Topic: TAR 30 EPISODE 7 & 8 LIVE UPDATES/COMMENTARY WED 2/7/18 9-11PM EST

[ianthebalance]

I liked the episodes a lot

[Granth]

Next week: another 2 hour episode what is going on + Bahrain! They've only visited it once before right?

No, it's a brand-new country.

OP: best sub-Saharan Africa city leg since Accra, Ghana thirteen seasons ago!

[Xoruz]

Leg 7

When the partner swap was announced, I was dreading it. It was obvious that there wouldn't be an elimination. It would too confusion learning new team combinations after six legs.

What we got, I thought was alright. If team members were randomly selected, it would be too confusing. Having this work like a pseudo-Intersection did ease the confusion of the new teams. The addition of a limited stations Detour prevented teams from working with their original partners and gave a bit of strategy as to who would do what. It also did help that it was a KOR.

Shortened intro

Phil's wake up call

Editors giving Conor an instant replay

Tent: Liked that we got a scrabble to start the leg, pretty fair way to determine the swap.
Raft: Not too much to say.
Rhino: Good memory challenge and a lack of knowledge about the number of items made it so teams couldn't anticipate how many items to find.
Bush: Loved that we saw two teams get bogged & loved the use of the winch.

Detour was pretty balanced and teams had same opportunity to succeed or fail.

Given the emphasis on the twist the leg felt short, but it was OK overall.

3/5


Leg 8

Without turning into Eric & Daniel, I'll say that this leg delivered.

This leg was great. All of my complaints about the Prague leg were addressed. The advantage L&B and A&C had was enough to get them to the U-Turn but not insurmountable. We got 2 teams U-Turned. There was a difficult challenge after the U-Turn, so it wasn't a death sentence.

This leg also paired well with the previous leg as it was a nice juxtaposition with the nature reserve to go to an immediate city leg.

Confused truck driver

Alex's Greatest Achievements

Mail: Great. Loved the confusion of navigating the mall.
Tire: Also great. Loved the confusion of navigating the market.
Song: Best task of the leg. Loved that all teams were present at once. Shona seemed easier to pronounce that German back in TAR 23. The main trick was the pace of singing.

5/5

[Joberio]

Really enjoyed Evan competitiveness, but was a bit annoyed that editors seems to try to portray it as a negative thing.

It was totally a negative thing.  She refused to help some other racers, yet expected help from someone else on the next leg?  Pretty negative -- and hypocritical -- to me.

they firmly decline Kristi and Jessica's plea for help and walked away. Adding to their firm relationship they developed in the former leg, I guess debating does give you a synergy with others.

Saying, "We'll see" isn't "firmly declining."  It's leaving someone dangling and then hanging afterwards.  If they had "firmly declined," they would've flat-out said NO.  They didn't.  I can absolutely see why Kristi and Jessica were annoyed.

[BritishTARFan]

Why were they only angry at Evan though.

[nrh2110]

OP: best sub-Saharan Africa city leg since Accra, Ghana thirteen seasons ago!

I think the Zanzibar leg last season was really good too, partly again because of the U-Turns not completely playing out how they should've

[Joberio]

Why were they only angry at Evan though.

If post-show interviews with Joey & Tim and Trevor & Chris are to be believed, Eric & Daniel were well-liked by the other teams, while Henry & Evan weren't (largely due to them keeping to themselves and not socializing at all).  Probably easier to just be angry at the less-liked person.

[dryedmangoez]

Jessica was also a hypocrite for being so ticked at not being told an answer. I applauded her last week. Was not happy with her attitude this week.

Helping a team with directions and pointing them in the right direction though I think is much different than giving the answer at a Kafka Road Block. And Evan & Daniel "helping" Kristi & Jessica would've also basically be telling them the answer. Answer sharing on TAR is horrible and that goes for all TAR franchises.

[Joberio]

Jessica was also a hypocrite for being so ticked at not being told an answer. I applauded her last week. Was not happy with her attitude this week.

Helping a team with directions and pointing them in the right direction though I think is much different than giving the answer at a Kafka Road Block. And Evan & Daniel "helping" Kristi & Jessica would've also basically be telling them the answer. Answer sharing on TAR is horrible and that goes for all TAR franchises.

Help is help, no matter the context or situation.  If one bit of help should be considered horrible, then so should another bit of it.

[Cocoa]

How's Jessica inside the BB House? I feel like I couldn't stand her sometimes, especially when Evan refused to help her (which NO ONE will ever do) But I do appreciate the villainous role she's injecting in the race.

The #PartnerSwap was fine, I just wish it was longer AND teams are not allowed to help their swapped team (which played out perfectly since all swapped teams chose both sides of the detour)

KOR legs are ugh, that should have been a Speed Bump penalty!

And U-Turns before Detours again??? That is super unfair.

Urban Harare is nice, but nobody still tops Ghana TAR17 for the best African leg/s.

[Platrium]

I think that if you consider this two episodes as one long leg with two Detours, 1 Intersection-alike and 1 Double U-turn, it will be easier to enjoy.

Strongly agree to this!

[Platrium]

I'll only comment on the new twist for now.

Gotta agree that it felt like an intersection. The twist was fine, and it was placed well, not right before an elimination point and only on 1 to 2 tasks. TAR shouldn't do this every season, but I'm not against it. It's not a bad twist, although it sounded bad at first. Personally, I'd probably call it a junction. Anyway, there were a lot of interesting team dynamics. They all worked well, but Kristi and Jessica not knowing how to drive stick shift pretty much put their original teams behind. It was fun to watch 2 teams fall behind like that.

The W-turn before the detour on the 2nd half was also placed well, as it came from a zero-hour pit stop. The partner swap made a big impact in which teams are ahead and which teams are behind, so the placement of the W-turn on this part of the race was fine. What I like most about the W-turn is that it's a surprise. (I have surprise U-turns in my fanfic. ) It's not indicated in clues nor stated in the preview from last week. TAR should do these more often, because U-turns that are announced ahead may allow some teams to gang up and U-turn 1 or 2 teams by an alliance. (TAR29 with Vanck & Ashton, TAR22 with Joey & Meghan and Mona & Beth) It became more of an agreement than a good strategy, which weren't fun to watch.

After a couple of W-turns before the detours though, I still prefer the U-turns placed after, because once the teams know that they're U-turned, they're gonna work faster than usual whether they catch up or not. The awareness allows them to pick up their speeds, whereas being unaware of being U-turned if it's placed after doesn't give this kind of worrisome we-need-to-catch-asap mentality on the 1st side of the detour.

[Lemontail]

By the way, can someone check Phil's narrations about leg numbers, like it was supposed to be "the Pit Stop of the eighth leg of the Race" or something like that, just in case? So Episode 7-8 was about the seventh and eighth legs? It felt short as two legs.