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The Amazing Race => The Amazing Race Discussion => Topic started by: Traveldude1 on April 11, 2020, 06:13:19 PM
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There are 3 things that can ruin a season for me :
- Extremely dominant teams. Eric and Jeremy and Rachel and Dave are two great examples of this. I don't like when a team wins 6+ legs because its boring to watch.
- Having every team be unlikable. Season 24 comes to mind immediately. Call me superficial, but if a season has an overall awful cast, I won't watch.
- Vilanous teams who are very cutthroat and take the race too seriously. I love competitive racing, but some teams go way too far with it. Rob and Amber were very popular during their run but I didn't like their style of play. I thought it was rotten.
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Hello, Traveldude1! :bigwelcome to the R.F.F.!
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Welcome Traveldude1 :)
Cast is a big one. If we have to spend 11-12 weeks following a cast of unlikeable teams, it brings a sour note to the enjoyment, even if the route and tasks are great.
Season 20 is a big example for me. They filled that cast with too many law enforcement/alpha types who took the race seriously (and one dominated, of course). After Bopper & Mark were gone, I didn't care about any of the final 4, which made the last 2 legs a chore to watch.
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Definitely dominant teams.
Also when there are a lot of teams who scream all the time
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I hate a season when boring teams just dominate, ala Andy & Tommy (Season 19). If you're going to dominate the Race, at least be excited, upbeat and just good to watch ala Tom & Tyler (TAR Australia 4)
I also can't stand boring cast members. If we have a boring 11 teams in the Race, then it will be a very boring 12 legs, no matter the route or the tasks being done
Also, when people take the Race too seriously, argue from country to country and just plain mean & rude to other teams from no reason whatsoever, this really bugs me. You are on the greatest television show in the world. Why don't you just enjoy it, rather than being a villain all the time? It would make for much better television, that's for sure!
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All the F/F teams getting eliminated early
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- Vilanous teams who are very cutthroat and take the race too seriously. I love competitive racing, but some teams go way too far with it. Rob and Amber were very popular during their run but I didn't like their style of play. I thought it was rotten.
I Used to hate Rob & Amber, but you can't deny they're brilliant TV, same with teams like Art & JJ, I find the villains add a lot to a season, its almost fun to not like them.
Competitive racers are only enjoyable if they themselves take time to have fun, so think Dustin & Kandace, Kim & Ally or Ernie & Cindy.
Things that can ruin a season for me are poor route and lack of drama and competitiveness.
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I hate a season when boring teams just dominate, ala Andy & Tommy (Season 19). If you're going to dominate the Race, at least be excited, upbeat and just good to watch ala Tom & Tyler (TAR Australia 4)
I also can't stand boring cast members. If we have a boring 11 teams in the Race, then it will be a very boring 12 legs, no matter the route or the tasks being done
Also, when people take the Race too seriously, argue from country to country and just plain mean & rude to other teams from no reason whatsoever, this really bugs me. You are on the greatest television show in the world. Why don't you just enjoy it, rather than being a villain all the time? It would make for much better television, that's for sure!
For the last paragraph, Eric and Jeremy fit the bill perfectly. Dominated the race and never fully enjoyed the culture they were experiencing. Their fratboy persona was incredibly stupid and awful to watch too
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I agree with everyone above. However, I also feel that poor leg design and too many "all on the same flight" legs really ruin it for me.
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I don't like season that has an unbalanced ratio of teams, like there's too many M/F teams in one season or there's too few F/F teams. Also, lack of diversity in teams kinda make the season looked bland.
I also don't like a season when aired, there's too much focus on a particular team that make the other teams forgettable.
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Honestly, I don't think is a specific thing that ruins a season for me, the only thing I would say is a boring cast (or having a lot of the interesting teams (usually F/F) eliminated early). Having boring tasks, linear leg, and lack of flight drama can also contribute to a bad season as well. However, a lot of this has to accumulate throughout the season.
The only exception I would make is when a particular narrative that I don't like is emphasized repetitively, that can really ruin a season and put a bad taste in my mouth. Dave & Connor's edit comes to mind in Season 24.
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Mainly for me is the editing. You can have the best cast in recent years (season 25), but if the adrenaline, mystery, and adventure are not connecting, the season flatlines and appears as bland compared to the older contemporary seasons. This has happened for me since 21 onward. I still love the locations visited regardless.
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1) Boring dominant team, usually Alpha Males, like Andy & Tommy.
2) Everyone being too nice and drama-free to each others, like Season 19 and 24.
3) Seasons loaded with M/M teams towards the end, like Season 4 / 16.
Therefore, season 4 / 19 are the seasons that I don't like :funny:
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Cast is a big one. If we have to spend 11-12 weeks following a cast of unlikeable teams, it brings a sour note to the enjoyment, even if the route and tasks are great.
Season 20 is a big example for me. They filled that cast with too many law enforcement/alpha types who took the race seriously (and one dominated, of course). After Bopper & Mark were gone, I didn't care about any of the final 4, which made the last 2 legs a chore to watch.
Agree on this. S.20 was painful to watch. The route was good. The cast fell flat for me, almost everyone was like Alpha Team. Rachel & Dave winning 8 Legs, missed 1 task in the Finale and still won. Brendon & Rachel, with the latter's incessant drama. Art & JJ, Vanessa & Ralph fights with Brendon & Rachel. Hot-tempered Twins, Annoying Mississippi Cousins. The airport blowout in Tanzania is a disgrace.
I don't mind drama. Every show needs some spice but too much is not good.
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Cast is a big one. If we have to spend 11-12 weeks following a cast of unlikeable teams, it brings a sour note to the enjoyment, even if the route and tasks are great.
Season 20 is a big example for me. They filled that cast with too many law enforcement/alpha types who took the race seriously (and one dominated, of course). After Bopper & Mark were gone, I didn't care about any of the final 4, which made the last 2 legs a chore to watch.
Agree on this. S.20 was painful to watch. The route was good. The cast fell flat for me, almost everyone was like Alpha Team. Rachel & Dave winning 8 Legs, missed 1 task in the Finale and still won. Brendon & Rachel, with the latter's incessant drama. Art & JJ, Vanessa & Ralph fights with Brendon & Rachel. Hot-tempered Twins, Annoying Mississippi Cousins. The airport blowout in Tanzania is a disgrace.
I don't mind drama. Every show needs some spice but too much is not good.
Everyone has a confrontation with at least 1 team except Bopper & Mark (maybe Joey Fitness & Danny too) is ridiculously hilarious :funny:
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- Dominant teams that keep winning the majority of legs (TAR 9, 13, 15, 19 & 20)
- Poor route and task design (TAR 8, 10, 13, 19 and 24)
- Unlikable teams (TAR 4, 10, 13, 16, 24 and 27)
- Boring in general (TAR 4, 8, 13, 16, 25 and 27)
- M/M teams making it to the end (TAR 4 and 9)
- Ugliness between teams (TAR 2, 4, 11, 14, 16, 20, 24 and 31)
- Every season after TAR 11 heading straight to the final destination city from the beginning of the leg
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That's a good question. I must agree with Wadsy in some points.
- Dominant Teams are my major turnoff.
- Rushing the route and the tasks.
- Too predictable - fits with Dominant Teams
- Too much M/M or F/F teams making it to the end.
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For me:
1. Cast
2. Route
3. Drama
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For me:
1. Cast
2. Route
3. Drama
I agree with the first two in particular.
The route of a season is a critical one for me. TAR7 in particular is ranked 4th on my season rankings for TAR and would have been higher had the locations been better. In fact I can say that this was the only factor in why the season was not higher, and maybe lack of equalizers on several legs.
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For me:
1. Cast
2. Route
3. Drama
I agree with the first two in particular.
The route of a season is a critical one for me. TAR7 in particular is ranked 4th on my season rankings for TAR and would have been higher had the locations been better. In fact I can say that this was the only factor in why the season was not higher, and maybe lack of equalizers on several legs.
I do agree with you season 11 and 7 would be higher for me if they didn't spend 4 legs in SA. Also, a season can get boring without drama for me however it isn't a big factor like the cast and route.
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Yes! I forgot to mention TAR 11 suffering the same fate as well.
With Season 7 it was really the fourth leg where I felt "hey this is one too many".
I felt the same with Botswana by the seventh leg but I guess a lot of it was because the teams really hadn't been that many places to this point.
With TAR 11 I disliked leg 2 - poorly designed. Again, too many legs in South America, Asia and not enough Europe.
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For me the teams aren't so important as long as they are actually trying. The route is more important to me as well as things such as artificial chokepoints and Hours of Operation. I would prefer a team to get a long way ahead or behind to having everyone reequalised multiple times per episode.
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1) No new countries/major regions. We're at the point now where watching TAR explore Paris is a big TV draw anymore.
2) Linear setup. TAR has put in so many rules to avoid specific situations that are inconvenient for Production from happening that refining the rules over and over for 32 seasons ensures seasons play out in a very linear manner. This is perhaps TAR's biggest weakness over the past six years or so. Unorthodox or intriguing situations no longer happen on TAR because Production wants things to run as smoothly as possible. Easier for Production but not as great of a TV product.
3) A pandemic. That has ruined TAR 33 for about 16 months now and counting, sadly. I'm very curious to see where the franchise goes from here after such a long break. Nobody has crossed the finish line in like 3 years now or something ridiculous.
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1. Some seasons don't have any new countries visited
2. Linear setup including airport drama
3. Replacement location of legs during production (in case such as natural disaster, civil unrest, safety reasons and even terrorist attack)
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3. Replacement location of legs during production (in case such as natural disaster, civil unrest, safety reasons and even terrorist attack)
So you're saying a season is bad just because production had no choice to change locations mid-filming due to unforeseen circumstances? :groan:
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3. Replacement location of legs during production (in case such as natural disaster, civil unrest, safety reasons and even terrorist attack)
HOW could THIS ruin a season?? I would be giving THANKS that our teams and crew were removed safely. :groan:
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He/she could just be referring to how legs become poorly designed in the case of last minute planning?
TAR 19's Thailand legs were awful in my opinion and clear examples of this.
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For me, it's the route. TAR24 had 4 double legs in a row for 2/3 of its season. TAR Aus 4 had a lot of double legs too, but it was their first season in a while so I can forgive them for that. Just can't recommend it to people.
Agree with dominant teams, even if they have nice characters on TV.
Dragging a race for too long and having too many NELs and it's all unnecessary? I appreciate having a TAR season to watch during a pandemic, but TAR Aus 5 felt dragging at some point onwards.
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I am always surprised when teams seem to not know some current events, common culture, or basic geography. Why do you think that is?
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I am always surprised when teams seem to not know some current events, common culture, or basic geography. Why do you think that is?
This actually. After watching Legs 1 and 2 of TAR33, I was cringing that a few racers did not know who Boris Johnson was, nor the fact that the UK had left the EU several weeks before the race started.
(Having said that, I was amused to have the taxi driver mentioning that Boris was blond... and fat!)
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The thing that annoys me are boring/generic tasks and racers that rub me the wrong way. Now, I am a person who usually roots for the bickering M/F couple teams, so I don't mind them sniping at each other. However, some kinds of bickering rub me off the wrong way, like TAR11's Kevin and Drew's bickering. I am also against certain kinds of M/M teams (like Jet and Cord and the Globetrotters), who rub me the wrong way.
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A big power gap difference between one team and the rest as shown in Leg 10 in Portugal. The Portugal leg in TAR33 served as a rehearsal leg for the Final 3. Coming into the finale, every team but Arun and Natalia had good enough skills and a convincing winner's edit. Makes me wonder what would have happened if Arun and Natalia were replaced by Lulu and Lala or Anthony and Spencer.
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I feel like the episodes are too rushed right now.
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First and foremost, a bad boot order - then route, then tasks.
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Uninteresting teams, bad boot order, uninteresting travel route, bad tasks, bad designed legs (especially those with many bunching points).
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This might not be the right place for this post (either here or general TAR discussion)...I don't know about you all, but is anyone else a) tempted by spoilers and then b) kinda underwhelmed when the season actually airs months/years later? Don't get me wrong, it's exciting tracking the teams and their activities, and reading spoilers is a choice, not a requirement, but it's like...we already basically know how 35 is going to shake out in terms of locations, eliminations, and final 3, unlike Survivor which is almost all speculation (but spoilers for that show are becoming more plentiful/accurate due to social media), and probably in a month's time we will know the same about this season, which probably won't air until until late 2024/early 2025.
I wonder if there's a way that the show could combat this, because to me, at least, it's kind of put a damper on the actual show because sometimes the spoilers are more exciting than the show itself (the last 2 seasons, to me, have not been super exciting when aired because I know what happens, also the editing has been lackluster - Kim/Penn basically said the same things every episode and while they were fantastic racers and winners and seem like awesome human beings, the show kind of made them 2-dimensional. Derek/Claire were one of the more tolerable BB alum teams and deserving winners, but, once again, everything about them was pretty much the same every episode, with Claire providing snarky commentary while carrying the team with her unexpected challenge prowess and Derek being awkward as anything)
...could the producers split the group up on 2 different routes and then "merge" them at some point (like Australia 6 in reverse, although it would interfere with a final memory task)
...could the producers send the eliminated teams on a race of their own instead of sequestering them?
...could the producers sprinkle in eliminated teams doing tasks at random with the racing teams to add suspense to the spoilers?
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^
24 has to be the poster child.
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This might not be the right place for this post (either here or general TAR discussion)...I don't know about you all, but is anyone else a) tempted by spoilers and then b) kinda underwhelmed when the season actually airs months/years later? Don't get me wrong, it's exciting tracking the teams and their activities, and reading spoilers is a choice, not a requirement-
...could the producers split the group up on 2 different routes and then "merge" them at some point (like Australia 6 in reverse, although it would interfere with a final memory task)
...could the producers send the eliminated teams on a race of their own instead of sequestering them?
...could the producers sprinkle in eliminated teams doing tasks at random with the racing teams to add suspense to the spoilers?
I think there's two separate cases here:
- if you're accidentally spoiled, either by CBS screwing up or by someone posting a spoiler in the public domain, then I can see how that would definitely sour the experience and the way to prevent it would be on production to combat this during filming
- if you intentionally seek out spoilers just to know what happened and then get disappointed...you said it, it's on you for wanting to read about the still filming season, but also what would cause someone to be disappointed in a season without actually seeing any part of it. 11 was fully spoiled before airing and yet was fairly enjoyable for the most part, and several other seasons were almost fully spoiled (25, 29) yet the episodes and season were sufficiently entertaining.
Production has been trying to evade spoilers since early TAR - they've had decoy teams run the race and complete the tasks as late as TAR 21/22 (if not later) and the existence of Sequesterville is to prevent people from spoiling their elimination by flying home from whatever country they were eliminated in. Short of filming in places that don't really know much about TAR or filming in more enclosed, private spaces I'mnot sure there's a foolproof (and cost-efficient) way to get around this, especially with social media as it is.
Also regarding the topic, I think a bad cast drags down a good route (and sometimes good boot order like Asia 2) more severely than bad tasks (moreso than a bad route) impact a good cast.
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^
31 (Reality Clash/Showdown) was just as spoiled as 11/AS1 and even more enjoyable.
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This might not be the right place for this post (either here or general TAR discussion)...I don't know about you all, but is anyone else a) tempted by spoilers and then b) kinda underwhelmed when the season actually airs months/years later? Don't get me wrong, it's exciting tracking the teams and their activities, and reading spoilers is a choice, not a requirement-
...could the producers split the group up on 2 different routes and then "merge" them at some point (like Australia 6 in reverse, although it would interfere with a final memory task)
...could the producers send the eliminated teams on a race of their own instead of sequestering them?
...could the producers sprinkle in eliminated teams doing tasks at random with the racing teams to add suspense to the spoilers?
I think there's two separate cases here:
- if you're accidentally spoiled, either by CBS screwing up or by someone posting a spoiler in the public domain, then I can see how that would definitely sour the experience and the way to prevent it would be on production to combat this during filming
- if you intentionally seek out spoilers just to know what happened and then get disappointed...you said it, it's on you for wanting to read about the still filming season, but also what would cause someone to be disappointed in a season without actually seeing any part of it. 11 was fully spoiled before airing and yet was fairly enjoyable for the most part, and several other seasons were almost fully spoiled (25, 29) yet the episodes and season were sufficiently entertaining.
Production has been trying to evade spoilers since early TAR - they've had decoy teams run the race and complete the tasks as late as TAR 21/22 (if not later) and the existence of Sequesterville is to prevent people from spoiling their elimination by flying home from whatever country they were eliminated in. Short of filming in places that don't really know much about TAR or filming in more enclosed, private spaces I'mnot sure there's a foolproof (and cost-efficient) way to get around this, especially with social media as it is.
Also regarding the topic, I think a bad cast drags down a good route (and sometimes good boot order like Asia 2) more severely than bad tasks (moreso than a bad route) impact a good cast.
Agree. Some seasons have really bad route and legs (TAR 21 notably) but very interesting teams can keep the entertainment gold. Whereas a season with good route can be ruined by bad teams and plot development (TAR 32 notably)
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Both 14 as well as 15 showed even earlier on that good casts can save bad routes, whereas 10 and 22 did the antithesis with poor boot-orders on stellar courses.