Das große Rennen

An avid viewer of the first installment of CBS' OTHER reality-based television show, I was quite happy to see The Amazing Race 2 had managed to appear in my TV Guide listings this year.

The Amazing Race follows 11 teams of 2 people with some sort of pre-existing relationship (mother/daughter, best friends, etc.) on a race around the world. Teams must follow clues to discover the next destination, and how to get there is often up to them to figure out. Along the way are various "pit stops." Be the last to arrive at most of these, and your team is eliminated from the race. No fuss, no muss...the quickest survive. NO tribal councils, NO voting!

That is what makes this show so wonderful. Contestants are forced to use not only their strength and wits, but also their (deep breath) intelligence in order to survive. The Race becomes the sole arbitor of who remains, and the viewer ends up having as much fun following the contestants as they do following the ever-surprising route. This is competition at its most basic, and simple is wonderful!

Keep this series alive...it's quite simply the most entertaining of the entire genre.

Season 36 was even worse than Family Edition, and the producers had to really try to beat that season for worst. It was clear 'Team Ringer' was going to win in the first 5 minutes of the first episode, and boy the season didn't disappoint. Let's see, a flamboyant team with a native Spanish speaker, check. Travel exclusively around South America, check. Some real life familiarity with every challenge, check. Never get lost (native Spanish speaker), check. End in the home city of Team Ringer, check. I only finished because we've watched every season. At this point, when Amazing Race gets canceled it's the producers fault. I'll watch next season because I love the show, but this will be my last season if it's rigged again. Certainly this wasn't the first rigged season, but it was by far the worst.

Though I find most of US reality TV-series quite boring I must admit that's the one I really love. Mainly because it's so global, mixture of different cultures and traditions. You can see difference between developing countries and developed countries and so on. It's fun to watch teams pushing themselves over the top with some rather weird quests and having an arguments over nothing. The tasks are usually tied with the country they're competing and that's very cool too.

The series budget is huge. They were racing in Estonia (Where I live :) in summer and my friend took part of it too and revealed how the show was being made. It's just amazing, local TV stations were paid for not to show or write anything about the series. Every smaller detail is checked and must complete the checklist of 5 pages of contract. The story also is usually confirmed on the very last minute after searching for optimal tasks and routes by the producers. And that is what makes the show special.

Only thing I don't like in the series is the fact that some conflicts are shown too prolixly. For example when one of those black sisters called Luke "bitch" in the last season.

But otherwise it's brilliant show and I think everybody find it exciting when one bothers to watch it.

I gotta say I hate reality TV. Sure "Survivor" had it's moments, but it got tiresome after awhile. The Amazing Race? Now HERE's a show with variety and personality to match the frantic, fast-paced action with such ingenious use of game set-pieces I couldn't help but dig this show. I watched this series for nine years and it still never fails to entertain me. That's something that can't be said for most reality TV programs; well at least for "American Idol". One of the most moving moments of the show was when they had one of the contestants was a female dwarf but despite her physical limits, she managed to get far near the end of the race. I can vividly recall the the emotions of the host who greeted them at the pit stop; however coming in last place eliminated them from the race. Sorry if that sounded a little poetic but I couldn't help but be touched by his reaction. Still, it's a great show, filled with a surprising amount of suspense. Yes, SUSPENSE. In a reality show; a rarity. Never in the history of TV has a series been this gripping, this entertaining, heartwarming and exciting, and above all, original as The Amazing Race.

WOW! This tv show is good enough to beat Survivor but they belong in the same network so... Anyway, I like how they put it together--[11 teams with 2 people in each team]. The one that really gives colour to the show is the contestants and their personality. The editing was really great & I think they should win an Emmy for this. There's alot of action in it and great games. After watching an episode you just can't wait for the next one. Right now I heard its the second best reality show next to Survivor so again GOOD JOB CBS! One thing I love about this show is the places, every episode they go to different country. >