Well this tuesday both the new season of the Amazing Race starts and the first season is being released on DVD (what an amazing coincidence). I am defnitely picking up the DVD, it has a bunch of extras and it isstill te original and one of, if not, the best.
As for the new season, I 'm not 100% on board with the family concept, but it could work and I will watch and enjoy it no matter what. I certainly hope there aren’t any overly obusive spouses or parents, hopefully there are more folks bringing the genuine as well as unintentional funny and not so much of the cringe-worthy stuff from previous contestants whose names I refuse to mention.
I’m going to watch it, of course, but I know what it was like to travel with me as a child, and I do not envy those parents. I just can’t imagine watching a 12-year-old whine about wanting to go home will be any fun at all.
I’ll be watching it, but I’m not really happy with the way the “family” thing turned out.
I really thing they should have made (and stuck to) a rule that said either, “At least two team members must be under 18” or “All team members must be over 15.” It just seems wrong to have teams with little kids going up again 4 20-something siblings.
Or the team that is a 57 year old father-in-law with his three sons-in-law, the youngest of whom is twenty six. On the surface it doesn’t seem to be a level playing field with the team who has a boy in grade 6 and another who is 8 years old. It’ll be interesting to see how the detours/roadblocks are staged.
Although I won’t be watching (thanks to the glory that is My Name Is Earl and will be vicariously watching through threads like this, the first thing that occurs to me is - how are they gonna do taxis? Right now you’ve got 2 people, a cameraman and the driver. How does this work with four people?
I was kinda debating watching this anyways, even before Earl made up my mind for me - I can see where it’ll quickly dissolve into child abuse or exploitation, or just annoying shots of a kid spiraling into Killer Fatigue. Doesn’t equal fun for me…
That’s what I’m thinking. The teams seem like they’ll be unbalanced when pitted against each other. If they modify Detours or Roadblocks to accomodate the wide age ranges, people will start saying it’s unfair. If they don’t, people will still say it’s unfair. If they tone it all down for the real little kids, the whole thing wil be lame. :rolleyes:
I haven’t yet decided which will be watched in real time and which will be taped and watched later: The glory that is My Name Is Earl (followed by The Office) or TAR. Decisions, decisions…
Thank Og for TiVo, is all I have to say, or I’d be completely SOL right now, because apparently I need a 12-step program for people who watch entirely too much television. Seriously, I have 26 (!!) season passes. I need help. Anyway … I will be watching Earl for one reason only: it ends earlier. Totally love both shows, and if TAR was only on for an hour tonight, I’d watch it instead, but I just can’t stay up past 10:00 any more. These 2-hour season premieres are going to kill me. (I don’t know when I turned into an old person, and I’m not happy about it, but the facts are what they are.) You would think that a show featuring families would be on when the whole family could watch it, wouldn’t you? (Listen to me: I am totally a crotchety old bird!)
From the articles my Google Alerts found for me, it would appear there is a lot of spoon-fed transportation (i.e., “take one of the marked cars and drive yourselves here”). At least on the legs that have already been “outed” as part of the Race. Whether the info is true, I can’t say, as unfortunately my family is far to Springer-esque to end up on a quality show like TAR, and so therefore I have no first-hand experience.
Yeah; I hear ya. I’m certainly willing to give this season a shot, but one of the drawbacks of TAR in the past was that you knew the old folks and the all-women teams had essentially no chance, because the tasks were slanted toward younger, stronger teams. It seems like this season exacerbates the differences between teams–you’ve got an all-male adult team, and a team with three men and a woman all in their early twenties, going up against two other teams that have two pre-teen members each.
I’m not sure how these latter teams stand a chance, unless the tasks mixed up to specifically negate the obvious advantages of all-adult teams. And that could have its own pitfalls–who wants to watch a coloring-within-the-lines contest?
So. We’ll see. I’m cautiously optimistic, but only because that’s the kind of guy I am.
I’m hoping they’ll come up with tasks that require strengths that kids can compete against adults with. I know there are a lot of things that kids can do better than adults, especially involving agility – and all the kids on this edition of TAR look to be in really, really good physical shape so may well be able to kick adult butt. Of the three youngest kids, two are serious tae kwan do competitors (the Blacks) and the third is a serious runner (the little Gaghan). Also, kids weigh a lot less than adults so in tasks that involve pushing or pulling or hauling or whatever, it may be a real advantage to have kids.
But I just don’t see a family with young kids winning, either, unfortunately. Just the stamina level required on the Race seems to me to be too intense for kids. We shall see.
They had Phil on this morning on The Early Show or whatever it’s called. He didn’t say much about the tasks, but he did say that the nine year old girl ran a sub seven minute mile. They also said that two of the familes stayed together for the hurricane.
Now did I miss hear something, I could have sworn it said it was only an 11,000 mile race, but I had to of missed something or they are only staying in North America. I’ll have to tape Earl tonight.
I have it set to DVR, but I may erase it. The race with kids seems negligent.
I don’t mind watching douche bag adults suffer for my amusement. But I don’t want to see kids freaking out.
Plus, I am still bothered by the finale last year. Not that I minded seeing Joyce and Uchenna take the million, but Rob and Amber got hosed. NO pilot returns to the terminal unless the producers twist some arms.
Count me in as well. I went from barely watching any TV at all last season to double-Tivoing The Amazing Race and House MD while I watch Earl in another room tonight, and hoping that I can find Commander in Chief online (I’m curious, but not enough to cut off these other 3 shows…besides, it’ll get cancelled soon, I know it), and since it’s another bloody 2 hour episode, I’m going to have to catch NipTuck later this week while TAR part 2 and SVU double tivo at 10.
I caught up with TAR on the gameshow network over the summer, and I’m pretty hooked. Trying to watch one of the older seasons every night while watching the new season once a week would probably be confusing if it weren’t for the kid aspect.
I’ll admit it, too. Except, judging from these particular families, it seems more likely that the parents will cry than the kids. I expect the kids to do the “oh-sweet-Jeebus-mother!” eye-roll or to whine about how their parents are embarrasing them. While I had some trepidation about this season and its potential for exploitation, after reading the bios I have to say that none of the young kids strike me as the sort that would tolerate much B.S. from anyone, most especially their folks. For crap’s sake, the littlest Black could kick my ass from hell to breakfast! And I’m kind of scared of the wee Gaghan and her freakishly fast feet. Plus, does anyone remember Gary and Dave from Season 2 or 3? These kids will be funnier without even trying. I’m already steeling myself in case of disappointment, but I am hoping at least one of the teams with kids lasts a good while.
*Jumps up and down and gleefully waves at DeVena
Me! Me!
I’m a mom and a preschool teacher, but the evil side of me thinks this might be kinda funny. I just hope none of the parents (the dads especially) get all Jonathan (of Jonathan and Victoria) on their kids.
What makes this so funny for me is my sister, her husband and their 2 teenage daughters **just ** came back from Allahabad, India. Where they had to take a train… in India… for hours. She just got off the phone with me, saying how they knew what it was going to be like but they weren’t mentally prepared for the crush of people. I asked didn’t they watch The Race? I just laughed and laughed when she told me that they’ve never watched TAR.
TAR - teaching us about distant cultures from our sofas, season after season.