Topic: TAR 31 EPISODE 1 LIVE UPDATES & COMMENTARY WED 4/17/19 9PM EST *read Post 1*

[BourkieBoy]

Rupert & Laura arrive and Rupert does the RB!

Rupert got the clue...

'It's over' Art

Rupert & Laura are Team Number 10

Art & JJ have been eliminated from The Amazing Race!

[RachelLeVega]

Rupert, at 55 and a heavy beard, reaches the top and gets the clue at the first try leaving Art & JJ devastated. Embarrassing.
Another one bites the dust. JJ feels he let Art down which his partner smugly tries to disagree.

-END CREDITS- Stay tuned for scenes for this season of The Amazing Race!

[BourkieBoy]

This season on The Amazing Race!

In our first-ever Reality Showdown, teams travel to new locations, take on new challenges and encounter new twists!

'This is a U-Turn vote!'

Rachel cries

[RachelLeVega]

ON THIS SEASON OF TAR,

In our first ever reality showdown, they will travel to breathtaking new destinations, take on new challenges, and encounter shocking news! Who will win? (Wow. So specific and informative.)

Well, the premiere has officially ended! Thoughts, comments, complaints, reminders, secondhand embarrassments?

[Gra1162]

 This eposide was chaotic....  really fun to watch tho

[RachelLeVega]

Rachel cries

Some things just never change.

[Gra1162]

Rachel cries

Some things just never change.

Rachel is queen <3 Corinne right behind her

[BritishTARFan]

I wasn't the only one laughing at the Art n JJ situation was I? Like I kinda feel bad but it did make me chuckle.

Happy to see the Afghanimals get the first.

The leg was meh. I liked the getting lost aspect in Shibuya, I enjoyed the concept of the sandal RB but the Mt.Fuji was a poor effort. Too linear imo, but I'm excited for the season ahead, premier episodes rarely are spectacles lets face it.

[Marionete]

Too linear, yet the teams' placements kept getting jumbled up due to navigation errors:P
Great episode for a premiere. Really really enjoyed this, I don't know if the prolonged absence is creating a bias, but much better editing and story than I expected.

[HavaDrPepper]

I laughed every time a non-TAR team said "This is harder than I thought".

I enjoyed the leg.  Loved seeing Colin and Christie have a solid leg.  Rupert can go next.

[cbacbacba1]

It is funny to see how Art & JJ turns from a team never placing below 4th in their season to a team struggling through the first leg and took a 4-hour peanality for an easy roadblock 

[Xoruz]

Pretty intense first episode. Liked that much of the drama around this leg focused on navigation. At the same time, the navigation element showed the early strength of most of the TAR teams.

[RachelLeVega]

The leg was meh. I liked the getting lost aspect in Shibuya, I enjoyed the concept of the sandal RB but the Mt.Fuji was a poor effort. Too linear imo, but I'm excited for the season ahead, premier episodes rarely are spectacles lets face it.

I'm going to be straight with this. TAR15's Tokyo premiere blows this wannabe rehash out of the park.

[BritishTARFan]

The leg was meh. I liked the getting lost aspect in Shibuya, I enjoyed the concept of the sandal RB but the Mt.Fuji was a poor effort. Too linear imo, but I'm excited for the season ahead, premier episodes rarely are spectacles lets face it.

I'm going to be straight with this. TAR15's Tokyo premiere blows this wannabe rehash out of the park.

Defo. I reckon S26 beats it too, I reckon I won't get too many agrees on that too. God knows Why I'm up, its 3:30am

[RachelLeVega]

The leg was meh. I liked the getting lost aspect in Shibuya, I enjoyed the concept of the sandal RB but the Mt.Fuji was a poor effort. Too linear imo, but I'm excited for the season ahead, premier episodes rarely are spectacles lets face it.

I'm going to be straight with this. TAR15's Tokyo premiere blows this wannabe rehash out of the park.

Defo. I reckon S26 beats it too, I reckon I won't get too many agrees on that too. God knows Why I'm up, its 3:30am

Probably not that one. I chose to forget about 26's 2-hour So You Think You Can Dance extravaganza.
And get some sleep!

[RaceUntilWeDie]

First Impressions:

TEAMS
1. Leo & Jamal - went from disliking them in TAR 23, to being indifferent to them in TAR 24, to absolutely rooting for them this season? I don't know how that happened haha but great to see them win this first leg!
2. Colin & Christie - I have never watched TAR 5 in full, but I've seen large chunks of Colin & Christie's time on it. I honestly think they might be boring/"bot"-like this time around but I can't help but adore them every time I see them on screen. The fact that producers reached out to them this season is a WIN itself.
3. Tyler & Korey - surprisingly under the radar?? Even their first season had tons of personalities but somehow they're overshadowed. Obviously, it's only the first episode.
4. Rachel & Elissa - I'm loving what seems like a really "fun" version of Rachel. There's clearly a different dynamic between her and Elissa compared to Brendon.
5. Becca & Floyd - also pretty under the radar, but that's understandable because of so many teams right now.
6. Nicole & Victor - they seem like a sweet couple. That's all I have to say for now, lol
7. Chris & Bret - One of them looks like JJ so thank god Art & JJ went out first lmao
8. Janelle & Britney - Yikes, navigation is not going to be their best friend, it seems...
9. Corinne & Eliza - the whole "mean girl" act is annoying.
10. Rupert & Laura - Rupert has an interesting voice and Laura is incredibly dry for a reality personality.
11. Art & JJ - From 2nd in their original season to 11th... I genuinely felt bad for them lmao but I think if I rewatch TAR 20 I won't feel as bad.

TASKS
Sand - this was a WASTE OF TIME considering all the teams were on the same flight and there was no advantage or disadvantage for the first/last teams. I don't think we've ever had a starting line task without a single advantage.
Route Info - I loved the camerawork through the crowded streets. Ambitious task for sure (with the "limited clues" and all) but it played out pretty boring.
Chocolate Roadblock - cool challenge! it got ruined by teams getting lost and being so far apart from each other though. I would've loved to see this task in action with like 6 teams at once.
Climbing Roadblock - when Leo first attempted this challenge I thought it was going to be super hard... but I guess it wasn't. This Roadblock should've been reworked.

ADDITIONAL POINTS
- The editing was atrocious as usual. Sooooo many "blur" transitions during the Route Info task, for what?? Just play it out without the transitions, dang it.
- I've seen people say that there wasn't any room for movement in this episode. I would disagree--there totally was, it's just that too many teams got lost
- Overall the "reality showdown" concept isn't bad, I just wish this was a full TAR cast </3
- I'm so glad I forgot a majority of the spoilers, lmao. This is gonna be a fun watch.

[BourkieBoy]

The premiere episode was pretty good, however editing needs to be fixed up ASAP (especially the first ten minutes I was far too rushed lmao)

The two Roadblocks + Route Info was pretty good, but the Stating Line Task was a massive waste of time, considering all teams were on the same fight!

[nrh2110]

Not gonna lie, was kinda disappointed. An overused destination with two Roadblocks relating to the same thing (Japanese game show). Really happy the Afghanimals won that leg, tho. I feel bad for Art & JJ, but I guess life will go on. Hoping Team Fun will be as strong this season as last time, I really loved them, but the editing makes it seem like they’re fairly irrelevant this season (which I really hope is not the case).

Here’s to next week!

[NELs]

Welp, I have to agree with everyone else here. This was a pretty meh premiere. The editing could have been better (this premiere's editing was as atrocious as TAR30's). The only good task on this leg was navigating the Shibuya Scramble. The two tasks relating to Japanese game shows sucked, TAR needs to stop going to Japan and having each tasks relate to "Look, these Japanese game shows are absurd, let's emulate them on TAR." I thought this "Reality Showdown was gonna flop, but I'm interested in some of the teams from Survivor. (These teams might convince me to watch their seasons of Survivor, if I enjoyed them so much), because I've never watched Survivor before.

Rating, 3/5: Terrible editing, I love about half the cast, Two terrible Japanese Game Show Tasks, shocking elimination.

The teams I loved seeing:
Colin & Christie
Becca & Floyd
Rupert & Laura
Corinne & Eliza
Chris & Bret

The teams I'm meh on:
Leo & Jamal
Nicole & Victor
Rachel & Elissa
Janelle & Britney
Art & JJ

Team I don't like:
Tyler & Korey

[NumfarPTB]

The episode was interesting was more interesting on a second watch.

- Probably due to limited runtime -  so in some ways, glad it didn't happen - but was initially surprised there was not a short recap of other former Survivor and Big Brother contestants that have run the race previously, especially considering who won TAR30 and also Rob and Amber for the old-timers.

- Also surprised that the opening sequence, didn't label the teams by the show they were representing, like the opening that identified who were the Blind Daters and who were the existing couples on 26.

- Last night, was initially a bit disappointed by number of challenges, as it was a double RB leg, with start line ARI that had little impact on actual placements, it did feel a bit wasted, other than having all 11 teams in the same spot for a little bit. But realized on second viewing how big was a navigation challenge once they were in Shibuya. Separating and limiting the number of clues in the initial RI was very interesting, that had teams lost, and did shift placements around. That probably doomed Art and JJ.
Still bothered by how the RB tasks were centered on, "look how crazy are Japanese Game Shows", instead of being more culturally relevant. I think UB still had one of my favorite Japanese legs for original TAR.

- Not a Survivor or BB viewer, so this was my first impression to those teams. Was surprised by how mellow Victor sounded, from following the spoilers, I don't know why I imagined him sounding gruffier, more Cody-like. First time learning about the legendary status of Rupert. So who's more legendary Rupert or Russell? Having helped out posting links for 2018's season of Australian Survivor, I became mildly aware of the latter who has nothing to do with the race, but being generally unfamiliar with the Survivor franchise, it made me slightly confused for "a minute'.

- Still wished we had a FF TAR team in this season, the feeling I got is that Kym and Alli (one of the teams who were considered during casting) would've smoked all those FF teams. 

- Were never an Art and JJ fan, so not sad to see them go.  Just disappointed we didn't get any Rachel drama, That would have been interesting.

- Excited to learn more about the teams that I am unfamiliar with and excited that US is bringing other twists from the international version, hopefully works better than US wonky implementation of the H2H / Face-Off.
I should try finding a post I did about how the Vote Uturn was used brilliantly by a team in TAR China a few years ago, and considering the make-up of the cast this season, it will be very interesting twist.

[theschnauzers]

- Also surprised that the opening sequence, didn't label the teams by the show they were representing, like the opening that identified who were the Blind Daters and who were the existing couples on 26.

Actually the teams were shown by original show in order of their season of participation in that show. (TAR, Survivor, Big Brother). It took me a few times watching those credits before the premiere before I realized that perhaps for the first time ever, the order of teams was actually rationally based and not seemingly random.

[Marionete]

I'm gonna do a rewatch now, but I'm surprised how everyone's ranting about the editing.
I actually thought it was all pretty fine, I got to understand how any team fell behind unlike S30 premiere.

There are 11 teams, and this is the premiere with introductions and all that. You're not gonna get as good editing as for a F6 or even a F10, because the episode is packed by default. This was good.

[Maanca]

An okay premiere, not their greatest by any means. Whoever's in charge of designing Japan legs needs to research the country better...Shibuya Scramble and game shows. Every time

Not at all sad about the first boot, I never cared for them much the first time around.

[I ♥ TAR]

That was one of the worst designed leg ever (stop with game show tasks in Japan, jesus), but teams bringed it, so I enjoyed this episode.

I LOVE Corinne & Eliza, Bonehams and Colin & Christie.

[54generation]

To be honest I think even Art and JJ fans are disappointed in their performance considering that they ended up taking the 4-hour penalty instead of taking a short break and try the roadbloack again. What a major letdown for their fans lol