Past Seasons Talk

[green]

Yeah it is pretty early to rank Season 25 but I got to say of all the latter seasons it had this "fresh feeling" (best phrase I can come up with) that reminded me of what I felt (and loved) during the TAR Classic era.  Add in a great final leg and surprise underdog win by a loveable team and I think I have to call it the TAR Post-Classic Classic Season.

 

I never thought we'd come close to the classic seasons I used to love so much but was glad to be proved wrong this awesome season.  (Looking into my crystal ball I predict the exact opposite fate for TAR 26: My Worst Casting Nightmare Come True season).

Edited December 20, 2014 by green

[Lantern7]

Here are the final leg-average standings, with adjusted and readjusted stats in parentheses:

 

3.42 (3.20) (3.13) Misti & Jim

3.67 (3.60) (3.75) Adam & Bethany

4.08 (4.10) (4.13) Brooke & Robbie

4.50 (4.50) (4.50) Amy & Maya

 

Damn, the Candy Girls were persistent and consistent. Take away their best and worst legs, and they're still statistically mediocre. I don't think any other winning team has a worst average aside from Josh & Brent.

 

ETA: For the record, I counted the last two episodes as having their own legs, as opposed to being one long leg.

[SnideAsides]

It's a season where the bad outweighed the good, but it wasn't a bad season, if that makes sense. The cast was certainly better than the last few but actually wasn't that great (we get it, you have jobs, stop trying to relate every task to said job already, but at least the firefighters and the real estate ladies were out very early), the island leitmotif (Morocco and LA were the only visited places that weren't, and even then LA had a lighthouse) didn't come across as well as I think the producers were hoping, the tasks felt more like a series of Switchbacks and each and every one just made the season feel inferior by comparison (granted the ox was the only one actually called a Switchback, but also: beach digging from TAR22, punting from TAR3, peat delivery from TAR12, sheep herding from TAR2, taking restaurant orders from TAR14, Flo's Road Block from TAR3, nomadic tent assembly from TAR10, recreating a famous car race from TAR4, carrying trays of glasses from TAR4, abseiling from basically every season, the entire Singapore leg taken from TAR Asia (including the Merlion task taken from the leg that gave us the first ever female winners, which can't have been coincidental since the greeter was from that same season), boat harvesting from TAR6, bike assembly from a few seasons, delivering to multiple addresses a few times, rescuing a "drowning" "victim" from TAR4, finding specific shipping containers from TAR13) with the new tasks mostly feeling like they were taken from The Big Book of 1960s Stereotypes, the "teams run past Phil" thing felt like an attempted running joke that was tired the second time we saw it, and the three new twists (Save, Blind Detour, final four) were all poorly executed.

 

Then again, the only real stinker of a leg this time was (as usual) the finale, which was late enough in the season that it didn't matter too much. As much as it felt like the show was settling for mediocrity for a lot of this season, at least it never really had anything as awful as those first couple of TAR23 legs that killed the season before it began (speaking of killed-before-it-began: TAR26!), and that's... a plus, I guess. The season could have and should have been much better than it was, but what it was was adequate. Nothing great, but it was adequate.

[green]

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.

Edited December 22, 2014 by green

[Lingo]

Not so sure about having a Final 4 in the last leg.  That means yet another NEL earlier in the Race.  And 4 teams is over a third of the starting 11.  Seems to me that the non-final legs should reduce the competition by at least 2/3rds.

[green]

^  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.

Edited December 23, 2014 by green

[Lingo]

It's already at 11 now!  I think 12 would be great, but the producers seem to disagree.

[green]

^ 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.

Edited December 23, 2014 by green

[Netfoot]

I have no problem with the NEL, but I don't like penalties for the non-eliminated team.  Adding a penalty to a NEL is like "Get Out Of Jail Free!  Only $100..."  Cruel, hypocritical, and spiteful, I think, but some folks seem to love that idea.  Folks like TPTB, for instance.

 

I'd be equally happy with no NELs.  Make 'em all into UberLegs.  I know.  Killer killer fatigue, right?  Well, it's for a million dollars, so I'm fine with grinding their bones to make my bread!  (Mr. Namby-Pamby: "It's soooo unfair!"  Me: "Good!  Work 'em hard and make 'em suffer!")

 

And I'd be equally happy with no NEL or TBC at all.  But this would require more racers.  Twelve episodes with three finishers, you'd want fourteen teams of racers at the start.  This would increase the cost of producing the race.  More importantly for selfish me, the earlier episodes would be a blur of barely seen teams.  You'd be halfway through the season before you started seeing enough of the remaining teams to decide whether you liked them or not. 

 

And finally, Cyril!  No eliminations.  Pick how many teams you want to race, pick how many legs you want to film, and have them all race through every leg, so they all make the final and shoot for the prize.  Similar problem as above, wherein you might end up with so many racers running for the mat that viewers can't follow what's going on, but if you started with (say) only seven teams and eliminated nobody, you could have a 14-episode season (or however many you wanted) ending with all seven racing to the final mat, and seven might be OK.  Or six.  Or five.

[TheRabbi]

I just finished rewatching season 13 which I got from Amazon when it came out.  I must say - I immensely enjoyed this season.  Hadn't seen it in probably 4-5 years, so a lot of it was pretty fresh.  The weakest episode is easily the premiere, which still hadn't quite adjusted to the one-hour premiere format that the show more readily adopted in s14 and onward.  But after that nearly every episode is memorable in some way. I think this season is not remembered fondly because it was so thoroughly dominated by Nick and Starr, but that doesn't make the journey any less awesome to me.

 

You've got the spectacular vistas in the Cambodia leg (how I wish the HD format had been adopted prior to this season), classic TAR culture shock and chaos in India, Dandrew's complete incompetence yet somehow managing to get to the final 3, and a couple of really superbly designed legs (seriously, leg 10 in Moscow with the Stalin/Lenin RB and the trains vs. buses detour is just awesome).  It also has the single weirdest route progression of the show's history (South America - New Zealand - Asia - Europe - Portland).  And the finale is also neck and neck between two teams for nearly the entire episode and incredibly tense, with a great memory challenge to boot.  The cast was also pretty exceptional - I had forgotten just clueless Dimvorcees Kelly and Christie were, and just how much I loved Terrence and Sarah in their season (though it admittedly helps that we'd seen them at nearly every TARCon since then and they were always super-sweet even though they were no longer dating).

 

Honestly the only slight I can levy against season 13 is the lack of self-navigation, as there was just a single driving leg, in New Zealand, and cabs were required the rest of the way.  But overall, this was a remarkable season.  I think season 15 may be up next for me, as I watched 14 already a few months ago.

[Ducky]

 

Tonight's episode has Amy and/or Maya topless for their massage. Question: when else has the show needed to break out the pixels to cover nudity? The only thing that comes to mind is Jon going naked for the final Roadblock in TAR4.

 

They pixellated Rachel's (the BB Rachel) teensy weensy green glitter shorts when she did that rappelling RB in the waterfall.  Or I think they did...

[Electruck]

They pixellated Rachel's (the BB Rachel) teensy weensy green glitter shorts when she did that rappelling RB in the waterfall. Or I think they did...

They also did a lot of blurring in the first ep this season when the real estate blond was writhing around the beach in her bikini while trying to do the compass/digging task, and possibly as they gathered to discuss stopping then took off for the pit stop.

[SnideAsides]

And not quite nudity, but Sam and Dan's matching mud volleyball boners.

[Ducky]

There was another episode where there was some unintended 'exposure'... the one with frogs but I can't remember who it was.  It was the one where I think it was Mel who had a hell of a time after that as it was so late at night and COLD.

 

Don't quote me on that as I don't fully remember...

[TheRabbi]

I finished a season 15 watch tonight, enjoying running through these on Amazon.  Hadn't seen it since the season ended, which I believe is 5 years ago.  Overall, I'll say it was an ok season, though not one of the more memorable ones.  The premiere is a complete snoozer, with just the Japanese game show eating challenge and walk across Shibuya to the pit stop.

 

The route is average.  It certainly sucks that they were confined to just Europe and Asia, but this was during the height of swine flu season, and was supposedly wildly different from the originally intended route (rumor was the Ghana and South Korea legs from season 17, and the Rio leg from season 18 were originally intended for this season), but there were a number of good locations in there.  Just the second trip to Dubai, with the great contrast between the 130 degree desert RB and the detour in the cold ski center. A trip to Holland that didn't involve staying in Amsterdam (just flying into it and getting right out to the countryside), 2 good legs in Prague, one great leg in Vietnam (the 3rd one, leg 2 is kind of a yawner), and a nice visit to Cambodia.

 

Where this season struggles is with the cast.  They're just not memorable.  There's really only 2 standout moments from the season.  The first is obviously Zev and Justin losing their passports and a very sad elimination.  The second is Mika and Canaan, who in my opinion still have the absolute craziest elimination in the show's history.  Seriouisly, watching her howl in panic-induced hysteria while he tries to physically force her down that waterslide is a jaw-dropping moment.  Brian and Erica are the only team with any sort of story that reaches the top 3.  Gary and Matt make absolutely no impression despite being there for 9 legs.  Megan and Cheyne are pleasant enough but extremely boring winners.  

 

Maria and Tiffany are my favorite team from the season, but are eliminated in a completely ridiculous detour that was actually impossible for them (I'm sure the producers intended the golf to be possible for anyone who couldn't hit that bell with the hammer, but they likely weren't counting on gale force winds there either).  I find it interesting that M/T dropped out of the race because they couldn't complete the detour.  I wonder if they had just taken a penalty if it would have been an NEL, as legs 2-6 were all elimination.  Maybe leg 7 was originally an NEL, and Sweden leg 8 was elimination.  This could also be evidenced by the completely laughable 5 minute sauna speedbump in Estonia leg 9 which was perhaps added last minute.

 

That said, while they didn't make particularly compelling television, I have wonderful memories of meeting these cast members at TARCon.  I remember Brian, Megan and Cheyne, and even the first team out, Garret and Jessica, being absolute delights to talk to.

 

Probably taking a breather from past seasons for a bit.  I have 16 and 17 from amazon here, but think I'll head back to netflix for a bit.

Edited January 14, 2015 by TheRabbi

[bafleyanne]

Rewatching season 5, I am struck by how incredibly annoying Charla and Mirna are. I remember them being less so in a subsequent appearance, but man, were they entitled on their first season. I had forgotten how many times they tried to make people believe Charla had a medical emergency to make it on a flight, and although I have no love whatsoever for Colin and Christie, trying to steal someone's cab while their bags are still in it is really far beyond acceptable even considering it's a raaaaaace!

[TheRabbi]

"My ****ing bags are in the trunk!!"  Just another reason why Colin and Christie is my absolute favorite team ever in the history of the show.  The rivalry with Charla and Mirna was so damn awesome.  Charla was supposed to be the fan favorite, but as you said, their extreme sense of entitlement was a huge turn-off.    It's really a shame Christie was pregnant and they couldn't do All-Stars season 11.  They would have bumped out John Vito and Jill (who were last minute replacements as it was), so that means Kevin and Drew would have been eliminated first and they'd go from there.  Would have been great to see that rivalry renewed.  However, Kevin and Drew surviving until leg 2 produced one of the funniest visual gags in the shows entire history, with Kevin trying to pull their jeep out of the mud and nearly getting dragged by Drew driving.  Almost horrifying, yet in the end utterly hilarious.

[Lantern7]

I was okay with Charla. If she was a pill, Mirna was the entire container.

[green]

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.

[Lantern7]

Maybe it's because I'm from Staten Island and that I once interviewed JVJ, but I can't fathom them as an alternate team. Sure, they had broken up, but they were the most functional of the male/female teams in TAR3. Also, Jill might be -- pound-for-pound -- among the strongest Racers to have ever competed. It's a pity that they flamed out in the opening leg . . . especially since John Vito spoke ill of that overrated hack, Rob Mariano. Of course, I'm probably biased as heck, so don't mind me.

[Netfoot]

Charla and Snarla were one unpleasant team to have on the show!  Their sense of entitlement was totally OTT.  But it was all Snarla.  She complained because other teams used the same road they were driving on!  She kept harping on about Charla needing to be given a break, but who carried the side of beef?  Who stood on whose shoulders to do up the lug-nuts?  Yes, they were entertaining, in the way a kitten in a blender might be considered entertaining, but there was nothing about the team that I liked.  With one brief exception:

 

"See ya!  Wouldn't wanna be ya!"   

[bafleyanne]

I also wonder how season 5 would have shaken out if the "team members must do an equal number of roadblocks" rule had been in effect (which as I recall, was basically inspired by this season). The girls on the m/f teams basically did one roadblock apiece.

Today I will watch "My ox is broken!" I cannot wait.

[SweetSable]

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

earlier seasons.  What's wrong with Season 4?

[TheRabbi]

Season 4 is what many consider to be the worst season of the "classic" age of TAR.  However, I am not one of them, as it is one of my favorites, especially once it leaves Europe.  I think the cast is mostly excellent, with the exception of there being one too many guy-guy teams.  The route is also blasted as it only featured 2 new countries (South Korea and Holland), but we've seen many countries countless times in the show's history now, so that shouldn't be a detriment watching today.

 

There's also a rivalry between two couples in the season that is among my favorites, and it culminates in the 9th episode with an absolute nailbiter of a finish between those two teams that you simply wouldn't be able to script.

 

And there was also a number of great tasks.  Swimming under the ice in Korea, Net vs Trap in Malaysia (farting on the fish is not helping), the Mozart vs Beethoven detour in Austria, an absolutely brutal driving leg in France (though the editing for that episode's elimination is terrible), and of course...NUTBUNCHES!  Great season in my opinion, though I'm sure others will follow with their counter-arguments.

[Sharpie66]

Season 4 was my first season of TAR, and I fell in love with the show. That 9th episode that @TheRabbi mentions is on my Top Five Episodes in TAR History.

[green]

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.

Edited January 19, 2015 by green

[enlightenedbum]

I had a much better cast for TAR11 on the TWOP boards at some point.  Which got Ken (of & Gerard) to friend me on Facebook.  Think I ended up with:

 

Guido (TAR1)

Kevin and Drew (TAR1)

Momily (TAR1) (I think Nancy hadn't become ill by this point, anyway, but we're also wishing away health issues)

Cha Cha Cha (TAR2)

Bald Snark (TAR3)

Wonder Twins (TAR3)

Bowling Moms (TAR5)

Kris and Jon (TAR6)

Rob and Amber (TAR7) (Sue me, I enjoy his schtick in 5 of his 6 seasons)

Bill and Tammy Gaghan (TAR8)

The BQs (TAR10)

 

3 F/F, 4 M/M, 3 couples; I wish it were less white, but that was sort of the show early on.  Usually one non-white team/season and only Cha Cha Cha, Uchenna and Joyce and the couple who finished third in TAR9 did well, IIRC.  And I can't remember their names because I hate the top two teams from that season.  I also arbitrarily exclude winners.  This was mostly to maximize my enjoyment, but they're also all pretty good racers, except maybe the Gaghans, but I'm pretty sure they would have kicked ass on a real race by themselves.

 

If we feel like we absolutely need to represent season 4, drop the Twins for Al and Jon.  Season 9 I refuse to recognize at all though.

[TheRabbi]

Why was season 5 a brief respite from "mactor" terrible casts?  Keep in mind that season 5 is my absolute favorite season and is fantastic, but there's still 2 teams with models/pageant girls on them, as well as a team of castoffs from another CBS reality show.  Is that really any different than some of the others?  The difference here is that the reality fame-whore team was mercifully an early boot.  And also that Colin and Christie being the force they were, developed rivalries with some of the teams and really made the cast gel well as a whole.

 

Also, I guess I didn't realize that season 9 was that hated.  I don't think its in the upper echelon of race quality, but I still think its a very good season.  Really the season only suffers from a very boring final 3, and too many 'find one out of the hundred here' tasks.  Fran and Barry are perhaps my favorite of the "old" teams.  Episode 10 with taxi-gate, yield-gate, and the 3-team drive to avoid [non] elimination is in my top 3 or 4 episodes ever, and it had a strong route map.  It was also pretty much the pioneer of the memory challenge in the final leg (save season 3's quick animal RB), and the flag challenge was a great one.

 

If we're listing All-Star wishlists, then my ideal one would have been (for s11):

 

Guido

Kevin and Drew

Cha Cha Cha

Teri and Ian or Fran and Barry for the "old" team

Millie and Chuck

Jon and Al

Colin and Christie

Gus and Hera

Rob and Amber

BQ's

Bowling Moms, only as I feel the need to have a second F/F team, though I'd probably rather give the slot to Chip and Kim

 

For season 18, going with the casting strategy of only going from seasons 12-17, I actually think the cast that was assembled is pretty good.  Brooke and Claire were no-brainers but one of them was pregnant.  I would have put Ken and Tina in to give season 13 some representation, and probably dropped Amanda and Kris.  If s12 Don was still active and fit enough to do it, I would have liked to see what else in the world he had experience in ("I definitely gave some Brazilian waxes when I was younger?").  I probably would have dropped Mel and Mike for him and Nick.

 

Season 24's cast was so terrible that it's hard to know where to begin.  If you're only pulling from seasons 19-23, I probably would have gone:

Marcus and Amani

Bill and Cathi

Mark and Bopper

Nary and Jamie

Chippendales

Twinnies

Abbie and Ryan

Dave and Connor

Mona and Beth

Max and Katie

Tim and Marie

[choclatechip45]

Why was season 5 a brief respite from "mactor" terrible casts?  Keep in mind that season 5 is my absolute favorite season and is fantastic, but there's still 2 teams with models/pageant girls on them, as well as a team of castoffs from another CBS reality show.  Is that really any different than some of the others?  The difference here is that the reality fame-whore team was mercifully an early boot.  And also that Colin and Christie being the force they were, developed rivalries with some of the teams and really made the cast gel well as a whole.

 

4 teams with Pageant backgrounds Alison, Erika, Nicole and Christie all had pageant backgrounds.

Edited January 22, 2015 by choclatechip45

[joanne3482]

It seems like they have had a lot of gay male couples on TAR.  Have they had any lesbian couples? With this new season's theme of dating, it seemed glaring that there were 2 M/M couples but no F/F couples.

[auntlada]

It seems like they have had a lot of gay male couples on TAR.  Have they had any lesbian couples? With this new season's theme of dating, it seemed glaring that there were 2 M/M couples but no F/F couples.

 

They've had at least two, but I don't remember their names. One was the women who hated the pageant girl from one of the Carolinas, the one who gave the really bad answer in the video that went all around the Internet. The other I think of off the top of my head were ministers, I think. I don't remember the seasons, although I kind of think the women who hated the pageant girl might have been the first season the Cowboys were on, but I'm not sure.

[enlightenedbum]

They've had at least two, but I don't remember their names. One was the women who hated the pageant girl from one of the Carolinas, the one who gave the really bad answer in the video that went all around the Internet. The other I think of off the top of my head were ministers, I think. I don't remember the seasons, although I kind of think the women who hated the pageant girl might have been the first season the Cowboys were on, but I'm not sure.

TAR12 had the older ministers.  They thought Ron was mean to Christina and felt bad for commenting on it in Amsterdam.  My brain remember some really dumb things.  I also forget their names though.  I want to say one of them was Pat.

Edited February 26, 2015 by enlightenedbum

[SnideAsides]

TAR12 had Kate and Pat, the old marred lesbian church ministers who got booted in Leg 2; TAR16 had Carol and Brandy, the ones who hated Brent and Caite. I think either Tian or Jaree in TAR4 was lesbian too? Aside from that the only other queer female I remember is TAR6 Rebecca, who didn't come out as bi until after the season had ended and she needed an excuse to stay on the D-list.

 

In other news, I may have gotten a bit ranty about the show's decline.

[enlightenedbum]

So this season is basically meh to me.  The gimmick is annoying but for the most part I like the people with obvious, Hayley sized exceptions, so that's good.  A lot of bad task design.

 

Then I started thinking about it and I realized that I basically liked the show best (not counting Family Edition) exactly up to when Miss Alli/Linda Holmes left TWOP for NPR.  I find that amusing.

[TheRabbi]

Yeah this season isn't cutting it for me.  I just don't care about any of the teams.  I kind of liked Mike and Rochelle and Matt and Ashley, but that's it.  The show did feature some bad elimination luck as well, with the two older couples going out in the first 3 eliminations (but surely that can be mostly attributed to pairing them against 8 or 9 teams of young fit 20-somethings).

 

And while Phil still defends that it's not a dating show, and still the travel show we love with the same format just tweaked a bit.....it's a dating show.

 

 I'm really starting to miss the episode introductions as well. "This is [city], the economical and cultural center of [country].  And this here is [landmark].  Built more than 500 years ago to honor [royalty], this was the [#] pitstop in a race around the world."  Further evidence that the travel is now secondary to the dating shenanigans. 

 

Oh well, they tried the family edition once and were wise enough to never go near it again, we'll see if they learn from their mistakes this time (though the casting website accepting both "team" submissions and "singles" submissions is not a great sign).

Edited May 3, 2015 by TheRabbi

[Sharpie66]

I just put this up over at their thread on their season, but Flight Time and (I'm pretty sure) Big Easy were amongst the Globetrotters who visited Pope Francis and made him an honorary member of the team (only the ninth person in 90 years to be so honored!). FT was the one who spun the basketball and put it on the pontiff's finger: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/pope-francis-harlem-globetrotters

[Lantern7]

Quick question . . . did TAR5 wrap up in Dallas like TAR26? All I remember is the final maze and Earl the shoulder-driving cabbie. Oh, and Chip & Kim winning, which was awesome.

[Lingo]

Yep, Dallas.

[TheRabbi]

Seasons 18 and 19 are available for preorder at Amazon.  I'm thankful they're still releasing them, but am questioning if I need to keep buying them.  I'll probably buy season 18, but I have very few positive memories of TAR19.  I still haven't watched the 16 and 17 sets I ordered yet, but perhaps this summer (my memories of 16 aren't that great either).

 

For anyone who gets 18 and 19 when they come out, I'd be very curious to know the picture quality of the dvd's.  Those were the first seasons shot in hi-def.  Hi-def is reserved for bluray, so I'm guessing it will just a a 480p full widescreen picture, instead of the 480i square box the first 17 seasons are in.  In other words, I'm guessing it will be better quality than the prior releases, but not as good as we'd see on live TV.

Edited May 26, 2015 by TheRabbi

[Vyas]

Seasons 18 and 19 are available for preorder at Amazon.  I'm thankful they're still releasing them, but am questioning if I need to keep buying them.  I'll probably buy season 18, but I have very few positive memories of TAR19.  I still haven't watched the 16 and 17 sets I ordered yet, but perhaps this summer (my memories of 16 aren't that great either).

 

For anyone who gets 18 and 19 when they come out, I'd be very curious to know the picture quality of the dvd's.  Those were the first seasons shot in hi-def.  Hi-def is reserved for bluray, so I'm guessing it will just a a 480p full widescreen picture, instead of the 480i square box the first 17 seasons are in.  In other words, I'm guessing it will be better quality than the prior releases, but not as good as we'd see on live TV.

 

Agreed on UB, but you're underrating the following season. Not only did it feature the best Scandinavian visit up to that point in the series, which would in turn be overtaken by the return trip to that unjustly overlooked nation three years later, but it also had one of the most shockingly satisfying penultimate rounds ever.

 

That the token oldies missed out on as few legs as their forerunners Meredith/Gretchen cements it as superior to every even-numbered season that followed, since who needs bickering for entertainment when one can instead have good old-fashioned TLC - and not just between them, but to their competitors as a whole as well as towards every local whom they encountered?

 

On a more dispassionate note, I do wonder whether the S23 DVD coming out in a couple of years will have a drastic improvement in HD quality compared to the five immediately before it?

[SnideAsides]

For me, TAR19's one of those weird seasons where the episodes are either Very Very Good or Very Very Bad and there's no real middle ground. Phuket is good, the two Malawi legs are by far the best Africa legs we've had since TAR7, Denmark is good but nowhere near as brilliant as its reputation suggests, and Panama is incredible for a leg that apparently was pieced together at the eleventh hour, but on the other hand the Taiwan leg is right on the borderline where it could be interpreted as a racist caricature of the country (dinky paper umbrellas! Chinese Whispers Road Block! A mall! Dragon boats!), the inaugural Indonesia visit is by far the worst of the four (and it's not as if the others were particularly great), the Bangkok leg is my dark horse pick for worst individual leg ever, Belgium got screwed by the course design (it loses half an episode for the trip to Legoland before leaving Denmark, we don't even see the non-bodybuilding Detour option, it's a TBC so we don't get the usual epic opening at the start of the next episode, then the next episode is mostly taken up with the annual Ford plug and an attempt to turn homing pigeons into a task, leaving us with basically just "Belgium = Waffles!" as our only cultural lesson for the two episodes), and the final has precisely zero dramatic value because the winning team pulls ahead ridiculously early in the episode. Sigh.

[Vyas]

Rather idiosyncratic to deem the Burkina Faso and Ghana double-leg visits as inferior, eh?

 

The other side of the Belgian flexing Detour was the Charlie Chaplin RI two episodes later, which none of the F5 chose initially and instead got shoehorned into the penultimate leg because of an extended pre-TransAtlanticPitStop / much time to kill during the wee hours / something of that nature.

[SnideAsides]

Rather idiosyncratic to deem the Burkina Faso and Ghana double-leg visits as inferior, eh?

Strangely enough, posters are allowed to disagree with you. And I, personally, think neither of those two visits is that great. In particular, the Ghana legs are mediocre at best but benefit enormously from being the first legs on the African mainland in five seasons (and the first visit to Africa that early in a season since TAR1).

[Vyas]

Nothing strange about subtly asking for clarification of a perspective (there was neither an explicit nor implied judgment of your opinion).

 

In which way do the Malawi episodes match Gretchen's spelunking concussion and Brian/Greg outrunning Ray/Deana more than Lorena's legendary wail, "Baby, there's no more milk!", Marianna/Julia accidentally eliminating themselves, the very first U-Turn and Shana/Jennifer's bungling of it, the iconic Accra sunglasses thief, and racers circling Ghanian schoolchildren for no reason? Ernie/Cindy misplaying their EP and losing first-place to Andy/Tommy was rather a rehash of Gary/Mallory and Jet/Cord at UB's DinosaurBlock, for example.

Edited June 4, 2015 by Vyas

[biakbiak]

I am doing a rewatch of all the seasons since they are now available on Amazon Prime and I completely forgot that the first ever time they took all the racers belongings in addition to their cash was Meredith and Gretchen when they are not only both covered in dirt but Gretchen has a huge white bandage wrapped around her head and bloody scratches on her face from a nasty fall she took at the detour, Phil must have felt like total shit! 

Edited July 17, 2015 by biakbiak

[TheRabbi]

I'm back at the Amazon DVD's.  I recently finished season 16.  As before, I hadn't seen this since the season initially aired, so a lot of it was pretty fresh.  I must say, this season is much better than I remember it.  It certainly leaves a bitter taste at the end, but the season leading up to it is highly enjoyable.

 

Let's get the bad out of the way first: the winners.  I honestly can't think of winners I dislike more than Dan and Jordan.  I guess Freddy and Kendra could be up there, and maybe Eric and Danielle, but man my heart sinks when Dan and Jordan reach the final mat.  Especially since the only reason they won was getting bumped up to first class.  The cowboys performed every task as quick or quicker than them in the final leg, but the time lost from D/J getting the first class bump was too much to overcome.  Jordan (the gay one) I guess doesn't seem too bad, but Dan to me seems a rather vile individual, and their entire storyline for the season being his "I'm doing this for my brother" gets so tiresome that I grow to hate them both.  As for the final leg, I think its a decent enough leg, with the exception of the memory task, which is the easiest one they've ever done on the show.  There was a physical task, a teamwork task, a clue that needed to be deciphered, and a landmark as the finish line, so the leg itself was alright.

 

The only other low points I can come up with are the obnoxious over-use of the same clip (Mike saying "The lesbians go 'Where's her tiara?!'" is replayed, not exaggerating, at least 10 times between previouslies and flashbacks), and that the route map is rather ho-hum.  The Seychelles is an incredible first visit, and Singapore and Malaysia were due for revisits, but the rest of the route was pretty redundant.

 

The cast is overall pretty damn good.  I was surprised by how much I actually didn't mind Carol and Brandy this time.  They had a few great one-liners, were generally pretty smart racers, and had a perfectly valid reason to be pissed at Caite's pettiness for U-turning them, as the smart play would have clearly been to u-turn the cowboys or Mike/Louie.  Speaking of the cowboys, I know we've grown weary of them over the seasons for getting too many chances to come back, but their initial run in this season is pretty damn great.  They are exceptional racers, and very entertaining to watch.

 

Steve and Allie I must say are among my favorite parent/child teams.  I love their relationship, and they actually have many memorable moments and storylines, from Steve fixing their car with duct tape from the wife, painting the wrong guy's house in the premiere, ascending to first place while forgetting their bags, and their eventual downfall in Malaysia.  Lovely people.  I've never watched Big Brother in my life, but loved Jeff and Jordan here.  They provided a huge amount of comic relief.  And they got eliminated at the perfect time, without overstaying their welcome enough to make us pissed at another reality crossover (unlike a future BB couple coming up in a few more seasons).  Even the early boots such as Dana and Adrian and the grandmother/granddaughter team are memorable in their brief stints.

 

Also, while the countries in the route may have lacked imagination, there's no question that this was a pretty tough race.  4 self-driving legs out of the first 6, brutal language difficulties in Shanghai, and some tough tasks sprinkled throughout, such as the champagne tower assembly in France, hauling the incense burners up the temple in Penang , and the high-wire in the opening leg.  The Morse Code task also deserves mention here, for being not only difficult, but perhaps impossible.  It's a shame that Joe and Heidi got u-turned here into basically an impossible task.

 

There's also a number of times where the editors are just having downright fun.  The slow-mo of Brent and Caite attempting to fly in their bird get-up, the lovely music and sound effects when Carol and Brandy's turtle deviates from their course, the intercuts between Brandy's "Smart people do Morse code, Dumb people do this" to Caite's 'LETS DO IT!!' cracked me up immensely, just to name a few.

 

So overall this was a rather lovely season with a rather horrifying result.  Next up: watermelons!

[Vyas]

On the contrary, S16 was a somewhat below-average season with a somewhat above-average winner.

The battle to see which brotherly team - the scrawny schemers on one hand and the rugged loners on the other - would be the first of their type to bring home the prize was perhaps too eleventh hour to make for a compelling narrative. Nonetheless, the fact that the underdogs prevailed against siblings just like them (as opposed to the intrinscally imbalanced finale of the first All-Stars) did give the show a palatable twist ending. Karma, too, given how Jet lobbed a homophobic slur at Jordan at TARCONXVI; did you attend and hear that incident in person?

Funny how you say that Malaysia was due for a revisit when it had already appeared more times than Chile at that point in the show's history. Also curious as to why you failed to mention Monique/Shawne, a tragic example of a strong team taken out earlier than warranted.

 

Elimination Station would foreshadow Jeff's entitlement complex in the BB13 Jury House: he sinks to Joe's level in terms of bitter pettiness, exacerbating the poisonous atmosphere introduced by Heidi's husband rather than detoxifying it, even as the teams still racing plunge into their own ethical abysses post-Penang.

 

The aforementioned difficult/relevant tasks have an unfortunate counterbalance in the condor-dressup Detour and more than one late-game counting challenge. In this season's defence - and to the detriment of comparably noxious counterparts such as S9 and S20 - more than half the teams win a leg and some who don't still manage a Top-3 placement. TAR's closest thing to a "dark comedy"?
 

[TheRabbi]

Well we are certainly entitled to our own opinions on the season, but I'd put it well above-average.  Certainly better than the boring 15th edition.  Also, I'm sure I will discover this as I get further into the Amazon releases, but around what season does Phil start screaming during the previouslies?  It's so much nicer when he recaps last week without sounding like he's trying to yell inside a bar.

 

I attended TARCON 16 and have very fond memories of it.  I remember hearing OF the incident, but not hearing it directly.  I remember Dana and Adrian being awesome, as well as Allie, Mike, Louie, and Heidi.

 

Malaysia may have technically had more season visits than Chile prior to this season, but season 3's was just a quick Kodak ad at the Petronas towers, followed up by different looks in seasons 4 and 11.  Penang was another wildly different area of the country to explore.  Going through Chile in season 11 was exhausting and it felt like you had seen the entire country in one season.  It wasn't a bad choice in season 16 I suppose, but like I said, just rather ho-hum.

 

I didn't mention the "Mom-preneurs" because I honestly thought they made the least impression of any team that season.  They seem like lovely ladies for sure, but even having just watched the season, I can't remember anything they did other than struggle at the lasso-ing task for hours and getting eliminated.  I also can't remember if they were at TARCon and would love someone to confirm or deny.

 

As for the brothers rivalry, you can kind of tell even watching the show that the cowboys may be homophobes.  Jet makes a comment in poor taste in Shanghai about how Jordan is going to dominate the fashion task.  But there's no question the cowboys are far superior racers.  I only appreciate the "underdog" coming through in the finale, when its an underdog worth rooting for (Chip and Kim - who won in a very similar manner thanks to an odd occurrence of a flight).

Edited August 17, 2015 by TheRabbi

[SnideAsides]

I think it's next season or the season after that Phil's shouting becomes painful? It's definitely there by TAR19.

 

Malaysia feels more overdue, frankly, because it Brings It whenever the show visits while the various TAR franchises go to Chile quite often and rarely if ever do better than about a 7/10 in terms of quality. Like, Malaysia only has the visits from this version and four TAR Asia legs (three of which were premieres or finales) but has provided us with the delightfully chaotic Kodak ad, farting on fish, mistakenly catching whatever the ocean version of pond scum is, orangutan feeding, the best head-to-head race in the show's history, dirty pirate hookers, everything from this visit, wooden trampolines, cocktail pouring, confusing cat statues, the first all-female TAR winners ever, a surprisingly brilliant stair-counting Road Block, off-key singing, and a diving Road Block so tough half the teams couldn't even finish, while the most exciting Chile episode any TAR has ever had is the one in the first All-Stars where Rob and Amber win their third leg in a row and the show tries to sell Teri falling out of a whitewater raft as though she's drowning. (There's also the show's general problem with making unique-feeling South American legs, but that's a discussion for another day.)

 

Monique and Shawne suck.

 

Out of the final three teams I'm definitely a fan of Dan/Jordan (though my favourite team that season was Carol/Brandy, almost by default), even if only because I really, really hated the Cowboys even that first time, but they aren't among the most competent winners this show has ever had. Looking back though, TAR really had a long run of shitty winners at about this time, which probably helps them in hindsight. Meghan/Cheyne had half a personality between them, Tammy/Victor were the least awful of a shitty bunch, Nick/Starr were assholes and their dominance was an anticlimax, TK/Rachel are the butlers who get a line in Chapter Three before the writer decides it makes perfect sense for them to be responsible for the murder, Eric/Danielle are fucking terrible, Tyler/James are weirdly uncomfortable to watch for a team with so much homoerotic subtext, BJ/Tyler would be my absolute least favourite reality show contestants ever even if they didn't win, the Linzes made Eric/Jeremy a season later look classy, Uchenna/Joyce weren't a team I felt much towards to begin with but their post-show "the Good People won!" bullshit really bugged me, and Freddy/Kendra were Freddy/Kendra, so... yeah.

[Vyas]

Certainly better than the boring 15th edition. 

 

I remember hearing OF the incident, but not hearing it directly. 

 

Malaysia may have technically had more season visits than Chile prior to this season, but season 3's was just a quick Kodak ad at the Petronas towers, followed up by different looks in seasons 4 and 11.  Penang was another wildly different area of the country to explore.  Going through Chile in season 11 was exhausting and it felt like you had seen the entire country in one season.  It wasn't a bad choice in season 16 I suppose, but like I said, just rather ho-hum.

 

I also can't remember if they were at TARCon and would love someone to confirm or deny.

 

But there's no question the cowboys are far superior racers.  I only appreciate the "underdog" coming through in the finale, when its an underdog worth rooting for (Chip and Kim - who won in a very similar manner thanks to an odd occurrence of a flight).

 

S15 may have begun uneventfully, but it built up to a challenging nighttime penultimate leg in Prague and a still more exciting finale in Las Vegas; in contrast, the second half of Shanghai is anti-climactic in the wake of the dragon-puzzle RB and San Francisco is only entertaining insofar as an approximation of a Jerry Springer episode. 

 

How did you find out about Oklahoma versus Rhode Island: a source from TARCON XVI itself or after the fact via a written medium?

 

I dare say that there have been a couple subpar legs in Malaysia past and present, namely the filler episode that served as S4's first NEL (Millie's sudden villainous/xenophobic morph notwithstanding) as well as the poorly planned third leg of the recent All-Stars, both of which were as bad as S16's second half in Chile.

 

You might find it surprising that the Bonus Clips (formerly Innertube?) from this season are still intact on YT: I encourage you to look up Dan and Jordan's interactions pre-Asia when their edit during the actual television broadcast was still muted compared to the BB camera-hogs. 

 

Oh, and the lovely ladies were certainly present:

 

 

Monique and Shawne suck.

 

How were they any worse than Michael/Louie or Caite/Brent? Quite a few viewers would've preferred the Moms Extraordinaire's brand of genuine optimism to the miasma from France onwards.