Ready, Get Set, Race!
It’s just about time to get started folks. When you’re told to ‘GO!’, make a beeline straight for Phil so we can use his startled reaction to being nigh-trampled in the adverts. And don’t forget, all 22 of you are representing America to the greater world – so be as surly and loud and back-stabbing to each other as possible. Anyone overheard exchanging even one polite word to the locals will have their prize money halved. Oh, and remember y’all, when you’re in a taxi and the driver can’t understand you properly, always specify you’re an American in the loudest possible indignant voice and scream ‘Rapido!’ to get them to go faster, whether you’re in a Spanish-speaking country or not. Okay, so whilst we’re waiting for the last few stragglers to cross the finish line and crawl off to die or kill each other, let’s review the struggle to be the cheesiest rodent in the rat race with AMAZING RACE: ALL STARS (Thursdays, Seven, 9:30pm)
In its eleventh season, THE AMAZING RACE has been unleashing twelve pairs of culturally-inept, vocally-adept competing Americans on the unsuspecting peoples of the world for over a decade now. Each season follows the same tried and true format: couples of various degrees – husband and wife, boyfriend and girlfriend, ex-boyfriend and girlfriend, business partners, life partners (a.k.a. token queers), roommates, best friends, and in one season low point, abuser and victim (Hellooo Jonathan and Victoria) – race for ten weeks to different exotic locales around the planet. As long as there’s two of them and they have a vague knowledge of whom the other person in the team is, they’re good to race, usually to places where the costume department can kit people at the various pit stops in some embarrassing getup that the show insists is the region’s ‘national dress’ (i.e. lei and grass skirt in Hawaii, kilt in Scotland – the race stopped over in Perth last year, but neglected to feature anyone dressed in a giant black swan outfit with thongs and a stubbie). Racers must then undergo a series of trials and challenges designed to give them the maximum amount of pain and humiliation and the home viewer the most amount of gleeful schadenfreude. Once they have completed their task, the couples race not to be last to reach the final goal and host Phil Keoghan (sounding American but actually born in New Zealand, and really quite sexy), thus avoiding ‘Philimination’. The last team left wins the show and collects $1 million.
However, it’s not just the challenges that the teams are fighting. For every ‘find the hidden thumb in this wolverine enclosure’ challenge, there’s a challenge so simple a baby bird could do it. The teams keep failing again and again, primarily because they don’t listen to each other, under/over estimate each other, or plain despise each other. Even if one team eventually gets the million, methinks it’s usually going to end up in the pocket of their divorce lawyer or homicide attorney. (One team once tried to run another over with a mule, another ‘mistakenly’ sawed through their partner’s bungee cord and fourth series creepazoid Jonathan infamously slapped and shoved his wife Victoria on camera.)
AMAZING RACE: ALL STARS pits winners of previous year’s races up against each other and their own inbuilt tendency to self-destruct. Amongst the hoofers this year:
OSWALD AND DANNY: Former gay lovers, now platonic best friends, they come across as nice guys and have some great dialogue (‘My Ox won’t move – I think he’s broken!’).
DUSTIN AND KANDICE: Beauty queens, who constantly inform other racers, locals, the camera and total strangers of the fact they’re beauty queens. Unfortunately, the pageant’s ‘talent’ section didn’t say anything about climbing the Sphinx.
ROB AND AMBER: Newlyweds who actually met and married on a season of rival reality show SURVIVOR. Underhanded and manipulative as Sith Lords/Republicans, they’re the team to beat… possibly with some kind of bat or cudgel.
KEVIN AND DREW: Shaven-headed frat brothers who seem to be holding their own unofficial contest as to which of them can get injured the most times per episode.
JOE AND BILL: Life partners from Season 1, where they were known as Team Guido (after their Chihuahua) and marketed as evil incarnate, much like Johnny in Big Brother season 1, whom Ten painted as the most venomous queen since the big mamma in ALIENS.
ERIC AND DANIELLE: Newly dating, and trying to ‘cement their relationship via this great challenge’. I vote them most likely to attempt to kill each other with rusty ski poles whilst riding a mine cart through the Amazon.
CHARLA AND MIRNA: Cousins. To their credit, they’re fluent in about 10 languages between them and thus can actually communicate where they want to go to their bemused cabbies. This advantage is rendered basically useless by their chronic habit of reading maps backwards and ending up 30 miles in the wrong direction.
Race to your Television and watch it!
