I’m loving this season of the Amazing Race. I stopped watching several seasons ago, but this season with the Youtube stars has been fantastic.
But I wouldn’t mind a re-work of the formula. Before this season, I’d definitely grown tired of the formula too. The big difference this season is that the photography has just been fantastic, but best of all, there are no “bad” teams, just good, likeable teams that are already used to being on camera.
“Here’s $5,000. Get from place X to place Y via places A, B, C, D, and E, in whatever order you want.”
Granted, that would be a much more compelling game to play than to watch.
They need to figure out some way to both actually reward teams for doing well and thinking outside the box, while also keeping the competition close enough to root for. In other words, stop the airport bunching. We know that it’s coming. Let people running a good race have a chance to get on a plane 4 hours sooner than Team Doofus. But…maybe that plane has a connection or two and the later flights don’t, so now the team has a meaningful decision to make. Or, “You can take this flight 5 hours earlier, but you have to do this extra task that the other teams don’t have to do.” Ace the task through skill and keep your lead.
I actually like what they’ve done with airport bunching. They just don’t show airport drama much anymore. That always used to be my least favorite part of the Amazing Race anyway, when teams won or got a huge advantage because of getting better tickets. Watching people talk to a sales agent does not make for great drama. There are exceptions, of course. What happened at the end of Season 5, and the way the team that had been behind all season ended up landing first at the final destination and ended up winning the race. That was pretty awesome. But overall I love what they do this season: Don’t show the airport much at all. They all get bunched up at the airport, and they leave the airport, and then the race is on. That’s way better.
Yep, I understand that from a production standpoint its beneficial to bottleneck the teams on longhaul flights because a) it used to be very chaotic in earlier seasons where the teams harrassed various airport personnel and b) sometimes ended up having 12h or more time differences between teams, which takes some of the excitement out of the race. But I felt that was part of the fun of having the race in the first place, the chance to be smart about your flight choices.
Otherwise I would prefer a few more insights into the more “mundane” aspects of travelling. eg What they do during the downtime between legs and taxi rides… Watch the decision making process about what to spend money on: eg sleep in the street & have money for a taxi or go to a hostel and take a bus. I feel that we saw more of that in earlier seasons and its been streamlined way too much.
The whole package could use more character and breathing space and more of the “rougher edges” that it used to have.
Also one thing thats started to bug me is the incestant music THAT NEVER STOPS. Just pumping away trying to create artificial energy.
I definitely agree that the very first season was best when it allowed the situations to breathe and actually showed the characters in the times when they were waiting. They lost that almost completely starting with the second season onward, and just got it more and more streamlined to only show the action bits, and to always have music in every scene. That first season looks so stark now, as there’s long stretches with no music. They definitely got better at their production values during the season, but then they went overboard and took out nearly all the quiet moments.
I am impressed at how every new summer show this season looks so horrible. IMPRESSIVE JOB TV PEOPLE.
They just want you to enjoy your summer and take a break from the TV. :)
I remember back when I was in college, Summer was the season to actually watch TV. I never had a chance to watch shows during the semesters, so Summer re-runs were my chance to find out “hey, now I get to see what happened after Rachael found out that Ross liked her at the end of Season 1”.
Hey! Mr Robot Season 2 is this summer and that’s required watching.
The Americans gets a 2-season renewal to allow the series to conclude its overall story arc the way the creators would like to.
Have never watched this, but have heard good things. And now that it sounds like it’ll get an ending in line with the creative vision of the show, I think I’ll start watching this summer.
I think I’ll join you, figuratively. I’ve also heard good things.
And, honestly, one of the reasons for this thread is that I hate giving myself over to a show and then finding out it was tanking in the ratings and got a premature, truncated, or even un-finished ending arc.
Knowing that a show that has gotten a lot of critical praise is being given a chance to do its thing on its terms is the kind of thing that makes me eager to watch it, where as before…less so.
I started the Americans (Amazon Streaming) and I like it so far, but I’m still on season 1. I also was dragging my feet to see how it landed, and it sounds like I should try and catch up to watch the show live.
You’re in for a treat. I’ve been watching since the beginning. This is great news.
Speaking of shows set in the 80’s, anyone know if Halt and Catch Fire is coming back?
Yeah, I was actually lent the set for Deadwood and I don’t wanna watch it because it has no ending, apparently.
While true, it doesn’t have a BAD ending or a crazy cliff hanger, either, and it’s a GREAT show, so DO watch it.
Oh really? Fine. I just hate when a show is left unresolved. Like Better off Ted. GOD DAMMIT that show deserved more.
I was a big Better off Ted fan as well.
Also, speaking of unresolved, who can forget what happened to Duckman??
BTW, looks like Halt and Catch Fire’s Season 3 is coming this summer sometime.
Yeah, it was picked up for a third and final season.