I too nearly stopped watching during 6 ( I think it was 6). After the TAR 5 love that one nearly lost me.
Glad I held on!
I'm glad I'm not the only one here that shares the opinion of season 6 being garbage. From the final 6 teams to the sprinkling of horribly executed tasks to the "honoring" of Chicago (I love Gino's East's deep dish pizzas, but this as the final all-in task by eating only 2 slices? N-O.) I don't understand why people preach praises about this season when it is the foulest of the catalog. Negative Nancy breakdown/rant:
Final 6 final words: Jonathan & Victoria were not entertaining at all. Verbal and physical abuse is never acceptable or tolerable to me. Kendra's naive and bigoted remarks about visiting Senegal and Ethiopia were really upsetting and Freddy's childish and violent tantrum at the Heritage Railway Museum made me cringe and have zero respect for him. Hayden & Aaron reached my boiling point before Sri Lanka as much as Logan & Chris irked me in season 27. Kris & Jon, although a lovely couple, had a very robotic/by-the-playbook sweet couple edit like teams past (Bob & Joyce, John Vito & Jill, Debra & Steve, Kelly & Jon somewhat) that I got more bored watching them than they were entertaining to me. Adam & Rebecca were the only team that actually became more interesting to me as time went on because of their dramatically worsening relationship to the point Rebecca was pretending to like Adam and I ended up having to root for them between the final three just to get my satisfaction in for this season. Lori & Bolo's only redeeming factor this entire race was finding the middle-of-nowhere shopping bag lady - there I said it.
Tasks: The first two legs were great.... and then...
the hay bales - as memorable as that moment was - madly and badly planned. Lena didn't have to go all-out after the fourth hour, but I salute her for doing this. It seems like production forgot that the more hay bales that are unrolled, the more mess it would make, having teams doubt other teams had accidentally unrolled a clue. Matt was so lucky in that Switchback to have found one of the couple flags remaining during the Switchback and not just finding the one clue.
The
soap box derby Roadblock in Berlin was visually lame to see in such an interesting city. It had absolutely nothing to do with Germany and no other hill riding task this season can top the Norwegian roller skiing Detour. I could've been happier seeing this done for a finale in Cleveland, Ohio since it's actually originated from the Buckeye State.
The
Hungarian fisherman's soup Roadblock scarred me for life and gave me a new fear that will never be overcomed. I don't want to talk about it. I'm just going to say the editing was so vile and R-rated that I no longer eat tomato soup.
The
Lalibela portion felt too obstacle course-like with nothing aesthetically eye-catching similar to the recent legs from season 22 in French Polynesia. It felt very premeditated and less of a race fashion.
Something positive: Sri Lanka was one of the few Legs like Corsica that made me feel temporarily better about the route of this season.
The execution of the
window-washing Roadblock in Shanghai was dumb. It would've been better if teams could switch which windows they wanted to wash, but it just ended up with them working their way down to find the hidden message just to have the same distance between each other again, and in China for what? Tall skyscrapers? It could've been saved for a more intriguing building in New York or downtown London for all I care.
Whoever brainstormed and finalized the penultimate
love lock Roadblock has to be same person who thought of the execution of the hay bales. Why would you put a time-sensitive task so late especially on this leg that uses taxis and entrusts other people's senses?
And as a Chicago native, I found the finishing course of this race abysmal. I'm glad the strangers season brought some well-needed seasoning by visiting Wrigleyville, the Speedway, and the waterfront view at Milton Lee Olive Park.