On The Air

So why have I stopped writing my Amazing Race recaps? Well, a lot of reasons, but the big one is the show just stopped being fun. Read on.

Okay, I know I’ve been slacking off on recapping The Amazing Race. There are 150 different excuses, from the two-week vacation that I took, to being disheartened over seeing so many of my favorite teams eliminated, to the fatigue that comes from having to fight the urge to fly over to California and kick Eric in the nuts. But the finale is coming up in two days so maybe I should write something? About all the crazy shit that’s been going on lately?

I think the thing that’s really soured this show in the last couple of weeks is the all the constant moralizing about using the Yield. I mean, the Yield is a part of the game. It’s in the rules. It’s not nasty, dirty, or underhanded, anymore than voting someone out on Survivor is. I don’t see anyone abstaining from the vote on Big Brother because “that’s not the way I choose to play the game”. So when that little fucker Eric starts whining about how evil everybody is for using the Yield on him, I just want to club him with something heavy and dump him in a ditch. God, what an ass. Having him on the show is making watching The Amazing Race a lot less fun for me, and is killing any desire I have to rewatch the show so I can write about it. And yes, Charla and Mirna have been complicit in moralizing about the Yield, and inventing this bullshit thing called “Yield Karma”, but they’re not nearly as objectionable as Eric is. Maybe because they don’t go on and on and on and on and on and on and on about it like he does. It’s really pissing me off, and the fact that Eric and Danielle are in the final three, when I look at the trail of actual genuinely nice people that have been left behind, it turns my stomach. The thought of them actually winning this Race fills me with nausea, and if it happens it might actually be a shark-jumping moment.

Okay, so I don’t mean that. But this show, and this season in particular, has been on a slow slide towards the inky depths. And in part it’s because of the usual fatigue that comes at the end of a season, that feeling of slogging your way through quicksand, trying desperately to get to the finale. Survivor has it, Big Brother has it. The Amazing Race at its best doesn’t have it, because the excitement seems to build as the year goes on. But this isn’t The Amazing Race at its best. I hesitate to say it’s at its worst now, because I remember Season Six, and I remember the Family Edition, so I’ve seen the bottom of the barrel and I recognize that we’re not there. But I keep waiting for the show to get better, like in a big massive way, to bring back the excitement of the first two seasons, and it’s not happening. This show is coasting. It’s repetitive. I mean, you expect Big Brother to be repetitive, because they’re always in the same damn house. And you expect Survivor to be repetitive, because they’re slowly using up the world’s supply of tropical beaches. But The Amazing Race? Which literally has the entire globe as its filming location? Which has thousands of cultures and languages to pull from? To be this repetitive season after damn season? This is the last show I’d expect to have fallen into a rut, and yet it did just that.

Maybe the malaise just comes from the casting. There used to be real characters on the race, crazy people like Frank and Wil. People you really wanted to root for, like Ken and Gerard. Even Charla and Mirna, who even haters have to admit are blisteringly entertaining week after week. But then they started casting assholes, like Eric and Jonathan Baker. Or empty-headed models. Or famewhores who just wanted to be on TV. And the show really started to tank, but the casting didn’t get any better. It got worse. And then came All-Stars, and they only got it about half right. Kevin and Drew were one of the big “star” teams from the first few seasons, so it was right to bring them back. Although with Drew’s health problems maybe they should have bowed out. Rob and Amber definitely belonged here, and so did Charla and Mirna. I understand they tried to get Colin and Christie, which was the right move, but they had to bow out because Christie got pregnant. So they made a lot of right choices. But John Vito and Jill? Dustin and Kandice? Eric and Danielle? In what universe are these people All-Stars? David and Mary? Christ. So this season was only half good to begin with, and then I had to sit back and watch teams that I liked, teams that were actually nice people, get eliminated in favor of people who shouldn’t even have been on the show. Which is the nature of the competition, yes, and which underscores the fact that anyone can have a bad leg, even the best racers out there. Which is fine. But which leaves us with Eric in the final three, and pisses me off to no end.

So am I excited going into the finale? Eh. There’s always an excitement about the final episode. There’s always the possibility of a real race to the finish line, of another ending like Season 2 had. But when you’re not excited about the teams, when the only choice you’re given is to root for Charla and Mirna or the Beauty Queens, that is a lackluster finish from any angle. And you can always hope that something will happen, that you’ll be proven wrong, that there’s some kind of pleasant surprise waiting ahead, but the track record just isn’t that good.

I love The Amazing Race, but I’m getting tired of watching it.

See you on Sunday.