Last night's Amazing Race episode kinda solidified why the show is leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of the reality pack, especially compared to Survivor. The casting is better--finding "real" people who have compelling stories, rather than a crop of good looking people who aren't altogether interesting. Clearly the show had a bit of a bias towards the departed Kentucky team--they spent a lot of time on their farewell last night, compared to other losing teams this season--but it actually meant something because there's more of an emotional investment in these players than you'd find on Survivor.

Survivor thrives on gossip and he said - she said. This is prevalent on the Race as well, but it usually takes a back seat because the contestants are always in a rush to do something interesting, rather than sitting on a beach and cooking or complaining about not sleeping the night before.

I also have to applaud the choice of locations for this year's race. It had seemed they'd run out of places to go, with many countries starting to be repeated. But adding little-known locales like Mauritius and Madagascar definitely adds to the educational element of the show, and the tasks to perform seem to really show an up-close side of the country's society you'd never see on a travel show. Survivor's attempts to the same thing are valiant, but they often come up as hokey, such as tacky team names or challenges that seem far removed from the local people, despite their best attempts to be culturally relevant.

 

posted by Brad @ 2:33 PM   0 comment(s)