S01: Talk

[Whimsy]

Since some older seasons are available to view on different platforms, we are starting all episodes threads for each season. 

[Supay]

Anyone else secretly enjoy the fact that Tunisia is now the only country from Classic yet to be revisited?

[ApprenticeFan]

Remember, this is the only season used the original TAR intro, plus the teams presented by Phil Keoghan himself. In which, Detour, Roadblock, Fast Forward and Active Route Info clues were presented by Phil before giving an info.

[Supay]

Delhi is such a commonplace stop whenever any TAR edition goes to India these days that it obscures the original visit's combination of poverty shock and cultural dissonance, e.g. a ticket vendor actually refusing to sell train tickets to the first-ever mom/daughter team.

[Quilt Fairy]

Also the only season where Phil was not present at the Pit Stops, the greeters checked the teams in. That was probably a logistics decision trying to keep Phil ahead of the teams, but I wonder who thought that would be a good idea?

[SnideAsides]

Yeah, they didn't know if Phil was going to be able to get to Pit Stops ahead of teams.

[Supay]

Also the only season where Phil was not present at the Pit Stops, the greeters checked the teams in. That was probably a logistics decision trying to keep Phil ahead of the teams, but I wonder who thought that would be a good idea?

 

Perhaps it was World Race Production's safeguard against the "cult of personality" that some hosts tend to amass. (Ahem.)

[ChlcGirl]

I just got the S1 box set and am starting a rewatch today.  Seasons 1 - 6  all in a row.

[ChlcGirl]

Wow.  I had forgotten how much I disliked the majority of these teams.  And I'm only on episode 2.

[Babalu]

My least-liked teams went out early; I hope it's the same for you so that you enjoy the rest of the season more. I didn't start watching until S4 and caught the first three seasons later, so 

Spoiler

the Guidos had redeemed themselves by being their charming real-life selves on the TWoP boards and at TARCons.

[bunnyface]

I have never actually watched season 1 before.  I came in about season 3 or 4.  I'm watching now from my Amazon account.

It caught my attention last night in the Tunis episode that they were almost all wearing jeans.  I never see anyone in jeans in TAR.  They must have been so heavy and uncomfortable, even though we think of jeans as comfortable clothing.

I'm assigning all the temper tantrums to the jeans.  Although I'm not sure where that leaves all the temper tantrums in later seasons.

[Roccos Brother]

Recently watched Season 1 for the first time and I actually quite enjoyed it. I found a few of the teams to be like-able - the guys with the Brooklyn accents were particularly entertaining. I also liked that the editing style felt more simple and straight forward, and didn't have as much of the fast-paced dramatic feel of later seasons. I also have respect for all the teams just on the basis that they were the first, and therefor had NO idea what to expect or what they were getting themselves into. I was disappointed with which team won though.

Edited September 25, 2017 by Roccos Brother

[illdoc]

Just wanted to say that I've started watching TAR 01 again (own the DVD) and it is almost unrecognizable compared to recent TARs. You only see Phil if you are about to get eliminated (the greeter tells you "you are team # 2"), there is no "for finishing first you get this prize", the clues have to be figured out ("climb to the 2nd level of the Eiffel Tower and take in the telescopic view, it's monumental" meant "use the telescope to search for the yellow and white (red came later) flag (which said "monumental" on it) to figure out where to go next"), the Fast Forwards (remember those?), everyone trying figure out transportation (I swear, they must have spent 15-20 minutes of the first episode trying to get out of the initial city!!), etc. It's certainly a different animal these days. (First episode aired Sep 5 2001, but was obviously filmed the previous winter/spring (snow in the background of starting city)).

[illdoc]

15 hours ago, green said:

And two teams going at the same time could bring about really bad results for the team not getting it.

Just saw a TAR01 Fast Forward, where there were two teams several hours behind the other teams. The only two teams who were eligible (i.e. hadn't done one yet) were those two teams. Both, of course, knew that their only chance was to do the FF. The challenge? Take a bowl of coins and place one coin in each pot (108 pots). The trick? Your bowl had to have exactly 108 coins--too many or too few and you had to get another bowl and start over. Basically, a "needle in a haystack" challenge. Both teams were doing it at the same time. Team "X" wins and nicely tells Team "Y" to just take a boat to get to the thing, rather than take a taxi and drive around, saving them time. End result--Team "X" actually finishes last (team 5 of 5). However, Team "Y" basically blew off the Detour (which was not related to the boat/taxi advice), so gets penalized 24 hours, eliminating them instead! 

[Quilt Fairy]

52 minutes ago, illdoc said:

However, Team "Y" basically blew off the Detour (which was not related to the boat/taxi advice), so gets penalized 24 hours, eliminating them instead! 

And if IIRC, this was the same leg where Team Z, not in contact with any other teams, thought they were far ahead and booked a terrible 24 hour bus connection that almost negated the 24 hour penalty of the other team.  (Or at least the editing would have you think that it was close.)  Good times.  It would never happen in today's TAR. 

Edited June 16, 2019 by Quilt Fairy

[kassygreene]

TAR1 learned a lot of lessons during the race.  Without a rewatch, off the top of my head:

• don't put a FF in the departure country (Italy, I think), when the destination is so far away (India) and all the tasks are there and the FF was able to book direct to Mumbai and go straight to the Taj while everyone else had to scramble through Amsterdam and figure out that the clue to the pit stop was divining that a small tschotske of the Taj Mahal meant take a taxi to Agra
• don't go to India period until you have the exit papers in order - Race spent a few days waiting for permission to leave
• make sure people understand the penalties - the 24 hour penalty has only been meted out once, and I don't think it exists anymore
• don't structure legs that can be executed in twelve hours, especially when hours of operation exist - Teams A & B finished that leg and Team C was halfway through it before Team D left the pit stop
• make use of bunching to prevent the racers from being so out-of-sync

TAR1 is probably one of the best to re-watch.  It's also part of the 9/10 world.  You can't travel like that anymore.

[illdoc]

2 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

this was the same leg where Team Z, not in contact with any other teams, thought they were far ahead and booked a terrible 24 hour bus connection that almost negated the 24 hour penalty of the other team.

It is indeed actually Team X. That's why they took that bad bus (I think it departed about 12 hours after they had won the FF). Personally, I had wanted Team X to lose (Karma for an incident at the airport a few episodes earlier, involving Team Y).

[illdoc]

1 hour ago, kassygreene said:

make sure people understand the penalties - the 24 hour penalty has only been meted out once, and I don't think it exists anymore

Technically, it's twice---once in TAR01 and once with the poker girls (although not mentioned on camera), who couldn't do either side of the detour (in a post-show interview, they mentioned how they would've had that penalty). It probably still does exist. It's just that there hasn't been an opportunity to apply it. When was the last time the "4 hour penalty for not completing a Roadblock" was applied?

[dgpolo]

10 minutes ago, illdoc said:

When was the last time the "4 hour penalty for not completing a Roadblock" was applied?

First leg of this race. Art and JJ were serving the penalty when Rupert and Laura managed to check in before the 4 hours was up.

[Browncoat]

13 minutes ago, illdoc said:

When was the last time the "4 hour penalty for not completing a Roadblock" was applied?

The first episode of this season.

ETA Jinx, @dgpolo!

Edited June 16, 2019 by Browncoat

[green]

11 hours ago, illdoc said:

Just saw a TAR01 Fast Forward, where there were two teams several hours behind the other teams. The only two teams who were eligible (i.e. hadn't done one yet) were those two teams. Both, of course, knew that their only chance was to do the FF. The challenge? Take a bowl of coins and place one coin in each pot (108 pots). The trick? Your bowl had to have exactly 108 coins--too many or too few and you had to get another bowl and start over. Basically, a "needle in a haystack" challenge. Both teams were doing it at the same time. Team "X" wins and nicely tells Team "Y" to just take a boat to get to the thing, rather than take a taxi and drive around, saving them time. End result--Team "X" actually finishes last (team 5 of 5). However, Team "Y" basically blew off the Detour (which was not related to the boat/taxi advice), so gets penalized 24 hours, eliminating them instead! 

That Team Guido vs Nancy & Emily one was one of the all time classic FFs.  I was on the edge of my seat all the way though it.  (Hey it isn't a spoiler if it happened 18 years ago so why the alphabet soup).

9 hours ago, kassygreene said:

TAR1 learned a lot of lessons during the race.  Without a rewatch, off the top of my head:

• don't go to India period until you have the exit papers in order - Race spent a few days waiting for permission to leave

They weren't held up in India.  What I read was they decided to stay in India because of bureaucratic mix-up problems regards entering China.  It was easier to just camp out in that posh Rajasthan hotel in India then proceed with the race into Thailand while awaiting the China snafu to get fixed.

[Rinaldo]

On 6/15/2019 at 8:23 PM, green said:

TAR1 has this great, raw feeling to it because no one could build on experiences before them,  They all had to figure out the race on the fly.  Thus Rob & Brennan blew their one FF in the Race in Leg 1 which no one would ever do again that early when in the lead.  They thought it would help build up a lead where no one would ever catch them, lol.

They did indeed think that, but let it not be forgotten: so did everyone else, including the viewers, before the race happened. (A preview article checking in around the fifth leg, with details carefully vague, expressed surprise that, so far into the race, the teams were still all in the same country.) We were all imagining a true "race around the world" whereby over time, teams would get strung around the globe, each in a different country at the same time. (That was sort of the way the other reality show Lost, which premiered on the same night, did it: teams were deposited somewhere on earth and had to make their individual ways back to the US finish line, so they were always in separate locations.) This was never actually planned by the producers, though teams did end up spread apart in a way that never quite happened again (though one season came close.)

23 hours ago, kassygreene said:

TAR1 learned a lot of lessons during the race.  Without a rewatch, off the top of my head: [many good points, including:] don't structure legs that can be executed in twelve hours, especially when hours of operation exist - Teams A & B finished that leg and Team C was halfway through it before Team D left the pit stop.

TAR1 is probably one of the best to re-watch.  It's also part of the 9/10 world.  You can't travel like that anymore.

In fact, the separation of teams A/B from C/D continued to the end of the race, soon lengthening to a full day. While fascinating to watch in its way, it did remove a large element of suspense; it remains a unique occurrence, and it shows why deliberate bunching via flights and hours of operation became such a regular feature. (Though it was already present in TAR1, make no mistake: until this late bifurcation, teams were never spread very far apart.)

The final point quoted is also true. Even though racers had a more generous budget each leg than would later be true (enough to hire private cars the length of Thailand, if they chose), they would also sometimes opt to sleep on the street, even with alternatives close by. TAR1 is really a unique rewatching pleasure, where one can see everybody figuring things out for the first time, and occasional failure of planners to research in advance sufficiently (Foucault's Pendulum, anyone?) or simply to allow for plain human randomness.

[illdoc]

15 hours ago, green said:

(Hey it isn't a spoiler if it happened 18 years ago so why the alphabet soup).

Obviously, you aren't in the Buffy forum, where we actually spoiler tag stuff that happened 20 years ago! Besides, maybe people had forgotten details of that one (after all, it was 18 years ago) or are late viewers to TAR and missed that season. The only reason I own it is because I had missed that season (only that season, thank you very much) and wanted to see it and saw it for sale about...I want to say 10 years...after it originally aired.

[BuyMoreAndSave]

On 6/16/2019 at 12:31 PM, illdoc said:

Just saw a TAR01 Fast Forward, where there were two teams several hours behind the other teams. The only two teams who were eligible (i.e. hadn't done one yet) were those two teams. Both, of course, knew that their only chance was to do the FF. The challenge? Take a bowl of coins and place one coin in each pot (108 pots). The trick? Your bowl had to have exactly 108 coins--too many or too few and you had to get another bowl and start over. Basically, a "needle in a haystack" challenge. Both teams were doing it at the same time. Team "X" wins and nicely tells Team "Y" to just take a boat to get to the thing, rather than take a taxi and drive around, saving them time. End result--Team "X" actually finishes last (team 5 of 5). However, Team "Y" basically blew off the Detour (which was not related to the boat/taxi advice), so gets penalized 24 hours, eliminating them instead! 

I could see how their decisions made sense in context. I would never have thought that it was possible to take a taxi 500 miles, and if it was I would imagine it would be prohibitively expensive. Meanwhile with Nancy and Emily they already thought they were going to be in last for sure so they basically gave up. It was sort of an O. Henry story for both teams.

On 6/16/2019 at 2:21 PM, kassygreene said:

don't go to India period until you have the exit papers in order - Race spent a few days waiting for permission to leave

It's also part of the 9/10 world.  You can't travel like that anymore.

Honestly it may have been a good thing that they had to wait a few days. The racers were able to get a second wind.

I remember watching some of Season 1 when it first came out (I was only 10 years old!) and I was shocked to learn when I looked it up yesterday that the second episode (which was the first episode I saw) aired only a week after 9/11. I didn't remember that it was that close to 9/11, and I was living in NYC at the time too and my mom even had to work around Ground Zero (directing people who lived nearby to their apartments to get stuff).

In the airport going to Paris, Emily said "Our flight leaves in 10 minutes and we didn't even go through customs yet!" I thought for sure they wouldn't make the flight but it looked like they did, and I guess it's because back then the rules were very different.

Anyway some of my random thoughts. I've been watching Season 1 recently, mostly for nostalgia purposes.

*I actually liked Paul and Amie even though I think they were kind of hated as an "annoying couple." I feel like with some teams, getting angry is what keeps them motivated and they actually do better with a fighting dynamic, and I think that was the case with them. But you could tell especially at the end that they had a deep love for each other and enjoyed the race experience. Nancy was also one of my favorites and seemed to be a favorite of the other racers, and I was sad to learn that she passed away. Of course I also loved Kevin and Drew. Conversely, Lenny and Karyn annoyed the crap out of me every time they were onscreen. I think Karyn would have done much better if she had done the race with someone else and wouldn't have had to yell so much.

*I cringed when I saw people taking the A train to JFK. First of all the E is faster. Second of all who the hell takes any form of NYC public transportation in a race?! I guess it wasn't quite as terrible back then as it is now, but still. And one team actually got off the subway at some random train station in Brooklyn for some reason. Taking the subway vs. a taxi, and knowing enough about NYC to know to go to JFK, seemed to be the deciding factor in at least the first two legs of the race of who ended up in the front or back.

*I'm always amazed at how all these teams are able to book tickets so quickly, find directions to places in the middle of nowhere with no map, etc. In the age of GPS I think a lot of people have lost their navigational skills, me included. I also forgot how terrifying some of the challenges are. I could never do the gorge swing for example. And how they can deal with the lack of sleep and odd hours. I guess the contestants are selected and are self-selecting to be people who are more risk takers and have more stamina to keep going when conditions are bad.

*This season makes me pretty nostalgic for the early 2000s. The wardrobes, the hairstyles, the graphics that the show uses and even lack of HD video quality, even the attitudes of the contestants to some extent, are all peak early 2000s in this season. Looking back on it you see how different the times were back then. Things have changed so much in only 20 years.

It's also interesting to see the huge changes in gay rights since then (Joe and Bill being "life partners" instead of married, and I read that they were yelled at by CBS for kissing at one of the pit stops because it couldn't be aired). Back then it was actually considered a big deal to have a gay couple on TV which sounds so antiquated now.

[Giuseppe]

2 hours ago, BuyMoreAndSave said:

*I actually liked Paul and Amie even though I think they were kind of hated as an "annoying couple."

Paul and Amie were my favorites from season one. I LOVED them. Amie was SO into it, and even though Paul wasn't as much, he kept going for her. I liked their dynamic as well and I was really sorry when they got eliminated, especially since Amie got sick that leg. I've always wanted them to come back but I don't even know if they're still together anymore.

2 hours ago, BuyMoreAndSave said:

I could never do the gorge swing for example

Speaking of, I always loved watching Leslie (or was it Kim?) grab the bungee thing and practically throw herself off the ledge without even thinking twice, lol.

Now I want to re-watch this season. Best opening credits sequence of ANY TAR season even though they were spoiler-y. Watching this season as it aired, I honestly thought it was some of the best television programming I had ever seen in my life, reality or scripted.

[BuyMoreAndSave]

1 hour ago, Giuseppe said:

Paul and Amie were my favorites from season one. I LOVED them. Amie was SO into it, and even though Paul wasn't as much, he kept going for her. I liked their dynamic as well and I was really sorry when they got eliminated, especially since Amie got sick that leg. I've always wanted them to come back but I don't even know if they're still together anymore.

Speaking of, I always loved watching Leslie (or was it Kim?) grab the bungee thing and practically throw herself off the ledge without even thinking twice, lol.

Now I want to re-watch this season. Best opening credits sequence of ANY TAR season even though they were spoiler-y. Watching this season as it aired, I honestly thought it was some of the best television programming I had ever seen in my life, reality or scripted.

Yeah you could tell how determined she was. Even when she was really sick and already in last place she was upset that they went to the pit stop without completing the challenge. It says on their page on the Amazing Race wiki that they got married in 2006, but their Instagrams are pretty easy to find and I don't see any pictures of them together so I don't think they are still together...but I could be wrong. Isn't social media amazing that you can see what a random reality TV contestant from 20 years ago is up to in two seconds?

If you're going to bungee jump it seems like that would probably be the best way to do it...just go for it before your brain kicks in.

Another thing that makes me laugh about this season (not sure if this was repeated in future seasons) is that most of the inter-team conflict is because one team helps another one time, and then refuses to keep helping them all the time. Like "this team helped us once but then an hour later they didn't help, so they are shady!" Like, dudes...it's a competition and you should be happy they helped you once! Joe and Bill especially got a lot of shit for that. In France some of the teams found a train shortcut to the pit stop by asking locals and the other teams got upset that they weren't told, even though that would have meant a 7-team footrace to the finish...maybe they should have asked around too.

Also, it's interesting that Joe/Bill and Frank/Margarita had significant locale advantages over the other teams. Both teams had French-speaking members, helpful in both France and Tunisia, and Joe/Bill had lived in Paris and Frank/Margarita were from New York, each of which were in two legs of the race.

[green]

20 minutes ago, BuyMoreAndSave said:

Also, it's interesting that Joe/Bill and Frank/Margarita had significant locale advantages over the other teams. Both teams had French-speaking members, helpful in both France and Tunisia, and Joe/Bill had lived in Paris and Frank/Margarita were from New York, each of which were in two legs of the race.

And in the end those advantages cost both teams dearly.  Almost got the Guidos eliminated in Thailand and lead to them being so far behind they ended up in Alaska in the end and not at the finale mat.

And may have cost Frank & Margarita the Race when they took the wrong way into Queens because Frank knew better than their cabbie.

[BuyMoreAndSave]

15 hours ago, green said:

And in the end those advantages cost both teams dearly.  Almost got the Guidos eliminated in Thailand and lead to them being so far behind they ended up in Alaska in the end and not at the finale mat.

And may have cost Frank & Margarita the Race when they took the wrong way into Queens because Frank knew better than their cabbie.

Well part of that was the producers' fault too for messing up on the equalizers, which was a bad production move as it led to a less interesting race. I don't think they intended for that to happen but with so many moving parts and unplannable factors it did...and it would have been really bad for the show had three of the last four teams gotten trapped behind instead of two.

Interestingly Kevin and Drew would have had a shot to win if their flight in Leg 9, which was much earlier than the other teams', had not been delayed. They said if it wasn't delayed they could have gotten to the car/bus Detour before it closed instead of having to wait overnight, and could have gotten a 12 hour head start on the other teams in finding their car. They probably still would have had to wait overnight for the tiger Roadblock to open (what the hell was that anyway...it seemed like both a major safety hazard and animal abuse) but they would have probably been first and not hours behind the other teams.

For Frank and Margarita it was kind of like a classical tragedy -- Frank's main characteristic of his racing style, being overconfident and controlling, was his undoing.

I found this podcast episode yesterday where Bill and Joe were interviewed: https://news.hofstra.edu/podcast/aired-version-the-amazing-race-with-team-guido-joe-baldassare-and-bill-bartek/ (the intro is very annoying but it gets better after that). They had some interesting information on the race.

Apparently at the Zambia pit stop the villagers had a party (which was shown a bit at the end of the episode) and there was a mass food poisoning incident from the food that was served. None of the contestants ate the food because they weren't hungry due to doing an unaired Roadblock that involved one member cooking, and both members eating, an entire ostrich egg, but some of the crew members got sick and some even had to go to the hospital. So it wasn't shown but in Leg 2 they were actually waiting at the airport for an entire extra day because they had to wait for crew members to recover or they wouldn't have enough people to film. That explains both the limited airport footage and why everyone got significantly angrier after the airport. Joe and Bill said that there were many other incidents where the race came very close to being derailed.

They also said they call the Thailand incident the "million dollar cab ride." They said the reason why they didn't take a cab is because they asked a local and she was very nice so they believed her, and she said that it was way too expensive for anyone to take a cab, the train had already left for the day, and the bus was the only option. Because of that they did not even ask any taxi drivers what the cost would be. It was only later that they realized that the cab ride would be too expensive for most people in Thailand, but for Americans it wouldn't due to the exchange rate. They said the 500 mile cab ride cost the other teams around $140.

[green]

As I recall it wasn't because they didn't take a cab.  It was because they waited for the much later express bus when an earlier bus with connections could have gotten them there in plenty of time.

Which lead ironically to some teams on TAR Asia1 trying to navigate basically the same route remembering how the Guidos had screwed up waiting for the express bus so they took the connecting one.

Unfortunately it backfired on those teams because a connection was either missed or they got on the wrong connecting bus (think that might have been it?) or something like that.  Guess you just can't do paint by numbers on any season or franchise of TAR.

Edited July 3, 2019 by green

[anniebird]

17 hours ago, green said:

And may have cost Frank & Margarita the Race when they took the wrong way into Queens because Frank knew better than their cabbie.

Frank said their problem was actually that the first cab they got refused to take them to Queens no matter how much money they offered so they had to wait for a 2nd cab.

[green]

5 minutes ago, anniebird said:

Frank said their problem was actually that the first cab they got refused to take them to Queens no matter how much money they offered so they had to wait for a 2nd cab.

And then he had them take him his special back way thinking he would bypass all the traffic.  But it was a weekend so the route the Lawyers took was way way faster. 

If you cannot figure out what day of the week it is?  I mean come on.  Just ask someone on the plane.  So it still is on him in the end. 

Edited July 3, 2019 by green

[BuyMoreAndSave]

2 hours ago, green said:

As I recall it wasn't because they didn't take a cab.  It was because they waited for the much later express bus when an earlier bus with connections could have gotten them there in plenty of time.

Somehow I must have missed that...I believe in the podcast they said they missed the earlier bus but didn't say why.

1 hour ago, anniebird said:

Frank said their problem was actually that the first cab they got refused to take them to Queens no matter how much money they offered so they had to wait for a 2nd cab.

Damn NYC taxi drivers!

[Rinaldo]

8 hours ago, BuyMoreAndSave said:

...in Leg 2 they were actually waiting at the airport for an entire extra day because they had to wait for crew members to recover or they wouldn't have enough people to film. That explains both the limited airport footage and why everyone got significantly angrier after the airport....

An extra day? Wow! That completely invalidates the detailed timeline I posted at the time, after days of revision to make sure the International Date Line was accounted for, and all that. Hah, I was all wrong all this time, story of my life...

[dgpolo]

On 6/17/2019 at 2:39 PM, illdoc said:

Besides, maybe people had forgotten details of that one (after all, it was 18 years ago) or are late viewers to TAR and missed that season.

That doesn't matter, if it has aired it does not need to be spoiled. Unless you are talking about it in another shows thread, then no matter how old it is it does need spoiler tags.

My impression of the first race is how 'quiet' it is. I think there isn't as much background music added or something? there are so many scene's where it is so quiet I'm wondering what is going on.

Just saw a scene in the first ep where Frank goes ballistic because he lost  a lead (had no idea about bunching points) I think Margarita talks to him after this leg because all of a sudden he calms way down and that lasts for quite a ways.

[TheRabbi]

4 hours ago, dgpolo said:

My impression of the first race is how 'quiet' it is. I think there isn't as much background music added or something? there are so many scene's where it is so quiet I'm wondering what is going on.

Those first couple episodes especially  it feels much more like a documentary than a reality show. It's interesting to see how far its come. Have enjoyed reading all the behind the scenes tidbits relayed in the past page. Fascinating stuff 

[thelegacies87]

On 7/2/2019 at 5:35 PM, BuyMoreAndSave said:

It's also interesting to see the huge changes in gay rights since then (Joe and Bill being "life partners" instead of married, and I read that they were yelled at by CBS for kissing at one of the pit stops because it couldn't be aired). Back then it was actually considered a big deal to have a gay couple on TV which sounds so antiquated now.

Wow! What a fascinating(and sad) tidbit. 

THe early seasons were pretty antiquated in terms of representation of gays(even in terms of how other cast members perceived. Their "lite" homophobia was perceived as amusing.

[SVNBob]

9 hours ago, TheRabbi said:

13 hours ago, dgpolo said:

My impression of the first race is how 'quiet' it is. I think there isn't as much background music added or something? there are so many scene's where it is so quiet I'm wondering what is going on.

Those first couple episodes especially  it feels much more like a documentary than a reality show. It's interesting to see how far its come.

There's a couple other major differences in TAR1 and the rest of the seasons that aren't as noticed as having Phil at the Mat for everyone and course tweaking.

First of all, the tasks.  We're actually shown everyone complete a Detour or Roadblock (except the FF users, natch) before leaving the task and moving on to the rest of the leg.

Second, placements.  We're only told team positions when they arrive at the Mat.  It's educated guessing otherwise.  Combine this with the weird task-first editing, and it's really hard to get a good sense of the Racing part of the Race.  Jockeying for position, who might be lost, who might have a shortcut or quicker cab...all very hard to tell.

Bizarrely, I think it was the last two or three legs of this season and the huge time gap therein that helped end this pattern.  When 2 teams are able to complete a leg before the other two even start, the positioning is clear.  And the basic drama of that simplicity (Rob/Brennan vs Frank/Margarita for first, then Guidos vs Frats to avoid last) where we're clear on who is in which position made for a better show.  I think that's part of why things got changed to a more "real-time" chronicle of events starting in TAR2.

[dgpolo]

8 hours ago, SVNBob said:

Second, placements.  We're only told team positions when they arrive at the Mat.  It's educated guessing otherwise.  Combine this with the weird task-first editing, and it's really hard to get a good sense of the Racing part of the Race.  Jockeying for position, who might be lost, who might have a shortcut or quicker cab...all very hard to tell.

I really noticed this in the first Paris leg. Dave and Margaretta somehow finished without me knowing how or where, then the next ep Phil explained about them missing the clue at the Eiffel Tower but getting the answer from another team and not completing it as designed. I'm still not sure how they were not eliminated.

I did enjoy how low key Rob and Brennan were the whole race, if they got upset with each other they never showed it on camera. I hated Amie's passive aggressiveness when Paul asked her which way she wanted to go and she says You choose, it just bugs me when people do that. Don't tell someone else to choose and then berate them for choosing.

Momily's killer fatigue in India and beyond was fatal, I don't think they were thinking clearly at all. It made no sense to not take the bus after they couldn't find the private car.

[mikewho]

58 minutes ago, dgpolo said:

I did enjoy how low key Rob and Brennan were the whole race, if they got upset with each other they never showed it on camera.

It was so long ago, I'm not sure of the actual wording, but I remember reading an interview with either Rob or Brennan (or both) afterwards where they addressed that. They said there WERE times they got pissed off or frustrated with each other. But they'd made a decision before the race started that when that happened, they would put it aside till the end of the leg, then let the anger out at the pit stop. Talk about self control.
 

[Rinaldo]

9 hours ago, dgpolo said:

Dave and Margaretta somehow finished without me knowing how or where, then the next ep Phil explained about them missing the clue at the Eiffel Tower but getting the answer from another team and not completing it as designed. I'm still not sure how they were not eliminated.

It's been a long time for me to remember (and no, sorry, I'm not going to go look it up), but as I recall, Dave & Margaretta actually did complete everything required on the task, except for actually getting the instruction from a clue. And the producers and rule makers hadn't thought ahead to this possibility and didn't have a prohibition of it in place. Like so many games, and competitions with a game element, many of the "rules" that become standardized, are added after seeing all the little things that don't go as planned during the first time it's all tried out. People are always more ingenious at finding unintended paths than one can imagine.

Another example of this, that still makes me sad (and that I still laugh at myself for getting irritated about), came in the very next leg for Pat and Brenda (team "working moms"), who found a Foucault Pendulum not intended by the planners and were thereby delayed and eliminated. The onscreen narration tries to play it off as an intentionally tricky element, but it's been revealed that the existence of a second, less famous, Pendulum in Paris was simply not discovered when the tasks were planned, and it caused the demise of a good team. I'd like to think they wouldn't let that happen now.

[BuyMoreAndSave]

9 hours ago, dgpolo said:

I really noticed this in the first Paris leg. Dave and Margaretta somehow finished without me knowing how or where, then the next ep Phil explained about them missing the clue at the Eiffel Tower but getting the answer from another team and not completing it as designed. I'm still not sure how they were not eliminated.

28 minutes ago, Rinaldo said:

It's been a long time for me to remember (and no, sorry, I'm not going to go look it up), but as I recall, Dave & Margaretta actually did complete everything required on the task, except for actually getting the instruction from a clue. And the producers and rule makers hadn't thought ahead to this possibility and didn't have a prohibition of it in place. Like so many games, and competitions with a game element, many of the "rules" that become standardized, are added after seeing all the little things that don't go as planned during the first time it's all tried out. People are always more ingenious at finding unintended paths than one can imagine.

Another example of this, that still makes me sad (and that I still laugh at myself for getting irritated about), came in the very next leg for Pat and Brenda (team "working moms"), who found a Foucault Pendulum not intended by the planners and were thereby delayed and eliminated. The onscreen narration tries to play it off as an intentionally tricky element, but it's been revealed that the existence of a second, less famous, Pendulum in Paris was simply not discovered when the tasks were planned, and it caused the demise of a good team. I'd like to think they wouldn't let that happen now.

I watched the episode last week. Dave and Margaretta didn't see the clue box and went up to the top of the Eiffel Tower right away. There, they were told what to look for by Paul (which wasn't technically against the rules) and went down and found the clue box afterwards. The reason why they got the penalty is because only one person was supposed to complete the Roadblock. The show said in order to complete it, one of them should have gone up and back down again. The penalty wasn't for not completing tasks, but for two people completing the Roadblock instead of one. According to the internet they also got a penalty in Leg 1 and went down by one place for improperly completing the Detour. This wasn't explained in the show though and I don't know how it could be improperly completed considering it was a zip line and gorge swing.

I felt so bad for Pat and Brenda! I didn't realize that the producers didn't know about the second pendulum. I wonder why they did not realize something was up when no other teams were waiting at the museum though. Most of the teams camped overnight in front of the gates.

Edited July 8, 2019 by BuyMoreAndSave

[green]

On 7/6/2019 at 1:22 PM, dgpolo said:

My impression of the first race is how 'quiet' it is. I think there isn't as much background music added or something? there are so many scene's where it is so quiet I'm wondering what is going on.

Like TheRabbi said, it was only that way in the first maybe 3 episodes.  Then they started working the music in better and the editing improved.

And the music during the classic days from a few episodes into Season 1 through a number of years following was perfect.  Nowadays it is horrible, wall-to-wall, loud, pounding music throughout trying to force tension and drama and is so artificial as a result.  I hate hate HATE the music these days.

1 hour ago, Rinaldo said:

Another example of this, that still makes me sad (and that I still laugh at myself for getting irritated about), came in the very next leg for Pat and Brenda (team "working moms"), who found a Foucault Pendulum not intended by the planners and were thereby delayed and eliminated. The onscreen narration tries to play it off as an intentionally tricky element, but it's been revealed that the existence of a second, less famous, Pendulum in Paris was simply not discovered when the tasks were planned, and it caused the demise of a good team. I'd like to think they wouldn't let that happen now.

I thought it was planned so I guess I gave the producers more credit than they deserved because that is EXACTLY what I want to see on the Race.  Things you have to figure out for yourself.  Not spoon-fed, "Go here and here only" stuff.

Pat & Brenda walked all the way around the grounds and didn't find the cat statue which they said made them start wondering so they should have known something was wrong. And no other teams has shown up too.  They could have researched more since they had all the overnight hours to figure it out.

Yeah I was sorry they were eliminated but I LOVED that there were two pendulums.

(Also I never saw where they said it was not planned.  Do you have a link to it?  Did the producers say it in an interview somewhere?).

ByMoreAndSave, you nailed what happened at the Eiffel Tower exactly.  Thanks for the excellent recap of that.

Edited July 8, 2019 by green

[Rinaldo]

17 hours ago, BuyMoreAndSave said:

I felt so bad for Pat and Brenda! I didn't realize that the producers didn't know about the second pendulum. I wonder why they did not realize something was up when no other teams were waiting at the museum though. Most of the teams camped overnight in front of the gates.

That's the problem of teams searching independently, especially this early in Race 1 when few precedents had been set: You can't be sure if you found the wrong place, or if everyone else found it first and then found a cheap hotel, or what. Yes, one might hope they'd ask a passer-by if there was another one, but it's easy for me to say that after the fact, and as they said post-elimination, who would expect there to be two?

16 hours ago, green said:

(Also I never saw where they said it was not planned.  Do you have a link to it?  Did the producers say it in an interview somewhere?).

The producers (of course) never admitted to it; I saw this circumstance discussed somewhere online well after the race aired, but alas, all these years later, I don't remember where, and I can't produce a link. If one then responds that I shouldn't have brought it up without corroboration... you have a point. Apologies.

I feel especially bad because Pat & Brenda are the team out of all TARs with whom I have a geographical connection; they're from my immediate region, and I was delighted to tell them so at TARcon3. (Hey, maybe it was Brenda who told me?... but I have a distinct memory of SEEing the info, though I can't say where.) A few years later, one of my music students spent a semester student teaching at the school that Brenda's daughter was attending.

[BuyMoreAndSave]

On 7/7/2019 at 11:15 PM, green said:

I thought it was planned so I guess I gave the producers more credit than they deserved because that is EXACTLY what I want to see on the Race.  Things you have to figure out for yourself.  Not spoon-fed, "Go here and here only" stuff.

Pat & Brenda walked all the way around the grounds and didn't find the cat statue which they said made them start wondering so they should have known something was wrong. And no other teams has shown up too.  They could have researched more since they had all the overnight hours to figure it out.

Yeah I was sorry they were eliminated but I LOVED that there were two pendulums.

(Also I never saw where they said it was not planned.  Do you have a link to it?  Did the producers say it in an interview somewhere?).

ByMoreAndSave, you nailed what happened at the Eiffel Tower exactly.  Thanks for the excellent recap of that.

I agree. It sucked for them but they should have continued to do confusing clues like that because it makes for more interesting TV. Although the race participants seem to get confused enough without that. I heard there was an episode where two contestants started painting some random house, only to find that the place they were supposed to go to was across the street.

[mikewho]

39 minutes ago, BuyMoreAndSave said:

I heard there was an episode where two contestants started painting some random house, only to find that the place they were supposed to go to was across the street.

I think that was a later season, with Jeff and Jordan from BB. I remember them painting the interior of a house. (I'm not saying they were the ones painting the wrong house. I don't remember).

I also remember one of the 'clues' from Season 1. 'Find the smoke that thunders.'

It was a clue to the waterfalls in Brazil. Amie said, 'I've got it. The thundering is the sound of the falls and the smoke is the spray that shoots up!' Something like that.

[BuyMoreAndSave]

36 minutes ago, mikewho said:

I think that was a later season, with Jeff and Jordan from BB. I remember them painting the interior of a house. (I'm not saying they were the ones painting the wrong house. I don't remember).

I also remember one of the 'clues' from Season 1. 'Find the smoke that thunders.'

It was a clue to the waterfalls in Brazil. Amie said, 'I've got it. The thundering is the sound of the falls and the smoke is the spray that shoots up!' Something like that.

Victoria Falls in Zambia. Yeah those Season 1 clues were pretty cryptic...I don't think I would have gotten any of them LOL.

[BuyMoreAndSave]

On 7/3/2019 at 4:20 PM, anniebird said:

Frank said their problem was actually that the first cab they got refused to take them to Queens no matter how much money they offered so they had to wait for a 2nd cab.

Ok so I just finished the season and for sure it was the route choice that cost them the race. Taking the GWB + Triboro would be a good choice during high traffic times, but the footage showed almost no traffic at that time (it was 6 AM on a Sunday) and they went 12 miles out of their way for no reason.

[cherrypj]

I enjoyed this one: https://philkeoghan.com/buckit-with-rob-and-brennan/. A few new (and gross!) tidbits I hadn't heard. 

We just finished a rewatch, and my heart broke anew at Drew's anguish at the finish line in China. 

[kittykat]

On 6/17/2019 at 11:01 AM, Rinaldo said:

In fact, the separation of teams A/B from C/D continued to the end of the race, soon lengthening to a full day. While fascinating to watch in its way, it did remove a large element of suspense; it remains a unique occurrence, and it shows why deliberate bunching via flights and hours of operation became such a regular feature. (Though it was already present in TAR1, make no mistake: until this late bifurcation, teams were never spread very far apart.)

Episode four when they book the boat from Marseilles to Tunis is officially the first point of the season where all the teams are bunched together.

I've been putting it off for a while but THE REWATCH BEGINS:  I dusted off Eppies 1-5 and I have thoughts.

Leg one is still one of the greatest openings of a reality show ever.  So many beautiful sites, all the airport drama in NY: JFK or La Guardia? Subway or Taxi?  Which flight is the best?  Later seasons dust that off in less than ten minutes but this was like a quarter of the episode.  Same with all the drama in L2 getting to Paris.  I get why spoon fed flights are the norm now but it takes away moments like these.

I liked Paul and Amie more this time around although I do think she overreacted to Leslie's "She's not with me."  Yes it sounded bitchy but move on and the girls shot themselves in the foot at the Eiffel Tower.  Paul continually wanting to quit got very annoying very fast and I was relieved when they were finally eliminated.

Frank's continued exasperation of Team Guido being ahead of him in L1 never stops being funny.

That being said from L3 on Guido is downright INSUFFERABLE.  I know we love them post race but the snobbery, the half-assed deceit and my favorite line, "I intimidated them by speaking French."  GAHHHHH Or as John Oliver would say, "cool."  And they call Kevin and Drew "the fatties" for crying out loud, gross.

I really liked Pat and Brenda as mentioned above but I also loved the fact that there were two pendulums especially since it was the easier detour.

RE: Lenny and Karyn.  Lenny was so hapless I am easily pro-Karyn this go around.  His performance at the Eiffel Tower was pathetic and he only was saved because Emily showed him.

I forgot how close Rob and Brennan were to being eliminated in L5.  Luckily they kept it together in the desert portion and passed the three teams going in circles.

Not a huge fan of the editing the first few episodes.  Many teams get lost only to pop up at the end and they make it look like certain teams are ahead when they are hours behind (ex. showing Kevin and Drew at Victoria Falls and then cutting to Frank and Margarita getting the clue looking like they were there together).  I realize they can't show everything but still I found myself confused when suddenly a team would pop up without us knowing how they got there.  

Episode five is one of my favorite episodes.  Take a taxi 300 miles, a listening detour and a menacing drive through the desert.  No bunching, no flights, just pure skill (finding the walkie-talkie fast enough and navigating the desert).

Gold Star Edit of the Series so far: Team Guido on the camel believing they're first because 
"the fatties got lost."  Cut to Kevin and Drew dancing at the pit stop.

Will try to get to more soon.  Up next I have The Great Guido AirportGate, Misadventures in India and the plague of Killer Fatigue.

[kittykat]

The Amazing Rewatch Part 2: Legs 6-9

It's the Great Tunis Airport Kerfuffle Team Guido:  Good lord this was every bit as ugly as I remember.  It was not all an accident, they DELIBERATELY cut in front to make sure that the other teams missed the plane (which was already being held for them).  And it's not even evil, it's just sad.  They stood there in the airport gleeful over the fact that no one else could get tickets only for the other teams to get a better flight which ended up being a non issue since they were all bunched at the Hoof.  Still badly done Team Guido; again I know they're good people in real life but the incident still holds up as bad gameplay.

On the other hand, even if he did apologize immediately, Drew's broken legs comment was in pretty poor taste but I chalk that up to the early stages of Killer Fatigue.

Also, Lenny and Karyn are the first official team in TAR canon to perform a Detour switch by leaving the Hoof to go to Foot to get away from team drama.

Team Guido Lack of Self-Awareness Sound Bite: "We're not obsessed with them, they're obsessed with us.  We're not obsessed with them, they're obsessed with us."  Sure Jan.

India: Oof, not a pleasant episode to revisit.  While Emily's behavior towards the locals in L7 was pretty bad, it was once again the early stages of Killer Fatigue and knowing (before Lenny and Karyn got lost) that they were last.  I don't want to pull the old "if I ran the race" gamut but it did seem odd that most people didn't equate the Taj Khema hotel with the Taj Mahal figurine with the clue.  Lesson learned, if you're clue comes with a tchotchke, IT LIKELY FACTORS IN WITH THE LOCATION!  The only one who quickly figured it out was Guido.  They may get on my nerves but you have to credit them with their clue solving.

So Team Guido's extravagence with champagne and hotels bite them in the ass come L8 when they receive no money for the leg, which begs the question about how much money they receive.  In L1, it was 90; L6, it was 50.  Aside from the Season 5-7 muggings, I think this was the only time lack of funds became an issue.  I honestly thought it was a great development (Guidos on the bus go round and round alllll through the townnnnn!  Shout out to MBTV OGs) but until I rewatch seasons it doesn't seem to happen again.  I also recall more money being given out in later seasons but I'll confirm for myself when I watch.

On 7/3/2019 at 11:28 AM, BuyMoreAndSave said:

Interestingly Kevin and Drew would have had a shot to win if their flight in Leg 9, which was much earlier than the other teams', had not been delayed. They said if it wasn't delayed they could have gotten to the car/bus Detour before it closed instead of having to wait overnight, and could have gotten a 12 hour head start on the other teams in finding their car. They probably still would have had to wait overnight for the tiger Roadblock to open (what the hell was that anyway...it seemed like both a major safety hazard and animal abuse) but they would have probably been first and not hours behind the other teams.

Leg 9 is truly when the race came down to only Rob/Brennan and Frank/Margarita.  A few factors come into play: Kevin and Drew bailed on the car detour and took the bus to the tigers after two hours; they then took a bus to Krabi, while R/B and F/M hired private cars extending their lead; Guido squandered their FF lead (again, overconfidence and lack of funds THEIR FAULT); Nancy and Emily didn't complete the detour (WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST TAKE THE DAMN BUS!!!) and were eliminated over Guido.  How do you change this?  Most of the clues limited modes of transportation; sometimes bus was faster and sometimes train was.  If the clue to go to Krabi had told them to take a bus or train then the top two wouldn't have amassed such a huge lead and the anti-bunch of legs 10 and 11 wouldn't have happened.  Then again part of the reason the Top 2 were able to hire cars was because they were good with their money.

This season offers a lot of What ifs... with regards to leg designs and the flights.  I definitely see why there is more bunching in later seasons since it's not really dramatic to have two teams clearly in the lead in the final four episodes.  And yet they are also in the lead because they are good racers.  As mentioned above if Team Guido had managed to overcome a 24 hour deficit because of some contrived bunching and came back to win the whole thing, the forums probably would've crashed.  FYI I love this show.

Coming up on Part Three: The Thailand Triathlon, Heartbreak at the South Gate, and Alaskan Adventures.