Topic: TAR32 Joys & Disappointments Thread

[BourkieBoy]

So, with Season 32 now being in the can, what were your Joys & Disappointment of the season?

Discuss it all here, but make sure you follow all of RFF's Golden Rules!

[Sir Khalid]

Positives:
-Good Cast
-Good Tasks
-Good Locations

Negatives:
-Mine 5 Alliance
-Predictable Final Leg

[cbacbacba1]

Positive :
- New elements in gameplay (The return of Yield, first ever KOR elimination, searching for yield with different time limit)
- Cast with distinctive character There are no blend characters in this season
- Some great leg design, with variety in leg structure (not detour - roadblock everytime but with ARI instead)
- Kaylynn & Haley being bottom gods for 6 consecutive legs and slaying all 3 NELs this season 

Negative :
- The over-powerment of the Mine 5 (Core 3) alliance destroyed some of the great tasks, and caused the consecutive elimination for the 4th - 6th place team
- Linear final leg with luck-based task 
- No one uses the yield for 4 legs until one team got double yielded in the mega leg
- Beard bros and Will & James being double standard all the time annoyed me 

The season started out really strong, deteriorated a little bit in Berlin, picked up again in Kazakhstan, then continued to deteriorate since India.

To be honest, this is the only season apart from S16 that I have literally no interest in watching the final leg, as I don't want anyone from the Final 3 (4) to win 

[arubanna]

I can't @ people saying the cast was good.. the boring alliance was a result of bad cast.. they are not competitive enough to the point that they created an alliance to help each other finish the tasks..

remember the memory challenge? they even worked in a team of 6, did it luck-based, and shared the answer.. resulting one team to pretty much give up because they know they didn't get a chance.. the 3 teams didn't even try to compete with each other lol

lack of competitiveness..

making alliances to use uturn yield etc strategically or share directions is one thing, but sharing answers is another thing.. they were just lazy and play safe..

[claude_24hrs]

Positive:

The return of Yield in selected number of legs
The double-length legs modified as "Mega Leg"
The revisits of Colombia, Paraguay, Kazakhstan and Cambodia

Negative:

Mine Five alliance
The linear final leg without a memory task
Third season in a row into a 4-continent race that lacked Oceania

[stunami]

Positive:

- The cast : The cast this season was great!!! Yes the alliance sucked, but looking at teams as individuals, even the teams that were a little bit more 'boring' delivered (Jerry/Frank, Hung/Chee and Eswar/Aparna). No duds on this season. I love that this year we also got a nice balance of Mactors/Athletes/Regular people. I feel like production sometimes forget who watches the show. We want to see regular people race around the world, not just Mactors and Athletes.

Location 11 legs in 11 different countries, when was the last time this happened? Honnestly, every leg was great, even the Paris one because they ended going to somewhere new (Chantilly) and it was not just another same old city being use. First visit to Trinidad and the Amazon was great, also Paraguay, Colombia, Kazakstan was soo fun and overdue.

The Meh:

- Tasks : The tasks were ok! I don't think we will remember much tasks from this season (The Music challenge in Manilla, the cake challenge from the finale, the Movie challenge from Kazakstan, and the Berlin Roadblock being exceptions).

Twists: I LOVED the Yield twist, but it just didn't end up being a factor for TAR32. I think they should try it again next season, but maybe on the first leg? Maybe one thing that could work is to have this challenge at the starting line, and make them look for 3 different times :10/20/30, and with 2 different planes for the first leg. Forcing teams with the same dilemma: Should I keep looking for a better one, or take the first one I see and rush to the airport?
The Megaleg was ok, nothing new, and I love the City Sprint, but would have worked better with a Top 8 or 6, to see more change between the ranking of the teams.

The Bad:

- Sharing answers: So....... AGAIN, this is nothing new for TAR but....... this was taken to the next level. I don't mind alliances, but teams can't forget that there is just one winner. Short term alliance, yes, long term... no. I'm sure there's some easy option for production to stop this problem. Mention it in the clue: You cannot give the answer to another team. You don't ever have to air it, just write it down and people won't share (Esp. for Berlin roadblock and Manila music challenge).

The boot order war bad: I wish we saw more of the Alliance being in danger, or fighting for last place. Would have spiced up things a bit.... Sad Michelle and Victoria got booted so early. They really had potential to win a few legs and make it far!

[Dånooky]

The cast was great, but the editing portrayed everyone rather blandly. I wish they would have focused more on the human side of the teams, their stories and personalities rather than just being "alliance this, alliance that".

The proposal was the highlight of the season for me. Whoever was in charge of editing that scene should be promoted to head editor and every other editor should go back to boot camp.

[Maanca]

A lackluster season topped off with definitely one of the easier finales. I personally feel it was more contrasted by having just seen the Israeli finale a couple weeks ago. There, a tough mental task and finally crossing a tightrope on their partner’s shoulders (in dramatic weather, too, lol). Then here, feeling through cakes and jumping off a bridge.

India is when the last of my interest in this season died. Its more than the alliance, this season had clear production problems. It kinda feels like they blew most of their budget renting that Kazakh movie studio and its actors, and so had to make bargain-basement tasks elsewhere through the race.

(This was also true for TAR24, but it gets a pass knowing violent Pacific weather forced substitutes of half the route)

TAR33 if and when it resumes has some work to do at the drawing board after the reception this year has had...

[dryedmangoez]

Joys
-That the Asian Cajuns exist.
-The return of Manila traffic enforcer Ramiro Hinojas
-A visit to Manila

Disappointments
-A visit to Manila (please travel outside of Metro Manila next time lol)
-Visiting the Philippines with only four teams AGAIN
-Rebranding things from old TAR and pretending they're ZOMG new twists
-Stop saying "Team X is the first to depart Country X..." because that is not true.
-Pretty much everything else

[RachelLeVega]

Joys:
I'd like to celebrate the fact that this season, despite some of the more scandalous occurrences, delivered some of the best moments I've seen in YEARS.
The first Pit Stop check-in of the season being a clean wipeout
The infamous shopping scramble in Manaus
Michelle & Victoria passing the clue jar at the U-Turn
Leo taking over Will's car at the Charles de Gaulle airport parking garage
The Hyderabadi food delivery service vs. augmented reality Detour (very fresh and keeping up with the times)
A revisit of Siem Reap, Cambodia!
Will & James' reenactment of the Charla & Mirna sausage Intersection Detour at Cafe Beignet
Personally, seeing my Crescent City Connection speculation 2 years ago become true
Inducting Kaylynn & Haley as the new Yield Queens

Disappointments:
I think the answer-sharing and impact of the alliance is well documented here so I'm not going to expand on it. Other things,
The "city sprint", originally believing they would be given an orienteering list of tasks to complete before checking back in rather than a marathon
The French leg centered around the Ile de France commune being undervalued with the tasks we got
A missed opportunity to have a purely Yield season without the distractions of Double U-Turns
No Fast Forwards
The underwhelming Bogota leg
Farfetched but still plausible: the missed opportunity for a soundbite memory task at Mardi Gras World and incorporating the music and noise from the blowgun, teledisco, auto rickshaw or horse and carriage clogging, New Orleans jazz band, Kazakh warrior Detour, and lion dance.

[Marionete]

I can't @ people saying the cast was good.. the boring alliance was a result of bad cast.. they are not competitive enough to the point that they created an alliance to help each other finish the tasks..

remember the memory challenge? they even worked in a team of 6, did it luck-based, and shared the answer.. resulting one team to pretty much give up because they know they didn't get a chance.. the 3 teams didn't even try to compete with each other lol

lack of competitiveness..

making alliances to use uturn yield etc strategically or share directions is one thing, but sharing answers is another thing.. they were just lazy and play safe..

The "boring alliance" was a result of a strategic cast, or rather, a few strategic castmates - particularly Will & James. I can't even with your reasoning that the alliance resulted from bad casting....

Casting was seriously great this season, it even made me reconsider recruits in general. Mostly because of Michelle & Victoria, who are my favorite team in years, at least since S27's Logan & Chris. But in general I'd rank them very highly on my personal rankings of F/F teams of all time.

Yes, I remember the memory challenge. It was one of the toughest challenges this season, and with it being the last task on the penultimate leg, it only made sense for 3 teams to work together. Why risk your own elimination by keeping to yourself, if you can guarantee your safety by working with others as well as getting to choose who goes out 4th, just short of the finale leg? Don't hate the players, hate the game. It wasn't fun for us, viewers, to watch, but it was only logical for racers – I'm really surprised it took TAR 30+ seasons for alliances to become prevalent.

"Strategizing on race powers AND directions is fine, but strategizing on tasks is bad" – no, dear, they're both the same thing. Opportunities for racers to get a lead on their competition strategically by something that's allowed in the race rules. Us not liking the result as viewers doesn't change what it is.

Positive:
The double-length legs modified as "Mega Leg"

I'd actually be much more a fan of this if they still had 12 legs this season :/
To me it's just a new name for almost the same thing – only difference between the KOR and the Mega Leg being the lack of Pit Stop in the middle.
I'm still gonna say this season had 12 legs, just like S14 with its "Mega Leg", and imo S10 had 13 legs.

[Wadsy]

Can't really say a lot good about this season now that it is over... It started well but lost it's strive half way and never recovered.

The Positives:

Casting - Teams like Eswar & Aparna (my favorite team), Hung & Chi and Michelle & Victoria were great in my opinion. They included more of an international cast which I absolutely loved
Yields - It was great to see them return (but this is as far as it goes)
The Early Legs - These include Trinidad & Tobago, Columbia, Paraguay and France were interesting

The Negatives:

The Alliances - This was something that seemed good early on but as it went along the results became more predictable, there were betrayals and it felt like everyone was playing it safe
The Back Half - Everything from Berlin on seemed underwhelming, and it got worse as time went on
The Locations - I am only talking about the second half, and uh.. the Brazil leg as well. The Brazil leg seemed to lack any amazon aspect, visits to Germany, France and Philippines were underwhelming as they chose to stick to their capital cities and the Cambodia leg was just meh
Bland Teams - Gary & De'Angelo and Riley & Maddison in particular just weren't very memorable, and the former U-turning my favorite team only reduced my opinion of them
Kazakhstan - Why only one leg here? I was incredibly disappointed
Fast Forwards - There weren't any, WHY?! I am pretty sure we haven't seen one since TAR29
The Mega Leg - To call it the first time we've seen one of these is nothing short of a joke! We have seen many KOR legs and the one in TAR 10 even had them keep racing without meeting Phil half way. Unless they are simply referring to no rest at all somewhere in the leg (plane ride for example), it was silly to call it that. I also hated that it meant we only got 11 legs, bad decision - still should have been two legs at the very least.
Yields On Every Leg - Hated this as well... This only contributed to my earlier opinion of the alliance and how this made the results more predictable in the back half. Yes, it worked on Season 5 because no one Yielded anybody until the eleventh leg, and teams were not ganging up in an alliance.
Will & James - Definitely my least favorite team this season. I hated their behavior first and foremost, how they treated some other teams and indirectly contributing to the elimination of Leo & Alana and after all this, they still win...