Promised to draw a season-in-retrospect opinion during my finale live updates. Somehow I forgot to do that last week, so I will do it now while it's still relative.
TAR35 is a season of recovery. After a couple seasons where pre-arranged flights and pandemic measures tied up how and where teams traveled, production utilized that downtime to give the spectrum of transportation a return with a bang. At the end of it, they went above and beyond what I had originally expected. It utilized a full arsenal of locomotion! We got flight battles (the coveted premiere flight check-in counters, even standby placement thanks to Todd & Ashlie and Rob & Corey!), sampan navigation and strategizing (Can Tho's floating market), ferry errors (Robbin & Chelsea and Andrea & Malaina), a train connection risk (leading teams trying to make the farfetched Graz, Austria stop), a glider Roadblock, and local public transportation drama (Stockholm's subway system with Steve & Anna featuring the bus). I was overwhelmed with joy when I saw the outcome of older-contemporary and new-school elements converging like the Express Pass remodeled to function as an inverse Fast Forward task, an anonymous U-Turn that I first saw play out on the Australian version, and the most recent stress test of the Scramble to vanquish a linear feeling during the Seattle finale. Slovenia's first leg, my favorite episode in years, shortly defines this season for me: chaotic, variated, and quite a step - or a 1,000+ like Rob & Corey and Steve & Anna achieved - in the right direction. The whole of this brought back a core love of what makes TAR so great to watch for me. Traveling in different styles and encountering the unexpected. Besides a couple gripes involving legs (Leg 2 where barely any placement shifts occurred and Dublin's tasks paling in comparison), I loved what came out of this season!
"Out of towners!": I feel this has been the most memorable collective we've seen in a good while. We got teams who made fast, tough decisions and carried on (Elizabeth & Iliana trusting their gut at the first Detour, Morgan & Lena's controversial/advantageous Detour switch in India), teams who crashed and burned (Jocelyn & Victor's downfall after Thailand, Andrea & Malaina's money changer misfortune), and teams who sided with risk (Todd & Ashlie and Steve & Anna for the most part). I enjoyed a lot of the personalities we saw this season. None of them pushed my buttons beyond, but I do think the editing continues to have this problem of stale or neutral showings for some long-lasting teams like Robbin & Chelsea, Liam & Yeremi, Greg & John, and as much as others may disagree, Rob & Corey. Much like a comment I have for the most recent seasons, I would've liked to see more character development through their raw clips from the race than them narrating the obvious over the tasks and navigation. Todd & Ashlie, Morgan & Lena, and Joel & Garrett had the best storylines of the season and I wish other teams had been shown to the degree Todd and Joel were shown playing along and interacting between tasks and such. Anna asking around who U-Turned them, fun moment for me to see. Rob & Corey figuring out in realtime how to aim the soccer balls onto their dartboard and their Detour switch to the barnacles after the buoy blunder, awesome, just don't spoil their strategy mid-task to the audience from their post-leg thought process. Leave it as a CBS extra. The marathon of three teams figuring out where to run to find the Stromparterren in Stockholm versus Joel & Garrett bumbling to 1st, beautiful! Sometimes I wish they wouldn't put soooooo many confessionals in between tasks. Loved the music choices throughout this season, we got classic race tunes, and I was excited for each episode. I wish we were given more complex and unique interactions from teams.
"Who's feeling balanced?": Tasks had the potential to be a lot better and more entertaining to watch. In the first four legs, I believe we got three tasks finding/placing stuff in a market (Thai language grocery list, floating market, Vietnamese seafood market). Thank goodness we didn't visit Pike Place during the finale for fish throwing otherwise I think I would've let out a giant sigh. Lol. I would've only kept the floating market task in Can Tho, but replaced the other two with another task elsewhere. The mattress delivery task, although fun to see for some teams, did not live up to the emphasis of the amount of mattresses itself like the Detour option I watched in TAR10's Madagascar leg, but it did surpass the fit-a-ladder-through-a-stairwell Detour in TAR29. I would've settled with a more Can Tho-centric task at the end of the day. The peacock stamps Roadblock I wish they would've done a 6 or 7-in-a-row rule rather than 9 at any time to get the teams riled up - it had the potential to have teams distraught, crying, and relieved in disbelief to become the most remembered task in modern TAR. Besides the latter half of Dublin and the Nobel Laureates task where we got a smorgasbord of French-named foods over Swedish-named, Europe killed it this time around. The barnacles vs. mussels Detour at Fonda Fish Farm felt like a classic TAR Detour. Loved the frenzy that ensued for the Express Pass task and teams finding Neboticnik before the Pit Stop in the same leg (with originally everyone in the live updates thinking it was going to be a TBC
). Mustard categorizing was impressive to watch from these teams as I would've probably had to take the penalty or crying over switching because of my lack of football skills. I loved the Seattle leg at night. A little bummed that we likely would have gotten a task involving those iconic emblemed seaplanes from the final memory task had it been daytime, but the kayaks sufficed. The Scramble was better to follow with three teams than the absolute chaos of updating the action of 12 teams last season. Can we please not make it 14 next season... I'm begging.
Pass interference: Something that occurred that stood out to me this season was Steve & Anna receiving a tip from a supposed task supervisor during the India leg where they were U-Turned that they did not hand the receipts over to the flower vendor before proceeding to the bricks task. This interference is something quite new to see on TV and I wish a source here, or Phil, or production would clarify exactly what happened because it doesn't seem fair as other teams in the past would've been ignored and prone to a penalty on the mat. Why now, what is Steve & Anna's account of the event?
The final three: I'm actually impressed we managed to see an all-male final three after 35 seasons. There has always been at least one co-ed team in the mix, so to me, that's a once-in-a-while achievement. I was not expecting Greg & John to pull off a win after falling behind at the glassblowing studio. I'm happy they were able to get their incredible journey and wish their futures well. Rob & Corey and Margie & Luke need to meet! (Peach, make it happen
). That's all I want to say. I feel like it would be such a surreal moment to see a legacy family team who use ASL from the older season meet with an iconic new one. Joel & Garrett, they had it so close in the bag! I was rooting for them to pull through at the kayaks and hoping it wasn't another instance of a Henry & Evan mistake. Loved their Ken & Gerard-like energy throughout the show and I really found it endearing how they underestimated themselves the whole time while they were ironically a pretty strong team overall.
If I only had 1 gif to draw a conclusion:
(Merry Christmas!
)
