First: Tim & Rod, 3
Second: Jasmine & Jerome, 3.33
Third: Viv & Joey, 3.83
Fourth: Tom & Tyler, 1.63
Fifth: Femi & Nick, 5.5
Sixth: Sid & Ash, 5.25
Seventh: Hayley & Mikayla, 4.33
Eighth: Chris & Adrienne, 7
Ninth: Rowah & Amani, 8.5
Tenth: Judy & Therese, 10
Last: Niko & Alana, 11
As you can see from all the average rankings of all the teams here, usually the weakest teams were the first to go whilst the strongest teams lasted till the end. There were two notable exceptions of course, Hayley & Mikayla and Tom & Tyler. Firstly, Hayley & Mikayla fell victim to a double dose of bad luck and bad traffic in Ulanbaatar on leg 6 when the race day coincided with Vladimir Putin's visit to Mongolia - they ended up spending over 7 hours in a taxi sitting in traffic that day. That is why they go eliminated with a relatively healthy average ranking compared to two other teams who outlasted them in this race. The next anomaly which I have talked about in my last post was Tom & Tyler who hold the record for the best ever average ranking despite not making it to the final leg. Sigh, these boys had a ticket to the final but lost their nerve at the last moment when they lost focus on the final task in the last leg, becoming so engrossed in what they were doing that they didn't realize that Jasmine & Jerome had caught up with them. Many people on social media were wondering if the last leg had been a non-elimination leg, would Tom & Tyler have won the final leg and the answer is, oh yeah, without doubt. Nonetheless, we did have a very exciting final with teams switching places constantly throughout.
Actually it wasn't that clear because Jasmine & Jerome were the first team to arrive in Katherine, NT whilst Viv & Joey were the first team to leave the farm at Uralla. If the last task had been more focused on simply assembling the puzzle rather than kayaking, then Viv & Joey might have had a much better chance to win. My heart sank the moment I saw Viv & Joey struggle in the canoe as I knew it was the kind of physical challenge that Tim & Rod would find a lot easier. Perhaps it was a matter of editing as well but for a while, it did seem like Jasmine & Jerome and Tim & Rod were neck to neck assembling that last puzzle - whilst there were many pieces to the puzzle, it didn't actually look that complex once you figured out the first part. That meant that the teams that got there first clearly had a massive advantage and thus the race was won (and lost) over a kayaking challenge - sigh. I actually really liked the memory quiz with the penalty in leg 10 in Malawi, they should have switched the two around as TAR traditionally ends with a memory challenge. Again, the outcome of this season seem to really favour teams like Tim & Rod, Nick & Femi and Tom & Tyler who have the big muscles whilst I would have liked to have seen a race far more based on brain power to level the playing field, whether you're a short Asian lady, an older Aussie nun or a football player, you still have to use your intellect to solve the same puzzle. There were just too many physical challenges and like I said before, leave that to Australian Ninja Warrior please.
Well it started out well, I liked the challenge with the headlines at the Darwin waterfront - the huge bouncy castle in the water was a nice touch. The skydive however was questionable as it didn't go to plan because of weather conditions: one is left wondering if Viv & Joey were disadvantaged by not allowing to do the skydive, like if the landing location for the plane was very far away? Or if it was nearby, would a swift landing have given them an advantage? Even if the production team tried to make sure they weren't at a disadvantage, it's never an ideal situation. I did like the idea of the teams working with animals because it was one sure way to level the playing field by introducing an element of randomness and luck, depending on which dog you chose. I was amazed that Tim & Rod struggled with this challenge despite actually having a dog, yet they couldn't figure out how to do it. But ultimately, I thought that including a very physical kayaking challenge just before the final challenge was a mistake - perhaps you may feel differently about it if you really wanted Tim & Rod to win, but I feel that the final challenge on TAR should test the memory of the teams rather than be merely an assembling task. Mind you TAR US has messed up truly badly on S30 when the final puzzle was so difficult that teams were merely randomly swapping the puzzle pieces and shouting, "check please" around until one team finally got it right. Mind you that was one season which left many fans were left so very disappointed as the 'wrong team' won.
So did the right team win? Can we even discuss that?
Well, Tim & Rod won the race that they were set and they won it fair and square - so by that token the right team won. But given that many did feel that a U-turn vote on the penultimate leg was deliberately put that to get rid of the strongest team Tom & Tyler, then the wrong team won and Tom & Tyler were robbed of their victory. Mind you, if Tom & Tyler were in the final leg, they would be probably be assembling the final puzzle whilst the other teams were still skydiving or stuck on the farm with the dogs - the producers probably foresaw that and thought that wouldn't be an exciting final with the result as a foregone conclusion. But I think that this season would probably go down as one of the more controversial seasons where many will still argue that the wrong team won, that victory really should have gone to Tom & Tyler - that they were screwed by the producers who wanted a more exciting final leg rather than a fair game. I certainly stand by what I have said this entire season when I keep criticizing the production team at Channel 10 for the mistakes they have made this season - they are not teenagers doing a video for Youtube, this is meant to be a professional production with a huge budget and so I don't buy the "oh they are new to the show so they are learning as they go along". Come on, that's bullshit. You think my boss would pay me good money to learn as I go along and make so many mistakes? Hell no. My boss pays me to get things right the first time and make zero mistakes - that's called being a professional and Channel 10 were anything but professional. They even cast Sid & Ash in this season - worst casting decision ever in TAR history.
Some of you on social media have compared the situation with Tom & Tyler to Colin & Christie on TAR US S31 (the most recent season), Colin & Christie did win that season but with a more modest average ranking of 2.42 compared to Tom & Tyler's 1.63 - they did keep a relatively low profile in the early stages of the race, allowing other teams to win. They were always near the front of the pack but only actually won three legs, including of course the most important final leg. This meant that they were able to avoid having a huge target on their backs whilst other teams gave in to more petty disputes based on personality clashes. In the end, whilst Tom & Tyler's spellbinding performance was super impressive, it ultimately made them a big target for not just the other teams but the producers who seem hell bent on excluding them from the finals. Hence like so many fans out there, I do feel bad for the boys, they were screwed by the producers (rather than the other teams). Mind you, in TAR history, we have seen four teams in the final leg before during TAR US S25 when Amy & Maya were spared elimination in the penultimate leg and then went on to win the final leg against all odds. Now that for me would have been the right outcome for this season of TAR Oz - that would have been fair to Tom & Tyler.
Another gay couple wins TAR!
Given that gay marriage is still relatively new to Australia (it has been legal since 7 December 2017), as a gay man, of course I am pleased to see a gay couple being introduced as 'newly weds' on prime time Australian TV. I was actually in Australia during the 2017 referendum on gay marriage and boy, it got ugly. Good grief, I was on a grand tour of Australia and New Zealand then as my husband was working in Brisbane in 2017 and it was shocking to see the difference of opinions between the cosmopolitan big cities like Sydney and Melbourne and the smaller towns in the countryside. Ouch. That was why I think putting more gay couples on reality TV on Australia is an important step towards changing attitudes not just in the big cities but in the rural parts of Australia. We already know that big cities like Sydney and Melbourne are gay friendly. But the power of TV is that it penetrates even the most remote communities in the outback so whilst Tim & Rod were certainly my third choice when it came to picking a winner in the final leg (I still haven't forgiven them for thAT awful 'African' gaffe in leg 10), I am still nonetheless glad at what this represents in terms of representing the LGBT community in Australia. Furthermore, TAR Canada this year was also won by a gay married couple Anthony & James. They join other LGBT winners of TAR including Reichen & Chip of TAR US S4, Josh & Brent of TAR US S21, Scott of Brooke & Scott of TAR S29, Sam & Paul of TAR Canada S5 and Steph & Kristen Canada S4. Then you have so many LGBT racers who didn't win - oh there are just too many to name here. So I'm glad Tim & Rod won for that reason.
Hell no. But that's just my personal opinion. I found him truly irritating and the opinion amongst Australian viewers are at best mixed - some like him, others don't. I actually really like Grant Bowler who used to host it back in the day, but I don't suppose he would be available for the next season. Start casting for a new host already, oh you can do so much better!
What can we expect from the TAR franchise in 2020?
We know that TAR US S32 has been filmed already and since 2016 (it used to be twice a year before that), we have been getting one season of TAR US a year. We tend to get the debut of TAR US in the first few months of the year (between January and April), but since we don't have a date yet I'm not holding my breath - it will probably be in the spring of 2020. We know there will be a TAR Canada sometime in June 2020 and that will run till September 2020. Then there will be the return of TAR Oz in 2020 but we have so little information about it so far, this online casting form is here. The Wikipedia page of TAR Australia seems to indicate that Beau Ryan would be back for the next season but I am not sure how reliable that information is. We know that TAR Israel S9 will be back next year but there's not much information about it - it is one of the few places where the franchise is still going strong. But I don't recommend it - each TAR Israel episode is 90 minutes long and they spend 3 episodes in each city, you will find it very slow paced. There's also TAR Vietnam which was well received in 2019 (when they were the first ever TAR franchise to race in North Korea) but unless you speak Vietnamese, you may struggle understanding it. There's no indication that it will be revived in Latin America (last season in 2014), China (last season in 2017) or Asia (last season in 2016). So that leaves us with USA, Canada, Australia, Israel and probably Vietnam for TAR in 2020, that's at least three English-language versions for us hardcore fans. That's a shame as other countries like France, Norway, Ukraine, Philippines and Brazil have tried TAR in the past.
If you like this genre of reality TV, I suggest looking up The Mole / Who Is The Mole - there were seasons in Australia, the UK and USA but they have all stopped. The franchise is still going strong in the Netherlands and Belgium where it is filmed in Dutch and known as Wie Is De Mol / De Mol and yes you can get it with English subtitles. I actually tried watching a series call Beauty and the Geek where teams compete in various challenges every week and one team gets sent home at the end of each episode and in the finals, the winner gets a grand prize - that may sound like the format of TAR but the action takes place in a big house and without all that racing around the world to beautiful, exotic countries, it felt too much like Big Brother to me. I used to watch Survivor but found it too slow moving for my liking, given how it is all based around scheming, forming relationships and playing the social game rather than the fast-paced action TAR offers. I have still a few more weeks of The Apprentice here in the UK to keep me occupied on Wednesday evenings but that's coming to an end this month. The next big show I am really looking forward to is Wie Is De Mol (the Dutch version of The Mole) which has been filmed in Henan, China - that should be fun and I am really looking forward to that. If you haven't seen Wie Is De Mol before, there are plenty of previous seasons with English subtitles out there for you to binge watch.
One final note about blogging about TAR
Thank you guys - it has been my pleasure to share my thoughts and analysis with you through my blog on this season. I prefer not to join in the discussions on the Facebook groups for a few reasons - firstly, there are people don't know much about TAR, it may be the first time they watch the show or they don't understand how the rules work. So they go to social media and have a rant based on some incorrect assumptions and I really can't be asked to interact with people like that. It's not my desire to 'educate' such people about how TAR works. Then there are the people who disagree with you but don't have the social skills to voice their opinions without name-calling and being rude, let me give you an example. I pointed out that Sid had been arrested for assaulting Ash a few weeks ago - that was in the news in Australia, so this person on Facebook happens to support Sid & Ash, they were his favourite team. So what did he do? Instead of discussing what happened, the arrest or even Sid & Ash's behaviour on the race, I just got a torrent of really quite nasty abuse - good grief. I am so glad I am in the UK and this person is in Australia as he has absolutely zero social skills nor the ability to have a mature conversation about a topic like that. So unfortunately, that's the kind of random psychos you can stumble upon when you do participate in social media and I much rather have my own stage here, write my piece, share my opinions in a more controlled environment. And finally, with some of the more popular Facebook groups, there are literally hundreds of people leaving many comments every hour - anything I say there would probably be buried under new comments in just a matter of minutes. Hence it is hardly the kind of platform to get one's voice heard, so my blog posts here gives me the ideal platform to talk about TAR with those who are just as passionate about TAR as I am.
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