The sixth running of The Amazing Race sputtered to an utterly disappointing conclusion Tuesday night. I don’t know if the concept is starting to wear thin or if this season simply had a less-than-optimal mix of contestants, but it just never caught fire the way the previous Race did. The last one, The Amazing Race 5, was great drama in the end, coming down to Chip and Kim, a lower-middle-class married couple who were filled with wonder at the stunning locations they were seeing, and Colin and Christie, arrogant beautiful people who acted as if they were owed a victory. Chip and Kim beat them, proving that there is justice in this universe at least once in awhile.
Unfortunately, the winners of The Amazing Race 6 have a lot more in common with Colin and Christie than Chip and Kim. But then I wasn’t thrilled with any of the finalists this time around. All of the teams I really liked were cut early on.
The funny New York Jews (their definition of themselves, not mine) were gone in the first episode, the sweet girls from Queens in the second. Local Utah favorites Kristy and Lena Jensen were next to go, eliminated by host Phil Keoghan in the show’s first “mercy killing.” (Briefly, if you didn’t see it, the sisters got stuck on a very physical challenge that required just one of them to push over haystacks until they found a clue. The other teams all managed to complete the task and move on, but poor Lena simply couldn’t find her clue. Long after all the other teams had checked in at the Pit Stop — long after nightfall, actually — she was still flailing away, trying to finish the challenge. They would’ve been the last team to check in anyway, so Phil traveled out to the challenge site and put a stop to Lena’s misery. Sad, but I’ve got to hand it to Lena for not giving up, even after she knew they’d lost.)
After the Utah girls were gone, it didn’t seem to matter who I chose to root for, they were all doomed. Father-and-daughter team Gus and Hera, retired couple Don and Mary Jean — who at least had the honor of being the oldest team to make it as far as they did — even Lori and Bolo, the buffoonish but likable pro wrestlers, were all eliminated before the two-hour finale. (Luckily the loathsome Jonathan and Victoria, the most dysfunctional husband and wife I’ve ever seen on television, were also cast out before the finale. While Colin and Christie of TAR5 were the sort of evil you love to hate, Jonathan and Victoria were just… icky. Their constant fighting wasn’t funny or entertaining; it was disturbing. I seriously expected to see Jonathan slug his wife before it was all over, and I have a hunch he probably does when there aren’t any cameras around. They’re scheduled to appear on a primetime Dr. Phil special next Tuesday night; while I normally wouldn’t bother watching that, I have to admit that I’d really like to see Phil tell these two what for.)
As always, we were left with four teams going into the finale: Hayden and Aaron, Adam and Rebecca, Kris and Jon, and Freddy and Kendra. Hayden and Aaron were eliminated on the last leg of the race before the other three headed for the finish line, and I was perfectly happy to see them go. Aaron must have the patience of Job to put up with the whiny, bitchy, complaining Hayden. He even proposed to her right there on the show following their elimination. All I can say is that he’s seen her at her worst, so if he still wants her after the way she behaved on the Race, he must really love her. Either that or he’s an idiot, which is also a distinct possibility.
Of the three remaining teams, my sympathies were with Adam and Rebecca. Mostly with Adam. Dubbed “Hellboy” by the Jensen sisters because of his eccentric hair-do — his hair is very short overall except for two little tufts in the front that he ties up with rubber bands, so they look something like devil-horns — he’s been an interesting one to watch, one of the few reality-show contestants that has really seemed to grow and learn from the experience of doing the show. You see, Adam was kind of a wuss when the show started out, always whining and making a big deal about doing the various challenges. But over time, as he and Rebecca managed to stay in the game and progress toward the finale, you could see his confidence growing. He went from being an obnoxious screw-up to being a pretty cool guy. Unfortunately, his teammate and ex-girlfriend, Rebecca, never could get over her notion that he was a “mama’s boy.” Her attitude toward him was downright mean most of the time, which is why I was rooting for him but not so much for her. Naturally, my preferred team was the last to cross the finish-line, long after the million bucks was awarded.
Anne’s choice to win the Race was Kris and Jon, a couple who described themselves as “dating long-distance” and whose defining characteristics were niceness and a polite manner of speaking to other contestants. I accept Anne’s view that these two deserved to win because they never backstabbed anyone and were always positive, but I have to be honest: I thought they were kind of bland. They were so lacking in rough edges that it took me over half the season before I could even put names to their faces. I had nothing against them and would’ve been fine with it if they’d won, but I didn’t have much enthusiasm for them. They were just too anonymous.
And then there was Freddy and Kendra, the “dating models” and the ultimate winners of The Amazing Race 6. I’ll say this much for them: I didn’t hate them the way I hated Jonathan and Victoria. But I still hated them. I hated Kendra especially, for her general prissiness and her overly sensitive gag reflex (she was always choking on something, maybe because, as a model, she’s not accustomed to eating) and, most of all, for her appalling outbreaks of “Ugly Americanism” anytime they were required to pass through a Third World country. Her favorite description for any place that didn’t resemble Beverly Hills was to call it “a ghetto,” and her tirade in Senegal bordered on racist as she criticized the locals for continuing to “breed” despite their obvious poverty. Her boyfriend Freddy didn’t seem to have that kind of snobbishness, but he wasn’t a very likable person either — the two of them, like so many other reality-show contestants, were beautiful people of little substance. And I’m sorry to say that they won.
The way in which they won sucked, too, a lame anti-climax with little tension and even less viewer satisfaction. Adam and Rebecca were so far behind the other two teams that they were no competition at all, but Kris and Jon might have had an honest chance of beating the beautiful people if not for a freight train blocking their footpath. A freakin’ freight train. As a result, Freddy and Kendra just loped to the finish line without even having to crack a sweat. When, during the post-victory prattle, Kendra said that Freddy had proven himself “worthy of bearing [her] children,” I didn’t know whether to mock her for her Freudian slip or gag the way she did on her Chicago deep-dish pizza. Mostly I just wanted them to get the hell off my TV screen.
The next Amazing Race will begin on March 1st. I’ll be there, a die-hard loyalist to the end, but I’m really hoping that TAR7 will have a more dynamic mixture of contestants, with fewer beautiful people and kooks, and more real people. However, the revelation that one of the new teams is the same couple that won Survivor: All Stars last year doesn’t fill me with confidence. The Amazing Race has always appealed to me because it seemed to be the one reality show on which ordinary folks could actually succeed; now it looks like that possibility may be fading. I hope I’m wrong…
I totally agree that this season’s racers weren’t as interesting as past years. It seemed there was a lot more back stabbing and the type of behavior you typically see on other reality shows. That’s why I liked Kris & Jon. They worked together well, and if they didn’t help another team, they didn’t try and screw them over either. They also had excellent attitudes through the whole thing.
The biggest reason I repsect them is about half way through, they and another team were reaching the pit stop at almost the exact same time. Kris & Jon had been first several times, winning the bonus vacation prize. They stood back and let the other team take the first position and win the prize for that leg.
I don’t mind that two of the “survivors” are playing this round. There was a “big brother” contestant in TAR5. Cross-overs have always been a part of tv, so why not reality tv?
Like I said, I respect why you favored Kris and Jon, and I definitely would’ve preffered them over Gaggy McBitchy and Mr. Head-kerchief. I just didn’t find them that interesting.
I guess my big objection to the Survivor couple is that Survivor, the granddaddy of all this “reality,” is also one of the biggest offenders when it comes to stacking the cast with models, actors, personal trainers, and the like. (And yes, I know that Adam is a trainer, but he wasn’t the usual trainer personality type, if you know what I mean.) I just find it more interesting when the competitors are ordinary folks who aren’t especially interested in getting a movie deal out of the experience.
Besides, this particular couple has already won a million bucks from a TV show. Now it’s someone else’s turn.
It’s all a ratings game, baby. They think by having past “survivors” on the show, they’ll get more viewers.
Probably true. But disheartening anyhow.
Hi Jas,
Danielle and I starting watching the Rce this time around. I think we started when they were in Sweden and the (unbeknownst to us) Utah girls were eliminated. We missed some episodes but then caught the last 3 shows. I really don’t remember seeing Jonathan and Victoria, but I just couldn’t wait for Hayden to be eliminated. I almost had to stop watching some episodes due to her whining. “These bricks are too heavy!! But, in the next load I’ll complain again although I’ll be carrying twice as many.” And to think that Aaron proposed to her when they were eliminated??? Wow, I’ll I can say is best of luck with that!
Sorry to say Jason, but the second whiner in my sights was Adam. I never saw him at the beginning and so I didn’t see any growth. I’ll I could do is cringe whenever he or Hayden was on screen which made the second to last episode almost torture because they got 50% or more screen time. With all of their whinning, I guess I just missed Freddy and Kendra’s bad side, but then we missed the majority of the episodes.
Please let there be no whinners in the next set!
Hey Keith – glad you guys jumped on board. I hope the next season is worth all the build-up I’ve given the show.
Every group of contestants (I hate to call them a cast) contains a few whiners — I think the casting directors are required to include them, probably in hopes of stirring some conflict — but some groups are worse than others, and this last one was pretty bad. Hayden was definitely a monster, and Anne and I both cheered when she and Aaron got cut. Be grateful you never saw Jonathan and Victoria — they were truly disturbing. Jonathan was constantly screaming at his wife, usually over pretty trivial things, and when she finally started fighting back, it just seemed to make it worse. I seriously expected them to start punching each other. When they’d go off, the other teams would just back away and stand around, looking embarassed.
As for Adam, I’ll grant that he was still pretty whiny at the end, but he really did come a long way from where he started, and I thought some of his comments were funny.
I grew to dislike Kendra because of her snotty attitude about the places the Racers visited, especially her comments about Senegal. Instead of seeing the warmth and friendliness of the people and the beauty of the landscape, all she saw was filth and poverty and overcrowding. I understand, of course, that it’s often hard for first-time visitors to the Third World to see how the other half lives, but she came across as the personification of the very worst of American traits — the sort of traveller who has journeyed to the farthest, most alien culture and then asks where the McDonald’s is. And I do believe there was some barely contained racism in her remarks as well. Very distasteful.
In the end, I guess Anne was right: Kris and Jon would’ve been the best team to win… oh well. Here’s hoping the next one will be good!
Something I wish the show would do is buy the cameraman a tripod or a crane. Instead of following every single team a la Blair Witch Project, actually show the places where they are going. How many times do we have to see people dodging around tourist at the terra cotta soldier exhibit while never actually seeing the exhibit?! I think it would have been much better visually and educationally to perch the cameraman above the fray, show the amazing exhibit while seeing the racers dash around the outside and give some interesting commentary about the area. I’m afraid that they have found that they can fake a close race by only showing two people run around contrasted with two others running even if they are separated by hours. I think this is actually what happened at the end of the last race. Both of the first two teams had to wait for trains to pass and I got the feeling that the two teams weren’t that close together.
Maybe I’m not the average American, but I want to see more of the amazing places that these people are racing through. The show seems to make some serious effort to go to the prime places at each location and make the challenges specific to the area–“playing” polo on elephants!, climbing trees and recover the local beverage ingredients, carrying bricks in China–quite good and interesting. Give me a little background, some history, it wouldn’t take much to add a lot of depth and interest to their activities and really make each activity and area zing with interest. OK so maybe you can’t make Hilo Hatties interesting to a 5-year old, but I think everyone would be interested to know how many different thousands of designs the company has turned out and how many millions of shirts they must have sold by now. Don’t just say, “..an activity typical to this area.” Duh! It reminds me of something of German TV. Most of their shows are sadly, bad US sitcoms dubbed into German. The vast majority of local shows are even more painful to watch typically consisting of a local musical star doing some type of talk show/performance, often while drunk, or at least dishing out alcohol to the audience. All very poorly arranged and scripted, if they are at all. The exception is the German documentary–yes documentary, surprise of all surprises. They pick a very wide array of things to look at, from car safety to the opening of a luxury hotel or cruise liner and dive-in and really explore the thing. They are typically visually very well shot, have excellent editing and commentary and really explore the topic. They’ll interview everyone who will talk to them from the designer to the janitor and really get some interesting views and info with such a wide base. If it is a foreign hotel or cruise liner, they will talk to everyone in a 5 mile radius that speaks German and dub or summarize everyone else. I actually miss them and I’m sad I didn’t find them until we were about to leave Germany. I get the impression the Germans love them too and will follow their topic of interest with a vengeance. If a German has an interest in something, they really know it well.
Anyway, the point was that with a little effort, expertise, and creativity, you can make the mundane interesting. It appears like the Race makers expect the location and bad taxi drivers to make the show. A little info and some better camera angels would quickly turn the show into a world-class event. I think people would be much more interested to get some interesting info about fewer exotic places than spending 10 minutes of screen time in twice as many “amazing places” looking at local traffic or closed stores/museums and whiny contestants.
Why are 10,000 terra cotta soldiers buried in China? The contestants want to know, I would guess that the viewers want to know, I was fascinated when I first heard about them!
OK, OK back to work…
Wow, I guess something hit a nerve, eh? 🙂
I’m with you, I’d like to see more background information on the locations and cultures as well. However, while the travelogue aspects of the show might be one of its primary appeals (at least for viewers like us), they really aren’t the show’s ultimate purpose. It may be the best of the reality shows, but it *is* still just a reality show, which means the competition aspect is central. And that, unfortunately, means we’re probably stuck with dysfunctional contestants, and the exaggerated pace produced by the editing and camera work. Gotta keep them viewers with the short attention spans hooked, you know?
Maybe I’ve gotten cynical in my old age, but I honestly wonder how interested the average viewer would really be in finding out more about the locations. I suspect that the show is probably providing just about the right level of information for most Americans, who, after all, show an astounding lack of knowledge about and interest in the outside world. I hope I’m wrong about that, but I’m really not sure I am.
And by the way, German documentaries sound cool. I love a good doc, and they’re so rare…