[Vikings Sightings In The Media]

History Channel will be airing Season 3 on Tuesday, February 17th beginning at 2 pm Eastern time.

 

Are you sure?  I caught part of the Season 1 marathon last night (Friday the 13th) and all through it they were advertising the premiere of Season 3 at 10 PM on Thursday the 19th.

 

2 PM in the afternoon sounds more like the re-start of another Vikings marathon ... Season 2 maybe?  Who premieres the new season of their best rated series at 2 PM in the afternoon?  Unless it is some online only advanced viewing thing?

[Vikings Sightings In The Media]

I don't watch Game of Thrones cause I can't afford premium channels but isn't it fiction or fantasy genre?  Vikings is historical fiction with a lot of the historical part. 

 

I've heard only good of Game of Thrones but real stuff that actually happened to real people some of whom may have been my ancestors?  (Probably some of the vikings' many victims in this case, hah.  Well I did have one grandparent from Sweden.  Her ancestors were probably attacking my other ancestors a lot back in the day).  Anyway that "gets" to me more.  Sends chills up my spine.  I just don't get the same feel with say Lord of the Rings as with Lawrence of Arabia.  I enjoy Tolkien but truth not only can be stranger than fiction but "deeper" if you know what I mean.

 

Anyway when Game of Thrones makes it's way to regular cable in syndication some day I'll most likely watch it and enjoy it.  Maybe even love it.  But come to care about characters that aren't real or at least composites from the time and never walked the earth?  Not so much.  There is just something special about real historical people that gets to me.

[TAR in the Media]

Bad news . . . the TAR26 twist got a "Jeer" in the latest issue of TV Guide.

Actually I'd call that good news.  Hate for anyone to cheer for this soap opera dating couple change.

[S02.E11: Put the Fun Back in Fundy]

I don't really understand the beefs against Sukhi and Jinder. (And I am happy they are not in the final three so I am certainly not defending them because they were a fav team of mine - far from it.) They are Canadian, born and raised here. Their TARC profiles state that they have a business that expanded into Southeast Asia so it should not be a shock. I would think it would be natural that they would spend some time there, and some in Canada. Their interview stated that they flew out for a couple of weeks around when their 'naked sibs' epi aired.

 

 

Just downloaded this season and watched it this week.  Now I'm reading this board for the first time. 

 

I was shocked anyone would object to team members living abroad.  You do know that in TAR Asia -- the first and most world-traveling spin off -- you just have to be a resident of one of the Asian countries in the AXIS broadcasting area.  Thus in Season 1 they had an English dating couple as Thailand's sole representatives and a Kiwi/English couple as Hong Kong's.  Also one half of the Sri Lankan team was English.  I think one member of the Singapore team has what was it a Russian model or something.  I forget.  And one of the teams "billed" from Malaysia was half South Korean.

 

It sounds like this Canadian team are full citizens so why shouldn't they live anywhere?  The Guidos on TAR1 lived in Paris for 5 years.  On the same season, Frank & Margarita came from the Dominican Republic originally. TAR 2's much loved Oswald & Danny were naturalized citizens having both been born in Cuba.  Season 5's famous Charla & Mirna team were born in Syria in a minority Armenian Christian community (double dipping international) and came to the US as kids.  I'm sure there are tons of other examples but you get my point.

 

TAR has always been about embracing the whole world.  Of transcending national boundaries.  I know the Canadian version doesn't have the budget to go around the world but I think the spirit is the same.  As Oswald once said, "People are people everywhere."

 

Didn't the host of this version even brag that 300,000 Canadians reside in Hong Kong?  Isn't that something to be proud of and embrace?  The expansion through peaceful means of Canadian culture and influence?

[TAR in the Media]

It's a CBS demand because the show was tanking on Friday nights last season. Because I guess ten Emmys wasn't enough to convince CBS that they knew what they were doing?

 

^ Season 26 was being filmed before the move to Friday with Season 25 I believe.

 

I'd rather see the producers just step away from their show then run it into the ground like this.  Season 25 has a nice ring to the "number" and was a stellar season.  Been good to walk away at that point.

 

Yeah I know it is so much a part of their lives and production family camaraderie (and employment) are real things but better to "leave them wanting more" than to make loyal fans through the years run for the exits.  And yeah it is hard to become "disloyal" to a show you as a fan battled for and defended to friends for years.  But the time is drawing nigh I'm afraid.

 

TAR was originally the reality show for people who hated reality shows.  For it to become the very worse of trash TV by the very nature of Season 26's casting makes me feel sick to the stomach.  Too bad the producers can't take their "okay for cable" ratings and re-start with full control on a cable network and kiss off CBS and it's endless dumb down meddling and lack of support over the years.

[Past Seasons Talk]

I just recently watched Seasons 1 and 2 and plan on watching more of the

earlier seasons.  What's wrong with Season 4?

 

Nothing if you love yelling and screaming over your place in line all the time.  Which I don't.  Also endless gray, leaden skies in a very cold looking Europe didn't help either.

 

The season's cast was divided between mactor and z-listers and "recruited at a bar" team on one side and "regular folk" on the other and only the Clowns crossed the divide and were liked by both sides.  Otherwise it was warfare from day one and the awe and beauty of traveling around the planet earth was lost in the process.  I hate seasons like that.

 

I should add that it was the first season like that period in the show's brief history.  The first three seasons were way better so it was a real downer to have Season 4 come along and fail so badly.  Except for Season 3's "Wonder Twins" there had basically been regular folk type of teams on the show up until then.  But then suddenly it was swamped with stunt casting which was Just. So. Utterly. Depressing. to see happen to it a show that had been so special and a cut above any regular reality shows to that point.  So Season 4 was where the show lost it's innocence for me.

 

Little did we know Seasons 6 (mactor couples bouncing off the wall) and 9 were fast approaching plus the horrible Family Edition format.  In fact Season 5 seemed to say we were back on track.  But alas it was not to be.   Season 5 was a brief respite from some ugly casts to come that started in Season 4.

[S01.E01: Pilot]

His mission was never to gather intelligence.  It was always a one and done.  it was a Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator "Are you Sarah Connor" kind of mission.  The only reason he even paused at all and didn't just blow up the entire building he was in was Cassandra was there.   This always a one way mission for him.  

 

But that was my whole point.  His "mission" SHOULD have included gathering intelligence.  They had no real intelligence.  Just garbled audio junk.  A one and done mission based on that says to me the future scientists are the real bad guys trying to cover something up maybe.  Cause no one makes up a stupid mission like this one based on garbled stuff they can't understand.  Because, again, they have all the "time" in the world to figure it out and get it right.  But rush off half cocked and totally ignorant like this and get it wrong and it only gets worse.

 

Cause really who are they suppose to be anyway.  We have a Mad Max landscape with them doing time travel experiments in the middle of it?  Something is really fishy about them.  At least I hope there is.  Cause if they are actually the good guys they are really pathetic heroes.

[S25: Previews & Speculation]

I don't know which season cannot be named.  I think Season 9 was the worst ever especially since it's spawn went on to destroy TAR All-Stars as well.

 

If you meant Family Edition.  Yeah the format was bad and most of the teams too.  But the Paolos and Weavers, the only 2 teams I found worth watching, were great casting which lifts it above Season 9 for me.

 

I definitely think Mama Paolo alone will make Family Edition better than this horrible format.  Maybe even Season 9 will be better because this coming season sounds like wall-to-wall-to-wall of "made up" couples.  It's like take Eric and Danielle from Season 9 and turn them into Eric & Danielle -- a new, made-up team on All Stars -- and make a whole flock of them?  The horror!  The horror!

 

You know there is NOTHING more socially awkward and miserable then finding yourself with a couple who are squabbling.  They both start to make their cases to you and they keep escalating it and you want to run out of the building screaming.  That is what I think this next season will be like.  Uncomfortable to the max.

[S01.E01: Pilot]

I see what your saying but it is clearly explained in the show why he thinks he has to kill leland frost  that is his entire mission and only reason they sent him back to past.  But i do agree with that he jumped the gun  in shooting him

 

On the topic with the black guy his name is jeremy and he is a friend of the scientist who she had researching leland frost  ever since Cole disappeared.

 

Thanks for explaining Jeremy.

 

And yeah I get his mission is to shoot this guy but it is based on a bad audio file that even he heard and no one really understands.  Pretty bogus foundation to base any plan on let alone one that is trying to save 7 billion people.  So I just think future folks' plan is dumb and time traveler dude blindly following it is even dumber.  I mean once he knows "Frost" isn't even the last name that should throw up a warning flag and he should put the brakes on and re-think stuff.  And again if you are a time traveler you literally have ALL the time in the world to research stuff and get things right.

 

I'm just afraid this kind of lazy writing set-up bodes ill for making any rational sense of anything else in this series and I'll end up more annoyed by it than enjoying it.  That and action heroes that just go shoot shoot kill kill bore me too.  I want a thinking protagonist.  Yeah the lady scientist is suppose to be that but, like in most shows, the thinker yet again takes a back seat to the "action" dude and spends half the episode trying to get them to chill and reason and the other half trying to bail them out of their illogical mistakes.

 

Hey I don't expect this time traveler to be Doctor Who but can he at least not be Doctor D'Oh.

[S01.E01: Pilot]

I liked the reviewer's review since he/she liked Battlestar Galactica.  That's enough for me.  As for the poster who said it has just become "cool" to bash SyFy these days and that is why people do it cause of pro wrestling replacing sci fi etc?  Actually that makes it kind of "sane" to bash it in my book.  That and seeing some of their so-called top-of-the-line offerings of late like Helix.

 

As for this show I did some time traveling myself.   I caught it on the back-to-back rebroadcasts where I tuned into the first re-broadcast about half way through and warped around and watched the beginning half hour the next re-broadcast.  So that blew my mind even more than normal.  One thing I missed both times however was who the black guy was sitting with whatever type of scientist the lady is suppose to be and the time traveler with the bad attitude. ("Me shoot people to save lives and not tell them why I kill them cause me protagonist and that makes it ok"). 

 

Maybe the scene came on right after a commercial break and I was out channel surfing and came back a little late but all I got was that the black dude knew the correct last name to the guy to be shot which was good for anyone running around town actually named Leland Frost.  ("Me kill you cause you bad guy.  Whoops, wrong name.  Too bad but me protagonist so me get to kill random people too so no big deal").  Anyway who was the black guy, how does he figure into the plot and does he get a medal for saving everyone in town named Leland Frost from crazy time traveler dude?

 

The pilot just moved too fast for me.  I wanted to get to know these characters, especially the supposed evil scientist guy.  But before I can start to soak him in, bang, he is gone.  And without an explanation to him or the viewers.  What a waste of an interesting looking bad guy.  

 

And you might only get one chance to reverse the curse and you just shoot someone based on choppy audio?  If the guy is time traveling he thus by definition has "time" to research and figuring things out and get it right as opposed to just shooting at anyone named Leland without figuring out what the guy knows.  Cause he destroys intelligence gathering with that kill as well since "fine adjustments" to the time line don't work he says so he can't keep re-shooting him endlessly it seems.

 

Anyway there is enough to watch another episode but the time traveler dude has to gain some logic and sanity for this series to work for me.  Cause when I root against the main character things do not go well for future viewing usually.

[Past Seasons Talk]

Charla & Mirna are my second favorite team after Oswald & Danny.  The latter were more the "nice guys" compared to the cousins obviously but I loved the cousins' entertainment value.  I loved the medical emergency stuff and all the other things like Charla's whistle and Mirna going to die of Mad Cow Disease.  They held focus when on screen and brought the energy and the humor to everything. 

 

And Mirna was great at the airport stuff as in the flight to Egypt which had it not happened wouldn't have lead to one of the most poignant "stills" in my TAR memory banks of Charla framed against the Great Pyramid since all the other teams arrived too late to make the times of operation for that detour.  (Yes, Colin & Token Beauty Queen #15 or whoever she was did the FF.  Boy was she a waste of space on the screen).

 

Also Charla & Mirna also got totally vilified on one board I won't mention during both of their appearances on TAR.  Which made me love them even more since I hate piling on and group herd think stuff.  And they were comedy gold.  Mirna was like a little old gypsy lady trapped in a young person's body as she tried to put the equivalent of curses on her opponents.  Charla was funny in her own right.  Together no team ever made me laugh more during any TAR season.  And in both their seasons.  The fact that they drove Colin bonkers in the first part of the Season 5 just helped to perfectly set-up his "ox is broken" moment later on in some ways. 

 

Man I got to watch Season 5 again.  It's been awhile.  And order Season 11 I think because I forgot about Kevin almost being dragged to his doom.  If only Drew hadn't been injured at work and had such a bad back ... sigh.  Because Kevin was spot on and his old self from the start.

 

I don't know that JVJ replaced Colin & Whatshername though.  I'm sure they wanted Colin back -- who wouldn't -- but they were after getting teams from as many of the first 10 seasons that they could too and Kelly & Jon were "representing" Season 4 when Kelly got cold feet and dropped out at the last minute.  JVJ was the standby, alternate team that took their place.  So it would actually have been Colin & Queenie bumping Kelly & Jon maybe but I think Kelly & Jon were also a lock from the beginning. 

 

Maybe if Colin was on we would have been saved from the Season 9 "representatives" of Eric & Not His Partner From Season 9, Pretend GF Who Wasn't which was the team that really destroyed All-Stars in the last leg and have prevented me from buying this season as a result.  Because though I was no fan of Kelly & Jon they were far more entertaining than Eric and Early Out Of The Race The First Time Around Non-All-Star Whatshername. 

 

And I'd certainly take Colin back any day though his partner was useless too.  But he was so much "intense" fun he comes across with more than enough personality to cover-up bland beauty queen.  Weirdly enough models (yuck) Kelly & Jon had the most personality "balanced" team of the lot since each had strong personalities that stood out on screen.

 

Yeah wonder what TAR 11 would have been like if (1) Drew's back was okay, (2) Colin & Boring Queen were in over Eric & Poser GF and (3) Kelly & Jon in the Race as well.  I really like Jill too but then they should have gone with 12 or 13 teams for All-Stars since most fans at that time were already familiar with these guys so no need to worry about confusion with too many teams.  (Though I'd take Ken & Gerard and the Bowling Moms over JVJ I think).

 

Except again, no Eric please.  Put in Gus & Hera to "represent" Season 6 (which was also missing) instead and be the token parent/kid team maybe.  I'd rather have Gus drinking beer for a few legs before they got eliminated than Eric the Bore being saved by a non-elim leg in Chile was it (the one involving a fish tank something as I vaguely recall) only to haunt us the rest of the season.

[S01.E01: Pilot / S01.E02: Joust Friends 2015.01.04]

This was the worst waste of my time I can remember.  They were trying too hard to be "clever" and just ended up being corny instead ... and dull, duller, dullest.

 

I'm with CletusMusashi above.  Farce is only good in small doses.  Otherwise it becomes a total bore.

[S25.E12: All Or Nothing]

I'm sure it would be too tough for production to have to set up a Fast Forward on every leg in addition to two Detours and a Roadblock plus an occasional Speed Bump. The whole production team is going at breakneck speed as it is to keep the race moving quickly and smoothly.

 

Not really.  The FF could be simple.  Like eat a meat pie at a Sydney diner or get it out of a swimming pool at a hotel in Nambia or placing coins in dishes in a Buddhist temple in Bangkok (which was an intense race between two teams believe it or not).  Or get you fortune told at a small shop in a crazy underground shopping area in Hong Kong.  In all cases the Racers' two man team could cover the action and no extra camera set-up was needed.  In the latter going for the FF cost one team the Race that leg.

 

Also you didn't know if a team would come in first.  The FF could help but the editors had an extra "different" path to the pit stop for that team which made the edit of who came in first not a given.  Especially if the FF was some distance away from the other tasks and the team doing it got lost.

 

As for a first place prize it made it nicer that they were spread out so some underdog teams might get something just once in the Race.  Gave a more heart warming feel as a result.  But that would be now.  Like Netfoot said, a prize for winning a leg didn't start right away.  Season 1 had NO separate prizes for any leg.  Season 2 had one on Leg 1 as a total surprise then none again until the second half of the Race.  Season 3 was the first race to have a prize on each leg though some were pretty silly like the cheap new Kodak digital camera several times.  It was only if they could get a sponsor for those prizes.  And except for a cash prize or two, the same thing remains today.  It's basically just a promo for a company.  They just have companies lined up now as opposed to still trying to get companies involved back in the day.  From the beginning the cruise ship industry was their biggest promo gift giver.  Ford was way way off in the future.

 

Speaking of which Ford seems to have collared the "drive yourself there" spots on the Race now.  I liked the old, falling apart vehicles they sometimes had to use.  Pick-ups that seized up in Mexico, the car whose "radiator exploded" according to JVJ in Morocco and especially the famed "eastern block" car that broke down on half the teams in Hungary.  I hope the next Race they have yet to film goes to Cuba and we get to see them drive around in the 1950's cars there.  Or course given Ford's sponsorship now, they would all be old Fords.

[TAR on DVD or download]

I thought everyone was cool in Episode 1.  Frank was fine.  He was used as the guy pushing so hard only to find himself coming up second to the casually strolling along Guidos.  It was like the running joke of Episode 1.  And note the Guidos edit in episode one was so totally different from what people remember them for now.

 

And Thalia, the show wasn't an immediate hit.  Well Episode 1 was but then a few days later 9/11 happened and all shows were per-emptied for awhile and by the time the second episode aired the ratings were way way down.  Sadly there were some people (way too many)  who had a knee jerk reaction to the attack that carried over to all things non-American ... like racing around the world.

 

Rating struggled for quite awhile.  TAR was always on the borderline of getting cancelled.  By season 3 people were sending letters to the network and the sponsors begging for the show to be saved.  There were real campaigns going on to do that.

 

That plus the Emmys finally allowing a quasi-reality TV award helped a good deal.  Remember "the business" hated all reality shows (still does but not as viscerally these days) as taking away their livelihood and looked down on them totally so this was a major breakthrough to have a Emmy for this new genre. 

 

The Emmy show broadcast during TAR4's airing and TAR3 was the only season -- due to broadcast eligibility rules for that season's Emmys -- to be eligible.  Everyone said either Survivor (the first big reality show on network TV) or American Idol (which was exploding in popularity at that time) would win.  I don't know if they split some votes or were ignored.  All I know was the presenter stared at the card with the winner's name on it in total disbelief then quite happily announced The Amazing Race was the winner.  "The business" people tend to give credit to the high production values the Race has had over the years so this may have been the main reason with the first Emmy as well but everyone including critics called in a major upset win at the time.

 

So suddenly CBS had a "class, Emmy winning show" that made it harder to cancel.  If I recall correctly, TAR was CBS's only major winner that year too. 

 

Then TAR5 came along and had a stellar cast after TAR4's lame one and the show caught on just enough not to face cancellation every other episode.  But it was a long, hard fight with fans dragging friends and relatives to sit down and watch it and talking it up at work and online.  It was kind of the reality show version of Star Trek that way.  A "save our show" effort.  For us old timers I think we will always think of TAR as the ultimate underdog winner among TV shows.

[S25.E12: All Or Nothing]

Or, we don't have a Save at all, and we rely upon a different mechanism to avoid elimination:  Don't Come Last!

 

A novel concept wherein longevity in the race depends upon racing ability and not gimmickry.

 

Absolutely.  Get rid of the Save as well as the U Turns, the Speed Bump, the Express Pass and let them join the failed Yield in the graveyard of major mistakes that have taken so much class away from an otherwise elite, classy show.

 

Again, return to the FF on all legs except the end ones.  It worked extremely well in Seasons 1 through 4.  There was no need to add trash reality crap and subtract the one true strategic addition that could perhaps save a team (or not) as oppose to destroying other teams.  Let the Racers just race and let the world itself act as the true wildcard factor ... as it always has.

[S25.E12: All Or Nothing]

 So I thought it was fitting that we should finally get some wrasslers on the show.

 

Minor trivia point.  They weren't the first wrestlers on the show.  That would be TAR6's Lori & Bolo.  We will always have Bolo unable to count correctly at Ikea in Stockholm in our memory banks.

[Past Seasons Talk]

^ Thanks.  Shows I can't count.  Or all the couples just meld together for me.  I kept forgetting about the Survivor couple.  I kept mixing them up with the Wrestlers the whole time they were in the race.  Given next season's "TAR: The Soap Opera Edition" I'll probably think there are only 5 or 6 teams and all of them either very annoying and/or boring.

[Past Seasons Talk]

^  Then add an extra team.  They used to have 11 teams when it was a 13 episode season.  Heck they even had 12 teams on TAR3 to just do that, reduce the  number of NELs.  So why not up things to 11 teams on these smaller, 12 episode seasons? 

 

Or just always make the final leg a TBC and show the last two episodes on the finale night.  They used to do 2 hour finales with one of the NEL legs (before there were TBC) as the next to the last leg.  TAR1 - Alaska, TAR2 - Hawaii, TAR3 - Hawaii, TAR4 - sorry, I'm pretending there wasn't a season 4, TAR5 - Canada.  TAR6 was where the TBC was invented on the spot when they got blindsided by Hungary's national anti-begging law.  (Well maybe they should have researched things more but I wouldn't have thought to research for laws like that because I wouldn't think there would be laws like that so I give them a pass on that one). 

 

And only TAR5 had a NEL "penalty" because the first 4 seasons blissfully didn't have silly rules like that.  And taking all the money in Calgary where they could quickly "beg" for more easily before the final flight wasn't much of a penalty anyway.  So a second-to-last TBC would be great just like it was this season. 

 

Also since this season the "final 4" it was meant as a surprise "twist" it had to be hidden and a NEL had to be in place before it.  From next season on (if they go with 4 teams that is) the NEL won't have to piggy back the TBC since the surprise factor is done. 

 

Or go with 11 teams and the 2-hour TBC/Final leg finale and have one less NEL and a two hour finale and have a double improvement.

 

Even with neither of those options I'm fine with NEL legs.  I actually wish there were more of them so that more teams can experience the world for longer.

[S25.E12: All Or Nothing]

I was amazed as I watched the finale that I really wanted the scientists to win. Not because they were smart, women, or underdogs - but because the other teams (at least the wrestlers and dentists) were so dismissive of them and did not view them as athletic competition at all (and I say this even though I did like the dentists - especially Misti). I'm sorry but Amy ran that entire race with an injury and won. If she had been healthy, the team may have even taken other legs along the race. Maya may have had a tin ear about some of her comments but doggone it, she was HAPPY TO BE THERE! She was my proxy - it may have been some stunt casting but I loved seeing someone who was obviously a fan getting to do what I would love to do. And Amy could have been a poster from this forum - her droll comments were perfect (I just wish she managed to include a reference to a heavenly bathtub). 

 

Way to go, Amy and Maya! Well done!

 

I agree with everything you said except this definition of stunt casting.  Stunt casting usually means some sort of quasi-famous team (Surfers and Wrestlers to get fans of Bethany and wrestling fans to tune in, say) or reality show crossovers (to get Survivor and Big Brother fans to tune in - other seasons quasi actors/models/beauty queens too) or stuff like that.  Maybe someone outside the business who is well known like former ballplayer and famed bigot John Rocker on Survivor this season (shudder).  They usually never apply but are sought out by the show and are both recruited and are stunt teams.

 

Then there are "recruited" only teams without so much of the "stunt" part in them as in they aren't known by pretty much anybody before being "recruited."   A lot of low end mactor teams we never heard of but are on the fringes of "the business" or would like to think they are.  They often know someone in casting since lots of casting agents are young, failed "actor wannabees" and hangers on who run in the same set of people.  (The wanna be boys/girls network).  Or their agent knows someone and they want to get on for face time to further their show business or modeling "careers" ... real or imagined.  Also "pretty boy" teams like TAR4's Goats "recruited" at a bar by a casting agent that found them "hot."  Or the four "alpha" Cincy 20-somethings (tho one was still in his late teens) who won TAR Family Edition who had never seen the show but a casting agent vacationing in Cancun "saw" a highly "photogenic" family in her mind and the rest was horrible history.

 

Some people would argue having someone missing a leg or being deaf or a little person on the show is stunt casting.  I don't.  I think that is looking for a "type" just like looking for different ethnic and racial groups (which the Race should step up - too white for me and I am white myself) or age groups or sexual orientation or interesting professions etc.  So everyone has different definitions of "stunt", "recruited" and "type" I guess.

 

Maya, on the other hand, would be considered a "normal person" I think by most people because she actually applied for the show and was a big fan of it besides.  She wasn't a "type" either since she wasn't cast as a member of the lone, token "Afro-American team" though in the first two seasons their "token" rate was at least two teams and not one.  (Though All Stars 2 did have two teams and both ended up in the final 3).  She isn't in any form of show business or modeling either.  She is the type of person a lot of us wish was chosen for the show period.  What reality shows once held the promise of being about.  Like Festivis, the show for "the rest of us," heh.

 

Now stunt cast teams and recruited teams can be okay.  I didn't mind the Surfers or the Wrestlers this season though the Survivor couple was a total waste of casting space and would never have gotten on if they applied as any other couple would is my guess.  They had nothing to offer the show except two people most people don't even remember from their season.  So not all are terrible though their track record is pretty bad on the whole.  And a few a season are manageable.  But wall-to-wall-to-wall ones, not so much.  We need the majority of these teams to be real folks like we work with and meet every day for this to be a "reality" show for me personally.

[Past Seasons Talk]

I think all the shout outs to past seasons was because it was the 25th season and it was a tribute to the whole history of the Race.  I love it because of that.

 

Also you left out that one clue box was at the exact same rug shop where Teri & Ian beat out JVJ for the FF in TAR3.  And the rickshaw bicycle part of the Manila detour was another TAR3 shout out to the race for the final three in Ho Chi Minh City.

 

In other words where you didn't like the similiar tasks, I loved it.  It gave a sense of the whole history over the years and I love that cause then the show jumps from a separate season to a unified mythos for me.

 

I agree with you on Save and Detours because I hate that stuff on the Race.  I want the FF back in every leg except the last and screw any "punishment" for coming in last in a NEL.  Didn't like all this crap when they introduced the rule changes in TAR5.  Never will.  The only thing that needed fixing was balancing out the RBs between the partners though even there I don't think it has to be 100% even steven.  Just ballpark to prevent another Chip-Colin-Brandon mega-RB-athon from TAR5.

 

But I loved a final four.  Even if the fourth team had been the Wrestlers instead of the Scientists I still would have loved it.  It makes the final leg far more exciting because as we know it is hard to do interesting final legs so an extra team can give the editors some more material to select from.  Also increases the possibility of a closer finish.  Was cool three teams were still in it at the container yard.  (No more mid-leg elimination though). 

 

Also final four gives fans another team to choose and root for too.  And what I wouldn't have given for a final four both times Oswald & Danny were in the Race.  Maybe in the All Star season they would have saved us from the artificial non-team of Eric & Pretend Girlfriend.

[S25: Previews & Speculation]

Worst casting idea ever for TAR26.  I HATE soap opera garbage with a passion!

 

A whole season full of self-absorbed, boring and/or annoying, smoochie and/or yelling, screechy,  couples.  Dating couples tend to be so shallow.  They have no long history to make their stories interesting usually.  They freak out at each other more often than other relationship teams on the whole (exceptions to ever rule of course).  They are one of many reasons I always liked TAR2 the best of all time.  No dating couples on that season at all!  Now that was excellent casting.

[S25.E12: All Or Nothing]

Just watched it and all I can say is Dear Editors of TAR, please don't show the racers talking heads after the race spliced into the actual race.  If you want the "what were they thinking" narrative then please use them as voiceovers.  It was pretty easy to tell from the editing who had won just by the facial expressions.  And then the obvious editing of the wrestlers being asses in the airport and the teeth kind of being snarky pile ons....I was actually hoping that was a misdirect but it turned out to be more than true.

 

I always watch editing closely but had no idea who won viewing them.  Maya is always ecstatically over the moon, Bethany is always rainbows and unicorns, the Dentists are always flashing glaring white teeth at the camera.  Even the Wrestlers didn't seem at all down to me because Brooke is always "I'll kill you all" even when happy.  So I have to disagree.  I thought they were good interview segments that hid the winners well.

[S25.E12: All Or Nothing]

I can understand it with the cellphones in taxis, but Brooke(?) using a laptop at the airport as if it was her own was the real WTF moment for me. The owner of the laptop didn't even seem to be anywhere in the vicinity. I wonder what she was using it for?

 

 

They don't always show the mechanics of teams "asking" for laptops, cell phones or computer use at a hotel.  They only did that back in the first two or three seasons when people viewing didn't know the TAR rules.  Why spend screen time on the obvious and take it away from more interesting stuff? 

 

But now everyone knows they can't bring stuff like that with them.  Everyone knows they ask to use these things.  They rarely show them asking anymore unless there is some storyline to it or something funny happens when they ask or to demonstrate just how stupid people are with not knowing easy world capitals in the Danish leg.  Otherwise why show it a hundred times again and again. 

 

Brooke obviously borrowed someone's laptop at the airport.  Then I assume she promptly researched LA and memorize all the maps of the city, snort.

[S25.E12: All Or Nothing]

I suppose my heart was set on the Surfers winning going into the finale, which is where it was for the majority of the race. However, if I hear her make a cutesy "honeybun" reference one more time I'm going to projectile vomit. I see we already have people claiming that the rescue task was tailor-made specifically for the Surfers to win. I thought maybe that wouldn't come since they didn't win, but no such luck.

 

I don't know about any other post about this but I think you may have misunderstood my post.  I said it was tailor-made for them as in it was right up their alley.  Not that the producers were making the task with them in mind.  I would have said the same thing had the Cyclists made it to Manila and driven the rickshaw bicycles.  It was a task that was made for them as in it was something they should be really good at.  The producers never have and never will "fix" the Race for any team over another.  Period.

[S25: Amy & Maya]

Yes! David did really beat Goliath for once.

 

So congrats to Amy & Maya!  You guys totally surprised me in the best possible way.  You guys totally deserved it.  Loved Ironwoman Amy and enthusiastic, Phil-Hopping Maya!

 

There are few finishes where I get up on my feet and cheer.  And it has been years since I have.  TAR2, TAR5 and TAR7 were the ones that had me jumping for joy.  Now, after all this time, I can add TAR25 to that list.  Thanks for a great season, you guys.