SWING, YOU FAT BASTARD! The Amazing Race debuted ten years ago last night, and Reality Blurred has video of the first episode. Also, back in the day Linda Holmes recapped it for a site then known as Mighty Big TV.
Among other remarkable things: the clue envelope with the first spoon-fed flights doesn't tell the teams from which NYC airport each departs, so you see the teams running around in Central Park frantically looking for pay phones to call the airlines to figure out where to go. (Also, it's obvious from the first moments that money scarcity is a much bigger factor for the teams than it has become, as they debate subway v. taxi for getting to the airport.) Not every season has reached the heights of seasons 1-4, but other than Survivor no reality competition has come close to its durability and excellence. Eyebrows will raise for Season 19 in three weeks.
Also turning 10 this year? Alias, 24, and PTI.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the money issue, I recall an interview with Rob or Brennan where he explained that they THOUGHT the money issue was going to be a big one. They ate food out of airport garbage cans the first leg or two in order to conserve money but they soon realized money wasn't going to be THAT tight.
ReplyDeleteAlso, in the pre-AirTrain era, take the cab, or better still, call a car service. With the AirTrain, it's a closer call, especially to JFK.
ReplyDeleteThey had $90 for the leg. How much would the car service have been in early 2001?
ReplyDelete$47-48 + toll/tip are current rates, but no toll outbound unless you take the midtown tunnel.
ReplyDeleteLet's say it's even as low as $30 back then. In a first leg with $90, and not knowing what else I'll need money for, I don't think you can do it unless it looks like other teams are all taking taxis/cars instead of the subway.
ReplyDeleteThat was also pre-flat fee taxi rates to JFK, right?<span> </span>
ReplyDeleteI might include Season 5 in the string of consistency for TAR. After a while, the seasons have all blurred together and the producers have tightened up the logistics of the race, so that there's far less airport intrigue and opportunities to have teams be a day ahead or behind the others, but it's still a consistently well done show.
The first few episodes of season 1 lack all of the structure of later seasons, but that makes it somewhat more exciting and ragged, even if a little bit more confusing.
I'm just remembering the scene where either Kevin or Drew was going up in a plane, and they made some joke where they called their elderly pilot "Uncle Junior," which was dead-on. They were such a great pair for reality TV. And the Momily elimination was heartbreaking, because I really didn't like the Guidos.
ReplyDeleteOh season 5 definitely belongs. Some of the biggest personalities and one of the best routes, with the Pyramids, St Petersburg, and Kilamanjaro punching up the usual mid season lull. Six was the first throwaway season, and while the low seasons aren't so low nowadays, the highs are nowhere near those first five.
ReplyDeleteI always wonder what the development of this show would've been like in a pre 9/11 world. Travel transformed so much that day, it seems fitting that the looser structure of season 1 gave way to the tightly controlled, sometimes mechanic show we have today.
Bring back Miss Alli and MBTV!
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