TAR S33 E5: Now this season is becoming too predictable

Ciao, buongiorno! How did you enjoy the latest leg of this season in Switzerland? On one hand, I'm glad that both my predictions about Ryan & Dusty winning again and it being a non-elimination leg coming true - I just love being correct. On the other hand, I felt that Ryan & Dusty are having it way too easy, are they simply going to cruise all the way to victory with no one standing in their way? Certainly just looking at the average rankings so far this seems to be the case. 

TAR S33 average statistics after E5

• Ryan & Dusty 1.4
• Kim & Penn 3
• Raquel & Cayla 4
• Akbar & Sheri 6.6
• Lulu & Lala 6.6
• Arun & Natalia 6.8 (spared elimination in Lugano)

So what do these statistics tell us? Not that much we don't know already - Ryan & Dusty are not just a strong team, they're on their way to set a record to become the strongest team ever. I just don't see any other team catching up, even Kim & Penn didn't have that much luck on this leg finishing third behind Lulu & Lala. But I suppose that's the story of the day: despite starting in the middle of the pack in the second group to depart, Lulu & Lala stormed their way to second place. Perhaps it is just the editing trying to make it look really exciting and close but it almost looked like they had a chance of winning the leg as they clearly picked the detour that was faster. The rest of the teams pretty much just performed the way they did previously, so that's the current situation. I am pleased that Lulu & Lala have improved so much and seem to have a lot more confidence on this leg compared to when they really struggled in London in legs 1 and 2 - thus that's one team who have improved a lot. But then, I can't quite say the same about the other teams though. 

Is it fair that teams departed in 15 minutes intervals in groups of two on this leg? 

Well, actually it depends. On one hand, I think teams that worked hard to finish ahead of the pack ought to be able to retain that advantage into the next leg. On the other hand, that would only make it even easier for Ryan & Dusty to win again and again and again - narrowing the gap didn't seem to affect the outcome that much in any case and I really wanted to see the teams in the middle of the pack like Lulu & Lala or Raquel & Cayla have a realistic chance of winning a leg; thus with that in mind, well then I suppose this 15 minute interval rule does make sense in this context in season 33. 

How much of it came down to navigation? Is it that hard to navigate in Switzerland as a driver?

Allow me to explain: the teams started out in Altstätten and had to drive to Verzasca Dam, which is a good 203 km away (126 miles) - that's actually a very long way to drive and Google maps suggest that it would take 2 hours 37 minutes to drive it via the most direct route - though there is a much longer route also suggested by Google which is 277 km (172 miles) and that would take 3 hours 21 minutes. Now a lot can go wrong with such a long journey due to human error, but if the teams had maps and they could easily stop and ask for directions, I still find it incredible that Arun & Natalia ended up so far behind everyone else. All roads in Switzerland are clearly signposted and besides, most Swiss people would speak English fluently, but I suppose I'm from the generation who is old enough to know how to read a map. So I suppose that's Natalia's downfall, she is from that generation who are totally dependent on technology to navigate. Many of the friendly locals they approached for help actually turned to their phones to help the racers, so why didn't Arun & Natalia just stop and ask for more help with directions? And are they that oblivious to the fact that they keep getting lost? 

Wait, there was a missed opportunity! 

I am a geek who loves to count how many countries I've visited. Currently I'm up to 72 and even during the pandemic, that number still grew throughout the years 2020 and 2021. Whether the racers took the shorter or the longer route, for a good 15 km, the E43 literally ran along the Switzerland-Liechtenstein border. The E43 highway would be on the Swiss side of the border but at times, the car would have been so close to Liechtenstein that they would have been like within 30 meters of an international border. Given how hard it is to cross an international border during a pandemic, they could have easily put a clue box just across the border in Liechtenstein, just for the sake of saying, "hey look we visited yet another country in this season, Liechtenstein!" The two countries share an open border, that means in practice, there is no border between the two nations because Liechtenstein is so tiny (160 square km or 62 square miles) that they decided to effectively become a de facto part of Switzerland when it comes to national defence, so Switzerland's external borders extends right up to where Liechtenstein borders Austria on the other side. These borders are completely open the last time I was there when I took a bus from Austria through Liechtenstein and I got off the bus in Buchs in Switzerland, had lunch there then walked back into Liechtenstein - there were no border guards at all. However, I note that TAR did visit Liechtenstein already way back in TAR S18 and so maybe they were like, meh - been there, done that.

But hang on, that Swiss dam bungee jump was a switchback to TAR S14 E1!

That was way back in 2009 when Tammy & Victor won. I enjoyed that season, so yes they did recycle some locations from the past. So there you go, I think that if they were driving past Liechtenstein they should have pulled in to say hello.

Do bungee jumps have a place on TAR? 

No I don't think so to be honest! I can see the reasons why they wanna do bungee jumps - firstly, they usually take place in very stunning locations. Secondly, you can get a lot of drama with racers like Sheri freaking out before she had to jump. But putting the two of those factors aside, only one person can jump at a time, so when two teams arrive at the same time, it's always first come first serve - there's no way a team can perform the task so well they overtake the team ahead of them. Short of a racer being paralyzed by fear and refusing to do the bungee jump, the teams will simply leave in the order they arrive in and that's boring. How I would improve this road block would be to add a simple element of a puzzle before the racers get to solve before they get to bungee jump - it could be any kind of logic puzzle (which are not uncommon on TAR) and so once they solve it, they can jump. Now if the logic puzzle was difficult, then there's no guarantee that the team that arrived first will get to jump first if they can't solve the puzzle, making the outcome far less predictable. See I told you I can do a much better job that the production team at CBS and I work in investment banking!

How far was the drive from the dam to Lugano? 

It was 40 km (24.8 miles) if you were following the right roads - it's really straight forward, you just had to find your way to the main highway 2 that leads right into Lugano. It all went terribly wrong for Arun & Natalia when they followed signs for Locarno (totally in the wrong direction) instead of Lugano and that was when I am sure a lot of you were screaming at your televisions/computers - why didn't they just stop to ask for directions if they knew they were terrible at navigating? Spending a few minutes to stop and ask for help is going to be a far better use of your time than driving to the wrong town in the opposite direction! And once again, Arun & Natalia got away with it this time, but when will their luck run out? 

What did you think of the detour in Lugano? 

Was it just me or did you also think that the sausage making task was far easier? Climbing those stairs was such hard work, even for Ryan & Dusty. I have no idea why Akbar & Sheri didn't just take one look at those stairs and switched detours. Once again, I'm sure you all got uncomfortable when he was rather mean to her - she obviously was struggling physically, there is a limit to what she can do and scolding her, being nasty to her isn't the right way to motivate her. Poor Sheri got more support from Kim than Akbar; like where do I even begin? I just feel bad for Sheri being treated this way. 

Any surprises with the final results in this leg? 

As mentioned earlier, this is so predictable it is getting boring. Ryan & Dusty just keep winning and there really isn't another team strong enough to stop them from winning the whole season easily - even if they do have a bad day (as the previews for the next leg suggest), they will simply not win that leg, finish in the middle of pack whilst a much weaker team gets eliminated. Don't get me wrong, there's a certain joy in watching a strong team who understand how TAR works performing so well but we all like a bit more competition on the race as that makes it so much more exciting for us.

Who will be eliminated next? 

It comes down to two teams: it will either be Arun & Natalia or Akbar & Sheri. If they have to drive any considerable distances, then Arun & Natalia are going to get lost again if they stubbornly refuse to stop and ask for help. Corsica isn't that big but still big enough for teams to get quite lost. As for Akbar & Sheri, well if there is a very physical task, then they are going to complete it slower than any other team and that would drop them to last. All we have from the previews so far is that there is some kind of cheese making task involved and Ryan & Dusty struggled there. But given that Akhbar & Sheri can navigate with little difficulty and cheese making looks like it is more the kind of task where you need great attention to detail and thus my guess is that Arun & Natalia would be most vulnerable in this next leg in Corsica, France. 

Okay, that's it from me on this episode - what do you think? Please do leave a comment below, many thanks for reading.