Amazing Race starts Monday

Ok, you’ve all talked up the Amazing Race so much Mr Juz and I are going to have to give it a go.
Nothing to do with the fact there is nothing else on.
It starts Mon, Oct 28 at 7.30pm, on Ten.
I’m relying on one of you super fans (Windsong?) to do proper recaps, please.



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68 Comments

  1. It’s true. Nothing else on . The Block is pitiful, I’m in awe of Maz being able to recap it. Week fifteen or something now.
    Still in the promos for TAR, I’d see Aussies talking fairly dismissively and disrespectfully to foreign locals. I don’t wanna commit to Amazing Racist by default. “Drive faster!” Yeah, get out and walk, son.

    I was pretty disappointed in the not so amazing race of last second ghouls trying to ascend Uluru yesterday.

    • Oh, telling cab drivers to “go faster!” is pretty standard Race fair.

      Wait until the racers start shouting, “Rapido! Rapido!” at cab drivers, when they’re not even in a Spanish-speaking country. It’s obnoxious to treat cab drivers like that in Spain or Latin America, it’s downright brain-damaged to do it in Dubai or Hong Kong.

      But you can always tell the really horrible bogans. They’re not the ones who are frustrated at the language barrier, they’re the ones angry at the street signs for not being written in English.

      • I know it is a bit pedantic but they also often don’t have a choice of transport mode. Although sometimes teams trapped in traffic jams jump out and run if feasible,

    • Climbing Uluru? I don’t get this.
      People have been asked not to climb. They have been told it’s disrespectful. They have been told it’s a deeply sacred space. And yet …. they tell me they are “entitled”.
      Do they not hear themselves? One guy on telly insisted on calling it Ayres Rock (no matter how many times he was gently corrected by the reporter). He said he would climb it “respectfully”.
      I don’t think most people are being deliberately offensive. It’s probably more of an example of casual racism, and we have all been there. However, they have been asked and that’s all it should take.

      • At the heart of the issue it the question of whether any human is entitled to claim ownership of a feature of nature? Does that happen anywhere else in the world (with the natural feature completely unchanged by humans)?

        • That’s an interesting thought that opens up a can of worms; can any of us lay claim to lands at all?
          I occasionally ponder why, historically, humans allow other humans tell them what to do. When did the first people decide, I think other people should be the boss of me. I guess it was for safety and survival.

        • The short answer is yes, you can own a “feature of nature”.
          A simple example is, you own the space above your house. A long way up as it turns out, but it depends where you live.
          You can own water.
          Or a beach.
          You own your dog. He/she is considered property (Your cat owns you. This is not up for discussion).
          The other short answer is, property law is really, really, really, complicated. That’s why lawyers make so much money.

      • I have climbed Uluru – but it was in 1977 when it was called Ayers Rock and well before we were told it was disrespectful.

        • When I first climbed it in 1970, there was only a petrol station there. I did it again in 1984, the joint was a tourist resort and I’d see people fighting at sunset to get a photograph of it. I didn’t know it was an offense at the time….or bad luck. You’d pay $1.50 just to look at it.

          I was lucky to visit places where whitey can’t go without a permit.

          Anyhow, the colony of Euros that live on top of it will be happy.

      • I went there in the 90’s & tried to climb it but only got as far as chicken rock. It is very steep & slippery & there was quite a big gap to where the chain started. I knew there was no way I could get to it. I walked around a bit of the base of it. What I hadn’t realised & was shocked & sickened by was that people went to the bathroom up there & left rubbish. Where the hell did they go with all those people around? It’s not like they could sneak into bushes. They couldn’t wait till they got back to their fucking hotel? People really are disgusting.

  2. “Nothing to do with the fact there is nothing else on.”

    No, but that is an excellent point. I don’t bother with the Block (every time I’ve switched over?They’re singing. They’re cooking. They’re golfing. They’re camping. Do the contestants actually do any renovation?), and I’ve lost interest in the Bachelorette, but it’s the Amazing Race! Plus, seasons rarely drag. 11 teams, so, that’s probably about 12 episodes, give or take?

    There’s usually one team who looks worthless, but through a combination of pluck and skill, will make it to the final episode. Occasionally, that team ends up winning, just to keep things interesting.

    And I really am curious how well Beau Ryan does, as host.

    • We do seem to be in a black hole of competition shows at the moment. I am a bit worried about the House Rules promos. If this was a new show, with no history, I would probably not bother. It looks like all the “ordinary” feel of the show will be gone, with Barbie and Ken hosts and judges (bar Laurence), and format changes. However, promos are notoriously misleading – let’s hope so this time.

      • What I find interesting, at the moment, is how the MKR promotional stuff is featuring Manu and Colin, with Pete just quietly being more-and-more sidelined. I think 7 has probably had quite enough of his nonsense.

        • Yes, I had noticed that, too. Manu has become the “star” judge – less polarising I suppose – and they are just waking up to the fact that Colin is well-liked. Funny that they brought him into the show as the harsh judge.

  3. The first five minutes have popped up on FB already, this morning, but I don’t think I’m going to watch. I’d rather watch it fresh tonight.

    And you guys get it an hour ahead of me, too.

    • Beau has this inner bogan, at times. That’s probably part of his (alleged) appeal. We’ll just have to make our peace with it.

      • I wasn’t too interested by him either way. Not knowing the format, I wasn’t sure what to expect from him. He seemed quite shouty. i wanted to say “they heard you the first time” but it was probably only the poor viewer who got it multiple times because of ads!

  4. The excitement is building!
    There is a great quick reference guide to the game on the TARAu insta page. I could post but clearly I’m still a newbie at posting photos on here!

  5. So, the first episode …

    They’re starting in a foreign country? That’s weird! They normally never do that. Normally, the start line is in your home country (and they don’t show you the finish line until the last episode). I was expecting them to start the race in Sydney or Melbourne, and the first clue would’ve just been, “Fly to Seoul and find this tower”. I wonder why they cut that out and just started in Seoul? I mean, it doesn’t matter much either way, and probably saved them about twenty minutes of airport shenanigans.

    They still managed the, “Get set. Go!” moment, which I love.

    How handsome is Tom, one of the orange football guys? Point of interest, for people who are new to the franchise … teams are often colour-coordinated, at the very beginning. Notice how every team was wearing a different colour (the gay guys had red flannel on. Oh, that was just cruel). Also, we generally get intros for all the teams, but I imagine they’ll space those out over the course of the episode.

    Points for diversity. We even got nuns. You know, I’m pretty sure that God probably has better things on His plate than worrying about which team wins a reality TV show. Also, Tyler should consider himself lucky. Almost every single man named “Tyler” on the show has won the darn thing, on at least 3 seasons that I can think of.

    Interesting that the Red Short Asians and the Orange Footballers didn’t spot the location, they just found the postcard (because they saw the girls finding it). I wonder if they’ll get a penalty for that?

    Meanwhile, the Instagramers have cemented their spot as *that* team, who are absurdly over-confident but who get immediately humbled by inability.

    • i thought the influencers would have got a penalty for stealing dumpings from the nuns. Of course they might have but not aired as it didn’t make a difference to the result.
      As soon as the youngens went 1 hour to the L tower, they were pretty much doomed.

      • Yeah, sometimes penalties are given to the teams, but not shown. If they were only penalised a few minutes, and the teams behind them showed up hours later, then the penalty wouldn’t have affected the order at all.

        But yeah. Losing two hours? That was going to be almost-impossible to recover from.

        I can’t believe the Instagramers stole from two nuns. I did like the guy’s joke afterwards, “We’re going to hell for that.” Heheh. At least he had a sense of humour about it. Thievery notwithstanding, the Instagramers need to lift their game. If they keep running the Race like they did in the first leg? They’re not going to be here long.

      • When I watched a bit of promo on the Studio, the host said there will be cheating. Perhaps they want that to create villains.
        In the US version, you can’t cheat…but the convict country does. Ah, we are just loveable larrikins.

      • When we got to the end and there was no time penalty, I realised that penalties only happen when they break the actual rules of the race. Cheating, being nasty, pinching other’s taxis usually only are punished when they come out to the other teams. Not sure if the thievery will come out as it was not seen. How beautiful was it that nun Judy was saying as she came back up the stairs, “if the others run out, they can have some of ours” – the other cheek in action.

      • Don’t they usually get time penalties are when they allow them team to complete a task faster or slow another team down.
        I would have thought stealing a dumpling (albeit only 1) would qualify for either or both of those things?!

    • Kinda smart to go straight into the race as newbies could get bored quickly. I guess I did not need to see them rushing to Mascot…. I would not want to do that river dancing – you’d swallow so much river. And now I want dumplings!!

      • I wanted dumplings too! I want to walk down that laneway and find any of the dumpling places. . . I think I am in on the format as i love the travel glimpses.

        • Me too Brussel. It’s really exciting when they go somewhere you’ve been and you go, “Oo oo, there’s Old Delhi”. But either way, I like seeing the people and places around them.

    • Yes, the footy boys are cute, and one of my favourite teams already. You have to love firies. And I like the small couple and the Aboriginals.
      Anyone who plays these games and think God is on their side annoys me. Like God loves you more than other people???? Arrogant thinking. And calling God, “The big fella”? Puke. Too religious in a superiority complex way.

      • I still remember one of the early American seasons featured a pair of lesbian church pastors. And one of the first things they said in their first interview was that they were the rarest of contestants, people who believed that God didn’t really care all that much about who’s going to win a reality TV show contest.

        They didn’t last, which was a shame, because that was awesome.

  6. Ah, the joy and heart-break of the Race, all in one episode.

    Contrast the Yellow Siblings — having to take an unintended 2 hour detour, because they grabbed the wrong clue and went to the wrong location — against the Muslim mum’s sheer joy at conquering the water-jetpack challenge.

    Still. Race maxim. Never, ever, give up.

    • Much as I liked the kids, the two-hour delay was really their own fault as they tried to piggyback on the work of other teams, and not do the looking for themselves. Still, very gracious in their loss.

    • Yellow babies didn’t stand a chance. Rookie mistakes and a bit of a happy bunny attitude to winning or losing. They didn’t even check if the nuns were correct. Anyway. It was past their bedtime. 🤣 Na. Just teasing. 19-21 year olds could do it and lack of life experience isn’t essential in a game where many contestants (in the USversion) have never before left the corn field.

  7. So the Orange Footballers make it in first place, in the first episode? And they didn’t get a penalty for going straight to the post-card back in the tower. They’re a fit, young team who are obvious physical threats. That can be a really good thing, in the Race, but not always. And this is only leg one. Once Race Fatigue sets in (yep, that’s a thing), it could always go sideways. And the team who comes in first, in the first episode, rarely are the ultimate winners (although, it does happen, but not often). Still, so far, they’re a team to beat. And gosh, Tom is handsome.

    You can tell the gay couple are newlyweds, because they’re still in that, “I can’t stop kissing you” phase of their relationship. They seem like sweet guys, though. Again, another strong team. They also give us a classic Race moment of thinking they were doing really poorly … and then being totally overjoyed when they arrived in fourth place.

    I loved how the Purple Sisters from QLD nailed the cup-stacking challenge on the very first try (with seconds to spare), while even the Orange Footballers took ages to get it. Although it required a bit of physical coordination, once you got the hang of stacking the cups, it would’ve been faster. It was just a matter of practice (because even the boys got it eventually).

    The nuns allowed us a fabulous “flying nun” gag, on the river there, which I appreciated.

  8. So, we say goodbye to the Yellow Gen Z siblings.

    Poor guys. It sucks to be the first team eliminated, and it really sucks that they were one of the only teams ever to not even complete any Race task at all. They got hopelessly lost, on the first ever task, and couldn’t recover. You’ll notice that they must have been *really* far behind, because the production crew intervened. The kids didn’t even have to go and do the dumplings or cup-stacking challenge, they just got a clue to go to the pit stop. It was edited to look close, but they must’ve been *hours* behind the nuns. And honestly, if they got that lost at the very *start* of the Race, they probably weren’t going to last too long, anyway.

    All in all, I thought it was a good first episode. We did get a good sense of all the teams (some of them lacked a little bit of focus, but teams will get more context, the further we go into the season). We got to see some pretty cool parts of Seoul.

    I’m not sold on Beau as the host. He was very shouty, wasn’t he? He almost sounded like a preschool teacher, so, I think he’s going to grow into the role. I also wasn’t sure about him hugging the teams on the pit stop. He’s the host, Phil Keoghan is always so impartial. So that’ll be an interesting take on preceedings.

    But no, I liked it, I’m onboard. And tomorrow night, they’re sending the teams towards the Korean border? What could go wrong?

    • Today on the Studio, the host said his favourite team was….. I wasn’t sure who he meant. I agree WS. He should show that cool impartiality of the US guy. He a Kiwi, isn’t he?

    • In the US version a few seasons back one of the teams got lost & nearly ended up at the North Korean border.

    • The host is always joined by people in local, period costume. I imagine tonight, they were referencing Korea’s wacky pop culture trends?

      There are often memory-based challenges, right at the end, so that may have actually been an important detail for the teams to remember.

      • I had a vague memory of traditional dress but was expecting something more hmmm ancient. Ok, my verdict: it was fine. They did a good job powering through to introduce all the teams. I don’t know if I will last because the challenge aspect of Survivor is my least fave thing and this is all about completing tasks. But I can faff on the iPad while half watching so that’s ok. Thanks, WS, for the updates

        • Plus, they tend to start with the easy tasks, to whittle down the less physically-capable teams. It’s subtle, but there is a curve. The challenges do tend to get harder, as the season goes.

      • It’s the “cute” thing. Pop Asian culture is still for young girls and ladies to be cute, even pouty and spoilt, and sometimes dressing in school uniform which is a bit pedo.
        If you ever watched IYATO, you will know about the culture of the cute spoilt brat girl. Weird.

  9. Yeah, I’m hooked…I’m in!
    Was wondering the same about Beau hugging the contestants, noticed he only did it too a select few…that was weird.
    I know the kids were miles behind but i would love a time clock at the end just to see how they all came in…
    Those Qld sisters only took the 1 attempt, they’ll be good to watch…but they made me laugh by getting the shits when they guys snuck in line and took the lift before them, when they basically stole the cab from them in the first bit!
    I have been struggling to find something to watch since Aus survivor, so looking forward to watching this and bonus it on 2 nights a week….

    • Re the time clock: if they follow the US version, you can tell the time difference because they put up the leaving time at the beginning of the next episode for each team. Often it is exactly 12 hours after they checked in the day before. I am often surprised by how close the finishes were – the edit makes it look further apart unless they arrive within sight of each other.

  10. I am surprised anyone could do those cups in 8 seconds. And yes Windsong, I was surprised they didn’t set off from Australia. I would have preferred that…and a bit more profiling of the teams.

    It didn’t escape me that the Shrill Sisters swiped the taxi from the Footy Hotties, but the whined that they would get them back for getting ahead in the lift.
    It probably wasn’t as bad as it looked, but you have to have teams you like and teams you don’t.

    • Did you see the Korean kid who could do it in *two* seconds? Holy crap.

      As for the rest of the episode, I guess we’re just used to the standard formula that the American seasons use (and rarely deviate from). So they’re definitely trying something different. Starting from Korea really was an odd decision, though. I mean, there’s little difference between, “Fly to Korea, and here’s your first clue” and “Here’s your first clue! Fly to Korea” since they still had to pay for the airfare to get all the teams to Korea, either way. I’d love to hear the reason why.

      But I didn’t mind the lack of profiling. The cast is reasonably diverse, which really helps make everyone stand-out, and I think we got the gist of most of the teams.

      • Yes, I suppose that’s true. I think I got a rough idea of all the teams pretty quickly. As for seeing Cup Kid; no. My eyes no longer move that fast. 😂😂😂

    • Actually I think that was orange boys problem at the cup detour they were trying to do it at the speed of light whereas sisters and red siblings worked out very quickly that 8 secs wasn’t that fast compared to the world record holder.
      I did laugh at the mum taking 16 seconds and very seriously questioning if she had passed!

  11. I enjoyed the episode but a few things grated. The cast was very inner city diverse, and only a couple of teams would be considered average in our area. That’s not a problem except that it feels contrived, and I wonder who is left to highlight if they go to a second season.

    Unfortunately, my first impression was that this is going to be a season where the lack of money is going to be evident. The product placement felt more obvious, along with the ads, and there was no reward for first place. The intro seems to imply that only a couple of continents are visited (mostly Asia, maybe Africa, then back to Australia – no appearance of Europe or the Americas), I hope I am wrong about that.

    The ring payment thing is going to be annoying. Also, the colour-coordinating seemed like it might have been arranged by the production. I am pretty sure that it is usually just the personal preference of the teams themselves (some do it, some don’t, some do just a vague alignment of colour). This feels like the production are trying to create images for each team, beyond the usual label.

    Anyway, let’s see how it goes tonight. Like Survivor, the quality of the game can carry a few missteps in production, as long as they don’t try to make too many changes.

    • “The intro seems to imply that only a couple of continents are visited (mostly Asia, maybe Africa, then back to Australia – no appearance of Europe or the Americas), I hope I am wrong about that.”

      I’m sure I spotted a clip of a cowboy cracking a lasso, in the intro montage, which seemed to indicate at least one stop in the Americas.

      • I was thinking about that. I think they go to the cheapest countries. I have seen the Americans go to Russia and some Central Euro countries.
        Mind you, accomodation in India isn’t cheap…unless maybe 2 star.

  12. I’m an Amazing Race tragic. Beau was very average. Needs to calm down a bit and tone down his inner ‘bogan’. Please learn to pronounce Australia correctly.

  13. So that team read to go to the observation deck & climbed DOWN the stairs. Anyone whose been to Centerpoint tower or Black Mountain tower or any tower knows the observation deck is UP the tower. That was a stupid mistake. He seemed to realise & kept saying to go back up but she kept saying no.
    The other team copied the nun’s card but didn’t see they put it back & got the right one. And that team that stole their dumpling should have got a penalty. I would have laughed my arse off if it had been rejected by the guy & they had to do it again anyway. I was REALLY hoping he would.
    I thought they would have to do a challenge to do with those stupid k pop bands. They are HUGE in Korea.

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