Why I've stopped watching the Amazing Race

Cafe Society
1

I’m probably in a minority on this, and I expect a considerable amount of thread shitting. But I won’t mind because I know what it’s like to see a fellow fan fall by the wayside. It’s just that there have been several niggling little things eating at me for quite some time, and since this season started out as more of the same, I have finally given up. Last night, for the first time ever, I did not record the show and will not have seen it.

For one thing, the show keeps referencing “clues”. Well, there are no clues. There are only instructions, telling people to go from one place to another. A “clue” implies, at least to me, the need to give something some thought beyond how to read a map. For something to be a clue, a puzzle should have to be solved with a risk that a wrong guess might be made.

Second, it really isn’t even a race. If it weren’t for the eliminations at each round, almost anyone could win the thing at the end because every leg involves at least one bottleneck — either one or two flights that leave at the same time, or a gate that opens at a specific time, or a ferry that crosses back and forth carrying several at a time. If everyone were in it until the end, they would all spill out somewhere near the Playboy Mansion and race to the mat. So, it may as well have been just a jaunt around the estate.

Third, CBS forces me to accomodate the network by blocking out a three-hour wall of time. My DVR will not record more than two programs at once, and so I have to record Amazing Race and Cold Case and whatever follows that, just in case there is a double overtime or something in the football game. Even a regular game often pushes it back by fifteen minutes or more. I want 8:00 to mean 8:00 so I can watch other things I’m interested in as well.

Fourth, I’m tired of the participants. There are always certain types that are copies of types who have gone before them — the father/grandfather and daughter/son, the gay lovers, the black people, the best friends, the fiances, the couple who argue constantly, the special needs couple, and the psycho couple, one of which is sure to harm the other physically in some way before the show is finished. It would be more fun for me at this point to see people randomly paired and watch the dynamic of how they come together or move apart.

There are a few other reasons too, but that’s enough for now. (And no, I’m not going to mention the snubbing of Rob and Amber last year. That was thoughtless on the show’s behalf, but it wasn’t a deal breaker.)

2

I don’t watch this show now but I did when I was married because my ex likes it. This was the thing that bothered me the most (other than the hyper annoying contestants.) What’s the point of finishing ten hours before everyone else if it means that you’re going to have to get up at four in the morning only to get to some shop that doesn’t open until noon. You may as well have slept in like everyone else.

That is a good idea.

3

This has always been my problem with the show, and I don’t think the producers will ever do anything to change it. I think they structure things this way so that the teams meet up with each other and there’s “drama”.

If I were king, my solution would be to have minor checkpoints at all such bottlenecks. If I get to the airport 15 minutes ahead of you, then you have to wait 15 minutes at the destination airport.

4

For me its “same old stuff” with vaguely different faces. I really enjoyed the first series, and enjoyed the second, and then it became sadly predictable.

Like others, I would like to see more of a Race, with some real clues that take at least a modicum of intelligence to work out.

5

I know where you’re coming from, Lib, even if I still enjoy the current season. While I don’t mind the occasional bottleneck, because I think it would also be no fun if one team was something like a day ahead, I hate, hate, HATE senseless airport drama.

Like in the last episode, everybody was racing to the Amsterdam airport, running to and fro between different counters, yelling, looking at monitors and such, and I turned to my roommate who had already seen the episode and said: “There’s one flight leaving and they’ll all be on it, isn’t there?” Yep. More camels, less airport drama, I say!

6

Pretty empty, obviously. I’ve also recently watched several professional sporting events, if that’s any indication.

7

Hey, that’s a good idea.

Bunching does have some positive points, though, not the least of which is that it creates drama. Also, over the course of the race, if all time advantages were retained fully, the pack might get too spread out, leading to things like teams arriving at the pit stop on different days.

But this suggestion could still be used with modifications depending on the situation. For example, if the teams were arriving at the airport too far apart, the penalty could be a half-time penalty instead of a full-time penalty. (I arrive 15 minutes ahead of you, you have to wait 7.5 minutes at the destination airport.)

Another possible modification is that the teams who have to wait could be allowed to use the time doing something that might help them make up the time later, like researching travel options. Or in the right situation, they could be encouraged to sing or perform to earn money from passersby. (Obviously not in a third world country or anywhere it’s illegal.) Might make for amusing TV.

Or what if they were given access to amenities like showers, comfy beds, or even massages while they waited? Would this help forestall killer fatigue? And what if the teams were allowed to use these services whether they HAD to wait or not? Would some people choose to take a time penalty to get a good shower or whatever?

Ooh, that would be fun!

Would you pair up individuals, or still accept people in pairs, and then split the pairs?

Word to the third, man! It was delayed almost a whole HOUR last night!! My 5 year old and I like to watch it together, and I’m willing to let him stay up a bit past his bedtime to watch it. But the unknown delay makes it really hard to deal with.

8

I’d like to see a lot more “make your way to X destination” without specifying the means of travel necessary to get there. You take a train and someone else goes by bus and a third team pays a local to drive them? All fine. May the fastest team win.

It’s still one of the best shows on TV, though.

StG

9

I was having this same discussion with a coworker today. I gave up on it when they decided it would be good entertainment to watch a kid cry. Then, the more I thought about, the less I wanted to see it again.
I don’t want to watch people bicker all over the world. I don’t think it’s enjoyable to watch people bitching at each other at airports. Airports are not fun places, and watching tickets get printed out does not amuse me.
I also don’t enjoy watching people humiliate themselves, at least not the way they do here. The Fear Factor Food challenges are disgusting and degrading. Here, eat a gallon of spicy soup. Oh, you threw up in it? Well, eat it again. Here, sit in front of an African village and eat an ostrich egg that could feed a family of 6. Too much food? Yeah, we knew that, just go ahead and throw up in this bucket, we’ll throw it away. Here’s a plate of live baby octopuses. Cut 'em up, chug 'em down. All the food cramming and and vomiting challenges are revolting to me.
There’s also the Ugly American meme they’re helping to perpetuate. Here’s a country’s traditional dance/cuisine/costume/sport/celebration. Now do a parody of it and giggle/look disgusted/swear your way through it. Hope you’re enjoying the country you’re basically ignoring while you zip through and ignore all but the clues, and don’t forget to yell at the locals if they don’t speak English.
Nope, I’m with ya, Lib. I just gave up a lot earlier than you did.

10

I honestly don’t know. There’s so much that needs to change. It’s like King Ralph asking Cedric, “Where do we start?”. The answer was, “Everywhere.”

11

I don’t think they have done any gross eating contests for the past few seasons, a modification with which I agree 100%.

12

For me, the thing that absolutely lost me for the series was that the contestants were NOT allowed to use any elite frequent flyer status when making their plane reservations.

WTF?

They have feet, they can use those to walk, they have vocal chords, they can use those to speak, but they have double-diamond platinum uranium elite that guarantees them a seat on the next plane and their own private pilot and they can’t use it? (OK, I am exaggerating)

Screw 'em.

13

There was also the season (two or three ago) when some people were saying that the producers intervened so that one couple could make a flight. It so happened to be the critical flight back home. The couple won the “race”.

14

What separates the Not-So-Amazing Race from Survivor and Big Brother is the lack of dynamic.

In Survivor and Big Brother you have the inherent social experiment of lumping a group of people from disparate backgrounds and forcing them to live, get along and compete together. The added factor (which is often overplayed) is the constant scheming that is necessary to eliminate one of the players and then later to remain in good enough graces to earn their vote in the end.

Take this out and you’re left with a bunch of doofuses running around the planet, making fools of themselves in front of the camera and locals and with an incessant shimmering cymbal crescendo constantly punctuating the scene changes.

How does this show keep winning the Emmy for “Best Reality Series”?

15

What you’re describing is exactly why I don’t like Survivor and most reality shows. Beneath the tribal names and immunity challenges, they’re essentially a popularity contest. That didn’t interest me in high school, and it doesn’t interest me now.

The Amazing Race, for all its faults, does reward people who are actually good at something.

16

In (brief and probably fruitless) defense of Survivor; the show is not, and has nothing to do with, a popularity contest. The winner of the show’s first season was quite possibly the single most reviled human being playing the game at the time. Of the five people who voted to give him a million dollars, probably four of them wouldn’t have pissed on him if he was on fire. In high school terms, he was as far from the popular crowd as you could get - he was the chubby kid who gets book-checked all the time.

Vecepia Towry wasn’t anything resembling popular - she was the kid in the back of the room who never speaks, in high school terms. Yul Kwon was the science nerd. Chris Daugherty was the creepy gigantic guy who the girls avoided in the hallway.

No one is required to like the show, of course, but to say that it’s a popularity contest is plain wrong. It does reward people who are good at something - the ability to consistently perform well at the physical and mental challenges, or to perform an essential “housekeeping task” is of tremendous value. Several players have made it to or near to the end on the strength of those abilities alone. Based on popularity, some of these people would have been booted weeks and weeks before they actually were, but achieved success because they kept winning and producing and were: (1) too valuable to get rid of early; and then (2) immune from being eliminated later on.

But the other skill that Survivor rewards is negotiation. Those who have been successful are those who understand how to get what you want from people who are in direct opposition to you and in many cases, don’t like you. This is not an easy skill to learn or to master.

By way of contrast, what I’ve seen of The Amazing Race makes me feel like the outcome is virtually random. In the seasons I’ve watched, I’ve never felt like one team or another was particularly skilled at anything game-related - or at least, I’ve never felt that the game-related skills a team demonstrated had any real relationship to that team’s outcome in a given leg or (especially) overall.

17

Good point about Survivor. In fact, the whole Give Rupert A Big Prize crap was due to the fact that the game is not a popularity contest. I think CBS feared a ratings plunge if it did not mollify unsatisfied fans. Good point too about Amazing Race. It really is random to the extent that luck plays such a huge role, from which taxi pulls up to them to whether there is a handy local person who will assist them.

18

I’m curious, why would those people vote to give him the money? What could Richard offer that would get them to vote for him, since they seemingly had nothing to lose by voting for the most popular/least hated contestant?

19

Well, in fairness, it was a pretty close thing. The answers vary pretty widely. One of the votes he received was from someone with whom he had forged a pretty serious "alliance - " an old military man named Rudy. Richard had correctly surmised that if Rudy promised his vote to Richard, he would give his vote to Richard, no matter what happened in the interim. But I think, generally, that Richard won in part because the other players rather grudgingly accepted that he played the game well.

It was sort of brilliant, because it set the tone for a lot of what the show would be. It took advantage of basic psychology - if someone beats you out, you want it to be the winner. Richard was acknowledged by most of the losers as the person most responsible for each of their ousters. This presented them with a choice: vote for Richard, and then (subconsciously) figure “hey, at least I lost to the best,” or vote for his competition, and be stuck knowing that the person who got you kicked out wasn’t even the winner.

In short, Richard offered them pride, I think.

20

With 20/20 hindsight, I’m guessing they correctly thought “This sociopath won’t be able to handle this windfall, and will screw his life up somehow”.

Seriously though - by the time you’re voting for a winner, there are only 2 people left. The other finalist, Kelly, wasn’t any more popular than Richard. Hell, listen to the famous speech by one of the jurors.