U-Turn Ahead: How Would You Fix TAR?

[NutMeg]

Now that every contestant has learned to record and memorise info about the race, it's time to lose the final memory challenge. Why not make the final leg the most harrowing one, with two roadblock and a detour? Ideally with a mix of skill, strength and luck (one needle in the hay option in the detour). Basically, something that keeps the finale interesting for us viewers and keeps the racers on their toes, leaves open the possibility of a change in order (that's the outcome I want to see the most), and ideally confronts racers to their worst moments / situations so that if they have truly overcome them we can at least have a decent appreciation for their win. [I say ideally because I'm aware challenges are decided in advance and there is no easy way to schedule one intended to check if one contestant who screamed her way to the finale will still scream or not. But a rethread of 3 of the top 12 more challenging challenges, for instance, would work for me). 

[fib]

I think one key thing they should do is eliminate taxi luck with provided drivers. Then have those drivers not have a smart phone.  

Have the racers have to navigate with a map, providing drivers instructions on where to go to reach their destinations.  

Its the challenge of self driving without the risk, and seems like a really easy fix.  

[TheRabbi]

I agree on having drivers that have to navigate based on the teams telling them.

The show took such a backlash for its terrible season 24 all star finale, partly because the leg sucked ass so much, and partly because there was no memory task, so they've had some form of memory task every time since. I agree it's almost pointless now. It needs to be something totally unexpected, like the greeters in season 17, or the hello/goodbye in season 21, which were both brilliant at the time. Those are my 2 favorites. But I no longer require a memory task, if the final leg is decently designed (see season 18).

[blackwing]

I think two of the best final tasks were the one where Nat and Kat identified hats on a flashing electronic game board, and the one where Tyler and Laura had to put their selfies in order.  The selfie task would have been especially difficult if there was no identifying landmark in the background.

I think I recall seasons where teams would actually pull out their notes at the final task.  Now it seems like they can no longer use their notes.  But how about trying to prevent them from making any notes at all?  I suppose you couldn't really prevent them from jotting down notes in the privacy of their pit stop rooms, but maybe say that they can't retain any notes?  In the half hour or so before they are to depart a pit stop to start the leg, their bags can be searched by production and any notes found would result in a penalty.

[Justin Case]

To begin with, no more gimmicks. "Ordinary" people already in some sort of relationship. A final leg that's designed to create suspense and anticipation (I'll let you know when I figure out the logistics of that). Also, no more editing to give it away - it was obvious from the start L&L would be 3rd and "I caaaan't do it"  got the Flo winning edit right from the beginning.

[fib]

I agree.  I don't like my racers to have had PR training!

I also really liked the final where they finishedi n New York and had to pull flags up on poles in the UN plaza.  I thought it was Mallory who freaked out and failed at it, but apparently my memory is faulty.  I cant remember which season it was, but I do think final challenges that are physically challenging, tricky, and easy to mess up are preferred.  

[chaifan]

I like the final "memory" challenge, because it allows for a nice peek back through the season, but only when it is truly a challenge.  But knowing your own placement in the legs IS NOT a challenge.  That's what made this one suck so much.   (Seriously, who came up with that?)  This one was set up to almost guarantee a first in/first out for that task, no chance of mixing up the rankings. 

Of course, racers now expect the memory challenge, so flags, greetings, greeters, etc., have also lost a bit of their status as a "challenge", as everyone's keeping notes on that sort of stuff.  

So, keep the final memory challenge, but make it actually challenging.  Combine past challenges if you can't come up with anything new - match the flag to the greeter to the greeting to the map to the animal featured in the leg.  And correctly guess how many times Phil popped an eyebrow during the race.  :)

[PaigeMarieSara]

• Really my only request is to go back to having more "scary" physical challenges. More sky diving, bungee jumping, etc.   Less dancing.  I don't care if they repeat all the physical challenges from past seasons in the same locations! Who cares? If it's different people, it's still fun to watch.  

I don't like the gimmicks either, although this season was okay and worked out a lot better than I had thought it would.

[Fiftyninth]

Never, ever, ever place U-Turns before the Detour again. 

[Ducky]

8 hours ago, fib said:

I agree.  I don't like my racers to have had PR training!

I also really liked the final where they finishedi n New York and had to pull flags up on poles in the UN plaza.  I thought it was Mallory who freaked out and failed at it, but apparently my memory is faulty.  I cant remember which season it was, but I do think final challenges that are physically challenging, tricky, and easy to mess up are preferred.  

That was Lexi who had a bit of a meltdown with the Hello/Goodbye task.  I really liked that task as well as the pictures of greeters, the surfboard challenge (season with Victor & sis came in first), and the shipping yard containers (Maya/Amy).

[jhlipton]

13 hours ago, Fiftyninth said:

Never, ever, ever place U-Turns before the Detour again. 

This is the easiest, most obvious and most useful fix.

[fib]

I actually kinda like when there is a chance to recover from the uturn with a post-toadblock detour.  But i agree that the uturn fresh after a bunch is a crummy way to hurt good teams.  

So my suggestions: uturns only on double legs. Detour, uturn, roadblock. Detour roadblock, elimination.  No non elim legs after uturns in this scenario.  You can do double uturn or single uturn, but i have to admit I like the double uturn better, I think in general it better rewards smart race play and makes things theoretically more fair.  

[enlightenedbum]

22 hours ago, chaifan said:

I like the final "memory" challenge, because it allows for a nice peek back through the season, but only when it is truly a challenge.  But knowing your own placement in the legs IS NOT a challenge.  That's what made this one suck so much.   (Seriously, who came up with that?)  This one was set up to almost guarantee a first in/first out for that task, no chance of mixing up the rankings. 

Of course, racers now expect the memory challenge, so flags, greetings, greeters, etc., have also lost a bit of their status as a "challenge", as everyone's keeping notes on that sort of stuff.  

So, keep the final memory challenge, but make it actually challenging.  Combine past challenges if you can't come up with anything new - match the flag to the greeter to the greeting to the map to the animal featured in the leg.  And correctly guess how many times Phil popped an eyebrow during the race.  :)

As I said in the episode thread, look at the TAR12 final roadblock for inspiration.

I know the budget probably doesn't make this realistic, but have a fast forward on every leg.  With the limited numbers of them it always just makes sense for whoever is the first to get the clue to go for it, which is dumb.  Whereas in the early days there was a lot of interesting strategy and choices made about when it was most advantageous to go for it.

More casting diversity is obvious.  Race/age/region/types of partnerships etc.  Related: existing relationships is so much better, show.  Stick with that.

[jhlipton]

58 minutes ago, enlightenedbum said:

have a fast forward on every leg.  With the limited numbers of them it always just makes sense for whoever is the first to get the clue to go for it, which is dumb. 

Except that it doesn't always help, as with Floyd and Becca.  I don't know where they lost time, but you shouldn't go from 1st to 3rd on a Fast Forward.

[Ducky]

6 hours ago, jhlipton said:

Except that it doesn't always help, as with Floyd and Becca.  I don't know where they lost time, but you shouldn't go from 1st to 3rd on a Fast Forward.

I daresay, it's better than winning a FF and still getting your butts eliminated LOL

 

History of the Fast Forward-

http://amazingrace.wikia.com/wiki/Fast_Forward

[chaifan]

7 hours ago, enlightenedbum said:

As I said in the episode thread, look at the TAR12 final roadblock for inspiration.

I know the budget probably doesn't make this realistic, but have a fast forward on every leg.  With the limited numbers of them it always just makes sense for whoever is the first to get the clue to go for it, which is dumb.  Whereas in the early days there was a lot of interesting strategy and choices made about when it was most advantageous to go for it.

More casting diversity is obvious.  Race/age/region/types of partnerships etc.  Related: existing relationships is so much better, show.  Stick with that.

I totally agree.  The final challenge in season 12 was one of the best.  One of the most frustrating, but a real challenge.  As I said before, knowing what your own place was in the legs IS  NOT a challenge.  Other than season 12, the season with Maya/Amy - the shipping containers - was a very challenging final task.  That's what they should be like.  The final challenge should not be a "first in/first out" thing. 

I also agree with you (Enlightenedbaum) on the FF.  I like how that was done early on - it invoked strategy.

I will only disagree with you on the pre-existing relationships aspect of the show.  The casting/pairing of strangers worked out well from a viewer standpoint, in my opinion.  Of course, do not ever, ever, ever, try the blind date aspect again.  That was awful.  But this way of pairing strangers worked out well, and I'd be ok if that happened again.

[enlightenedbum]

Other thing: the early seasons seemed to have a much more merit based set of tasks so that the outcome felt like it depended on skill as racers and not just luck.  And the total finish order would basically make sense (give or take Flo).  Like the first season, it's hard to dispute that the final four teams were clearly the best, and I think Momily was pretty clearly the top of the next tier.

It started to fall apart by season 6, when there were like five bunches an episode and by season 11 it had completely fallen apart, allowing a final three where one team had exactly one skill (Mirna could find a flight to anywhere on the planet leaving within fifty minutes that no one else could find) and one team that was entirely dysfunctional and transparently didn't like each other.  Basically what I'm saying is early TAR is best TAR.

[NutMeg]

On 6/4/2017 at 0:09 PM, chaifan said:

The final challenge should not be a "first in/first out" thing. 

I totally agree, and would add that while that should specifically be the case for the final leg, there should be as few as possible 'first in/first out' challenges during the race.

Also, if there is a first in/first out challenge that could become less so because of a fear factor, for instance a bungee jump, and supposing multiple teams could compete at the same time, don't negate any advantage gained by having a bunching right after (i.e. a spoonfed flight).

I haven't seen the earliest season (I may have started watching around season 7 or 8), so the concept of a fast forward each leg seems weird to me: wouldn't it only help the team ahead get even further ahead? 

I also thing a fast forward well executed should help the team win the leg. By 'well executed', I mean no hesitation doing it, but I would take navigation issue as an acceptable drawback. I just don't think that if everything works well with the fast forward task and the navigation the team that takes the fast forward would not come in first place. As I see it, the risk is in getting away from the other teams (not knowing how far they got) and taking on something more challenging than usual in order to get ahead; it shouldn't be risking all that plus the fact that even if you do everything right you might not get ahead.

Same about the double U-turn: as it's obviously here to stay, I prefer it before the challenge, because this way it can either light a fire under some contestants that gain a new sense of urgency (was it Matt and Red who really put on the turbo after being U-turned? while Olive and Seth were going "business as usual"?) or depress them too much for them to be able to process effectively. A U-turn after the challenge leaves much less leeway, I would think - if memory serves, I think a lot of bottom teams used them on the one team behind them just before leaving for the pit stop, which left no suspense at all.

I prefer double u-turns, because a single one (especially after the road block) is often a death sentence. But blind or not, I'd like each team to only be able t U-turn another once.  

Also, as long as teams are random strangers to each other, I thing a leg where teams are mixed up could do well. I'm still fantasising about how fast a Becca/Matt team would have flown through most tasks, while Shamir/Brooke would have been stuck whining "my balls!!"/"I can't do it!!!!!!" :) Wouldn't it have been nice for Sarah and Scott to get that kind of a break for one leg?  

[kingshearte]

On 6/6/2017 at 6:00 AM, NutMeg said:

I haven't seen the earliest season (I may have started watching around season 7 or 8), so the concept of a fast forward each leg seems weird to me: wouldn't it only help the team ahead get even further ahead? 

The thing with the every leg fast forward was that each team could only do one fast forward. Which is why it became interesting strategically, as teams had to decide when was the best time to go for it. Grab one early and (almost) guarantee yourself at least one first place finish (and the associated prize) but risk not having access to it in a later leg when it might actually save you from being last, or hold off until you really need it and risk getting eliminated before you do it or having to fight other teams for one of the few remaining ones available.

It also tended to shake up the placements a little more, rather than seeing the same handful of teams in various orders at the top of the rankings for most weeks.

[hincandenza]

On 6/2/2017 at 7:27 AM, fib said:

I think one key thing they should do is eliminate taxi luck with provided drivers. Then have those drivers not have a smart phone.  

Have the racers have to navigate with a map, providing drivers instructions on where to go to reach their destinations.  

Its the challenge of self driving without the risk, and seems like a really easy fix.  

OMG yes. I was just coming here to say exactly this; I've been sporadically binge-watching old seasons I'd missed over the last few weeks, including some in the late teens and early twenties, and it's painful seeing good teams lose simply because they got a shitty cab driver (like Gary & Mallory in their second appearance, basically losing in the finale because they got the dumbest cab driver in all of Miami).  And that's not even talking about the somewhat uncomfortable cultural barriers where a language gap and a "friendly" driver will have him smiling and nodding agreeably... and then driving them 10 miles the wrong way, either stupidly or maliciously.  Granted, part of the race should be the basic wisdom of "Don't run out of an airport and hop into a cab with someone who stares at you blankly and timidly like a confused puppy when you talk/yell at them, you idiots; those kinds of drivers are never, ever, EVER going to work out".  This along with wisdom like "Read the goddamned clue you idiots" and "Maybe double check those sketchy directions with another local, sparky" and the general "Take 1 extra minute to confirm the next hour of decisions, you panicky screeching morons", of course. :)

But too often, cab drivers might just take off, or not want to wait in some remote location, or get easily lost in their own home towns, or take random smoke breaks... and the entire leg becomes a question of "Which team got the worst cab luck", negating every other aspect of that episode.  I feel like unless the country requires otherwise, they should either walk/bike/drive themselves, or as you describe have a system where they get a local designated driver who can speak English and understands what's going on/the stakes involved (especially on the final leg)... with the offset that the racers have to give them all the driving instructions as determined from maps and locals.  

Make the race about the racers, not about locals and lucky cabs!

 

On 6/5/2017 at 10:01 AM, enlightenedbum said:

Other thing: the early seasons seemed to have a much more merit based set of tasks so that the outcome felt like it depended on skill as racers and not just luck.  And the total finish order would basically make sense (give or take Flo).  Like the first season, it's hard to dispute that the final four teams were clearly the best, and I think Momily was pretty clearly the top of the next tier.

It started to fall apart by season 6, when there were like five bunches an episode and by season 11 it had completely fallen apart, allowing a final three where one team had exactly one skill (Mirna could find a flight to anywhere on the planet leaving within fifty minutes that no one else could find) and one team that was entirely dysfunctional and transparently didn't like each other.  Basically what I'm saying is early TAR is best TAR.

I agree with this as well.  Granted, there's also a lot of really well-designed legs throughout the seasons, but one thing I'd like to see is more legs where the challenges are difficult/time-consuming enough that there's a real likelihood of teams shuffling order, without bunches or resets in between.  Too many legs seem to be "Go to point A, do a thing that takes 5-10 minutes and no one could fuck up, go to point B..." and the team placements barely change throughout the episode.  I'd like to see challenges that cause separation because there might be different ways to solve it that could be faster, and to see the travel distances between steps in the leg- especially if they have designated drivers- be longer which allows for skills of navigation to come into play.

[mtlchick]

I think the mother ship should start looking at what the spin offs have come up with in terms of challenges, even replicating them depending on the country.  And have Phil's counterparts be the greeters on the mat.  It would be a good way how far the international reach has become for the show.  

[green]

On 6/6/2017 at 6:00 AM, NutMeg said:

I haven't seen the earliest season (I may have started watching around season 7 or 8), so the concept of a fast forward each leg seems weird to me: wouldn't it only help the team ahead get even further ahead?

What kingshearte said for sure.  A team could only use it once in the entire rae so it was a major strategy decision.

Most teams only used Fast Forwards when they were badly trailing unless they managed to save theirs all Race long then they might use it while in the lead the last leg or two before the finale.  But other than that it was usually used when a team was battling to just survive or had made a major mistake and gotten lost or something and went into total panic mode.  A couple of times it was used by teams where one member was ill or beat up that leg and they needed a bit of a respite to get through that leg and survive.  Also it caught up a badly trailing team so leads never were increased so much as helped bunch a poorer team up and give them one chance or golden moment.  Loved the original FF for that alone.

It was not only more strategic but also since it usually was NOT the lead team the teams never knew for sure if another team ahead if them might have gone for it or not so it was a scary thing to go for too.  If several teams went for it in the same leg disaster could ensue as it was then truly a double-edged sword.

Finally, it was NOT allowed on the last leg of the Race so no team could hold it as an option for that final leg.

With all the junk they added after they made a complete and silly mockery of emasculating the FF and making it pretty boring and not tactical, strategic and just plain a clusterf**k bore at times going to a lead team of the leg it is on. 

The first 4 seasons there was no detours or making another team stop and watch sand run out in an hour glass etc.  It was all on the Racers racing and not some cheap reality show backstabbing stuff.  The eat, drink and mingle at rest stops was great too since you seemed like you were more on a quest and people would fall by the wayside along the way sure but there was a camaraderie that existed at the same time.  Kind of a Fellowship of the Race feel.  It was classy back then in the main though there were always "villains" edited that way etc.

And despite all the stupid artificial stuff they have put into the show to make the finale exciting it was Season 2 -- pre-memory tests even, straight up Race around the final city -- which had the most exciting, heart-beating, adrenal pounding ending of all time where two teams finished less than 10 seconds apart.  Maybe less than 5 seconds.  It was really really close.  They never ever remotely came even close to that excitement ever again.  The greatest finish of all time. 

I won't say which two team because though it can't be considered a spoiler still I don't want to ruin it for newer viewers of the show that have missed THE FOUR CLASSIC TAR seasons one of which was indeed Season 2 (along with Seasons 1, 3 and 5).  Those four are the only ones I'd ever own (and do own) and I've re-watched them all several times.  And they all are good but I have a special weakness for Season 2 once termed "the sun-splashed season" by a poetic Aussie viewer.

FYI Season 4 was almost more than half wall-to-wall mactors -- literally endless models and wannabe actor teams -- and I hated it as a result.  No way there isn't some team or other in that category but they went way way overboard that season and it grated badly.

Season 5 was the first season they added an artificial hold-them-up element (hour glass of waiting) but the cast was so darn good and entertaining so it even survived a couple of boring beauty queens and a stupid Big Brother villain as well as that bad move.  Charla & Mirna and Super Intense Colin were worth the price of admission alone.  The seasons following were never so lucky.

How to fix TAR?  Go back and watch what you used to have, Producers.  Where it was still The AMAZING Race and not just The Race.

Edited January 2, 2018 by green

[TheRabbi]

On 7/16/2017 at 10:20 PM, hincandenza said:

OMG yes. I was just coming here to say exactly this; I've been sporadically binge-watching old seasons I'd missed over the last few weeks, including some in the late teens and early twenties, and it's painful seeing good teams lose simply because they got a shitty cab driver (like Gary & Mallory in their second appearance, basically losing in the finale because they got the dumbest cab driver in all of Miami).  And that's not even talking about the somewhat uncomfortable cultural barriers where a language gap and a "friendly" driver will have him smiling and nodding agreeably... and then driving them 10 miles the wrong way, either stupidly or maliciously.  Granted, part of the race should be the basic wisdom of "Don't run out of an airport and hop into a cab with someone who stares at you blankly and timidly like a confused puppy when you talk/yell at them, you idiots; those kinds of drivers are never, ever, EVER going to work out".  This along with wisdom like "Read the goddamned clue you idiots" and "Maybe double check those sketchy directions with another local, sparky" and the general "Take 1 extra minute to confirm the next hour of decisions, you panicky screeching morons", of course. :)

But too often, cab drivers might just take off, or not want to wait in some remote location, or get easily lost in their own home towns, or take random smoke breaks... and the entire leg becomes a question of "Which team got the worst cab luck", negating every other aspect of that episode.  I feel like unless the country requires otherwise, they should either walk/bike/drive themselves, or as you describe have a system where they get a local designated driver who can speak English and understands what's going on/the stakes involved (especially on the final leg)... with the offset that the racers have to give them all the driving instructions as determined from maps and locals.  

Make the race about the racers, not about locals and lucky cabs!

I will respectfully disagree with this. Taxi luck, and random variation with which locals you ask for directions, has always been a huge part of the race and should stay. If you want the results to be focused entirely on the tasks, then it really would be no different to have a game show entirely on a Los Angeles soundstage with whoever finishes first winning the prize. Taxi luck has eliminated tons of teams, but that's part of the game. As you said, it could help to be alert when you hop in a cab, if it's obvious the driver has no clue.

 

However, this could be alleviated by making teams drive themselves far more often than they do. This is far more exciting than cabs, and really separates the men from the boys.

Edited January 2, 2018 by TheRabbi

[displayname]

Import people from BB.

 

Oh, wait.

[hincandenza]

10 hours ago, TheRabbi said:

I will respectfully disagree with this. Taxi luck, and random variation with which locals you ask for directions, has always been a huge part of the race and should stay. If you want the results to be focused entirely on the tasks, then it really would be no different to have a game show entirely on a Los Angeles soundstage with whoever finishes first winning the prize. Taxi luck has eliminated tons of teams, but that's part of the game. As you said, it could help to be alert when you hop in a cab, if it's obvious the driver has no clue.

 

However, this could be alleviated by making teams drive themselves far more often than they do. This is far more exciting than cabs, and really separates the men from the boys.

Wait, I'm not sure we do disagree; I don't mind a little taxi luck, but the amount in some of the later seasons was kind of insane.  It's basically the opposite of your hypothetical sound stage season: why even do the tasks at all, when one bad taxi driver can turn you from first to last?  

That's why I suggested, as you did, that they should bike/drive/walk themselves whenever a locale would allow it- which is how it was in the early seasons, actually, leading to great hilarity every time a team showed up not knowing how to drive a manual transmission.  When that's simply not possible, they should get a dedicated fluent-English-speaking driver for that leg/city; the drivers would be told to not help/aid them in any navigation or decision making (maybe with a 30-minute+ penalty if a team asks/gets help) but just to follow the laws of the road and to go exactly where the teams tell them.  The teams would still be responsible for all navigation and directions, leading to the "random variation" where shouty "Yo bro, why won't you speak English, *god*?!?" teams would be heavily penalized because they can't get directions from locals.  Heck, as a viewer some of the funniest schadenfreude is when a team is ahead and literally drives themselves out of the game by misreading a clue or going 80 miles the wrong way.

 

I'm a TAR purist, in other words.  I believe the ideal TAR has fairly designed yet diverse tasks (not all strength, or stamina, or puzzles, and with real balance/choice in the detours), requires teams to be good at navigation, reading maps, interacting with locals, figuring out clues more complicated than "Turn around, it's the building right behind you", and otherwise making consistent smart choices.  Everything that detracts from a merit-based assessment of the "best team" is to me a flaw in the game, and the utter randomness of grossly incompetent taxi drivers is a sometimes very frustrating example of that.

Edited January 3, 2018 by hincandenza

[green]

13 hours ago, hincandenza said:

I'm a TAR purist, in other words.  I believe the ideal TAR has fairly designed yet diverse tasks (not all strength, or stamina, or puzzles, and with real balance/choice in the detours), requires teams to be good at navigation, reading maps, interacting with locals, figuring out clues more complicated than "Turn around, it's the building right behind you", and otherwise making consistent smart choices.  Everything that detracts from a merit-based assessment of the "best team" is to me a flaw in the game, and the utter randomness of grossly incompetent taxi drivers is a sometimes very frustrating example of that.

LOL, love that line.  It is so typical too.  When was the last time some team had to "look for the green star" in Hong Kong?

And yes we viewers aren't as innocent as the early days so those "clues" that still kind of sound like clues but really aren't don't fool us as much ... though "green star" was an exception that indeed fooled a number of teams.  But can anyone who saw the very first episode of the show ever forget the feeling going up their spine as we, the viewers, suddenly realized what "the smoke that thunders" was followed immediately by those spectacular images of same with the music swelling in the background?  Couple that moment with the opening titles voice over of Phil that first season informing us that "this is a race like none other in history" and we knew we were off on an adventure of a lifetime with those teams.  Ah, innocence, please return.

Anyway back to cabs.  I for one like taxi luck because it is a race around the world where you can get all sorts of cabbies.  I like that it isn't an even playing field.  That stamina for older teams and dealing with traditional male-dominated societies for all female teams and the luck of the cabbie all figure into the race along with planes with mechanical problems, drunks giving wrong directions etc etc.  I don't want a level playing field.  I want real life where you have to deal  with unfairness and persevere against it just like I have to do too in my life.  I really like that it is about the journey and all the bad things you have to deal with along the way that makes all the good things so much more precious.

Also sometimes, rare that that may be, you get some wonderful cabbie karma justice too.  Like when Jonathan & Victoria got literally thrown out of their cab because he was so annoying and, by contrast, Oswald & Danny getting a free ride into town with an airport employee because they were sweet and nice and polite guys. 

Remember how Colin's super duper intricate plans for a special cabbie in the last leg didn't work like he hoped thanks to the magic lifting of mist back in Canada just as a trailing team arrived at the airport back there.  And how Wil was told by a poor, jobbing cabbie on his final leg that he couldn't jump the taxi line because it was just about winning a million dollars for Wil because "I'm not getting any of it".  Haha!  Still love that cabbie.  That makes up for all the seeming injustice because it is so very rare and thus feels so very good when it happens.  So good that years after the fact I still remember those moments like they were yesterday.

Edited January 3, 2018 by green

[Lantern7]

No more Head-to-Head.

Okay, I get the need to create drama, but if you end a leg with that, that leg is cheapened.

I would it in the middle of a leg, perhaps at an "Hours of Operation" part. If the teams are scattered? I'm thinking a team waiting gets an advantage for a set amount of time they have to wait. Or if a team has to wait for an extended amount of time, they are waved through it.

Oh, and no more Big Brother teams. Seriously. Fuck CBS and their boner for promoting the more well-known shows.

[displayname]

7 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

I would it in the middle of a leg, perhaps at an "Hours of Operation" part. If the teams are scattered? I'm thinking a team waiting gets an advantage for a set amount of time they have to wait. Or if a team has to wait for an extended amount of time, they are waved through it. 

At the beginning of a leg when there's an HoO! Once the place opens, start with the head-to-head, and once you win you can get in a get the clue. A 15 minutes penalty for the team that finishes last (doesn't beat anyone, that is), before being able to get in. Kind of like an auto-Yield, but completely merit based.

[Fukui San]

I think I’ve been able to distill my problem with the face offs. They feel either irrelevant or unfair.  If the advantage of one round of experience is enough to make the next round almost a forgone conclusion like this basket one, then what was the point? If the challenge favors one skill set over another like the cart one that the Yale team went from firstish to almost last a few seasons ago, then it seems really just unfair to have that in place. Team Yale would’ve finished almost last no matter in what order they got there. At no point has a face off seemed interesting strategically or dramatically. 

[Hera]

The season Team Yale was on was awful for having tasks where there wasn't much opportunity for the order to get shaken up and minimal self-navigation. I think they also got hosed because that head-to-head was a literal race, so the person who lost was also tired out before the next race, negating anything they had learned about how to maneuver their dollies.

To me, the continued existence of the head-to-head means that the producers know that there's a problem with legs not changing the race placements on their own, but that they aren't going to solve that by reintroducing self-navigation and are still figuring out how to do that via task design. And to be fair, a lot of the early seasons relied on "do a fast, scary thing" vs. "do something slow but familiar" as the detour options. While teams in early TAR seasons would be fairly evenly split in terms of what they chose, I don't think many people sign up to the race now who aren't willing to bungee jump, rappel, eat a bowl of fried crickets, or do any other "scary" thing in order to finish faster.

I actually hope that they continue more in the vein of the egg hunt/virtual reality jump + test detour, where there is the possibility of failure with the faster, more "thrilling" option (thus forcing teams to do it multiple times). I think the VR side of that detour would have been faster than collecting eggs if any of the teams had passed the test on the first try, but since they didn't, it wasn't. That might be the thing needed to reintroduce strategy back into detour selection. Sure, it might be fast (and fun) to rappel down the side of a building, but how confident are you that you and your partner will remember which floor had the flag outside the window and which one had the potted plants? Especially if you aren't sure what you were going to be asked about ahead of time? Are your team's rappelling skills are good enough that doing it more than once is still going to be faster than whatever the other detour option is?

[chaifan]

19 hours ago, Hera said:

. And to be fair, a lot of the early seasons relied on "do a fast, scary thing" vs. "do something slow but familiar" as the detour options.

A lot of the old detour options also had a big difference in where the task was - easier/faster task would be farther away, and usually self navigation involved.  Someone else mentioned, possibly in this thread or maybe in an episode thread, that production doesn't seem to be traveling far from the airports these days.  I hadn't personally noticed, but looking back, that seems to be right.  And that coincides with the dearth of self navigation.  So it may also account for the detours no longer having that easy/hard, fast/slow distinction. 

My personal thought is that while some of these changes may be budget based, I think a lot has to do with security.  TAR is so well known at this point, I could see there being greater safety issues with self driving teams being followed by fans (increasing chances of an accident), especially if they're self driving direct from an airport.  I was happy to see everyone on a train in Switzerland, but since they didn't show even a hint of ticket buying and they were all in the same car, I'm guessing tickets were all pre-purchased. 

[SVNBob]

I just finished a re-watch of S08, the Family Edition, and was thinking of some ways of re-tooling it.  Because the concept is not bad, and there's a lot of great scenery.  It's mostly just badly named.  It's not an "Amazing Race"; it's a "Great American Road Trip (from the people that brought you The Amazing Race)".  So I've been thinking on how I would do a GART 2.0.

To begin with, most current TAR rules are still applicable.  Pit Stops, Detours, Roadblocks, Speed Bumps; all still present.

Second, the larger team dynamic is still pretty good, so we'll also keep the team size of 4.  Also, having teen and pre-teen Racers is also interesting, so they'll still be allowed.

Third, all the Roadblocks are the 2-person variety instead of it depending.  Most of, if not all, the Roadblocks in S08 could easily been done with two people, either in tandem (like the infamous red bean), consecutive (the trapeze), or equally split (the go-karting.  There was a mandatory stop in that Roadblock after the driver completed 25 of the 50 laps; that would have been a natural place to swap drivers).  So make that a permanent feature.

Now for a major change.  Phil has gone on record as saying that the thing he hated the most about S08 was having to look the children in the eye and eliminate them.  So for version 2.0, all legs are NELs.  In exchange for this, the number of teams is cut in half.  5 constant teams, instead of reducing from 10 to 3 over the course of the course.

With all legs as NELs, that means there's going to be a Speed Bump in every leg (except the first).  It also means that U-Turns serve no real purpose other than to antagonize other teams.  So those are out of play.

But since there's only going to be 5 teams, and they'll all be there for the entire run, there's going to be 5 Fast Forwards as well.  Each team can still only use the one, but they'll all get equal opportunity to do so.  (And all 5 will probably get used this way.)

I'm also thinking that there could be an option for one person to do a Roadblock instead of two, in exchange for some kind of benefit.  Like a limited Express Pass; good on the next leg only, but can be used on the Speed Bump as well.  That adds an element of strategy into the mix.

There also needs to be some advantage for winning a leg, outside of a prize.  So what about each 1st place finish gives a hint (or other appropriate advantage) on the final puzzle.  Or maybe there's 4 levels of hints (5th level being no hints) for the final puzzle, and a team's overall rank determines which level they get.

[Lantern7]

Okay.

Given: TAR might be more expensive to produce than Survivor and Big Brother.

Possible Solution: What if . . . and I REALLY need you guys to keep your minds open for this  . . . TAR did a season limited to the United States or North America?

I know, TAR8 didn't go over well . . . but what if teams didn't have to drive everywhere? It's a big country, so flying out every few legs would still be possible. I know a lot of the mystique lies in Americans seeing the world, but wouldn't a "localized" version be cheaper, making it more attractive to CBS?

[SVNBob]

1 hour ago, Lantern7 said:

TAR did a season limited to the United States or North America?

That's not TAR, that's GART: the Great American Road Trip.  Which is the subject of the post previous to yours in this very thread.

[ProfCrash]

9 hours ago, Lantern7 said:

Okay.

Given: TAR might be more expensive to produce than Survivor and Big Brother.

Possible Solution: What if . . . and I REALLY need you guys to keep your minds open for this  . . . TAR did a season limited to the United States or North America?

I know, TAR8 didn't go over well . . . but what if teams didn't have to drive everywhere? It's a big country, so flying out every few legs would still be possible. I know a lot of the mystique lies in Americans seeing the world, but wouldn't a "localized" version be cheaper, making it more attractive to CBS?

I think the bigger problem with that season was the family element and the limits that imposed.

I have no problem with a US based edition. They could even do different themes. National Parks, State Parks, Oddities, all sorts of options. I would be fine with a US version. There are many different amazing places to travel to and amazing things to do in the US. Or start in the US and then move out of the US once they are down to fewer teams so the over seas costs are far less.

[Lantern7]

2 hours ago, ProfCrash said:

I think the bigger problem with that season was the family element and the limits that imposed.

Yes. That was what I was thinking. If it’s less expensive and if it could ensure a place on the CBS schedule, it might be worth looking into. No Weavers, though. 😜

[meatball77]

The Weavers were amazing.  Great on rewatch.

I want the Male Female ratio to be equal in the season.  Four MM teams and two FF teams is absurd.

I think they could do a real celebrity edition of TAR.  There are plenty of big celebs who would love to do the race.

 

[Brookside]

A time penalty for any team that tosses the clue's tear-off strip on the ground.

On 6/3/2017 at 12:15 PM, fib said:

I actually kinda like when there is a chance to recover from the uturn with a post-toadblock detour.  But i agree that the uturn fresh after a bunch is a crummy way to hurt good teams.  

  

A toadblock would be an excellent fix/addition.

[kittykat]

I actually like a Great American Road Trip idea.  But instead of touring every damn horse ranch in Wyoming, change up the scenery and try to hot every US region.  Families have the same car, money provided, production provides gas.  Really mix it up, have one leg do a lot of heavy duty driving, visit National parks or wonders (ex. Crater Lake Oregon), outdoorsy detours and roadblocks.  Then follow with a leg that most takes place in a Metropolitan area whether it's using local transportation or driving themselves.  Imagine a leg dedicated to driving with only a map in somewhere like Seattle (oh you think this street goes through WRONG!) or Boston.  The drama writes itself.  That way it's a good blend of rural an urban.

Don't make it families only.  Have groups of friends, coworkers, bride with bridal party, old lady bingo club, I don't know get some interesting team dynamics.

 

[SnideAsides]

I think the problem with that idea is the lack of the culture shock that has defined this show for the last two decades. If TAR had started as a show that only did one-three countries every year (like The Mole did; eg, "the Vietnam season", "the Greece and Cyprus season", "the Benelux season"), that might have worked. But it also wouldn't have lasted as long as it has.

Like that's an idea that could work (and has in the past; TAR Canada films domestically with a couple of international legs, and TAR China was originally a domestic race with teams of expats competing), but it wouldn't be TAR. It'd be one of those cheap knockoffs that used to turn up every couple of years trying to steal TAR's thunder.

[theschnauzers]

The great American road trip ides was season 8. Met with universal razzies. That won’t make a comeback.

[Kromm]

Anyone else see the UK's Race Across The World?  

At first I thought it was going to be just a TAR copy, but a few episodes in to their Season 1 (they are in Season 2 now) I'm glad to see how mistaken I was.  The actual execution turns out to be shocking different from TAR, even with an identical overall premise.

 

Some differences:

1,) No planes.  Ever.

2.) No challenges/tasks.  Rather than making the show boring, surprisingly this actually helps.  This has some knock on effects discussed below.

3.) Less structure.  Or rather, it's better disguised structure.  Like TAR, they have checkpoints, but most aren't eliminations.  More importantly, there really aren't many other formal limits besides no planes on how they travel.  Here's where the show gets clever.  The show researched the routes well enough ahead of time that they know there are going to be inevitable gathering points without them having to introduce artificial delays (which TAR does do through challenges). The show knowing, for example, that the only realistic way to out of Baku, Azerbaijan going East is through a ferry across the Caspian Sea which only runs when they completely fill it with cargo, which equals out all the teams.  They do also bow to political realities and just state that the teams aren't allowed to go through certain countries.  But that also helps steer the teams and bring them back together without it seeming too artificial.  But in other places the routes can vary widely, put them on widely different routes far more divergent than you ever see on TAR, and the teams get as much as 2 days apart timewise, And because there are less eliminations, that doesn't really matter.  With teams banned from air travel CAN get 2 days behind and yet eventually pass another team in the same leg.  Why?  Because money management is also a HUGE factor in this, far more than TAR.  

4.) Their budget is the amount that air fare from London to Singapore (the final destination) would be.  And they are given the money for the WHOLE trip up front at the start. And that's it. Which means every bit of travel they do, the cost is even more essential than on TAR.  They CAN beg money or services from people along the way though, or even work. The one big artificial thing the show did was pre-arrange potential jobs for the folks in most cities they were likely to pass through.  But they even have to borrow people's cell phones to get the details.

 

I also feel the show is far less manipulative with how they present the teams. They come off far less as show biz wannabees and more as real people. The prize isn't even that big (20K Pounds), so while money is a factor, it's not quite as overwhelming.

A lot of intangibles make it feel different too, but the whole thing with no planes, more emphasis on money management, no challenges, less eliminations... it creates a very different feel.  Some parts more banal and everyday, but also far more sincere feeling.

The production style is different too. Because far less of this is planned, more of the camera-work is Cinéma vérité style. Which oddly works. But they pad it out by clearly leaving a camera team behind, after a team has gone through a city, to get glory shots of the landscape (or if it's stock footage, matching it pretty seamlessly).

The one odd thing to me is language. A few episodes in and so far I haven't seen any indication of a language struggle, and a lot of this has been through Eastern Europe and Western Asia.  Because this is so unstructured I'd have expected them to have to deal with more non-English speakers.

Edited March 8, 2020 by Kromm

[jpgr]

I love, love, LOVE Race Across the World and am so happy that Season 2 has started. I adore it for all of the reasons you stated above (non-famewhore casting, beautifully filmed, divergent paths, less obvious manipulation, etc.). The second season already has more language barrier issues than the first did, because of the location.

[Stardancer Supreme]

On 3/8/2020 at 4:31 PM, Kromm said:

Anyone else see the UK's Race Across The World?  

At first I thought it was going to be just a TAR copy, but a few episodes in to their Season 1 (they are in Season 2 now) I'm glad to see how mistaken I was.  The actual execution turns out to be shocking different from TAR, even with an identical overall premise.

How would those of us not in the UK watch this series?  My youngest son is home from school for a while (Thanks Corona!) and he loves travel shows.

[Kromm]

On 3/14/2020 at 6:17 PM, Stardancer Supreme said:

How would those of us not in the UK watch this series?  My youngest son is home from school for a while (Thanks Corona!) and he loves travel shows.

I found it on YouTube, probably a place it shouldn't have been.  I'm not sure it's even up there anymore.  

There's at least a chance it might be on Britbox.  I don't know, since I don't currently subscribe to that.

There are clearly more esoteric places out there it will be, but that's always the case for all foreign shows like this.  Probably the same places people found stuff like TAR Australia or TAR New Zealand.

[Hera]

@Kromm, I managed to find and watch the entire first series of Race Across the World and my husband and I both really enjoyed it, so thanks for the tip! I think my one complaint is that the elimination they had in the second episode (the only one of the series) seemed totally unnecessary. I think they should have just had four teams all the way through, or had at least one more elimination (though I would personally prefer two) so that there were fewer teams at the end. The way it was, it just felt kind of mean and like a vendetta against the eliminated team.

I feel like there's a lot The Amazing Race could use from this show. In particular, I think the no flights aspect would be a huge breath of fresh air—and it wouldn't even need to be across the board. They could still have the racers do long-haul flights (which already work as equalizers, as it is) over oceans, but ban them between between places on the same landmass.

I also think making budgeting a factor again could be easily folded into the challenges—especially detours. Each side of the detour could "pay" the racers some amount of money. So the fun/fast ones would pay less than the slow/frustrating ones. They could even do dynamic pricing, so that if one side of the detour is vastly more popular than the other, the amount it pays goes down and the amount the other side pays goes up. They could also pay a bonus on Road Blocks (especially one that requires approval from a judge) based on the quality of the work teams do. So a team who really nails the dance or the painting/artwork gets a bonus amount of cash, whereas a team that passes by the skin of their teeth gets nothing or very little.

I also would want The Amazing Race to keep the self-navigation (i.e. driving) as an option. It was understandable in Race Across the World that they didn't want people just renting a car and driving themselves for a whole leg (especially since their legs only had one stop, whereas The Amazing Race has multiple places the racers need to go per leg), but self-navigation—or even just following directions you got from someone else—is a skill (and one that is particularly relevant in a long-distance race around the world) and I always like to see it rewarded. I wish it had been more of a factor on recent seasons of The Amazing Race.

All I really want is, "Here's a car for this portion of the race. You can get directions from people and you can work with other teams, but using cabs or friendly locals to guide you in real-time is not permitted. You will have to drop it off at some point later in the leg with a full tank, which you will be paying for out of your budget."

Edited April 6, 2020 by Hera
Fixing a typo.

[Kromm]

On 4/5/2020 at 5:11 PM, Hera said:

 

I also would want The Amazing Race to keep the self-navigation (i.e. driving) as an option. It was understandable in Race Across the World that they didn't want people just renting a car and driving themselves for a whole leg (especially since their legs only had one stop, whereas The Amazing Race has multiple places the racers need to go per leg), but self-navigation—or even just following directions you got from someone else—is a skill (and one that is particularly relevant in a long-distance race around the world) and I always like to see it rewarded. I wish it had been more of a factor on recent seasons of The Amazing Race.

All I really want is, "Here's a car for this portion of the race. You can get directions from people and you can work with other teams, but using cabs or friendly locals to guide you in real-time is not permitted. You will have to drop it off at some point later in the leg with a full tank, which you will be paying for out of your budget."

You know it's interesting. I don't think "you can't rent a car" was ever actually stated out loud in either series of Race Across the World. I'm thinking it just worked out that doing so is prohibitively expensive to their budgets.  Or it's an unstated rule on air but enforced off air.  They definitely CAN bum rides for free, even if it's both hilarious and interesting that in both series whenever someone tries to do that, it's arguably wound up being a major mixed blessing at best, or actually hurting them at worst.

If you haven't located Series 2... find it.  It's just different enough from Series 1 to seem fresh, but the same at the core. A change that's mostly an effect of WHERE they are as opposed to any formal rule change is that everything's buses, since there;s little to no rail system in the countries involved this time.  I actually found that hurt the variety of what we see a bit, but the tradeoff is that the photography is even better this time around, the natural wonders even more beautiful, and there's even more of an element of chaos from outside happenings in the world tossing bombs at the show's planning... but funnily enough it actually helps in the end by building a little drama. 

I'll recommend this show AGAIN to anyone else reading these posts, even if you have to be creative to find it.  It really IS like taking TAR, making it totally fresh, and actually going smaller on some elements, but resulting in a larger canvas overall.  

As for TAR adopting some of these elements?  That was the initial point of me posting about this show in this topic, but the more I think about it, the more skeptical I am that they ever would.  Of course, in the post-Coronavirus world, new seasons of ANY show like either of these may be years and years off, since people are going to be skitish about travel for many years, even after a true vaccine exists.  

[Brookside]

I would like a time penalty any time a team knocks into a local while they're yelling their way down a street.  It really shouldn't be acceptable.

[Lantern7]

So . . . how can TAR close the loopholes that this season's teams kept walking through?

I don't think alliances can be banned outright, but I think that sharing answers for tasks should be penalized. If teams want to share info, that's one thing. When they start scheming to give each other solutions, that violates the nature of the game itself. With tonight's episode, Phil had no power to penalize the final three. As much as I would have been down for the top four getting disqualified and the final leg run by Eswar & Aparna, Kaylynn & Haley and Leo & Alana, that was not going to happen.

I will say that I like the idea of a City Sprint leg. It's almost the opposite of Mega Leg. You could group the teams with Hours of Operation, then set them loose. Also, we should be grateful Head-to-Head was shelved this season.

[Hera]

The only thing I can think of is to require teams who have completed a task to leave the challenge area immediately and without interacting with any of the teams who are still there. That would have stopped Hung from sharing the word scramble answer in Germany, and would have stopped Riley and Maddison from sharing the answer to the music task in Manila. However, it wouldn't have stopped teams from working together on the cello building roadblock or on the turban one. It also wouldn't have stopped Leo and Aparna from working together on unscrambling the letters, or Kaylynn from getting help from the German woman on that same task. But it seems like people were more offended by Hung feeding the answer to everyone and by the music one anyway, so maybe that would have been good enough.

I don't think you can do anything about having a shared target for yields and U-Turns (or burning the U-Turn board) without fundamentally changing how these elements of the race operate.

Edited December 10, 2020 by Hera
Adding more examples of where the rule wouldn't have worked.