Tag: the amazing race

So, when watching the final, I thought

if you’re racing this race from now on, you’ve got to start taking notes on everything you do, everywhere you go, and everyone when they get eliminated just so you have that ready if you make the finish

As it turns out, the winning team figured this out one season quicker than me

“Rachel kept a journal throughout the entire race,” [TK] says. “So we spent the entire flight from Taiwan to Alaska reading her journal over and over – what we’d done and what countries we’d been too – because we knew that in past seasons there’d been those all-encompassing challenges.”

I also like how they watched past seasons and realized people who didn’t argue did better, as though this was a secret. I wish more teams figured out the same rather than just the “sit in front of the plane” tip.

Meant to write this earlier but got distracted by the Wire. I can watch and work during other shows, but not that one so far. We’re going to pretend this was on Sunday, mostly because I can fudge the time that way.

In the olden days, Amazing Races used to be decided on the last leg by either needle in the haystack luck or transportation luck, but it always seemed the winner in a close race was the one who just happened to have a little more luck, usually involving a taxi ride. This was somewhat frustrating, but typical of the rest of the show; being best in any particularly leg did not necessarily mean you were the best team in the race at that moment because of whatever breaks people got, but being the last team almost always means you had a bad team at that point. Losing felt fair, winning was less so.

The fix, I’ve finally figured out after three seasons of doing it, is turning the last major challenge into a major mental challenge revolving around immense memory about everything that happened on the race. It’s a nice effort, but I wondered tonight if they went too far. The team I was rooting for did win, so I wasn’t too crushed or anything, but the final task was much more complicated than anything they had done so far, it felt tacked on and almost as arbitrary as the magical taxi finishes. I think, if you’re racing this race from now on, you’ve got to start taking notes on everything you do, everywhere you go, and everyone when they get eliminated just so you have that ready if you make the finish, and at that point, is this The Amazing Race or is The Mole?

(which we’re all thrilled is coming back this summer, but that’s beside the point)

I appreciate to make the Amazing Race end with a task that selects the best team, and the task here not only had great drama but paid off a season long storyline. (First Half Of The Race Ron would’ve lost his mind on Christina.) The show was great, the season was great, I’m just a little bit less than satisfied with the final task.