The Amazing Race Australia starts on February 1 on Channel 10.
This season there will be 14 teams competing on the TV show, which surprisingly managed to film during a pandemic.
Filming was due to start in June but was pushed back to November due to border restrictions.
Looks like there is good diversity in casting this year (take note, The Block).
Will you be watching TAR? (And will host Beau Ryan still be so shouty?)
The Amazing Race premieres Sunday, February 1 at 7.30pm (90-minute episode).
I’m not normally a fan of TAR. A mentioned by others, it doesn’t always seem fair. Too much producer interference.
But this year I think I am interested and I will tune in. All the teams look interesting. Fingers crossed..
They botched the last season, with Beau as the host, so bady that I can’t bring myself to care, even though it’s probably still my favourite show.
The American version did actually do a season where they only travelled around the US. Season 8. Unfortunately, season 8 is unanimously reviled, amongst the TAR fandom, for being absolutely awful. A smaller scale Race around Australia might still work (it’d be a damn side cheaper than a trip around Earth, which might make for a better show), but I still don’t trust them.
Same. Exactly the same, Windsong. I just don’t trust them after last time. I would have been happy for the gay marrieds to win, had producers not railroaded the leading team right out if the show. And the evil ba***RDS used the other teams to fire the death shot.
I have the advantage of missing last season. I didn’t like most of the teams from the get-go. Most were irritating in their own special way. So I go into this season wide eyed and bushy tailed.
i love me some TAR. I too lost interest after a few episodes of last season so will see how this season goes, they have promoted it sooo much during I’m a celeb, it has better live up to the hype. I’m in two minds about staying in Australia, it could go really well, considering (in my opinion) we will be stuck here for at least the next year or so, it might enourage people to explore parts of Australia maybe they haven’t seen before (of course sudden state border closures do make people think twice travelling too far from home), else it will be a complete flop. Am curious what the route actually is, i’m assuming they didn’t come to Vic.
If nothing else they certain made sure to have a diverse cast.
I think I read they only went to three states but could be wrong. Guess we can also rule out WA
Not a terrible start.
Some of the challenges felt a little thrown together at the last minute and very low budget, especially the beer and prawn detour, they reminded me of challenges most local Amazing Races do around the CBD / suburbs.
I can pretty much already tell the teams that will do well or create the dra-mah. As a number of middle of the pack teams were nearly shown.
I refuse to do MAFS and Holey Moley didn’t grab me so will probably tune in again tomorrow night.
I’m not a MAFS fan and I couldn’t watch TAR because the thunderstorm froze CH 10. Hence Holey Moley getting half an hour of my time.
I did figure out that the indigenous pair were eliminated. I was disappointed even though I didn’t get to know them. They looked interesting in the ads.
Sat through the first episode.
I didn’t mind it. The teams seem diverse (without being too obnoxious), and most of them are likeable enough. I like the Kiwi couple (who were coming first, but fell to third thanks to the sugar cane tasks), and the cowboys seem interesting. I like that there’s an actual Nigerian prince on one of the teams. I actually thought the twins were lovers, before the show introduced them as brothers. One of them is definitely not straight. Oh, and the sikh guys are pretty cool.
But you can tell that it’s a cheap, discount version of the Race. The global travel is what makes the Race so extreme. Teams have to deal with jet lag and culture shock and foreign languages they can’t speak, and dealing with taxis with drivers that don’t speak English, and getting lost in locations where they can’t just ask for help, and bouncing between time zones that play havoc on your body clock, not to mention, the stresses of a month of travelling on jets.
None of that is going to happen, because this Race is being run around three states in Australia. They’re probably not even going to leave the eastern seaboard.
That by itself isn’t a bad thing. Obstacle courses are fun and exciting to watch, and the show *will* be showing off some pretty amazing landscape. And the scenery is one of the main reasons that anyone watches.
But it’s still not quite the Amazing Race.
I can’t see the Philipino father and daughter lasting too much longer, given they got lost leaving the starting line and only recovered because of luck (solving the two needle-in-a-haystack challenges quickly).
I only saw a bit but Beau’s voiceovers seemed less shouty – am I right?
No, he’s still pretty shouty. He’s operating at, like, an 18, and we need him down to about a 5.
I felt sorry for the poor cowboys looking for those fucking tongs with team after team after team finding them pretty much straight away. The other challenge with the beers. Why didn’t they just ask someone what they had to do? Those lucky guys at the bar got free beers. Bet they were happy. Was sorry to see that team that got eliminated. They seemed fun.
Uh oh – not good figures for TAR https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/tv-shows/holey-moley-smashes-married-at-first-sight-and-amazing-race-in-tv-ratings/news-story/2dda3f800e4ec8999b5acb0010fc744d
I’m sad that a country-wide obstacle course is seen as less-exciting as extreme mini-golf.
My dad was watching, last night, and he said that ihe thought it was a bit weak.
I tended to agree.
But channel 10’s spent so much time promoting this, as their showcase series for the start of 2021, that you wonder what’ll happen if the ratings continue to sink.
I think everyone tuned in, like me, to see if it was as much fun as the ads promised.
It wasn’t.
I can guarantee that the numbers will drop and then keep dropping. I just don’t see how they can make it more interesting.
And, of course, it’s possible that the thunderstorm affected Channel 10 across the board. The storm was pretty amazing, one of the best we’ve had in a while, and the signal from Ch 10 was almost non-existent. Ch 10 has always been fragile around here.
So episode 2 starts, and the sexually-ambiguous twins have already decided to quit the show, because it was too stressful?
At least there was some reference to an airport (everybody flying from Cairns to the Gold Coast), but the teams all seemed to leave at the same time, and all got on the same flight to the Goldie. Two mistakes that the last season made too often.
Maybe Beau in a speedo (hanging out on the beach with a team of surf-life-savers) will raise the ratings a bit?
The next pit stop is the Telstra 5G Innovation Centre …. does not have quite the same ring as the Louvre or an ancient temples
I like the Mums. I hope they survive.
I don’t like rewards like, you don’t have to compete in the next leg. I don’t mind other rewards but we, the viewers, tune in to view.
One team gets to skip the entire next leg?!
Then completely sabotage another team so one team member can’t talk in the next leg? These rewards and sabotages are are incredibly unfair.
Also it might be nerves but these teams need to READ. THE. CLUE.
Yes, I don’t like this new sabotage/reward a team. I thought they should have given the reward to the team that got there first but had to go get their backpacks. In other US seasons there have been teams which have taken a dislike to a certain team for whatever reason. So they could be targeted to sabotage. Don’t know if that’s a one off or if there will be more.
Two epidodes and I am enjoying it, but you do need to have lowered expectations. Considering HM is far less interesting, I expect TAR to pick up some viewers.
I didn’t like the skipping the next leg. How will they get the information they need for the final challenge, and it takes away the ability for other teams to rise to the top. The sabotage/reward might be okay if neither are too extreme and influence the result too much. If I had been them, I would have considered it “fair” (as they said) to give the sabotage to the team with the physical advantage. That team, while stating how smart and physical they are, were very un-smart in that leg. Also, how amazing was the woman running everywhere on a recently broken leg. Even limping she outran many of the fitter people.
As Windsong says above, it just isn’t the same without the international factor, but I can cut them some slack there. If you are watching Travel Guides, there is the same feeling – we have a wonderful country but the people’s reactions are different because they are too familiar with their own country.
You and WS are right. It is a bit is – see exotic places, meet exotic people (mostly taxi drivers) that I miss.
I also miss the excitement of nearly missing planes. Catch a tram doesn’t quite do it for me. I can run faster than a tram.
I was wrong, the sabotage/reward were a total mistake.
Is this backpack thing a new deal? I don’t remember backpacks being an issue before.
Unless it was because they held passports and you hold on to your passport like your life depended on it.
I was wondering too. In the US version they often drop the packs running for the pitstop, and on the last leg they usually check their backpacks through to home to save carrying them in the end.
I read somewhere (about the US version) that a rule required them to carry their passports in under-shirt “fanny packs”. I can remember teams going back for their backpacks but I’m unsure if it was required or they just needed them?
I have never seen a team in US version be turned away for not being their backpacks, but i have noticed in recent seasons, all teams have been bring their backpacks to the mat, or dropping them within a few metres which made me think there was a rule you could only drop them within a certain distance / viewing of the mat?
Did anyone else notice they all seem to have the same backpack? I assume they were given them and a lot of the females had the same swimwear in the Gold Coast leg.
I didn’t mind tonight’s episode. An outback holiday is a pretty wonderful experience (I did the Longreach and Winton thing, back some years ago now, but it was an absolutely wonderful holiday).
There’s a hotel, right beside the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. That’s where I stayed. It’s a nice, 15 minute stroll (along the main highway) from there to the main street of Longreach.
But the show’s still making the same mistakes that the first season made. The teams are being chaperoned around, which is a big way to take the “race” out of the Amazing Race. Being stuck in the one country, with limited flights anyway thanks to covid, is a really hard thing to deal with, and they’re doing their best.
The teams are still pretty likeable. There’s an adage for reality TV. If there’s a team you don’t want to win? Then don’t cast them. And, really, the vast majority of the teams are interesting people who seem like decent human beings.
In typical Race fashion, we’re starting to see the various types of teams. There’s the strong, young, fit, physically-strong teams (typically composed of all-boys. This year, it’s the Sikhs). There’s the team who aren’t great with navigation or mental tasks, but make up for it by annihilating any physical challenges they encounter (the Cowboys), and there’s the team that keeps telling us how amazing and brilliant they are … but they fail at everything they do (that’s the girl and the Nigerian prince).
I’m seeing red flags, though. Thing about the Race is that the physical elements tend to favour the young, fit, male teams (and the young, fit, male teams are always seen as a huge threat, in the American season). We saw this in the very last season with the Orange Footy Boys (who won, what, first place in every single leg?). The thing is, though? A traditional season of TAR will counter those advantages with the stress of travel (searching for flights. Getting lost in foreign countries. Dealing with people who don’t speak English. Sleep deprivation. And dozens of other stresses).
Doing the Race on the cheap removes those stresses, which means the young, fit, male teams will dominate (like last season). That’s why the Sikhs (and cowboys) did so well, these last 3 episodes. So I’d bet money, just like last season, that at some point, there will be an obnoxious production stunt to get rid of the Sikhs and Cowboys (otherwise the show’s too predictable, and there’s no tension for the final few legs).
I understand that 10 is trying to do this on the cheap, and I understand that covid has made a proper international Race almost impossible … but the Race works, as a show, because it rarely deviates from the formula. The Australian version deviates too much, and I’m not sure I like it.
Windsong, when I read your first sentence I went “what??” but then everything else you say make absolute sense. I was just so disappointed with last night’s ep, but not because of the choices of location or challenge, they were all great. My gripes were:
1. The terrible reward gifted to a team who came last/second last. By any Aussie standard it is just not fair dinkum to reward the loser, and letting them move ahead of everyone else. The only satisfaction was that even with the “advance to Go”, they still managed to slip right back down. Hopefully, next time they are out. Like you, I think this is a sign of the type of manipulation that was so bad last season.
2. Bringing back a team I was so pleased to see the back of. In one single ep, those two were hurting my eyeballs. Now they get to come back, on equal footing with all the others, having skipped a leg. If they wanted to bring the numbers back up, then this team should at least have had a disadvantaged start, to reflect the fact they had already been eliminated.
3. (This a general bugbear with so many shows..) Starting the show with a “coming up on tonight’s Amazing Race…”. Please stop showing us all the punchlines in advance. We don’t need them, they spoil the surprise of the clues, and they waste time that could be given to showing action. Just jump straight into the first clue, like the US version.
4. There something amiss with the editing in terms of timing. Some challenges show one team at length and others not at all, we are not getting a real sense of travel time (let us see more driving when the teams overtake each other etc), and somehow they are not successfully building the tension at challenges. And yet, Beau has to wait three seconds (or it feels like ten) before announcing their place. I think the editors need to go to US TAR and learn the job a bit better.
Oh, so good to get that rant off my chest. Of course the irony is that I love the show, I have some definite favourites, they have given us a good villain (not too nasty, yet, just arrogant and a cheater). Maybe if I wasn’t enjoying the show, I wouldn’t come here to rant so much 🙂
Finally, just sad that the mums were eliminated. I felt they had potential to go much farther. They weren’t as physically unable as they looked, and much more clued-in than some other teams. I wonder if they were sacrificed to keep our villains. We will see if there are other attempts to make sure the prince and princess stay in for a long time.
So glad I decided not to watch. After last season, I had to spare myself…you know the old saying “Fool me once…..”. Now hearing that producers of TAR are so blatantly moving the chess pieces again to suit their narrative, it confirms my decision.
Juz, can we have a new thread for the second week (from Sunday)?
Yes, have scheduled one to post on Sunday. Thanks for the reminder
With reference to my point 3 above, now the show is advertising who gets u-turned. Sacriligeous.