TAR S30 E4+5: Stop mangling the French language!
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Title : TAR S30 E4+5: Stop mangling the French language!
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Title : TAR S30 E4+5: Stop mangling the French language!
link : TAR S30 E4+5: Stop mangling the French language!
news-today.world | Bonjour, comment vas tu? Yes the title of this week's post is based on the horrible way so many racers completely mangled the French language - ouch. I am fluent in French, I have lived, studied and worked in France, it is my second language and to hear people totally struggle with the French language was painful to my ears. But apart from that, we were treated to a double episode in France this week - France is the most popular European destination country for TAR US, it has been featured in a total of 11 seasons, which makes it equal second with India (also 11 seasons) but still behind China which has been featured in 13 seasons. So much to talk about this week (that proposal!), so let's start with the statistics and let's see if some of my earlier predictions have been correct:
The statistics after 5 legs
Team Extreme 2.4
Team BB 3.2
Team IndyCar 3.6
Team Yale 4.4
Team Well Strung 4.8
Team Chomp 5.6 (eliminated in Les Baux)
Team Ocean Rescue 6
Firefighters 6.8
Team Slam Dunk 7.25 (eliminated in St Tropez)
Well I am glad to see team Extreme still emerging as the strongest team so far, despite having only won one leg so far but so far no team has managed to win more than one leg. This proves that they are really quite consistent, never ever dropping out of the top 3. They are clearly the best team in this season and the clear favourite to win: and if they do, I would be delighted as I really like them too. Team BB struggled in the leg 5, finishing only 6th, their worst position ever, exposing weaknesses in their team after a great start in this season. But what about team IndyCar? Well, I think they were somewhat lucky in St Tropez with the game of petanque, but they have now chalked up a 1st and 2nd place finish, showing that do have what it takes to beat the rest in this season. I'm somewhat disappointed to see team Yale struggle in France, they are now firmly back in the middle of the pack after having won leg 3 in Morocco. Kudos to Evan for barely complaining having taking a nasty hit to the mouth in the Optimist dinghy - ouch, she must have been in so much pain but she never ever suggested giving up.
Congratulations to team Ocean Rescue!
When they barely survived leg 4 in St Tropez after struggling with the Head to Head, I am sure many of you were screaming at your TVs or computers, "Lucas, propose now! Come on Lucas! What are you waiting for? Propose now!" I was thinking if he didn't propose then, they might get eliminated in the next leg and it would be a pretty lousy time to propose. But no, he didn't propose and thank goodness he didn't because they ran a flawless leg the next leg: Lucas blitzed through the French catapult (known as a trebuchet) challenge and they managed to stay just ahead of team Extreme to win that leg. Yes, they have fought, argued and said nasty things to each other on this race and under the unforgiving glare of the cameras in your face on TAR, reality TV can portray them to be a couple with communication issues (and I'm picking my words carefully). But such is the stressful nature of competing on TAR, it can bring out the worst and the best in you - the pressure have brought out the worst in them in the first four legs and finally it has brought out the best in them in Les Baux. We all love a TAR engagement and there have been a few: Matt & Ashley from S26, Chad & Stephanie from S17, Hayden & Aaron from S6, Sally & Tyson from TAR Australia S3 and finally Alain & Audrey of TAR Canada S2. But hey, I can't talk about all this without mentioning TAR legend Justin Scheman who faked the Amazing Race just to propose to his then girlfriend Diana Bishop in Iceland - that got him so much attention that they were invited to participate in S27.
Au revoir to team Slam Dunk and team Chomp
I predicted that Team Slam Dunk were going to get eliminated and sure enough, I was right. It was mostly navigation woes that dropped them to the back of the pack in leg 4 and of course, Cedric kept capsizing in the boat. Sorry but they were simply weaker than the better teams in this season. Ironically, that was a challenge made for team Ocean Rescue, but they barely survived that leg and could have easily lost to team Slam Dunk at the Petanque game. I was a bit surprised that team Chomp got eliminated next - they were not the weakest team at that point! Bad luck guys, I say. Statistically, they were still a lot stronger than the Firefighters, but choosing the wrong detour sealed their fate. I swear when I saw the Firefighters literally pushing their car in France because they couldn't figure out how to put it in reverse, I was certain that they would be eliminated in France. But what do you know, they actually placed 3rd in the fifth leg - quite an improvement from their prevous legs! The team that got away with it this week was team Well Strung: after a reasonably good start, they ran a terrible leg in Les Baux, having a lot of navigation issues and faced a language barrier when trying to ask for directions. I've already pointed out in they didn't strike me as competitive enough last week in Morocco when they wasted so much time fooling around at the detour - if they don't change their attitude, they could be the next team out of the race in Prague. Most teams improve as the race progress but they are doing the complete opposite.
Vous ne parlez pas Français, non?
Ouch. It was clear that so many of the teams struggled to even pronounce the names of some of the places they were visiting. Where do I even begin? St Tropez is sounds like "Suhn Tro-pay" but with a French R and that's totally different from an English R, Place des Lices would be "plus day liss", Les Baux would be "lay bo" the word Château which means castle is pronounced "shut-toe", Arles is a hard one as it contains a French R which simply doesn't exist in English, but if you gurgle your R to make it come from the back of your throat rather than use your tongue, then it would be close enough and you can say "arl" (one syllable, I was cringing when team Well Strung say "Ar-less"). Langlois bridge would be pronounced 'long-lwa" - I am just scratching the surface here. Clearly many of the racers don't speak French and were pronouncing French place names according to English rules - you can't do that. There are so many rules you have to be aware of like the silent letter(s) at the end of words, the truncated consonant sounds at the end of words, what happens when you pair up vowels like au or oi in French. Look, if you want to go on the Amazing Race, you should at least prepare by studying the basics of some of the world's most spoken languages like French, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian and Arabic. Now I would have thought that Americans would be more multilingual than us Brits given how you clearly have Spanish as the default second language there, but some of the racers are painfully monolingual. What is it with Americans and foreign languages?
And Van Gogh is not Van Go!
Argh! This seems to be an American mistake because so many Americans get this wrong to the point where it begins to sound normal when in the company of Americans. Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch painter, his surname is Dutch. So how is the letter G pronounced in Dutch? The sound doesn't exist in English but it is known as a uvular fricative - it's like you're trying to say the letter H but you end up clearing your throat instead. Sometimes the letter KH are used to represent that sound, but such are the limitations when you're trying to use English letters to represent a sound that is quite alien to English speakers. The G sounds nothing like the English G and the GH is not silent at all, so how on earth the Americans turned that into 'Van Go' is beyond me. The Brits has just as bad, they tend to say, 'Van Goff' which is still wrong. Fortunately there is a Youtube video below to help us out here so please listen to that and let's learn how to pronounce Van Gogh correctly.
How hard is it to sail an Optimist dinghy?
Now I had to consult a friend who has actually taught sailing and showed him the episode. He explained, "not that hard actually once you know what you're doing. If you're thrown in a situation where you have to sail one of those things with little or no instruction, the thing to do is to stop trying to rush out and sail as soon as you get into the water. Stay calm. Take as much time as you need, study what you have before you, looking at which parts you can control, which parts you need to use. I am surprised that a lot of the racers missed an important trick: you can learn a lot by observing the others. If someone is making good progress, you need to watch and learn: what exactly are they doing and can I copy that? And likewise if someone is struggling and getting nowhere, then again, think about what they are doing that is so wrong? You certainly cannot just paddle out to the buoys, not if your sail is taking you in the wrong direction - it's clearly a case of more haste less speed with a lot of the contestants. All the contestants managed to complete the challenge in the end which is good, but some of them like Cedric and Evan were their own worst enemies when they gave in to blind panic. Is it a difficult task? Yes, but it is more a mental challenge to figure out the working parts to operate, rather than one that depends on brute strength per se."
What is the key to doing well in this Petanque challenge?
The hardest part of that challenge is the learning curve - the teams were made to wait for their next opponents to arrive, they weren't allowed to practice at all. Unless you have actually played Petanque before, you really need a couple of throws to figure out how much force to use with the throws and even then, there's an element of luck involved as well. Of course, staying calm under pressure is key because you need to be focused on learning how to improve your technique, rather than thinking about what is at stake if you lose a head to head battle. Ironically, the one team I thought would do well at this challenge was team Slam Dunk - after all, when you play basketball, you are making micro-calculations with split second timing when you are setting up a shot: there is so much to think about but the professionals just rely mostly on muscle memory: they've practice scoring so all kinds of positions on the court that they don't need to think too much, their reflexes take over. It seemed like a challenge made for them, but they ran out of luck. This reminded me of TAR Canada S3 E11 when the racers had a curling Face Off in Edmonton: same principle, similar kind of game but at least the last team at the Face Off then had to face a time penalty whilst the other teams had another road block to do before the pit stop.
Yes I hear you many of you hate the Head to Head.
The response on social media to the Head to Head has been overwhelmingly negative! It was bad when they first did it in leg 2 in Belgium, now the fans are even more vocal that they hate this new format of "loser gets eliminated". Why do you guys feel this way? I suppose it is the perceived 'unfairness' of a team who has led all the way only to lose at the Head to Head. Ironically, as discussed previously, the Head to Head is nothing new and has been featured in many other international versions of the show such as in Canada, China, Israel, Philippines and Norway - so this is nothing new and most of the hardcore fans of TAR would also watch the Canadian version. There simply isn't this kind of anger with the Canadian version of the 'Face Off' which has been used quite a few times already - the key difference is that the loser merely suffers a time penalty, hence relegating them to the bottom of the pack but they may still have a chance to catch up the Face Off would occur early enough in the leg. There would still be other road blocks and/or detours and quite a lot of navigation still to go before the Pit Stop, thus giving the team that lost the Face Off a chance to still recover from last place and avoid elimination. The fans don't have a problem with this as it comes across as 'fair': surely a team that arrives at the Head to Head first has the chance to play the game a few more times and still has an advantage over a team that has arrived much later - but somehow this is still perceived as massively unfair to the teams who have worked hard to get to the Head to Head before anyone else.
Shall we get rid of the Head to Head altogether? Or can we fix it?
I think that the solution is easy - use the Canadian format which has been around for a while and hasn't upset the fans. Another issue flagged up has been Phil's commentary during the Head to Head which has been described as unnecessary, cheesy and awkward - clearly, nobody has a single thing good to say about it and I'm wondering if Phil what is actually thinking when he is watching the final product. Here's the problem: they're trying to use a sports commentary format that has been used for professional sports and whilst it works fine for the Olympics, it clearly doesn't work for when we are watching Henry struggle around a course, trying to push a trolley full of french fries - that mismatch is glaring. Producers in the UK made this terrible mistake in 2014 during the gymnastics reality TV programme Tumble (much like Dancing With the Stars, but with gymnastics) - celebrity contestants had to learn a gymnastics routine and perform it in a week. The result was often disappointing to say the least, they would make a valiant effort but some of the contestants were in their 50s so let's manage our expectations here. The BBC assembled everyone from the top British gymnasts, our most experienced gymnastics sports commentator Mitch Fenner and even Nadia Comaneci herself to heap praises on the celebrity contestants as if they had just won the Olympic gold medal - the result was cringe worthy, it was not just awful: it was atrocious and nauseating. (And this coming from a lifelong gymnast!) I'm not even criticizing the celebrity contestants who certainly trained very hard for the show, but the way over-the-top praises lavished on them for even doing the most basic skills, it came across as utterly insincere, even condescending. Audiences are not idiots - the overall presentation was painfully patronizing and Phil's style on the Head to Head is going that way. Nip it in the bud, now. It is a slippery slope, a lot of reality TV is trashy - we don't want TAR to go in that direction.
When there is a camera in your face recording everything you say...
You shut your mouth! Or at least exercise an element of self-censorship. Look, I don't want to make this personal and lash out at the racers who said dumb things on these two legs - but it was clear that some of them were completely ignorant of French culture. I don't expect Americans to be an expert in French culture, I don't even expect them to know what a baguette is (even if it is a rather common form of bread), I don't expect them to speak French but what I would at least do personally, is make sure I don't admit to being ignorant in front of the camera or even do a 'confession' to the camera about being ignorant of certain aspects of French culture. This isn't Big Brother for crying out aloud. You can keep your mouth shut and your feelings to yourself sometimes - it would make a lot of sense to do so especially when each episode is watched by millions of viewers around the world and such a confession about being so ignorant may be honest, but just makes you look plain stupid under the unforgiving glare of the camera. Whilst that may appeal to some viewers who are equally ignorant and know nothing about French culture, you will come across as a dumb, ignorant redneck to the more well-educated, more well-traveled viewers. This is not even about whether you should know what a baguette is - it's about not blurting out the first thought that comes to your mind without exercising any censorship, especially on reality TV. You can have a camera in your face and actually not talk for a moment you know.
Why did only one team choose to do the Van Gogh puzzle?
I found that rather puzzling - if you were the first team out of the cafe de la Fontaine, then it would make little difference which detour you chose. But given that there are a limited number of ribbons available, later teams would have a harder time completing the task if the production team doesn't actually replenish/refill the ribbons when there is no one in the arena. The puzzle does sound challenging but solving puzzles is nothing new in TAR (remember the geometric slide puzzle the racers had to solve in Rio de Janerio, Brazil in TAR S27 E1). It is a bit of a gamble but I thought someone like team Yale might have well given it a shot - both sides of the detour were in the town of Arles and both locations are equally famous. The producers always try to make both sides of the detour equally time consuming, even if they may be challenging in different ways: so it would be wrong to assume that finding the ribbons would be a walk in the park. I would be inclined to go for the puzzle, especially if I was at the back of the pack - it is a gamble but when you're behind, you have to take risks to stay in the game. And whilst we're on the topic, why the heck was Cody running around the arena carrying his heavy backpack? Even Jessica was running around without her backpack, why didn't she say anything to Cody - another case of more haste less speed? It was exactly the same silly mistake that Cedric made in Tangiers - doing the roadblock with his heavy bag on when everyone else ditched their bags!
Who will be eliminated next?
Statistically, the weakest team at this stage are the Firefighters and the shots of them struggling to put their car in reverse did not inspire confidence. They have not done anything annoying and actually finished 3rd in leg 5, but still they seem to be their own worst enemy. They are actually pretty good at some tasks, such as the very difficult catapult building challenge in Les Baux, but they suck at navigation. All teams left Nice airport at the same time but they took such a long time to actually find the next location at St Tropez - you can't afford to lose precious minutes in TAR like that, so I am going with the statistics and predicting that they are next to go. Team Ocean Rescue have just ran a great leg in Les Baux, so I'm going to be predict that it would be either the Firefighters or team Well Strung who will be eliminated in the next leg in Prague. I'm just not convinced that team Well Strung are competitive enough for a show like TAR - they seem to be having fun, treating it like a reality TV travel show, trying to get publicity for their string quartet and it makes me wonder why on earth they were even cast this season when the theme is 'champions' - look they make a very good living doing what they do, with all due respect, but I just don't see them being competitive enough in such a field to survive much longer. They come across more like celebrities having fun on the race - that didn't work out the last time we had another big gay celebrity on TAR: Jonathan Knight of New Kids On The Block only lasted 4 legs in S26 with his partner Harley Rodriguez and that was even with a non-elimination leg sparing them on the 3rd leg when they finished last. Jonathan Knight is already a multi-millionaire, he's so fabulously rich and famous, he doesn't need the prize money - what's his motivation? Mind you, the Firefighters have plenty of motivation to win this for their children, if only they had better navigation skills. But wait, there's a double U-turn in Prague.
Who will win in Prague with this double U-turn in this leg?
Oh we await the fireworks in Prague. "Big Brother screwed us - they lied to Brittany and I." Oh that sounds fun. But is this the kind of incident that will finally make one team stand out as public enemy number one? So far, the teams have seemed to get along - even after that episode involving the Brittany's gnome in Tangiers. But with a double U-turn coming up in this leg, this is really the wrong time to offending others and make enemies! Could this be team BB's downfall? It seems that Cody anticipates that they will be U-turned and for them, this leg is about survival, about not getting eliminated. The statistics remind us that the strongest team by far are team Extreme and the second strongest team (BB) have been making a lot of silly mistakes (such as Cody running around the arena with bag on and getting very lost on the way to the pit stop in leg 1). But don't forget, no team has won more than one leg so far and with the U-turns coming up, surely the other teams will realize that team Extreme are by far the strongest team and biggest threat so far - no matter how nice and likable they are, you'll want to get rid of your biggest competition. This will be hard to call as it will depend on who gets to the U-turn board first and I'm predicting that either team Extreme or team Yale but it is really had to call. The only two teams with a target on their backs so far are team Extreme for being just so incredibly strong and team BB, for making enemies. The irony is that team BB should know the games one plays when it comes to group dynamics in the Big Brother house - yet they are still making enemies on TAR? I thought that would have been the one thing they'd be good at.
That's it from me for now, please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!
The statistics after 5 legs
Team Extreme 2.4
Team BB 3.2
Team IndyCar 3.6
Team Yale 4.4
Team Well Strung 4.8
Team Chomp 5.6 (eliminated in Les Baux)
Team Ocean Rescue 6
Firefighters 6.8
Team Slam Dunk 7.25 (eliminated in St Tropez)
Well I am glad to see team Extreme still emerging as the strongest team so far, despite having only won one leg so far but so far no team has managed to win more than one leg. This proves that they are really quite consistent, never ever dropping out of the top 3. They are clearly the best team in this season and the clear favourite to win: and if they do, I would be delighted as I really like them too. Team BB struggled in the leg 5, finishing only 6th, their worst position ever, exposing weaknesses in their team after a great start in this season. But what about team IndyCar? Well, I think they were somewhat lucky in St Tropez with the game of petanque, but they have now chalked up a 1st and 2nd place finish, showing that do have what it takes to beat the rest in this season. I'm somewhat disappointed to see team Yale struggle in France, they are now firmly back in the middle of the pack after having won leg 3 in Morocco. Kudos to Evan for barely complaining having taking a nasty hit to the mouth in the Optimist dinghy - ouch, she must have been in so much pain but she never ever suggested giving up.
Congratulations to team Ocean Rescue!
When they barely survived leg 4 in St Tropez after struggling with the Head to Head, I am sure many of you were screaming at your TVs or computers, "Lucas, propose now! Come on Lucas! What are you waiting for? Propose now!" I was thinking if he didn't propose then, they might get eliminated in the next leg and it would be a pretty lousy time to propose. But no, he didn't propose and thank goodness he didn't because they ran a flawless leg the next leg: Lucas blitzed through the French catapult (known as a trebuchet) challenge and they managed to stay just ahead of team Extreme to win that leg. Yes, they have fought, argued and said nasty things to each other on this race and under the unforgiving glare of the cameras in your face on TAR, reality TV can portray them to be a couple with communication issues (and I'm picking my words carefully). But such is the stressful nature of competing on TAR, it can bring out the worst and the best in you - the pressure have brought out the worst in them in the first four legs and finally it has brought out the best in them in Les Baux. We all love a TAR engagement and there have been a few: Matt & Ashley from S26, Chad & Stephanie from S17, Hayden & Aaron from S6, Sally & Tyson from TAR Australia S3 and finally Alain & Audrey of TAR Canada S2. But hey, I can't talk about all this without mentioning TAR legend Justin Scheman who faked the Amazing Race just to propose to his then girlfriend Diana Bishop in Iceland - that got him so much attention that they were invited to participate in S27.
Au revoir to team Slam Dunk and team Chomp
I predicted that Team Slam Dunk were going to get eliminated and sure enough, I was right. It was mostly navigation woes that dropped them to the back of the pack in leg 4 and of course, Cedric kept capsizing in the boat. Sorry but they were simply weaker than the better teams in this season. Ironically, that was a challenge made for team Ocean Rescue, but they barely survived that leg and could have easily lost to team Slam Dunk at the Petanque game. I was a bit surprised that team Chomp got eliminated next - they were not the weakest team at that point! Bad luck guys, I say. Statistically, they were still a lot stronger than the Firefighters, but choosing the wrong detour sealed their fate. I swear when I saw the Firefighters literally pushing their car in France because they couldn't figure out how to put it in reverse, I was certain that they would be eliminated in France. But what do you know, they actually placed 3rd in the fifth leg - quite an improvement from their prevous legs! The team that got away with it this week was team Well Strung: after a reasonably good start, they ran a terrible leg in Les Baux, having a lot of navigation issues and faced a language barrier when trying to ask for directions. I've already pointed out in they didn't strike me as competitive enough last week in Morocco when they wasted so much time fooling around at the detour - if they don't change their attitude, they could be the next team out of the race in Prague. Most teams improve as the race progress but they are doing the complete opposite.
Vous ne parlez pas Français, non?
Ouch. It was clear that so many of the teams struggled to even pronounce the names of some of the places they were visiting. Where do I even begin? St Tropez is sounds like "Suhn Tro-pay" but with a French R and that's totally different from an English R, Place des Lices would be "plus day liss", Les Baux would be "lay bo" the word Château which means castle is pronounced "shut-toe", Arles is a hard one as it contains a French R which simply doesn't exist in English, but if you gurgle your R to make it come from the back of your throat rather than use your tongue, then it would be close enough and you can say "arl" (one syllable, I was cringing when team Well Strung say "Ar-less"). Langlois bridge would be pronounced 'long-lwa" - I am just scratching the surface here. Clearly many of the racers don't speak French and were pronouncing French place names according to English rules - you can't do that. There are so many rules you have to be aware of like the silent letter(s) at the end of words, the truncated consonant sounds at the end of words, what happens when you pair up vowels like au or oi in French. Look, if you want to go on the Amazing Race, you should at least prepare by studying the basics of some of the world's most spoken languages like French, Spanish, Mandarin, Russian and Arabic. Now I would have thought that Americans would be more multilingual than us Brits given how you clearly have Spanish as the default second language there, but some of the racers are painfully monolingual. What is it with Americans and foreign languages?
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| That's me in Nice several years ago - note the full head of hair! |
Argh! This seems to be an American mistake because so many Americans get this wrong to the point where it begins to sound normal when in the company of Americans. Vincent Van Gogh was a Dutch painter, his surname is Dutch. So how is the letter G pronounced in Dutch? The sound doesn't exist in English but it is known as a uvular fricative - it's like you're trying to say the letter H but you end up clearing your throat instead. Sometimes the letter KH are used to represent that sound, but such are the limitations when you're trying to use English letters to represent a sound that is quite alien to English speakers. The G sounds nothing like the English G and the GH is not silent at all, so how on earth the Americans turned that into 'Van Go' is beyond me. The Brits has just as bad, they tend to say, 'Van Goff' which is still wrong. Fortunately there is a Youtube video below to help us out here so please listen to that and let's learn how to pronounce Van Gogh correctly.
How hard is it to sail an Optimist dinghy?
Now I had to consult a friend who has actually taught sailing and showed him the episode. He explained, "not that hard actually once you know what you're doing. If you're thrown in a situation where you have to sail one of those things with little or no instruction, the thing to do is to stop trying to rush out and sail as soon as you get into the water. Stay calm. Take as much time as you need, study what you have before you, looking at which parts you can control, which parts you need to use. I am surprised that a lot of the racers missed an important trick: you can learn a lot by observing the others. If someone is making good progress, you need to watch and learn: what exactly are they doing and can I copy that? And likewise if someone is struggling and getting nowhere, then again, think about what they are doing that is so wrong? You certainly cannot just paddle out to the buoys, not if your sail is taking you in the wrong direction - it's clearly a case of more haste less speed with a lot of the contestants. All the contestants managed to complete the challenge in the end which is good, but some of them like Cedric and Evan were their own worst enemies when they gave in to blind panic. Is it a difficult task? Yes, but it is more a mental challenge to figure out the working parts to operate, rather than one that depends on brute strength per se."
What is the key to doing well in this Petanque challenge?
The hardest part of that challenge is the learning curve - the teams were made to wait for their next opponents to arrive, they weren't allowed to practice at all. Unless you have actually played Petanque before, you really need a couple of throws to figure out how much force to use with the throws and even then, there's an element of luck involved as well. Of course, staying calm under pressure is key because you need to be focused on learning how to improve your technique, rather than thinking about what is at stake if you lose a head to head battle. Ironically, the one team I thought would do well at this challenge was team Slam Dunk - after all, when you play basketball, you are making micro-calculations with split second timing when you are setting up a shot: there is so much to think about but the professionals just rely mostly on muscle memory: they've practice scoring so all kinds of positions on the court that they don't need to think too much, their reflexes take over. It seemed like a challenge made for them, but they ran out of luck. This reminded me of TAR Canada S3 E11 when the racers had a curling Face Off in Edmonton: same principle, similar kind of game but at least the last team at the Face Off then had to face a time penalty whilst the other teams had another road block to do before the pit stop.
The response on social media to the Head to Head has been overwhelmingly negative! It was bad when they first did it in leg 2 in Belgium, now the fans are even more vocal that they hate this new format of "loser gets eliminated". Why do you guys feel this way? I suppose it is the perceived 'unfairness' of a team who has led all the way only to lose at the Head to Head. Ironically, as discussed previously, the Head to Head is nothing new and has been featured in many other international versions of the show such as in Canada, China, Israel, Philippines and Norway - so this is nothing new and most of the hardcore fans of TAR would also watch the Canadian version. There simply isn't this kind of anger with the Canadian version of the 'Face Off' which has been used quite a few times already - the key difference is that the loser merely suffers a time penalty, hence relegating them to the bottom of the pack but they may still have a chance to catch up the Face Off would occur early enough in the leg. There would still be other road blocks and/or detours and quite a lot of navigation still to go before the Pit Stop, thus giving the team that lost the Face Off a chance to still recover from last place and avoid elimination. The fans don't have a problem with this as it comes across as 'fair': surely a team that arrives at the Head to Head first has the chance to play the game a few more times and still has an advantage over a team that has arrived much later - but somehow this is still perceived as massively unfair to the teams who have worked hard to get to the Head to Head before anyone else.
Shall we get rid of the Head to Head altogether? Or can we fix it?
I think that the solution is easy - use the Canadian format which has been around for a while and hasn't upset the fans. Another issue flagged up has been Phil's commentary during the Head to Head which has been described as unnecessary, cheesy and awkward - clearly, nobody has a single thing good to say about it and I'm wondering if Phil what is actually thinking when he is watching the final product. Here's the problem: they're trying to use a sports commentary format that has been used for professional sports and whilst it works fine for the Olympics, it clearly doesn't work for when we are watching Henry struggle around a course, trying to push a trolley full of french fries - that mismatch is glaring. Producers in the UK made this terrible mistake in 2014 during the gymnastics reality TV programme Tumble (much like Dancing With the Stars, but with gymnastics) - celebrity contestants had to learn a gymnastics routine and perform it in a week. The result was often disappointing to say the least, they would make a valiant effort but some of the contestants were in their 50s so let's manage our expectations here. The BBC assembled everyone from the top British gymnasts, our most experienced gymnastics sports commentator Mitch Fenner and even Nadia Comaneci herself to heap praises on the celebrity contestants as if they had just won the Olympic gold medal - the result was cringe worthy, it was not just awful: it was atrocious and nauseating. (And this coming from a lifelong gymnast!) I'm not even criticizing the celebrity contestants who certainly trained very hard for the show, but the way over-the-top praises lavished on them for even doing the most basic skills, it came across as utterly insincere, even condescending. Audiences are not idiots - the overall presentation was painfully patronizing and Phil's style on the Head to Head is going that way. Nip it in the bud, now. It is a slippery slope, a lot of reality TV is trashy - we don't want TAR to go in that direction.
When there is a camera in your face recording everything you say...
You shut your mouth! Or at least exercise an element of self-censorship. Look, I don't want to make this personal and lash out at the racers who said dumb things on these two legs - but it was clear that some of them were completely ignorant of French culture. I don't expect Americans to be an expert in French culture, I don't even expect them to know what a baguette is (even if it is a rather common form of bread), I don't expect them to speak French but what I would at least do personally, is make sure I don't admit to being ignorant in front of the camera or even do a 'confession' to the camera about being ignorant of certain aspects of French culture. This isn't Big Brother for crying out aloud. You can keep your mouth shut and your feelings to yourself sometimes - it would make a lot of sense to do so especially when each episode is watched by millions of viewers around the world and such a confession about being so ignorant may be honest, but just makes you look plain stupid under the unforgiving glare of the camera. Whilst that may appeal to some viewers who are equally ignorant and know nothing about French culture, you will come across as a dumb, ignorant redneck to the more well-educated, more well-traveled viewers. This is not even about whether you should know what a baguette is - it's about not blurting out the first thought that comes to your mind without exercising any censorship, especially on reality TV. You can have a camera in your face and actually not talk for a moment you know.
Why did only one team choose to do the Van Gogh puzzle?
I found that rather puzzling - if you were the first team out of the cafe de la Fontaine, then it would make little difference which detour you chose. But given that there are a limited number of ribbons available, later teams would have a harder time completing the task if the production team doesn't actually replenish/refill the ribbons when there is no one in the arena. The puzzle does sound challenging but solving puzzles is nothing new in TAR (remember the geometric slide puzzle the racers had to solve in Rio de Janerio, Brazil in TAR S27 E1). It is a bit of a gamble but I thought someone like team Yale might have well given it a shot - both sides of the detour were in the town of Arles and both locations are equally famous. The producers always try to make both sides of the detour equally time consuming, even if they may be challenging in different ways: so it would be wrong to assume that finding the ribbons would be a walk in the park. I would be inclined to go for the puzzle, especially if I was at the back of the pack - it is a gamble but when you're behind, you have to take risks to stay in the game. And whilst we're on the topic, why the heck was Cody running around the arena carrying his heavy backpack? Even Jessica was running around without her backpack, why didn't she say anything to Cody - another case of more haste less speed? It was exactly the same silly mistake that Cedric made in Tangiers - doing the roadblock with his heavy bag on when everyone else ditched their bags!
Who will be eliminated next?
Statistically, the weakest team at this stage are the Firefighters and the shots of them struggling to put their car in reverse did not inspire confidence. They have not done anything annoying and actually finished 3rd in leg 5, but still they seem to be their own worst enemy. They are actually pretty good at some tasks, such as the very difficult catapult building challenge in Les Baux, but they suck at navigation. All teams left Nice airport at the same time but they took such a long time to actually find the next location at St Tropez - you can't afford to lose precious minutes in TAR like that, so I am going with the statistics and predicting that they are next to go. Team Ocean Rescue have just ran a great leg in Les Baux, so I'm going to be predict that it would be either the Firefighters or team Well Strung who will be eliminated in the next leg in Prague. I'm just not convinced that team Well Strung are competitive enough for a show like TAR - they seem to be having fun, treating it like a reality TV travel show, trying to get publicity for their string quartet and it makes me wonder why on earth they were even cast this season when the theme is 'champions' - look they make a very good living doing what they do, with all due respect, but I just don't see them being competitive enough in such a field to survive much longer. They come across more like celebrities having fun on the race - that didn't work out the last time we had another big gay celebrity on TAR: Jonathan Knight of New Kids On The Block only lasted 4 legs in S26 with his partner Harley Rodriguez and that was even with a non-elimination leg sparing them on the 3rd leg when they finished last. Jonathan Knight is already a multi-millionaire, he's so fabulously rich and famous, he doesn't need the prize money - what's his motivation? Mind you, the Firefighters have plenty of motivation to win this for their children, if only they had better navigation skills. But wait, there's a double U-turn in Prague.
Who will win in Prague with this double U-turn in this leg?
Oh we await the fireworks in Prague. "Big Brother screwed us - they lied to Brittany and I." Oh that sounds fun. But is this the kind of incident that will finally make one team stand out as public enemy number one? So far, the teams have seemed to get along - even after that episode involving the Brittany's gnome in Tangiers. But with a double U-turn coming up in this leg, this is really the wrong time to offending others and make enemies! Could this be team BB's downfall? It seems that Cody anticipates that they will be U-turned and for them, this leg is about survival, about not getting eliminated. The statistics remind us that the strongest team by far are team Extreme and the second strongest team (BB) have been making a lot of silly mistakes (such as Cody running around the arena with bag on and getting very lost on the way to the pit stop in leg 1). But don't forget, no team has won more than one leg so far and with the U-turns coming up, surely the other teams will realize that team Extreme are by far the strongest team and biggest threat so far - no matter how nice and likable they are, you'll want to get rid of your biggest competition. This will be hard to call as it will depend on who gets to the U-turn board first and I'm predicting that either team Extreme or team Yale but it is really had to call. The only two teams with a target on their backs so far are team Extreme for being just so incredibly strong and team BB, for making enemies. The irony is that team BB should know the games one plays when it comes to group dynamics in the Big Brother house - yet they are still making enemies on TAR? I thought that would have been the one thing they'd be good at.
That's it from me for now, please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!
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