunningly beautiful location. This did neither: the teams were in some kind of local community center which was no more than a fenced off area underneath a big flyover. Besides, there's nothing Thai about dentures per se, sure they are used in Thailand but they are used all over the world as well. If it looked familiar to some of you, then that is because this was one of the detours in TAR US S14 E8 when teams had to choose between broken teeth or broken record - the choice of these detours are selected together with local fixers, so it made me wonder how anyone involved in the decision making process could look at this option and think, "oh yeah, fitting dentures, that would be perfect for TAR." Hell no. What were they thinking? There are so many other beautiful and awesome things to see and do in a city like Bangkok! Why did they choose such a grim looking location for a task? Besides, there wasn't that much skill involved in that denture fitting task - there were only so many in each bowl in front of each person, so it was just a matter of going through all of them until you found the one that fit. It wasn't difficult, it was simply a matter of getting there quickly in your taxi through the congested streets of Bangkok. Again, add this to the long list of awful decisions by the production team in this season!
Well, it is going to be a lot harder to predict who the winners will be now that Tom & Tyler have been eliminated. Statistically, I can see that Tim & Rod are a lot stronger than the other two teams and they did finally win a leg in Bangkok (with the help of the U-turn) but credit where credit is due, they did avoid any mistakes in this leg. Viv & Joey did waste a lot of time wandering around the Khlong Toei market in the rain looking for the right stall for their century egg challenge, Jasmine & Jerome did find it fairly quickly but wasted precious time when Jasmine took a good 25 minutes to eat the three eggs. Even if you did find it unappetizing, the thing to do would have been to hold your breath, swallow it with loads of water then throw up immediately afterwards. Mind you, they then got incredibly unlucky with their taxi driver afterwards, experiencing the very worst of Bangkok traffic. Thus Tim & Rod were the only team to have avoided any major errors or problems in this leg and this led to their first win ever in the season so far but mind you, we have seen them make loads of bad errors of judgement throughout this season (such as in giving up the fast forward in leg 4 in Vietnam) and they did choose the harder detour (the tuk tuk) in this leg. Statistically it is clear that they are the strongest team, but there's not that much difference between the three teams in the finals, so it would be anyone's game. I would love to see Viv & Joey win - I'm always rooting for the underdogs but my head is telling me that the statistically strongest team is always more than likely to win. But let's see - with Tom & Tyler gone, the finals are far more unpredictable now.
Wait Beau, "change their lives forever"?
In the trailer for the grand finale, Beau said that the winning TAR would change their lives forever. I hardly think so Beau - we're talking A$250,000 which is a lot of money but it is not A$25 million. It's just a quarter of a million Australian dollars and a nice 2 bedroom apartment in Sydney starts at about A$500,000. Don't get me wrong, the price money would of course be useful and maybe the teams could use their new found fame to launch a new career but 'change their lives forever'? I work in corporate finance and once in a while, I do get a windfall, a big lump sum payment when I close a deal and it has never changed my life. I usually worry about just how much tax I have to pay if I get a big lump sum like that and revise that figure down. I'm not an expert on the Australian tax system, so I simply fed the number 250,000 into the tax calculator on the Australian taxation office website and the tax due on those winnings is A$85,597 so that brings the number down to A$164,403 but that's still not the final figure as we have to take into account the tax due on the income already earned in that tax year, so inevitably they would have to pay more than A$85,597 tax on those winnings. But wait, even if we use the figure of A$164,403, that's still for two racers and so each racer gets A$82,201.50 - please don't get me wrong, as that is still well over a year's salary for many Australians but hardly a life changing amount of money.
Okay so that's it from me on this - it's a rather rushed piece on a Monday night but goodness me, I can't believe we are nearly at the end of this season. For those of you who like TAR, may I take this opportunity to introduce you to another reality TV programme which I am a massive fan of: Wie Is De Mol (Netherlands) and De Mol (Belgium). Mind you, there was an Australian version of this programme called The Mole and it ran for six seasons starting in 2000 and finally ending in 2013. I totally loved the Australian Mole S6, it was so awesome and I was very lucky to have visited a lot of the locations they filmed in on my last trip to Australia. Sadly, there is no longer a version of The Mole in the English speaking world but the franchise is still going strong in the Dutch speaking part of the world and it is a stunningly intriguing reality TV show usually filmed in a beautiful, exotic country with recent seasons being filmed in countries as diverse as Georgia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, the Dominican Republic and Colombia. The new season of the Dutch Mole would begin in January and yes it is available with English subtitles for those of us who don't speak Dutch fluently. We are not certain when TAR US S32 will premier but in the meantime, Wie Is De Mol would keep you entertained in early 2020. Who do you think will win the grand finale tomorrow? I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for Viv & Joey! Many thanks for reading as always.
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