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Table of Contents
From the Introduction
Scenes We See Again & Again
Fixing the Race
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: FIXING THE RACE
Here’s one universal rule: anything popular enough to attract a legion of fans also invites criticism that it ain’t as good as it used to be. The folks who discover it first delight in telling newbies that (whatever it is) was ten times better in the days of yore, when they were the only folks paying attention to it. Name a Broadway musical, a rock group, a writer or even a reality TV show, that you discovered just now, and somebody will regard you with superior, knowing pity and say, “Yeah. Too bad you weren’t around at the beginning.”
THE AMAZING RACE is no exception. Many fans have been vocally upset with everything that’s happened since its first season. They considered the show “ruined forever” when the cryptic clues were scaled back in Race 2, when the Yield was introduced in Race 5, when everybody started screaming at each other in Race 6, and when a much-simplified competition suitable for children was scheduled for Race 8. Somehow, every incarnation becomes the apocalypse. Somehow, the fans are still around by the time the next race comes along, this time bringing friends they want to introduce to this show that sucks so much now.
To be perfectly clear about this: unlike a certain ox, the race is not broken. At its very worst, it still provides more thrills and laughter and moments of occasional beauty than any other reality show on the air. But it can still be tinkered with a little. Below, this book’s prescriptions:
1) More Third-World Destinations
The show is best when it sends competitors to exotic locales, far from familiar comforts, less impressive when it sends them to locales that seem just down the block from Disneyland. Many racers have reacted to the conditions they found in Senegal or India with astonishment, horror, or revulsion, thus establishing that exposure to such conditions can be as clear a character-building (and character-defining) moment as any number of rock-climbing or cliff-rappelling challenges. A little more historical context would be fine, too. All too often, the show requires racers to zip to and fro without any pause to reflect on any of the places they visit. But one of the finest moments in the show’s entire history occurred outside of competition, when racers were stirred and moved by their visit to the Slave House in Senegal. A pinch more of that would not only reveal even the most frenetic racers as more than the whooping ninnies they sometimes appear to be on the series, but add some much-appreciated added nutritional value.
2) Fewer Passive Tasks
Too many tasks consist of strapping racers into some kind of vehicle and letting them enjoy (or endure) the ride while somebody else does all the work. Now, a little of this is fine. We can understand the value of a good zip line, now and then: it’s photogenic, and if it tests the racers in no other way, at least it challenges their fear of heights. We can use a little of that. But for racers who have no fear of heights, it’s essentially an amusement park ride. It doesn’t ask much of them. Nor do the tasks that send racers to some distant location, just to look at something. Race 8 had all too many of these: from the task that required racers to receive a clue from (the owner of) famed movie icon Bart the Bear, to the task that required them to sit around waiting for Old Faithful to blow, or the task that required them to get their pictures taken with Buffalo Bill. Tasks like these are transparent delaying actions, useful only in keeping racers from arriving at more interesting locations before the production staff is ready for them. They challenge the racers not at all. Please, please, please: let’s cut these to an absolute minimum. Let’s require racers to actually do something.
3) Fewer Bunchings
We understand that the race can be hard to manage, and that you want to keep the competitors close enough to maintain the level of suspense. But wide spreads have a narrative kick just as thrilling as close finishes. There’s a genuine thrill that comes from watching a favorite team reach a route marker hours after everybody else, work like hell to catch up, and (if they’re lucky) stay in the game to fight another day. Whenever Bunchings exceed two per episode (and there were times in Races 6 and 8 when they seemed to arrive with monotonous regularity), it’s hard to maintain the sense that all this effort matters, and that Racers have a reason to proceed from place to place at more than a slow walk. Please, as much as possible, limit the phenomenon to airports and monuments
4) No More Binges
It’s perfectly okay to challenge racers with food unfamiliar to them: live octopi, chicken feet, or some of the Argentinean meats offered in Race 7. Stomaching unfamiliar food is, after all, is one of the challenges of world travel. But challenges that require racers to vomit or eat to the point of physical pain are seriously uncool: even if there were any entertainment value in watching sickened contestants puking their guts out, requiring it of them is cruel, and possibly dangerous. We’ve had all we can take of this. Let’s not go there again.
5) No More Muggings
With the major exception of the Race 7 Finale, when the money woes of Uchenna and Joyce kept the tension building until the last few seconds, the “mugging”, or confiscation of money and luggage, as a penalty for coming in last during a non-elimination leg, has never inconvenienced anybody. Every team that’s ever been mugged has managed to beg enough funds to continue; indeed, every team that has ever been relieved of its luggage has managed to find outfits suitable for subsequent climates. All the mugging has ever done is make a distasteful game out of begging, often in some of the poverty-stricken regions of the world. Seriously: if producers need to penalize racers for coming in last during non-elimination legs -- as I agree they do -- there are alternatives. How about giving them more luggage? Telling each racer they have to carry a twenty-five pound weight all the way to the next Pit Stop? Or giving them an extra, added task they have to complete next leg, before they’ll be allowed to check in? Or prohibiting them from getting aboard certain conveyances, that other racers can board with impunity. These penalties would handicap late-arriving racers without forcing them to equate their need to win this competition with the needs of any local poor.
6) Bring Back the Fast Forward
During Races 1-4, the Fast Forward was a constant issue, tempting with its promise of easy passage, but providing contention between teams as racers argued over the best time to use it. It was an invaluable equalizer, allowing physically weaker teams a chance to stay in the race, and more ruthless teams something to fight about. Following those early competitions, the Fast Forward was cut down to three, two, or (in the case of Race 8) only one appearance a season. Reduced to a wild card, its effect on the final outcome is practically nil. We’re given to understand that this was at least in part a budgetary decision, made at a time when the show was struggling in the ratings. But the show’s a hit now. Can’t we bring the Fast Forward back, and restore some unpredictability to the proceedings?
7) Either Eliminate the Yield, Or Provide Alternatives
The Yield, which gives teams the ability to force the racers behind them to stop, has never been a popular innovation. All it does is foment fighting between racers. This is not entirely a bad thing; it can be amusing to watch racers use this serious weapon to pursue petty grudges. But, you know, as long as you’re providing a weapon of that kind, let’s provide racers with some additional options. For instance: The Anchor, which would give trailing racers a chance to slow down the teams already ahead of them. (“We just got a phone call. Sorry, you’ve just been Anchored. You can’t get on the plane.”) Or, as an alternative, the moral opposite of the Yield: the Lifeline, which allows racers to give a half-hour bonus to another team of their choice. Why would any team ever want to use such a thing? Well, aside from making alliances meaningful in a way they aren’t now, imagine yourself racing against a team of triathletes and a team of overweight accountants. You may not like the accountants very much. But you would certainly prefer to race against them, next leg, than give yourself a heart attack competing against folks you know to be faster than you. Adding the Anchor and the Lifeline to the Yield (in, let’s say, alternating legs), and telling each team that they can only use one option, ever, ratchets up the strategy and the politics. Alternatively: just get rid of the whole idea.
8) More Interaction With Locals
The most interesting thing racers ever have to do is interact with locals. Indeed, that’s the very point of the “crowded and confusing marketplace” challenge, as well as the challenges that require racers to shine shoes or sell escargot. But why not go further? The very next time there’s a major overnight bunching point at some distant locale, why not arrange for each team to attend a separate friendly family dinner with people who live there -- thus enjoying the hospitality and the culture of the people they’re visiting -- with, perhaps, the next day’s clue handed them as a surprise dessert? There are any number of families, around the world, who would leap at the chance to meet “famous” Americans and appear on American television. And any number of racers who would find this the most rewarding part of their trip. It wouldn’t take much effort to work out any number of ways for spotlight racers meeting, and getting to know, the actual inhabitants of their global obstacle course. And any number of ways the show would be improved as a result.
9) More Versatile Contestants
The show has done quite well in this area, featuring many folks of different ethnic, religious and educational backgrounds; it’s certainly done quite well by its gay contestants, and to our current knowledge, has been the only major reality show, but for one, to feature a little person#. It’s still hard to avoid noticing how many of its stars have been actors or models or showbiz fringies. Why not cast the net just a little bit wider? How about a hearing-impaired contestant? How about openly gay women instead of men for a change?# How about some more folks who look like they could be working in the cubicle next to you?
10) The Flo and Hellboy Amendments
If you threaten to quit more than five times, you have to. And if you threaten to throw yourself off bridges more than three times, you have to.
11) Fix Phil’s Syntax
Why, exactly, does Phil say, “I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve both been eliminated from the Race?” Doesn’t the both go without saying? Is there any circumstance where he would say, for instance, “Colin, you’ve been eliminated; Christie, you get to continue alone?”
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