Here we are, going in to Week 4 of The Amazing Race Australia, so it is time for a check in.
What do you think of the season so far? I know many of you miss the tension created by language barriers and travel-induced tiredness.
Is there a way to do a season of TAR without going overseas that is still thrilling? What improvements do they need to make? Surely no intruders for a start.
There’s another pair of latecomers joining the race tonight. Viewers are not going to be happy.
Here’s the TAR TV guide rundown for the week:
Sunday: Travelling in style, the teams arrive in Coober Pedy via the legendary train expedition The Ghan, and are confronted by a huge surprise that will change the game.
Monday: A detour has the teams explore the historic German town of Hahndorf as they must choose between slap or snag in a hilarious Bavarian bonanza.
Tuesday: The teams must brave the freezing cold water in an ambitious challenge that sees them work alongside research scientists who are studying the endangered Australian sea lion.
This is easy for me – no intruders.
The clue is in the title. It’s a race.
The intruder twist is the equivalent of a couple being parachuted in to the finishing line and being handed a cheque for $100,000. There’s no other point except producers f*****g with everyone.
Agreed with Bobi. The intruders are a terrible, terrible idea. You don’t stop a race halfway through and throw in new people. That’s not how a race works. If either of the stowaway teams come in first, man, I’m gonna be mad. And I bet the teams will be, too.
This show just isn’t “The Amazing Race”, to me. It’s just not quite doing what it’s supposed to be doing. Don’t get me wrong. As an Australia-wide obstacle course? It’s working, and working well. But as “The Amazing Race”? It’s just … not.
And you’d think, now that they don’t have to shell out for international plane tickets and all the other expenses of a global race, that they would be saving a tonne of money and could really make this race brilliant. So far it’s more, eh.
Anyway.
Tonight, the teams look for opals in Coober Pedy, line up a laser in an underground church, paint a sign and then play golf (in 100 km/hour winds) and then rush to the Pit Stop, at Crocodile Harry’s junk yard.
When the teams were driving through the desert to find this abandoned valley with all this ruin and junk in it? I couldn’t help the thought, is someone about to get murdered? This wasn’t helped by one of the teams asking Stampy the greeter, “Are you Harry”? and he replied, “No, Harry’s dead!” I was like, oh. Did you kill him?
Anyway. The useless Nigerian Prince and his useless girlfriend survive (I’m starting to wonder, how the hell they’re still here), and the deadly cousins from the NT get eliminated. It feels like it’s the third time, that team has been eliminated. And I almost guarantee we’ll see them against next episode.
One point, regarding the princess and her nerd. What is going on with that dude’s facial hair? He’s turning into the Wolfman, right before our eyes! Someone get the man a shaver, stat!
Wow! These intruder boofs on steroids are literally trying to muscle in on the competition.
They ‘ll need a lot of food. They may have to eat roadkill to keep their metabolisms up.
The intruders is a HUGE no no for me. It goes against all the basic elements of the race.
I do miss the airport scramble so bunching the teams at every pit stop is annoying. This could potentially be avoided in a non COVID impacted race but realistically if they want to cover a lot of the country there aren’t that many options for covering large distances especially if they are keeping the race out of the capital cities.
The self driving has been good to watch and given they are being ferried through airports I’m not sure how much opportunity they are getting to pick up a map at airports. By now I think I would have tried to get a decent road map of australia.
The other thing I am noticing is the challenge rules aren’t exactly clear to the viewer. By that I mean, a lot of it is very subjective to the judge on-site and as a viewer I’m not sitting on the edge of my seat willing a team on or being able to pin point what they are doing wrong.
Tonight’s ep was ok. I don’t know how holly and Dolor keep surviving and I really hope after all this all hollys family and friends are having an intervention and making her see what a douche Dolor is to her.
The opal challenge was good and I liked the laser challenge. The paint challenge felt a bit of a filer but I think also to get them driving around more, so more opportunity to get lost.
An early US TAR season went to Coober pedy also, pretty sure they also did something at the golf course but I can’t remember what else.
Yeah, you’re right. Season two of the American TAR came to Australia. They had one episode in Sydney, then they flew to Coober Pedy and had to look for opals in a mine, and then play some golf on the Coober Pedy golf-course. I think the golf was a detour, but I can’t remember the alternative option. Then, the teams had to successfully learn how to throw a boomerang, and once they’d done that, they could check in at the Pit Stop.
The next episode saw them joining a road train back to Adelaide, and then they flew to the southern island of New Zealand.
Season 2 was an excellent season, for the record.
Yes I remember the US one going to Sydney & Coober Pedy. From memory the Sydney one they had to find a lifeguard lying on a towell in Hyde Park & it was pissing down rain. And they did the golf in Coober Pedy. There was another one a few seasons later they went to Freemantle & had to comb the beach with these giant combs.
I looked it up after I wrote that earlier message, they have been here 4 times, visiting Brisbane, cairns and Darwin as well as what you have both mentioned. I’m waiting for them to come to Melbourne/Victoria, so I can go stalk the show while it’s in town!
Agree season 2 is one of very best seasons.
What you say about the challenge rules not being clear, is exactly right. In the US version, if the team misses an element or fails for some reason, the edit puts a highlight over the thing they are missing. I also cannot remember any singing/dancing challenge where all teams have got it right within two attempts. The judging was obviously very “full of mercy”.
I would like to know who told Dwes that he was painting the wrong number? If it was anyone on the sidelines, then there should be a penalty, for helping.
And again, a 20 minute penalty for not finishing the challenge last night, all the others have been 30 minutes.
I have been enjoying this season but like everyone else HATE the intruder idea. Was bad enough last week with those 2 athletes joining but now these 2 big burly blokes? No.
Yet another non-elimination leg, tonight, with another two teams served with the “salvage” and “sabotage” tickets. I don’t mind this option as much as I thought, since it makes things interesting (and teams do recover from the “sabotage” option). Yes, it’s a little obnoxious, but it’s not the worst sin this show is committing.
I just can’t believe it’s another non-elim. How long are they going to drag this out? We could be watching until June!
Oh, and to add insult to injury, one of the intruder-teams gets a first class pass to skip tomorrow night’s episode. I definitely do not like that element.
I yelled at the tv when Beau pulled out the pass, yet again!! Two was two too many, three intolerable, any more..well, I have run out of indignation.
I don’t mind the Sabotage, but essentially it is just a leg-long speed bump. Why bother with it, just give a speed bump. I really hate the Salvage, though. I could cope if it just gave an advantage over the last placed team, but instead it gives an advantage that propels them ahead of the frontrunners. It’s just not fair dinkum.
Adding people in – well, no-one likes that at all. Allowing teams to skip a leg, also not at all in the spirit of “racing”.
I really don’t like the salavage and sabotage but if they insist on keeping it, it has to be fair. It has to be the same salvage and sabotage all season. Carrying around a stuffed kanga is nothing compared to not talking or asking for directions.
Overall, I liked the challenges last night. I thought they were more in tune with the TAR we know and love. The new boys are very nice, which doesn’t negate the fact that they shouldn’t be there.
But why, oh why, didn’t they show us the “escape room” aspect of the train the night before? I think I could have watched a whole episode of that. It would have been great viewing. Then they said that the escape room success dictated the start times for the next day, but (someone might like to check and correct me) I am fairly certain they all set off in the order that they had arrived at the train.
On Insta all the teams said the train task was their favourite and we saw maybe 30 secs of it!
That’s a shame, because that did look like a really fun challenge.
I think I saw somewhere that there are 24 episodes, so eight weeks at three a week. How on earth will the teams remember all the pitstops for the final challenge?
A question…at the Adelaide Oval challenge, after the girls failed the first time, we (in our house) were all certain that the crossed out bays on the maps must have been where “not” to look, rather than where to look as Chelsea assumed. The edit implied that there was some trick to the map, emphasising MJ’s comment that she hadn’t seen a single photo in all that searching.
Then we were given no further idea of how the challenge worked, except that obviously the searchers were finding other photos considering MJ and Stan/Wayne (?) were able to direct each other. So what was the actual deal with how the challenge worked?
Also, did anyone else think that MJ had no intention of sharing any photo locations with anyone else, until she was helped and then had found her own?
This is a great example of rules not clear to the viewer. We barley got a glimpse at the map, and majority of viewers wouldn’t be familiar with Adelaide oval. US season would have shown us the map and the areas where they could search, shown exactly where the photos were and highlighted when teams where in the wrong area of the season. Last night we really had no idea how close of far away teams were from finding their photos.
My understanding is they all got the same map, with sections to search and x’s on the map, the x only meant there was a photo there but not whose team it was.
Agree MJ was not going to help until she was confident muscle man hadn’t given her a bum steer.
Is everyone enjoying Princess’s performance as much as I? That’s not at all. Ermaguuurd
Early on she was ok. But based on what we are seeing a lot of their getting lost is because she ain’t good with directions. And she tried to overcomplicate the sand dune task with wind and clockwise directions. Just say right or left and when they go the wrong way tell them you meant the other way.
Meanwhile, her boyfriend is steadily turning into the Wolfman.
I thought she was ok too. The last few eps tho, the whinning, croc tears, poor me… it’s bloody unbearable.
So tonight, we lose the dancing exes. They seemed like nice kids (although Violetta was a little hysterical, when things got rough. Indeed, that’s probably what cost them tonight. Jordan needed the instructions to be concise and simple, and Violetta was just panicking, because they were at the back of the pack, and shouting random things at him). It’s a shame.
It seems like the pattern is to eliminate two teams a week, and on Monday night, is the non-elim.
My initial misgiving with the Salvage and Sabotage was that the Sabotage would be an insta-kill. It would hinder the team, too much, and guarantee them coming in last (and IIRC, it did do that to the Mothers, early on). To me that would’ve been cruel. You know, if they’re trailing along at the back of the pack? Don’t handcuff them with a disadvantage and force them to run an extra leg, you know? Just get rid of them and be done with it.
But on the whole, the Sabotage hasn’t been an insta-kill. That’s why I’m forgiving it, because it does make thing a little more interesting. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t love it. But I don’t hate it. It’s like, the least of the problematic elements of this season.
I still want to see the Stowaway teams get eliminated. They started late and they shouldn’t be here. As nice as they are as people, I don’t want them to win.
Anyway. We’ve been on a circuit through Queensland, the NT and now South Australia. I’m sure there’s footage of Melbourne, in the opening credits, which tells me that they’re heading through Victoria, at some point. And they’ve still got a heap of teams to get rid of, at that.
So if we are looking at eight weeks, then there are eight non-elims? Way too many. I think two per seasons is about right – the teams are fairly certain they will be gone if running last, but there is just a slight glimmer of hope.
Surely, our teams will have worked out that every third leg is non-elim.
I agree the stowaways, even if they were angels, need to go… and soon. They are both too strong, and there is starting to be an inevitable sense that Chelsea and MJ will be first or second every leg (if they happen to participate). They easily pass teams both travelling and at challenges.
Agree about the Sabotage, it is bearable. It is the Salvage that gets my goat. Last night I was distracted by the oven timer and didn’t hear what the farmers got, and then there was no evidence throughout of what it was.
It was a little pity about the dancers. They were okay. Her performance at the firebreathing turned me off a little, and then a borderline overconfidence about the dance skills was annoying but usually correct. I did love the little ballet with the tunas last night.
Once again I really enjoyed the challenges. They are improving from the start of the season. They still aren’t explained enough, but the sand and flag one was much better. And finally a team gets penalised for errors. The US version would have highlighted the mistake at the bucket when it happened, so we would have known it was coming. This was one of my favourite challenges in the season so far.
I wasn’t a fan of the Insersection becoming a four-team vs four-team challenge. Why not take each pair out on separate boats to separate buoy setups? I liked the intersection I have seen before where the couples were mixed for a challenge. Also, the pointless change of “you can choose who you want to pair with” which only resulted in each choosing the next team. The only slight drama that added was hearing the teams talk about who they think is stronger. How could it work anyway? Would a team wait for their favoured team to arrive before writing on the board, in the meantime watching other teams pair up around them? Silly.