The Race Around The World

The logo of The Amazing Race. 

“You are team number one!” Yes, I’m talking about The Amazing Race, the race around the world. The show is already more than ten years old and still standing strong as one of my favorite show. In the latest season-Season 21, a team has the chance to win $2 million, that’s a first in the series history. Teams racing across the world, encounter many challengers, enduring the different weather in different countries, fighting to win the enormous prize money that is offered. Different version of the show appears after the success of the US version; this includes an Asia, Brazil and China version of the show.

The one thing that I’m impressed with the show is the fact that we see different views or angles of the race from different sets of cameras. I’m not sure how many cameras are there when they are filming, but definitely the filming crew is a huge team. It takes a lot of time to edit the scenes that are captured by multiple sets of camera. What’s more interesting about the crew is that they never failed to capture scenes like teams unable to locate their clue box despite the clue box is just beside them or teams leaving their personal belongings behind and all of these are done without the teams noticing.  

The show gives teams the chance to visit different countries in the world. It’s always something very interesting for me. For example, last season the teams visited Tanzania in Africa. I didn’t know that Tanzania has such wonderful scenery to offer, animals running around freely and I think most of the teams enjoyed the country too. Teams visited to countries I’m totally unfamiliar with. Countries like Bolivia in the South America, Azerbaijan in Asia and Malawi and Botswana in Africa. I’m sure some of us might never hear the names of these countries before!

Here’s a special thing about the show. Some of you might not know, when the teams purchase tickets to any destinations, in fact they purchase four tickets, not two tickets as we see on the show. Four tickets are for two of the team members, one marshal and one cameraman. As we see on the show, when teams are taking a cab to any destinations, two team members will only take the central and right side of the back seat. The left side of the back seat and the front seat are taken by the marshal and cameraman who is racing together with the team throughout the race until the team was eliminated.

Phil Keoghan, the New Zealand native which hosted the show since the first season, has done an amazing job on the show. The way he introduces the challenger or any route info, he does it in a spontaneous way. It’s the kind of professionalism we expected from a host. When I watched the Asia version which is hosted by Allan Wu, (I have to be honest) the way Allan talks and speaks appears to be too mechanical.

Phil Keoghan, the host of The Amazing Race. 

Talking about the current season, teams have so far travelled China, Indonesia and Bangladesh after departing from Los Angeles in the first episode. According to spoilers, teams are expected to visit Turkey, Russia, Netherlands, Spain and France in the upcoming episodes. I get a feel this season will be an interesting one. Last season was a total boring season, totally dominated by one team because of some really poor teams in the show. This season, we have an annoying Sri Lankan twin, dating divorcees that has won two legs, a dating couple that looks very strong, truck drivers, goat farmers, all which are capable to win as I can tell.

Currently airing its 21^st season, the show still stands out to be one of the top shows across the world. The series continues to perform well in terms of viewership, averaging a total of 10 million for every season. Hopefully, someday I’m able to be part of the race and racing around the world for $1 million.