Topic: Season Premieres (First Legs)

[Platrium]

We have a thread for penultimate legs, but why don't we have one for season premieres?

The first leg is usually formatted differently from most episodes in a season. Sometimes, it's only 1 Detour and some ARI. Other times, it's 1 roadblock with ARI or 2 roadblocks. Then we have cases such as an overnight stay with departure times for the following morning in some seasons. Premiering legs are very diverse as more seasons come and go.

So... which season premieres are the best and worst for you?

[BourkieBoy]

BEST
TAR22

WORST
TAR26

[nrh2110]

Best: TAR 17 or 22 or 25

Worst: TAR 4

[NELs]

I think the best opening leg was TAR 6 in Iceland. I'll list reasons why I think it is the best.

1. It was two hours. The two hours means you could fit eleven teams into one episode and still make every team have a time to shine. Even the first team out was memorable in a way.

2. We got to know the teams quite well. If you want to make a good opening leg then at least let us know why the team wants the million, what their personalities are, why they want to run the race, etc.

3. The self driving. I think what makes a good opening leg is to have the teams drive themselves to locations. It can be a bit boring at times, and drags too long, but if you have fighting couples and teams who don't know where they are going, it makes it fun to watch.

4. It set the couples mood of the season. There were a lot of couples in this season. By the way this opening leg was edited you could clearly tell that this is going to be a couples season. The final six alone were couples that are either dating or married. I would just call TAR 6 the couples season (I know TAR 26 is the dating/blind dating season), What a coincidence twenty seasons later there would be another one.

5. The leg design. Why have I been talking about the editing so much, let me talk about how great this leg was designed. It had teams start by the Buckingham Fountain in Chicago. Teams had to take the famous "L" train in Chicago to the airport. Three flights are available. Teams had to drive themselves to the first destination. Then have to drive even more to a perfectly place overnight rest destination. Drive to a Detour. The Detour although weak is a classic deciding to climb an ice glacier vs finding a buoy in an iceberg field is amazing. Then teams have to self drive themselves to the Pit Stop.

[violetb1911]

worst : TAR29

Really weak tasks and a weirdly unbalanced detour. Teams were struggling with navigation and traffic for like 80% of the leg. It sucked.

[Lemontail]

worst : TAR29

Really weak tasks and a weirdly unbalanced detour. Teams were struggling with navigation and traffic for like 80% of the leg. It sucked.

But weren't navigation a part of the race? It's a race around the world. You could get lost navigating through the savannas in Africa.

Also, remember Dieselgate from TAR 3 Leg 5? It was full of drama.

But yeah, the premiere wasn't even the best.

[RaceUntilWeDie]

Best:
- TAR 22 (self-explanatory)
- TAR 28 (one of the few, if not the only, first legs to include both a Detour and a Roadblock, plus an Hours of Operation--felt like old TAR)

Worst:
- TAR 23
- TAR 24
- TAR 27
- TAR 29

[violetb1911]

worst : TAR29

Really weak tasks and a weirdly unbalanced detour. Teams were struggling with navigation and traffic for like 80% of the leg. It sucked.

But weren't navigation a part of the race? It's a race around the world. You could get lost navigating through the savannas in Africa.

Also, remember Dieselgate from TAR 3 Leg 5? It was full of drama.

But yeah, the premiere wasn't even the best.

Navigation is a major part of the race, I concur. But, like a major part of the leg depended on how you could manoeuvre through the traffic, which is boring. We didn't get to see much of Panama City in that leg, and the detour was at the very end. Leg 11 of Season 19 fared better.

Of course I remember Dieselgate from Leg 5 - the breakdowns and the drama, it was infamously iconic!

[Xoruz]

Best

-10
-12
-22
-25
-28

Worst

-4
-11
-23
-24
-26

[NELs]

Best:
- TAR 28 (one of the few, if not the only, first legs to include both a Detour and a Roadblock, plus an Hours of Operation--felt like old TAR)

The only three first legs to have both a Detour and Roadblock are TAR 28, TAR 10, and TAR 1. TAR 1's Roadblock was unaired due to time constraints of the episode filling the 43-44 minute time of the episode. You can view it for yourself on the TAR 1 DVD.

[Declive]

Loved the 26.

[cbacbacba1]

TAR 26 's premier is probably the worst episode / leg ever
A 90-minute episode for just a detour and a W-turn, plus the repeating dancing detour made the episode boring

I would say the best first leg we have got is probably TAR22. The skydiving roadblock provides great scenery for a world-travelling show, and then the sandcastle roadblocks caused massive placement change, plus the episode ended in an intense 3-way canoe race! What can we ask for more?

[nrh2110]

TAR 26 's premier is probably the worst episode / leg ever
A 90-minute episode for just a detour and a W-turn, plus the repeating dancing detour made the episode boring

I would say the best first leg we have got is probably TAR22. The skydiving roadblock provides great scenery for a world-travelling show, and then the sandcastle roadblocks caused massive placement change, plus the episode ended in an intense 3-way canoe race! What can we ask for more?

I think for the same reasons 25 was great. I think CBS realized how successful the 22 premiere was and kind of did the same format — island scenery (seaplane and rock climbing) and a hot really difficult beach task.

[Marionete]

I'm surprised everyone liked S25's premiere so much.
It may not be among the worst premieres, but I generally think it was a bad leg that tainted an otherwise great season.

[nrh2110]

I think 23 and 26 weren’t as bad as people think they were. Sure they weren’t the greatest, but they weren’t bad. Especially 26; in recent seasons they’ve had issues creating hard tasks and I think the damage detour was pretty difficult. I actually personally liked the U Turn in the first leg, I just wish it had been more unexpected in that they didn’t know there would be one until right before.

[BourkieBoy]

I actually quite enjoyed S25's premiere!

Gave me TAR22 vibes <333