TV Guide has an article called "Five ways to make The Amazing Race even better!"
Quote:
Sure, The Amazing Race is a Top 20 hit and recently won its second Emmy award. It still wouldn't hurt to make a few small improvements to this show, which kicks off again on Tuesday. With that in mind, we asked three teams from last season - Chip and Kim McAlister, Colin Guinn and Christie Woods and Charla Faddoul and Mirna Hindoyan -- what changes they'd make.
1. YANK THE YIELDS The Yield allows one team to stop another from racing for a predetermined period of time. Executive producer Bertram van Munster says the Yield "puts in additional jeopardy." Woods disagrees: "It helped the ratings, but it makes [the race] less fun." The good news? Van Munster says that in the future, "We're doing a lot less of it."
2. PLAY MORE MIND GAMES Chip McAllister admits that it's entertaining to watch players carry 50 pounds of beef on their shoulders. Still, he says he'd like to see "more mental games." Hindoyan suggests th show "let people use more creativity." The producers don't prefer brawn to brans, but van Munster says, "we're doing a race around the world. You need forward motion." This season, he adds, "We'll have more thinking [challenges], but putting puzzles together is not what we do."
3. BAN THE BUNCHING Because many challenges can be performed only at specific times (the first available flight to Patagonia doensn't leave until 10:30 am, for example), the teams often bunch up, wiping out any advantage held by the leading team. "If you added up the hours we spent waiting, we would have finished two days before everyone else," Guinn says. But don't look for any change. "That's the reality when you travel," van Munster says. "We don't have the power to open [sites] early. And flight times are beyond our control."
4. STOP THE SCOFFLAWS Some teams seem to get ahead by ignoring speed limits or driving on road shoulders. "Rules were broken and no penalty was given," Faddoul complains. But the scofflaws do get punished, van Munster says - it's just that viewers and even other teams may not see it. "They'll get penalized," he insists. "We'll make [teams] leave later [on the next leg], so they'll lose a few minutes here or there."
5. REGULATE THE ROADBLOCKS Roadblocks are challenges that only one member is allowed to perform. The trouble is, the same teammate is often the only one to take on the toughest physical tasks. "I would have a rule where one person can't do a challenge more than two times in a row," Hindoyan says. The same thing bothered van Munster in the last race. In the future, he says, "[Each team member] can only do six roadblocks on the whole trip, so both people will have to do them."
|
It's no surprise that Colin/Christie didn't like the Yield! The most interesting part to me was that the teams get punished for breaking laws. I wish we saw more of the penalties. How funny that Mirna wants both people on a team to have to do roadblocks. She practically had to be forced to do them.
TV Guide also has a writeup of this week's show that starts out "If you thought Colin was obnoxious in Race's fifth running, get ready for Jonathan, a grating hothead and chronic whiner who constantly berates his poor wife, Victoria, and for no discernable reason considers himself "a mental magician."