Bom dia, como vai? I am sure many of you are heartbroken by what is happening in Ukraine right now and I wondered if it would be appropriate to do this post. Then I realized that reality TV and entertainment does play a part in these difficult times; of course TAR has visited Ukraine before, just once back in TAR S10 but there was also one series of Ukrainian Amazing Race from way back in 2013 which I did watch as well. My regular readers would know that I did get to visit Kiev for work last year and of course, I visited a lot of the sites that were featured on TAR in Kiev. Needless to say, I am very concerned and worried about my former colleagues in Kiev right now. Watching the finale did bring me a lot of joy and that's perhaps what a lot of us need right now, so I couldn't just write a post without acknowledging what was going on in the world right now; now that I've gotten this out of the way, let's start with the average statistics of the last 4 teams.
TAR S33 average statistics after E11
- Kim & Penn 2.09
- Ryan & Dusty 2.36
- Raquel & Cayla 2.72
- Arun & Natalia 5.4 (eliminated in Cabo Espichel)
TAR returns to the Lisbon area but we're not really in Lisbon this time.
TAR visited Lisbon on S3 and more recently in S23 and in both seasons, they raced through a lot of the main sites in central Lisbon and the Sintra region but not this time - they didn't even go near central Lisbon. They started in Almada which to be fair, is not that far from central Lisbon but central Lisbon sits on the north bank of the Tagus river which meets the Atlantic ocean and there's a massive bridge across the river mouth. So when the teams started art Almada, they were on the south side of that bridge and had a very good view of central Lisbon from the Christ the King monument, looking across the river. However, instead of racing back north across the river towards central Lisbon, the teams raced n the opposite direction, due south-east away from the city center towards Setubal instead which is fair enough, as this would have been more interesting than simply revisiting the same landmarks that they visited back in S3 and S23. But for those of you who have never been to Lisbon, allow me to give you an American analogy to explain the geography: imagine if they were running a leg in New York, but instead of going through downtown Manhattan, they started the teams off in Hoboken and ran the entire leg in Jersey City without actually once setting foot in Manhattan itself despite being pretty close as the crow flies. Thus effectively, they didn't really run this leg in Lisbon at all, even though they were rather near.
Arun got his team eliminated because he couldn't row a boat.
I hate to be harsh but oh dear, Arun had a terrible attitude when it came to the roadblock at the Setubal harbour because he just kept on complaining that he couldn't do it. He claims to be a super fan of the race but he doesn't understand the basic principle that TAR usually gets racers to do things they don't normally do in their daily lives back home in America. It wasn't that hard to row that boat, firstly you had to figure out which way you need to face and then it is a question of figuring out what kind of rowing motion you needed to do in order to propel the boat forwards. If Arun would have simply calmed down, kept quiet (instead of complaining and moaning non-stop), he could have easily observed how Ryan had calmly figured it out. At one point, their two boats were relatively close, like no more than three meters or ten feet away from each other. Arun could have simply paused, observed and copied exactly what Ryan was doing since he had clearly figured it out. But no, Arun chose to ignore Ryan for some bizarre reason, then despite the fact that Ryan got it wrong on the first attempt and had to return to try again, giving Arun another chance to observe how it is done properly, can you imagine Natalia's frustration at that point at how irrational Arun was? Arun did notice that Ryan took the right boat with the name of Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama but yet he still didn't choose to watch and learn at that point? So then at this point, it can only be a case of Arun just totally crumbling under pressure - after all, it is not against the rules to copy!
Why did Ryan & Dusty have to paint their door knob whilst the other teams didn't?
It's a rather bizarre one that has been discussed a lot on social media and only the production team will have the right answer on this one, but every team painted a different design and they were just unlucky to have picked the one which required the door knob to have been painted. It wasn't obvious to me and I think that was just plain bad luck for Ryan & Dusty. Nonetheless, it did add some much needed drama to that part of the race as the viewers would be wondering how long it would take them to figure that out - giving Arun & Natalia that vital chance to possibly catch up with Ryan & Dusty.
How hard was the roadblock in Cabo Espichel where they had to count the columns?
I'm two years younger than Penn and I know exactly what he means when he said that his eyesight was not what it was when he was younger. You can try your best to stay healthy and keep fit but your eyesight and hearing will deteriorate with age. He did manage to figure it out eventually but I did wonder why his first two guesses were odd numbers (113 and 111)? Surely you would expect there to be some kind of symmetry in the design of the church, so where you had an odd or even number of columns on each side, once you add them up, you will still get an even number. So 50 + 50 = 100 (even number) and 51 + 51 = 102 (even number), the only way you could end up with an odd number was if there was one more column on one of the sides like 50 + 51 = 101 which seems highly unlikely given the design of the church. Again, was this Penn doing exactly what Arun did earlier by crumbling under pressure? Now that gave Cayla the chance to overtake Penn in that roadblock and that was just the kind of twist that we needed to give the final leg some much needed excitement because at the point I did realize, Raquel & Cayla have just won the last two legs and they could actually win this, wouldn't that be awesome if they did, making them only the fourth all female team to ever win TAR US.
How far was the location of the roadblock to the lighthouse where the pit stop was?
Google tells me that the route is 1 km (0.62 miles) if you stuck to the marked paths but it was more like 0.5 km (0.31 miles) if you just ran across the field in a straight line. So there was the possibility of Kim & Penn overtaking Raquel & Cayla if they had simply done the latter but we don't know how close the two teams were at that point - I get the feeling that they usually edit it to make the two teams seem really close to give the viewers a sense of suspense and excitement when they might have been more than five/six minutes apart at that point: they always edit it like that to create suspense.
Was I surprised that Arun & Natalia were eliminated in Portugal?
Nope, the statistics never lie. It was very obvious which the three strongest teams were and Arun & Natalia had somehow gotten away with their mistakes when there were weaker teams that made even more mistakes, but they needed to run a perfect leg to make it into the final and the moment Arun got into that boat in Setubal harbour, their fate was sealed. Mind you, things might have been different if Natalia had chosen to have done that roadblock but Arun might have struggled with the other roadblock for the same reason that Penn struggled as Arun is nine years older than Penn!
Onto LA for the finale leg, Ryan & Dusty were doomed from the start.
Ryan & Dusty fell so far behind right at the start when they couldn't figure out that the code for the lock on the clue box was on the side of the elevator. I do feel for those guys as it wasn't that obvious, but such is the nature of TAR. After all, the other two teams managed to figure it out and you could say that there was an element of luck involved in that process. By the time they got their clue, they were so far behind that the final had become a two horse race at that point.
How do we feel about the piñata challenge then?
I get it, they were trying to highlight one of the cultural aspects of Los Angeles' identity - the city has a Spanish name, it is pretty close to the Mexican border at San Diego-Tijuana. The Hispanic community makes up about half of LA's population and so I think that's an interesting aspect to highlight to the viewers who aren't as familiar with LA. I'm not sure how many people noticed the location of that challenge as well - it was at El Pueblo de LA Historical Monument, there are actually a lot of historical buildings there but the challenge took place in the main plaza. I did think that the Mariachi band was a bit of an overkill but when I saw Kim struggling to make herself heard over the band, I realized they were there not so much to add cultural flavour there, but to make it even harder for the teams to communicate with each other.
What about the foley challenge then?
Actually no, I didn't like that. Yes I realize how important the film industry is and how big Hollywood is a part of the identity of LA, but the problem I had with this challenge was that the three teams were in three different studios and hence had three different judges. Even if there was a lot of preparation to ensure that all three judges adhered to the same standards, it would still be hard to make sure that all three teams were judged to the same standard, given how it came down to one judges opinion whether or not the team had made the sound effect on cue or not. Even if two teams were doing the challenge at the same time, then you could have the same judge evaluating the performances - the judge would simply have to run from studio to studio and would then have to judge whichever team was ready to perform first.
And the last memory challenge?
Yes this is a TAR classic and I was actually very glad to see something familiar, something that we have come to expect right before the final pit stop. It was actually a lot harder than it looked, take the picture of the coin they had to find in Thessaloniki - after having searched such a long time for it, most of the racers simply handed it over quickly in exchange for the next clue instead of studying the pattern of the coin. TAR did get it horrifically, tragically wrong in TAR S30 when the final memory challenge was so impossible to solve it turned out to be a game of chance when the teams had to guess randomly rather than actually rely on their memory. So that was a painfully stupid mistake I was hoping the producers would avoid repeating and thankfully, they did on this occasion, phew. Oh guys don't put the producers on a pedestal as if they can do no wrong - they can mess up really badly and have done so many times before; hence as super fans of the race, we should always hold them to account when they do **** up like that, but they did okay this time.
Could Raquel & Cayla have won this?
I think so, it was just plain bad luck for them unfortunately. Both teams were so close, like literally neck to neck at the last memory challenge and with a bit of luck they could have finished first but it was Kim's note taking that paid off in the end.
Would the outcome have been different if all teams had returned after the hiatus?
Yes, I think so. The team that really impressed me in the early days was Anthony & Spencer, who did win the first leg in London. I would have expected them to have reached the finals and had been a real contender for this season. Likewise I felt it was a shame that other teams like Connie & Sam and even Caro & Ray didn't return, even though I wouldn't have expected them to reach the finals but if they had returned, that would have meant that weaker teams like Akbar & Sheri and Lulu & Lala might not have lasted as long in this process. Hence this season was quite boring because you knew that no matter how badly a team like Ryan & Dusty messed up on the race, they would still always finish ahead of a much weaker team like Akbar & Sheri and there was never any risk of them getting eliminated; whereas if it they had been up against a team like Connie & Sam instead of Akbar & Sheri - then things could have been very different indeed.
Allow me this rant about the socially inept idiots on social media.
This is why I blog about it rather than discuss it on social media - the number of idiots who have moaned that their favourite team didn't win. This is reality TV, it is a race and you have absolutely no control over the outcome: which part of that do you not understand? What is the point of moaning that the team you liked didn't win? I think these idiots who post questions like that are extremely immature because there's a sense of "I didn't get what I want, so I am going to bitch about it online." Now that might be the kind of reaction if you went to a restaurant and had a bad experience (say the food was terrible or the service was slow), then yeah you'll be justified in leaving them a bad review online. But if you watched TAR S33 and your favourite team didn't win, that's not quite the same thing - if you commit to watching a season of TAR, then you accept that you have absolutely no control over who the winner is and sure it can be frustrating when we see a team we like get eliminated, but if you're that much of a control freak, then you should be participating in activities where you are actively involved, like go join your local tennis club where you are actually on the court, playing tennis and the outcome of the match depends entirely on your efforts, you get to determine whether or not you win or lose. Watching a programme like TAR means surrendering control of all that and simply accepting that you're entirely passive in the process of watching the programme even as a huge fan of TAR. There are some reality programmes where the audience get to vote to determine the outcome but TAR was not one of those programmes and you knew that.
What can we expect for TAR S34?
I think there will be some kind of return to normality in due course, but this would restrict TAR S34 to countries which allow testing-free travel. When I traveled to Finland in December 2021, I had to test before I flew there, I had to test whilst I was in Finland and then I had to test again once I got back to London. Fast forward to February 2022, just two months later, when I traveled to France, I didn't test once throughout the entire trip - the rules have changed and it was no longer a requirement. Thus the scenario that the TAR production team would want to avoid is to have a racer test positive during the race and having to self-isolate as a result, thus messing up the whole race. Some countries like China and Japan have extremely strict testing laws and are still not opened to tourists whilst others like France and the UK have relaxed their requirements for fully vaccinated travelers. So let's take Armenia and Albania for example, fully vaccinated Americans can enter these countries with no need for testing or quarantine at all, you simply have to prove that you're fully vaccinated. There are even a few countries like Iceland, Norway, Mexico and Jordan who will even let in unvaccinated Americans. Obviously, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia would not be on the menu for TAR S34 because of the war at the moment and I can't imagine TAR visiting Russia again in the next few years for that reason. But wait, we still need official confirmation that TAR S34 is going to actually happen so until we hear that it has been renewed for one more season, let's keep our fingers crossed for now that we will see a TAR S34 at some point in the not so distant future.
So finally, in conclusion
Was this a good season? Not really if I may be honest. I had a lot of misgivings about everything from the casting to the way some of the legs have been structured. But then of course, I am immensely grateful that they did manage to resume filming when it was possible and we did get a S33 after all in spite of the pandemic. Congratulations to Kim & Penn who are the oldest ever winners of TAR US and I'm delighted they won of course. Let's keep our fingers crossed for TAR S34, but in the meantime, I am please to tell you that you can look forward to TAR Australia later this year - at this moment, we don't have a release date for it yet but the programme has been renewed for one more season. Furthermore, there will also definitely be a TAR Canada sometime later this year, but again, we don't have a release date for that either. So that's it from me for yet another season of TAR - for those of you who have been reading my posts on TAR, many thanks!
No comments:
Post a Comment