Bonjour! I was wrong about Ryan & Dusty winning this leg, but it does make me very pleased that other teams do have a realistic chance of beating them and that makes this season a lot more interesting of course. As always, let's have a look the average statistics after this leg to see where the teams stand relative to each other and quite frankly, little has changed; but it is clear that we definitely have a two horse race, given the top two teams have now each won three legs.
TAR S33 average statistics after E7
- Ryan & Dusty 1.85
- Kim & Penn 2.42
- Raquel & Cayla 3.42
- Lulu & Lala 6
- Arun & Natalia 6.14 (spared elimination in Bonifacio)
It was no surprise that the top two teams were the ones who left in the first group, given that they had a 15 minute head start which was substantial enough to give them a comfortable buffer over the other three teams, so without the top two teams having some kind of meltdown or major disaster in this leg, they were always going to finish in the top two - it was then just a question of who was going to win this leg. In the end, it was Kim & Penn who came up on top because Penn completed the roadblock slightly faster. This was a really well run leg by Kim & Penn because they wisely chose to work with Raquel & Cayla in this leg, only to beat them at the very last moment - you have seen what happened to Lulu & Lala and Arun & Natalia when they chose not to work together at the detour so being strategic and finding allies in TAR is so important. Kim & Penn understand this: if every team just ran their own race, they would simply open the door for Ryan & Dusty to have an easy victory. Despite having had some problems and finishing third in this leg, they are still statistically the strongest team at this stage. We have seen Ryan & Dusty at their best and we know what these guys are capable of.
Q: Why did production make such a big deal about Ryan & Dusty's problem with the kayak?
A: I was not falling for it again! When Ryan & Dusty had a meltdown in leg 6 over the cheese making task, they simply fell from first to third. I wasn't sure this delay would've caused that them much time. I watched that sequence again: the kayak was taking in water to the point where it eventually sank, the guys fell out and the kayak tipped over. The water didn't seem that deep at that point and it looked like the guys were able to reach the sea floor with their feet, so they were able to flip the kayak back over with ease and climb back in. Yes, this is a physically demanding situation but the guys are so super strong that they probably overcame it in a minute or two - let's say they were delayed for as long as five minutes (unlikely but allow me to follow through with this argument): compare this to the situation with Lulu & Lala and Arun & Natalia who got the memory challenge wrong the first time. They had to wait for the boat to return, take another 15 minute cruise before trying the memory challenge again. That would have easily cost them at least 20 minutes (probably more). So why would the production highlight a mistake made by Ryan & Dusty that cost them at most five minutes whilst they just ignore a much bigger mistake by the other two teams? No I am not getting fooled again even if I see Ryan & Dusty struggling in another preview: these guys are TAR superstars who will overcome any problem and still win regardless - most weaker teams would have just crumbled and switched detours if they'd been in the same situation.
Q: Did you expect quite a big reaction on social media about the casting of Ryan Ferguson?
A: Wow, that did take me by surprise - it all started when a woman said Ryan shouldn't have been chosen to be a part of TAR S33 because he had won a US$11 million settlement for his wrongful imprisonment and that TAR should really be a charity type programme where you give very poor people who desperately need the prize money that once in a lifetime chance to get rich because they are stuck in such poorly paid working class jobs that they need the prize money so much more than someone who is already a millionaire like Ryan. I think that trying to do a game show specifically for very poor people is just too politically incorrect - that is the basis of Squid Game of course but in reality, poor people crave one thing more than anything else: dignity. I grew up in a very poor, working class family, I have tasted a lot of poverty as a child and let me share with you a story from my childhood. It wasn't just my immediate family who were poor at that time but my mother's side of the family were all very poor too - I had a cousin who was entitled to a bursary from her school. Now that's a small sum of money that is given out (with no strings attached) to students from very poor families, just to make sure they don't starve and they can buy everything they need for school. My cousin was told by her teacher to apply for it but she absolutely refused to do so because she would rather go hungry than to have the stigma of being a "hardship case", she was worried about what the other students might think if she took that money, she was worried she would be ostracized for being poor - I was shocked that she said no to all that free money but still, that was her decision.
Q: But hold on a moment. Has CBS made this terrible mistake before?
A: You might think that giving poor people a chance to win money like that the right thing to do and in this episode, Raquel & Cayla talked about what it was like to lose their jobs during the pandemic and having to move back in with their parents in their 30s. But that's almost incidental background information, we're interested in them as racers and how they perform on the race rather than feeling sorry for them because of their difficult situation. There is an interesting programme from 2015 also done by CBS called 'The Briefcase' which involves giving a very poor family in desperate need a briefcase with US$101,000 in cash - they are then told that there is another family who are in equal or greater need of that money. The family face an agonizing decision whether to keep all of the money, share some of the money or give all of it away to the other family. You'd think "they're giving free money to poor people, isn't that a noble cause?" No, quite the opposite - this programme has been condemned as 'poverty porn' to exploit desperate poor people, showing little sensitivity to their plight. This is why reality TV and poverty don't mix well - if someone is genuinely poor, then why should any strings be attached to a charitable gesture to help them out? If they are really that poor and desperately need the money, then that help should be given unconditionally, rather than be packaged up into a reality TV programme similar to Squid Game or The Briefcase, where the viewers get to watch what these desperate poor people would do to entertain us in exchange for receiving the prize money so that kind of formula involving poor people is in really bad taste!
Q: So can we ever mix reality TV and poverty or is that a no-go zone?
A: Therein lies your answer: CBS will not mix the element of charity into TAR because the viewers don't want to see poor people exploited for our entertainment! It is not a formula that works: The Briefcase had poor ratings and very bad reviews - furthermore, an Australian version of the show was met with similar negative reactions as well. To be fair, CBS does do a lot of work for charity - be it directly by giving massive donations to charities or to use their platform to highlight the great work done some charities. However, they can only continue to do that if they keep on producing excellent programmes that will be watched by millions of people - that means a) following a formula that will work and b) avoiding the formulas that will not work. Do you really want to see poor, working class racers who have never ever left America before totally break down, crumble under pressure and suffer a meltdown when you drop them in somewhere like Africa or India? No, that would seem needlessly cruel even for reality TV. However, if a rich racer has that same emotional meltdown, I can guarantee you that most viewers will quite happily mock the racer, "what were you expecting? Haven't you ever watched TAR before?" Thus what CBS wants is for the viewers to make fun of the racer when something like that happen rather than point the finger of blame at the producers for having done something incredibly cruel by exploiting poor people desperate to win some money. Now that's a long answer to demonstrate why that woman who attacked Ryan in the first place was just totally wrong. Her heart is in the right place, but she is still wrong on the matter.
Q: Phew that was heavy, can we get back to this episode please?
A: Yes please, with pleasure - let's talk about the rotten maggot cheese!
Q: What is it with gross eating challenges in TAR?
A: Oh I hate it when teams are forced to eat something that the locals adore as a delicacy but you know the American racers are going to find utterly disgusting. At least the casu martzu challenge was done in an isolated rural location so there were no locals to offend. Casu martzu is putrid goat's cheese, the larvae living in the cheese eat the cheese and then poops it back out, but because they are living on a diet entirely of goat's cheese, so you're effectively using the digestive system of the larvae to further break down the cheese to give it that distinctive creamy texture and spicy flavour. This type of cheese is local to Corsica and neighbouring Sardinia but one man's meat is another man's poison. And just because I don't like the idea of having insects as part of my diet doesn't mean that I have the right to say anything disrespectful about the food from another culture. In fact many cultures do include insects as part of their diet and for them to eat crickets and grasshoppers is as normal as us eating hamburgers and hot dogs. I get frustrated when producers think it is somehow entertaining or funny to make the racers eat something that makes them want to throw up - who is that meant to appeal to? Is that the kind of content you want to see on TAR? Do you react with joy when you see a racer vomit on TAR? Not me, I am quite happy to see them prepare food but please, no more gross eating challenges.
Q: How hard is it to mend that fishing net on that roadblock?
A: Whilst I have never mended a fishing net in my life before, we can see that every single racer who attempted the roadblock managed to complete it - some took a little longer than others but what it seemed to boil down to was the ability to calmly watch the demonstration and then simply copy exactly what the fisherman was doing. The racers who were slightly slower were the ones who rushed into the task without taking their time to figure out exactly what they have to do - so whilst the actual act of mending the net wasn't that complex, this is a classic TAR task where you have to scale a learning curve very quickly by learning a process you have never ever done before and this will test your patience under pressure. Is it a good choice of task? Well yes and no; I like the way the racers have to learn a new skill on the spot and that's a classic TAR formula. On the other hand, you're in beautiful Corsica and you make the contestants sit on the dockside mending a net? I was hoping for something that would have been visually more spectacular or an added element of suspense to make the task more difficult. I would have taken the racer doing the roadblock out on a fishing boat to mend the net, so it would make it more time consuming to go see the demonstration and at least if they were doing it on water, then it might have looked and felt more exciting. But it just felt a bit 'meh', no it wasn't memorable at all.
Q: Arun & Natalia were last but spared again! Are you surprised?
A: Not at all, I did predict last week that this would be a non-elimination leg (NEL) and sure enough, I was right again. The moment I saw them get into those cars, I thought that would be the last straw for Arun & Natalia but actually driving wasn't the problem for them this time. In fact, they made the brave decision not to wait when Lulu & Lala stopped to ask for directions and that paid off when they arrived at the roadblock before Lulu & Lala. Nonetheless, because Natalia was a bit slower, they sunk to last place but were given yet another chance. Let's look at the recent seasons when it came to NEL, in TAR S30 and S32, there were two NELs but in TAR S31 there were three. There were already two NELs and one keep on racing (KOR) leg (end of leg 2 when Lulu & Lala were immediately given the next clue on the double decker bus in Russell Square, London), so whilst leg 3 wasn't meant to be a NEL it turned out to be because four teams couldn't resume racing after the 19 month break. So in fact, we have had three NELs, one KOR and we will still have one more NEL/KOR coming up because we have three episodes before the grand finale and only two more teams to eliminate at this stage. So yes, this season has a record number of NEL/KOR legs but what can you do - blame it on the pandemic. But I do like Arun & Natalia and thus I was so relieved to see them spared elimination once again to race yet another leg.
Q: Who do you want to win now?
A: Quite frankly, I don't mind who wins. Of course I adore Kim & Penn but I have the luxury of having five teams left that I really, really like - I love all of them! There isn't a single nasty person left in the race at this point, they all do genuinely come across as great people and that's really nice because I am not in the kind of position in previous seasons when I really hated some of the racers who were mean to either other teams or each other. In one case, two racers even got really nasty with me on social media simply because I criticized some of the poor decisions they made on the race and I was like woah, you went on reality TV and you can't deal with people talking about what you did in the show? Did you really expect everyone to just fall in love with you after they saw you believe like a totally obnoxious idiot with no social skills on TV? Phew, there is none of that drama this season. I have enough stress at work, I blogging and reality TV is meant to be fun, please. I do hope that the casting directors have become wiser over the years to avoid casting obnoxious characters who are going to be universally hated by the other racers and the viewers alike - I know in reality TV, they love a bit of conflict to add some drama to every episode but it was painful watching Akbar being so nasty and cruel to his wife Sheri. Akbar is the villain of this season if we had to pick one, but apart from him, everyone else is nice!
A: Aah, I think we can rule out Raquel & Cayla as well as Lulu & Lala as the previews for the next leg suggest that they have encountered some trouble in the next leg in Greece. I am not convinced that Arun & Natalia can set out last and finish first, so once again, it will be either Kim & Penn or Ryan & Dusty, so I am going to put my emotions aside and say that it will be probably Ryan & Dusty's turn to win yet again because they are still statistically the strongest team thus far.
Q: Who do you think will be eliminated next?
A: Sorry, but my guess is that it will be Arun & Natalia. I've already made it clear that I do love all five teams left and so this is just purely based on the statistics - it is just a statistical probability at this stage that the weakest team will go next.
Okay so that's it from me on this leg, I am really looking forward to the next leg which will take the teams to Thessaloniki in Northern Greece. I visited that part of Greece just before the first lockdown in 2020 and thus I look forward to seeing a few familiar places in the next two episodes in Greece. Please do leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.
Okay so that's it from me on this leg, I am really looking forward to the next leg which will take the teams to Thessaloniki in Northern Greece. I visited that part of Greece just before the first lockdown in 2020 and thus I look forward to seeing a few familiar places in the next two episodes in Greece. Please do leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.
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