Amazing Thrills

Unless you're a new reader to this blog, you probably know that I love watching The Amazing Race.

I've seen almost all of the episodes (they're now in Season 8, if you don't watch). I think I missed a few episodes of S1, and unfortunately, I missed S3 because I had no working TV. But other than that, seen them all, and some more than once. I love the show and am so glad it won the reality show Emmys. (Take that, Trump! Yeah!)

The only thing that disappoints me (well, not really disappoints, but don't know what other word to pick) is that when they go to different areas of the world, I never recognize any of them. (Well, I might recognize them, but not from personal experience.) This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it makes it lots of fun to see new places and dream of where I want to go next, but there's definitely something fun in the recognition of a place you've been.

The closest I've gotten is when they're in the US - traveling around NY, SF, Chicago. But I never really counted those in my recognition tally before. (But now, I'm thinking maybe I should have, with the way Family Edition was going!)

But I've been watching (& DVR-ing) the repeats on GSN (I love GSN) and they played the Hong Kong episodes of Season 2 over the weekend. They're some of my favorite episodes of TAR (and the early seasons really were better (real clues!)- if you don't know what I mean and want to see them, buy TAR1 on DVD!) and there was also the added layer of "I know where that is!" It was lots of fun and also brought back memories of the recent trip. Last time I saw these episodes, my memories of places in HK were a little more hazy (it was also a family trip, so I wasn't doing much navigation on my own, and it was back in the mid-90s), so it was like watching them in a whole new light.

This is truly one of the only reality shows that takes you off to a whole new world. I wish they'd get back to the best parts of the old seasons (FF strategies, get rid of the NEL money-taking, real clues), but even in its current state, it's still one of the best shows on TV. This post is really supposed to be about watching HK but if it makes you want to watch the show... even better. :) Although maybe you should rent or buy TAR1, then TAR7 at Christmas and start off with TAR9...