Having come late to the party (I’ve only seen the last two seasons) I really can’t wait to see what I’ve missed.
Anyone else pumped to be seeing this?
Yes. The cool thing is, we will see a whole race in like two weeks!
I really don’t know who won any of the races prior to the season before last’s race, so it will all be fresh to me. (There were some comments about certain race moments in the threads I followed, but I don’t remember them…)
FWIW, Survivor will also be re-airing its seasons on the OLN this summer.
Unfortunately, even the seasons I missed, I probably read about who won those…
Awesommmme. I’ve got all the seasons on VHS and/or bootleg DVD, and I watch them all the time. Some people wonder how the show can still hold my interest when I already know who wins, but really, it’s just as exciting the tenth time around as it is the first. Even now, sometimes, I’ll watch the final episode of TAR3 and think maybe, just maybe, Zach & Flo will miss the first cab THIS time…
Hopefully the reruns will do well enough to prompt CBS into releasing the early races on DVD; Season One is confirmed for Sept. 20th, but I’ve heard nothing of the others yet. GSN did air The Mole Season 1 about a year before its DVD release, so that’s a good sign.
I just saw this on GSN the other night. I am so very excited. I have watched every season since TAR began, and, honestly, I can’t keep all the previous seasons straight. Reading threads on this board, or on TWOP and TARflies, I’m amazed at people who can just cite a previous season’s events no problem.
I’ve been wanting to catch a season beginning to end. The couple of eps I’ve seen have been pretty interesting.
Hopefully GSN will use TAR to replace the 4 episodes of Dog Eat Dog they run ad nauseum.
I was pretty excited about this until I realized my cable provider doesn’t carry Game Show Network. :smack: :smack:
Bump - Bump - Bumpity - Bump
Amazing Race!!! July 11th
I saw the commercial on GSN over the weekend, just by chance as I was flipping through the channels, and I about peed my pants, I was so thrilled. I didn’t start watching “TAR” until the now-infamous “Broken Ox” season (TAR5), so I am oh so VERY excited about seeing the beginning. Whoo hoo!
I’ve never seen an episode, but I have family members who rave on about that show every time I talk to them. I have it season-passed…
Wow, I’m amazed at how obnoxious Frank is.
Phil’s accent is much thicker too.
Did anyone else catch Ep 1?
Yup. I have a Season Pass. How come they got rid of the clues (e.g., “thunder and smoke”) and just tell everybody where to go now?
Cool, I know Flo. I only heard she had won, but never watched the show. I bet she whines a lot.
I should probably knew her, I haven’t seen her in a while.
Yeah, he’s the proto-Colin.
Also, Team Guido lived in Paris for 2 years. Did you know they lived in Paris for 2 years? I could’ve sworn somebody told me they lived in Paris for 2 years.
Damn, I feel weird writing this*…
I don’t like it that one teammate is allowed to carry the team to victory, I don’t like how haphazardly penalties are enforced (sometimes it’s a 24-hour penalty, sometimes it’s 30 minutes, sometimes it’s some other thing…like, what the hell?), and I’ve never liked it that teams with lots of potential could get knocked out early with just a little bad luck.
And I really, really hate the heavy-handed bunchups. Look, if this is what it takes to create down-to-the-wire drama, maybe it shouldn’t have it. They’re the contestants; let them make it a contest! And if one teams starts running away with it…fine. How big a win can they make it? Does it become a battle for second? Can someone catch up and make the leaders earn it? All kinds of possible stories here killed by the all-consuming need for a mad dash at the end.
I’m torn…I absolutely loved this show once, I really did, but it simply has no credibility as a competition to me. That’s fine for American Idol (which is really just the music industry’s answer to the Heisman Award), but I expected a little more here.
Once is enough for me, thanks.
*The reason I feel weird is that while I see these points mentioned on this board, they’re usually either glossed over or accepted with a shrug as part of the game. IMO, this is killing the show (although admittedly I hadn’t bothered to check the ratings lately).
You said you “absolutely loved this show once” – out of curiosity, when did you stop watching? I didn’t start watching until Season 5, so Seasons 1-4 are all new and, quite frankly, weird to me. They’ve made some changes since I started watching which address some of these concerns: for example, beginning with Season 6, they changed the Roadblock rules, and they now set a limit on the number of Roadblocks each person on the team can perform so that no one person can “carry” the team. Seeing what they did in Seasons 1-4 makes me really appreciate some of the changes that have been made.
From what I’ve read on other boards, the producers of the show actually care what fans think, and they’ve been listening to feedback to try to make the show better. They’ve changed some rules, done away with some features and added new ones, reconfigured penalties, etc. I’ve seen the differences even in the three seasons I’ve seen. I’ve only been watching a short time, but I can honestly say that it’s the only show I’ve ever seen that has consistently gotten better with each new season.
I’m with you on the bunching – most of us are with you on the bunching. Sometimes it’s unavoidable (like in the episode that aired last night, when the teams needed to travel from Johannesburg to Paris, when it was obvious that the number of flights was limited), but the “hours of operation” bunches have gotten a bit out of control. All signs indicate that TPTB are trying to do something about this.
But, I personally wouldn’t want to watch one team run away with it all. Watching these teams interacting, trying to size each other up and psych each other out, is just as interesting to me as where the teams are going and how they’re going to get there. I don’t want to watch a bunch of people going around the world really fast without talking to each other and taking time to enjoy themselves. That sounds awfully like the Tour de France, and that’s about the most boring thing in the world that I can think of. (My apologize to Tour fans, but it’s just not my thing.)
Folks still watching the nightly eps?
I am, and I’m pretty amazed at how much I had forgotten since the shows originally aired. For example, I somehow had been looking back on Team Guido with something like begrudging fondness, along the lines of, “Oh, they were somewhat annoying, but that was just them being them.” Nope. Hate them! They are prententious and rude and I want to smash them every time one of them starts commenting about how much more worldly they are than the other teams.
One thing I really wish hadn’t changed from earlier seasons is how the teams actually have to work to figure out some of the clues. It’s not simply “Go here and find this”, but there is some solving to be done. I much prefer that.
I didn’t get into watching TAR until a few years ago, so watching the first season has been great.
I prefer the ambiguous clues rather than the “Go here” clues given out now. Forces the teams to interact with people, and not always in a positive way.
And I hate Team Guido.
Watched my first GSN episode over the weekend (Paul & Amie get lost in the Sahara). Found it oddly edited and thus horribly mis-paced. Far too many commercials, but that’s par for the course for GSN. As repetitious as it is to have Phil explain to us what a “Road Block” is every week, it felt very weird when they cut that out. Then at the end, they seemed to cut every trace of Phil being at the mat (in a very awkward, hard-core porn recut for airing on Cinemax sort of way). I began to think that perhaps Phil refused to let them use his image in the reruns, but he showed up on camera at the end when Paul & Amie stumbled into camp.
I forgot how hard the navigating was on that leg and what a terrible couple Lenny & Karyn were.
Actually, in the first season (and perhaps others, I can’t remember), Phil only appeared when the final couple arrived at the Pit Stop. That’s how you knew you were likely eliminated—if Phil was there along with the greeter, you were in last place.
The commercials are bugging me, too. If I have to see that one woman shout “Oh, Yeah!” on the commercial for Ballbreakers , I’m going to scream.