We've finally returned to Greece! I'm very glad this leg did not disappoint. I'll start elaborating... now.
I love how they start off with self-driving. It brings back classic TAR feels, especially since classic TAR had a lot, like a really whole ton of a lot, of self-driving. There was even one season (TAR9) that had self-driving in some part of every leg. We've seen some self-driving legs in earlier season, and the lack of this in TAR27 made it a very lackluster season, unfortunately.
I really like how self-driving was the determinant of the W-turn. During Leg 3, it was a cab race, which is usually based on luck. In Leg 6, although there was a roadblock and departure times before the W-turn, teams would've been further apart if the departure times were not present. Although, Leg 6's W-turn was in a better position than the one in Leg 3's. This leg's? It's based on self-driving. Many teams in the past seasons mess up and/or get eliminated simply due to self-driving. Some team in 1st place can go all the way down to last place just because of self-driving, and it has happened more than once. Therefore, I believe self-driving is a very vital element in TAR. The W-turn may have been before the detour, but the self-driving before it made it worth the placement. It would've been really awful design-wise if the W-turn was right in front of the pier station. Glad that did not happen. This is, in my opinion, the best placement of a pre-detour U-turn in seasons where I have seen it. (TAR27, TARA5, TAR29)
A lot of what-if scenarios come to mind just from the W-turn this leg. What if Tara & Joey found it first and were unable to give Mike & Liz the buffer they actually had this leg? What if Brooke & Scott never used it, and probably no else did? What if it was a post-detour U-turn, and Tara & Joey was never able to give Mike & Liz the same buffer mentioned earlier? I really like how the placement of the W-turn, Tara & Joey not finding it right away, Scott & Brooke using it, and the effect of that making Tara & Joey U-turn Team Fun all came into place to make the episode a lot better, when compared to the what-if scenarios mentioned earlier. It was also coincidental that the U-turned teams are both behind for getting lost at the beginning. I just love how this coincidence and intelligent design made the W-turn make the episode turn out really well to the viewers (like me)!
The detour being wedding-themed easily calls back to TAR27's India 2 leg. However, Indian wedding is definitely different from Greek ones, so despite it having the same theme, we still see different cultures in them. I like how the detour is balanced well enough. I can't really tell how balanced it is in time since nobody attempted the groom detour except for the U-turned teams that did it almost at the same time. The bride detour required searching and a donkey. Donkeys are usually stubborn, but even if they did not show that in this episode, it's still cool to have donkeys be part of a task in TAR. The donkey is a very infamous task element since TAR12.
They weren't stubborn this episode, but I still think it's cool to have them be part of the task. I'd love to smell and taste some Greek cheese too, if given the chance. Meanwhile, the stairs marathon may have made the groom detour look more difficult, but the task's searching part is only looking for the person or people holding the goats. It's a simple delivery task that just looked intimidating at the beginning. Carrying little goats was a really cool part of the task too. The plate-breaking seemed fun, although it also looks like a waste of supplies.
Eh. Overall, the detour was really great in design and in execution. It showed Greek culture too! The W-turn here was a great addition to the detour and the episode overall!
I like how we got a legit ARI this episode. It may have been a simple run around the stadium, but at least there was something historical in it, and also an extra place to drive to on a self-driving leg. TAR should do this as often as possible, because it adds an extra spice to the leg and the episode, whether it'd be placement switching or something historical and cultural.
The speedbump was related to Greece, yet it also fits Mike since he's a butcher. I noticed that some speedbumps in the past (until the present) are designed to the team that had to do it. For example, TAR22 had a wedding or post-wedding ceremony or ritual for newlywed team Max & Katie as a speedbump in Botswana. Maybe they're just coincidences too.
I'm not really sure. Either way, this speedbump was designed for Mike, and Liz's reactions during the speedbump showed how different they are when seeing raw meat.
Reminds me a bit of Vanck & Ashton's overall team dynamic. Anyway, the speedbump was simple yet required attention to detail. It did not take too long as well, or at least that's what it looks like. Still, the speedbump was great like the rest of the episode. It also showed an example of Greek food in the episode.
The roadblock...
The roadblock requires symmetry, accuracy, concentration. It is a Leg-8-difficulty type of task, and its difficulty avoids it from being linear.
I like the pit stop being at somewhere high. TAR seems to like pit stops on top of something high.
Really amazing to have them that way sometimes.
Anyway, I remember Acropolis from history class, and I'm glad TAR visited it. I also like how so much self-driving this leg made a good segment of the leg reach night time. I miss night legs, but if TAR can't do a pure night leg, legs that reach night time will do. Pit stop arrivals and eliminations look more epic that way!
I actually like the editing this episode. At one part Becca & Floyd or Mike & Liz talk about hoping someone is U-turned so they can catch up, yet it's so ironic that both teams who were talking about it and hoping not to be U-turned ended up with the same fate at the W-turn.
I'm not sure if that's all I like with the editing, but I definitely enjoyed watching those parts. I was also gonna comment how Phil doing a live standup is something I miss, but then I remember from his Google talk that those are not intentional, as teams just happen to have caught up to Phil while he was going to introduce the task or place. There was a lot of driving this leg, so I think it's understandable how Phil and his crew fell behind enough to have Tara & Joey catch up to them.
Overall, I just love this episode!
It is the best episode of the season for me, in terms of leg design and the events that happened in the episode.
This leg is frenzy overall! We have a detour, a W-turn, a roadblock, a speedbump, and an ARI. Bonus points for pit stop in somewhere historical. Best leg and leg design so far!
This quote sums up the leg design being good. More bonus points to this leg being self-driving, a revisit to a country being left unvisited for 20 seasons, the leg reaching very dark into the night, and Greek history and/or culture being shown in every task this leg.
I'll make another post about the teams. I find this too overwhelming already.