hnpcc | 30 days of television: Day 29

Day 29 - Current TV show obsession

The Amazing Race.

Yes, I know. It's reality TV. It's American. It can involve very obnoxious behaviour. It's so many things that so many people hate. And I love it.

For starters it uses the world as a backdrop. The world has some seriously cool places in it. Despite the perception that the racers run past without looking at much of it - which yeah, they sometimes do - they show it and enough racers have a moment of "seriously - this is fantastic" to keep me going.

For seconds, it's a race. The last team to get to the finish line is eliminated. The first team to get there in the last leg wins. It doesn't involve backstabbing people, as in Survivor (which I also like.) It doesn't involve a meat market (at least not one of the dating kind - finding something in "the chaotic and crowded marketplace" is a bit of a race staple) as in The Bachelor (which I can't stand). It doesn't depend on the prejudices and whims of one judge, as in The Apprentice (OK, sometimes I don't mind that one, but it's very contestant specific). It doesn't require huge amounts of a specific talent (see most competitive cooking/renovating/etc shows). It does involve some luck (especially with taxis), it also requires some skill - and that may not necessarily be physical, it can also be language-based, map-reading based, driving-based - a surprisingly high number of racers never learned to drive a manual until just before the race - and sometimes just having the ability to take yourself out of the "OMG RACE!!" mentality and connect with people which will get you further along. Yeah, physical agility is useful on a large number of the challenges, but it's not essential and teams that would be regarded as cannon fodder on a lot of shows make it a surprisingly long way into the race, while fit and athletic teams fail to read their clue and/or get directions and/or read a map and fall by the wayside earlier than they were expecting.

It's team-based. You have to work as a team with your partner. There have been quite a few teams where one person has been fitter or more fatigued or just coping differently with the race, and that impacts quite substantially on the overall performance of the team. Being able to realise the limitations of your partner (and of yourself!) and deal with them without blaming them for being short (Mirna), older (Kevin), unfit or slightly crazy can go a long way to getting your team to the mat and staying in the race. At the end of the day you have to dance with the ox that brung you - you can't change partners mid-race, no matter how much people would occasionally like to (Zach). The interaction of the racers with their partners provides a large amount of the drama on the race, particularly as they get tireder and start making more mistakes. One of the things I'm really liking about this season is that all the final three teams are actually able to deal relatively well with being that tired and with each other's mistakes.

It frequently challenges the racers's preconceptions. Again, a surprisingly high number of teams have never left the US before. There have been racers getting culture shock in all sorts of places, from India to Burkina Faso to Brazil to the UK - and, in one season within the US itself. There have been some incredibly ugly comments made (Kendra's notorious comment in Senegal ("they just keep breeding and breeding") springs to mind). Every season I wince at some of the outfits people choose to wear - and unlike Survivor production isn't making them wear certain clothes, these are chosen by the contestants themselves - in various countries which show a certain blindness to other people's cultural norms. (And seriously it's not like you can't get clothes that are both cool, relatively loose, comfortable to run in and cover your cleavage and upper arms. Sheesh.) But then you'll see other people trying to fit in better and adapting as much as possible to their surroundings and getting a better understanding that people around the world? Are people going about their daily lives, not just a glorious "ethnic" backdrop to your starring role in the world. (Take note, Mirna. Re-watching series 11 at the moment, and I had seriously forgotten how much of a "The World Is My Backdrop" person she is. It's not the interviews either - it's how she interacts with people as she goes.)

Yeah, it's an artificial set up - people are in general more helpful because "OMG TV CAMERAS!!" - this does seem to be fairly universal no matter where they are - and the tasks may or may not be related in any way to the local culture (unrolling haybales in Sweden??). They do try and set up Detours and Roadblocks that are country and/or culture-specific though, which is why they've had people making bricks by hand in India, collecting salt from a lake in Senegal, using the Tube in London, throwing boomerangs at Uluru (OK, I did groan a bit at that one!), tangoing in Argentina and making noodles in Macau for example. Occasionally the tasks are groan-worthy - "find the world's largest office chair" springs to mind - and frequently they're trying to get good TV as well as make it challenging, so there's always a couple of rope-based or sky-diving kind of ones which give higher adrenalin pictures.

There are things I'd change about the show as it currently is. I've watched every series since the first one, and some developments I've liked while others I've hated. I'm in two minds about the loss of the consistent 12 hour pit stop - on the one hand I liked the intensity of it, on the other I do understand that getting people to self-drive in the later stages of the race could be a really bad thing when they're massively fatigued (Chuck and Millie) and apart from anything else I'd prefer no one get killed or injured. It is, after all, just a race on a television show, and $1M (or ~$600K after taxes) won't even buy you a new spine, let alone someone's life back.

I wish they'd bring in more Fast Forwards - from one per leg we've gone to one per race, which is just ridiculous. Either have at least 4 - which would retain the whole "advantageous to use it" aspect, and allow some teams who are flailing in the first leg to have a bit of a shot and settle in - or scrap it at this point. I'm really glad they got rid of the mugging, but I quite like the Speedbump, although it does need to be better designed at times. I didn't mind the "marked for elimination" either, or the "Yield" - for starters it lead directly to the "my ox is broken" moment, which remains one of my highlights of reality TV ever. Glad they dumped the "Intersection" part though, which didn't really appear to achieve anything other than really screw over some teams. I don't mind the NELs, but I'd rather not have two in a row (watching All Stars) which kind of defeats the purpose.

There have been some fantastic seasons, there have been some less than fantastic seasons. Most of this for me has come down to race design - the slightly notorious eighth season was bad for two reasons: too many people that I couldn't distinguish between and some seriously poor race design which left people driving around the US and finding things like BP service stations. Which didn't really compare to my favourite clue ever: "Here is a photo of a man. His name is Paolo. Find him to receive your next clue."

Casting can also be an issue. There have been contestants I've disliked, contestants I've liked, contestants I've really hated (Jonathan) and a couple I've been mostly meh on. In general though it's been an OK mix - I think out of 17 seasons there's been one (#16) where I haven't had any team I liked enough to cheer for in the final leg.

I'll keep watching it pretty much as long as they keep making it. It's probable that I'll send in a tape for the Australian one if they have another season - it's the only show that I could see myself wanting to be on. It's a race. It goes around the world. *shrug* What's not to love?

(And just on the off-chance that anyone from WEP's reading this - call me! I can design Australian race legs! Honest! ;-))