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The Amazing Amazing Race
The Amazing Race, however, had apparently little to do with that however, as friend of the stars David explains: "You're a little off on the creator. It was created by the husband/wife team of Bertram van Munster and Elise Doganieri (Van Munster was best known beforehand for being a producer of the long-running series COPS in the US.), Uber film and TV producer Jerry Bruckheimer (who also brought the CSI franchise to TV) is the executive producer of the show. The Amazing Race is a show hosted by presenter and adventure documentary film maker Phil Keoghan. In it, eleven or twelve teams of two (connected by friendship, love or family) race around the world through thirteen distinct legs. At the end of most of the legs, the team who checks in to each 'pitstop' last is usually but not always eliminated. The first team to the finish line of the final leg wins a million dollars.
That's what happens in the show in a nutshell. The only really annoying thing is that its premise is a bit of a lie, the impression you might get when the host explains the game is that teams are entirely on their own in getting from point to point but this isn't actually true. Most of the instructions give a quite specific condition. One of the cunning rules of the race is that when a team reaches a pitstop they have to take a mandatory twelve hour rest so that, for example, a team that clocks in at 2:30PM are sent out on the next stage at 2:30AM. The first or second task normally involves either going into an area which operates certain hours of business or getting tickets for a plane to another country. The first teams to get there normally have to wait for the world to revolve around them by which time many of the other teams have caught up. Each episode of the show is really a race to avoid last place and these 'pinch points' ensure that there are many teams in contention and that staying in the race in each leg means performing consistently well in the tasks and not making mistakes with the travel arrangements. They seemed to get the timing of this slightly wrong for the first race and the front two teams managed to get a day ahead of the people behind which is uncatchable.
Story-arcs all over the place there but there's slightly more to it than that because each team will spend a reasonable amount of time in each other's company at airports and suchlike there's an additional layer of bonds between the teams as well. The many tasks the contestants will need to perform through the race normally have basis in local life. For example, in Mexico City, the most populous city in the world, they might be given a photograph of one man who they'd have to find to give them their next clue - a seemingly tough prospect but made slightly easier if you can work out where the building he was photographed in front of is. There's normally at least one frustrating and time consuming "find X amongst the busy labyrinthine streets" task throughout the race. Other task favourites include the "beating the locals at their own game" style tasks, such as trying to score five points against a local table-tennis champion in China, or being asked to save a penalty against some Portugese teenagers (where, we're told, they learn to play football pretty soon after they learn to walk). The Amazing Race is lots of fun and we recommend downloading them from BitTorrent without any reservation. Well, perhaps one. If you watch too many episodes too close to each other you begin to realise, for all it's adventure, drama and exciting music, just how much of the show is people booking flights and micromanagement. Still, though. Of course, Brits who took up digital quite early might remember the British version of the show called The Race hosted by actor and ex-Boyzone singer Keith Duffy. Eight individuals were paired up by the producers to go travelling the world together. In each leg teams had to get from A to B via doing a task at either C or D on a very small budget. Winning a leg meant receiving more money than the other teams on the next leg, finishing outside the time-limit for the leg meant getting no extra money at all. Whoever won the final leg got to split £50,000 betweem them. As with the US version of Survivor, The Amazing Race is shown in many countries around the world and is a hit in Australia and Ireland. The first series was also shown over here on SKY One (but was moved to a graveyard slot midway through the run) and later ITV2. Apparently Challenge were looking into buying the rights to air the show but nothing has come of that. So currently the only way for Brits to see it is the Internet. So why not use it? Related Links: The official sites are still up for you to browse. Be warned that they tell you who wins on the front page, so if you don't want to know think before clicking! [1]It doesn't happen often, but sometimes we get things completely wrong. And just to show that we're only human, here's the paragraph that was there until someone corrected us. We have no idea how we came to this conclusion personally, except that we're sure we read it sometime ago (this is the sort of fearless journalistic integrity you will come to expect from Bother's Bar). Mark Burnett has very little to do with the show. I mean, it's not like we've been following it or anything... " It is believed that current CBS wunderkind Mark Burnett, who had just directed the first Survivor, the biggest show of the generation, saw the idea and wanted to make it his own (much like he caught the original Expedition Robinson whilst in Sweden and liked it so much he fought to bring Survivor to the screens). Burnett was no stranger to adventure racing, even before Survivor he had made a name for himself organizing and running Eco-Challenge since 1992. In 2001, Burnett directed the first Amazing Race. It pulled in moderate but not spectacular numbers of viewers but was a critical success, winning an Emmy for "Most Outstanding Reality Competition Program" for the 2002-3 season, and whilst Burnett was still pulling in a massive amount of viewers for Survivor CBS are more than happy to let him make The Amazing Race because, basically, he wants to. And whilst Survivor now has a large but steady audience, The Amazing Race has an audience that has continued to grow over the five series so far." |
Let's begin with a potted history of how the show came about from how I remember it. The concept of a show where people race around the world isn't particularly new but the first sighting of it we can find is a 1998 Australian show called Race Around The World which is a bit of a misnomer really - filmmakers are sent to different parts of the world each week and make a film which is beamed back to the judges back home who mark it out of twenty. After eight weeks, whoever had the highest score won. 
Mark Burnett had nothing to do with it. In fact the show concept was devised as part of a bet, as Elise and Bertram wagered who could come up with the better TV show in 5 minutes." [1]
The route is predetermined beforehand and the teams have to follow clues in yellow envelopes to direct them as to where to go next. To help, at the beginning of each leg the team are given a small amount of money to cover travel and food, although they need not worry about their air fares (paid by a special card) but must only travel on economy class. Along the route the teams will have to perform certain tasks:
During the first races, these would usually be a choice between either taxi or bus/train. These days there are marked taxis to use, supplied cars/trucks/camper vans they must use, chartered buses and aeroplanes and so on. This rather flies in the face of the impression of a completely free roaming adventure which they're trying to give. For the game, however, this is actually quite a good thing.
One of the things I read whenever I hear US gameshow fans enthuse about the show is that it's the reality show it's OK to like because it concentrates on the game rather than the relationships. This, in fact, is rubbish. For starters, here's a list of the contestants from series three. See if you can figure out why they've been chosen, considering that for the next six weeks they will be living out of each other's pockets in a highly stressful environment:
Often teams that are quite close together will form an alliance to help each other out to the next couple of route markers only to break it as soon as there is something to gain. In the heat of the moment in the competitive environment, feuds in airport terminals are not uncommon. 
There are normally one or two "fall from a great height or walk a long way" detours. 
I've only seen the first episode and it seemed like quite a boring version of The Amazing Race idea, but if you want to read up on it Iain Weaver followed it as part of