Author Topic: Season Premieres (First Legs)  (Read 8518 times)

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Offline Platrium

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Season Premieres (First Legs)
« on: March 09, 2018, 08:59:37 AM »
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? :js:



As requested by Peach, I have added the season premiere locations for better guidance!

1 - Johannesburg, South Africa --> Livingstone, Zambia
2 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
3 - Mexico City, Mexico
4 - Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy
5 - Punta del Este, Uruguay
6 - Reykjavik, Iceland
7 - Cuzco, Peru
8 - New Jersey --> Pennsylvania, USA
9 - São Paulo, Brazil
10 - Beijing, China
11 - Quito, Ecuador
12 - Shannon, Ireland
13 - Salvador, Brazil
14 - Interlaken, Switzerland
15 - Tokyo, Japan
16 - Valparaiso, Chile
17 - London, England
18 - Sydney, Australia
19 - Taipei, Taiwan
20 - Cafayate, Argentina
21 - Shanghai, China
22 - Bora Bora, French Polynesia
23 - Iquique, Chile
24 - Guangzhou, China
25 - St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands
26 - Tokyo, Japan
27 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
28 - Mexico City, Mexico
29 - Panama City, Panama
30 - Reykjavik, Iceland

Disclaimer: Some of the towns or cities indicated may or may not be accurate due to multiple ones being visited during the premiering legs.

« Last Edit: June 13, 2018, 09:43:29 AM by Platrium »

Offline BourkieBoy

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #1 on: March 09, 2018, 09:02:22 PM »
BEST
TAR22

WORST
TAR26


Offline nrh2110

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #2 on: March 09, 2018, 09:58:31 PM »
Best: TAR 17 or 22 or 25

Worst: TAR 4
« Last Edit: March 10, 2018, 07:19:02 PM by nrh2110 »

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #3 on: March 09, 2018, 11:55:13 PM »
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.

Offline violetb1911

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2018, 03:37:26 AM »
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.



Offline Lemontail

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2018, 04:24:43 AM »
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.
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Offline RaceUntilWeDie

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #6 on: March 10, 2018, 07:19:53 AM »
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

Offline violetb1911

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #7 on: March 10, 2018, 08:19:40 AM »
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!

Online Xoruz

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2018, 11:50:04 AM »
Best

-10
-12
-22
-25
-28

Worst

-4
-11
-23
-24
-26

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #9 on: March 10, 2018, 12:13:56 PM »
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.


Offline Declive

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #10 on: March 10, 2018, 05:46:47 PM »
Loved the 26.
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Offline cbacbacba1

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #11 on: March 10, 2018, 07:17:26 PM »
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? :hfive:

Offline nrh2110

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #12 on: March 10, 2018, 07:20:20 PM »
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? :hfive:

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.

Offline Marionete

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #13 on: March 13, 2018, 07:06:36 AM »
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.

Offline nrh2110

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #14 on: March 13, 2018, 10:32:51 AM »
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.

Offline BourkieBoy

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #15 on: March 13, 2018, 11:50:33 PM »
I actually quite enjoyed S25's premiere!

Gave me TAR22 vibes <333

Offline Wadsy

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #16 on: May 06, 2018, 04:42:20 PM »
I was never a huge fan of premiere legs, but there were some that were just fantastic...

TAR 6 - My favourite one in the show. We got to know the teams well, we get introduced to an exotic location that doesn't disappoint, a challenging Detour and we see teams try to take risks only to see them fail, as was the case for Avi & Joe.

TAR 18 - My second favourite. Teams have to endure a starting line challenge before flying to Sydney, Australia for a hell of a first leg. I loved how the two planes were switched in terms of who arrived first, the sights and challenges and Phil's announcement at the Pit Stop. The Manly underwater task was breathtaking as well, something I feel we don't see a lot.

TAR 22 - Yeah, again the race immediately tried something different and took contestants first to French Polynesia for two Roadblocks, a penalty and a close battle.
Wadsy

Offline Hooky

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #17 on: May 11, 2018, 11:29:30 PM »
I'll agree with others in this thread - Season 6 definitely has one of the best first legs ever. Self-driving, beautiful scenery, and more than 42 minutes long gave us a good opportunity to get nicely acquainted with the dynamic cast of that season.

Other standouts include Season 12 (who could possibly forget the infamous donkey mayhem?), Season 14 (loved the scenery, bungie jump and the cheese task), Season 17 (that boat task was geniously designed), and Season 22 (interesting outcome of the sandcastle task).

The worst ones were Season 13 (the editing completely skipped over much of what happened), Season 15 (Japanese game show dominated the leg + Eric & Lisa's unnecessary doom), and Season 18 (I absolutely hated the Amanda & Kris U-turn penalty - it felt like the producers were just trying to get that to happen to Amanda & Kris again).
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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #18 on: May 11, 2018, 11:56:49 PM »
Best
17 (Watermelon task and the first episode I watched when I was a kid)
6
22
28
12
10
Worst
11 ( Really bad leg other legs were better and Charla and Mirna 1st flight and then dropped)WOW
29
24 (twinnies out ugh and lots of luck based tasks like the ferries weels)
« Last Edit: June 12, 2018, 10:25:30 AM by georgiapeach »

Offline BritishTARFan

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #19 on: June 12, 2018, 10:06:00 AM »
Best
-------

22 -- Above have explained
17 -- That watermelon tho  :funny: also slight biased for the nation
14 -- The beautiful scenery, the cheese and an extremly close elimination

Worst
--------

26 -- I think it would've been good if it were a standard length, but I heard that World Order dance far too many times.
24 -- The wedding dresses was okay, but I thought they let Guangzhou down.


Offline BourkieBoy

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #20 on: June 12, 2018, 05:09:53 PM »
Oh, Season 18 is the best premiere then!  :funny:

Offline TARUSAFan

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #21 on: June 12, 2018, 07:23:44 PM »
Season 22, hands down for me. The best across all 30 Seasons. It was a tough pick. Everything was spot on. The others were S.17, S.25, S.14, S.18, S.6 & S.28

Offline Leafsfan.

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #22 on: June 12, 2018, 07:25:30 PM »
Best: S5
Worst: S23 or 26

Offline Jimmer

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #23 on: June 12, 2018, 08:04:14 PM »
TARAus1 and TARAus2 were both spectacular!

Offline violetb1911

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Re: Season Premieres (First Legs)
« Reply #24 on: June 13, 2018, 06:21:43 AM »
24 -- The wedding dresses was okay, but I thought they let Guangzhou down.

The entire season was a let down tbh