Race Across The World - New BBC Reality Gameshow

I've never seen The Amazing Race to compare it to, but I do agree with cwej's point about the 'race' element. It doesn't feel like a race at all, apart from the two or three minutes of the show before arrival at the checkpoint. There's no sense of tension. For almost every episode the checkpoint 'race' has been completely manufactured and it turns out it's usually several hours apart, despite the editing trying to create something different.

To me it feels far more like a video travelogue, interspersed with X Factor back story, and the 'race' entirely incidental - pretty much just a construct to hang it all on.

And I fucking love it.
 
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Also: a better thing is that they never have a clue what position they're in, which is different to the Amazing Race. I like the arrivals when they don't have a clue they're in first or last.

Eh? They know what position they’re in when they open the book and then mingle for a few days in a well-to-do hotel.
 
Eh? They know what position they’re in when they open the book and then mingle for a few days in a well-to-do hotel.

yes I mean that bit where they walk up to it. In Amazing Race they’re often very confident of what position they’re in at that point. Often these teams have no idea even what country the other teams are in. This is a GOOD thing about Race Across The World
 
I've never seen The Amazing Race to compare it to, but I do agree with cwej's point about the 'race' element. It doesn't feel like a race at all, apart from the two or three minutes of the show before arrival at the checkpoint. There's no sense of tension. For almost every episode the checkpoint 'race' has been completely manufactured and it turns out it's usually several hours apart, despite the editing trying to create something different.

To me it feels far more like a video travelogue, interspersed with X Factor back story, and the 'race' entirely incidental - pretty much just a construct to hang it all on.

And I fucking love it.

100%. I said this to a friend yesterday who is a big RATW fan and Hates TAR - and I’m the opposite.

Amazing Race is a competitive reality tv show like Survivor and the US Big Brother. The likes of which the UK have never really made or got on board with unless they are a public vote show like BB or Strictly, or a judging show like GBBO. The travel stuff is incidental to that.

Race Across The World is a travel show with a race tacked on. Frankly they could save themselves £20k prize money and just take the race element out of it and just have a bunch of people trekking through a rainforest. It wouldn’t really change the show that much.

Both are good for their target audiences (and evidently the latter is not for me). I just resent the implication that RATW is better for ‘not having tacky dancing challenges’ when it is just as fake and edited (those awful ‘make some money by doing a shit job for an hour’ things are effectively the equivalent to a Roadblocks and Detours in TAR, but with no competitive element to them), and things like the grannies going home in Season 1 are such an indication of that fairness, as well as the departure of the couple this season with the clear off-camera comments to get them to quit or whatever..
 
For someone not enjoying the show you’ve got a fair amount to say about it Nick

Anyhow, Didn’t you desert watching TAR for seasons too having lost the enjoyment of it didn’t you? How have you found the new ones?

I didn’t say RATW is “better” than TAR, it’s a different show entirely. I’m just sick of them rehashing the same type of challenge season after season. At least the jobs on the race are kinda random and different and entirely optional!

I miss the days of TAR where contestants were free to sort out their own travel and sometimes could end up way ahead of the pack by taking as risk with tight flights etc. RATW reminds me of those early season where a bit of luck, a bit of begging and talking to strangers can help you out - it’s been years since TAR really allowed for that.

Of course being a huge reality tv consumer I’ll still watch TAR when it starts again next month (CBS really does treat the show like shit with how they dump it wherever they see fit in the schedules)
 
So pleased for the boys that won. Although selling personal affects for a taxi ride feels a bit cheating.

Well done to dom and lizzie for making it, I didn't think they would with their budget.

I don't get why Rob and Jen didn't get a taxi to the hotel instead of pissing about with a bus.
 
I'd have been pleased with any of them, for various reasons. But a hugely satisfying final.
 
I think the bus was this years “money needed to get to the viewing platform” - it was a direct instruction on the GPS.

Was cheering when the boys turned the book and it was empty. Great winners. Jens face when she realised they’d ditched their bags. She knew it was over.
 
I did feel for face of hate Jen. But the cousins consistently played the best game.
 
I was so rooting for Dom and Lizzie by the end.

Same. They did so well over the last couple of legs, especially with how far they were behind, at least partly due to his health issues.

Very worthy winners though. So exciting. And Jen's PERFECT messy reaction. :D

I do wonder how the start times for each leg were determined. Kicking off in the middle of the night obviously hurt Rob and Jen.
 
The boys were clearly the strongest team full stop. And Lizzie felt like a huge handicap a lot of the time.
 
Same. They did so well over the last couple of legs, especially with how far they were behind, at least partly due to his health issues.

Very worthy winners though. So exciting. And Jen's PERFECT messy reaction. :D

I do wonder how the start times for each leg were determined. Kicking off in the middle of the night obviously hurt Rob and Jen.

It felt like the bizarre start time of this leg was specifically designed to even out the race.

Also, yes, I sort of found Sam quite annoying/privileged/ungrateful about the whole thing. I imagined Jo would have loved to have done the final leg, but Sam made it impossible
 
Jo and Sam dropping out felt so inevitable that I wasn't that sad, as lovely as she was. :D at her saying she would have been alright with her other son.
 
I was not sad to see SubwayBoy drop out at the start of leg. Hoisted/Petard.

oh yeah served him right. Love Jo but she should have stood up to the petulant child a bit more
 
I'm glad I wasn't really invested in the 'race' (such as it was) aspect of it at all really - or at least in any of them in particular winning. Because the 1.30am start and the missing money are quite big unanswered questions.
 
oh yeah served him right. Love Jo but she should have stood up to the petulant child a bit more

But her motives for doing it were entirely different. She should only have done that if she cared about winning, and she very much didn't.
 
Jo was lovely but she gave in to too many of his demands

I think Sam was very close to quitting the whole thing after that shambles of a shift in the restaurant/bar. From then it seemed like Jo's approach very much became whatever it takes to keep Sam happy and make the journey last as long as possible.
 
I think the fact she has recurring cancer probably had an effect on the dynamics with her brat son.
 
He's a 19 year old with ADHD. He was never really equipped for it.
 
I'm glad I wasn't really invested in the 'race' (such as it was) aspect of it at all really - or at least in any of them in particular winning. Because the 1.30am start and the missing money are quite big unanswered questions.

The checkpoints have a 36 hour wait. If they arrive mid-afternoon, they leave after midnight.
 

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