Revealed
- Episode aired May 3, 2020
IMDb RATING
6.8/10
28
YOUR RATING
The five teams reunite for the first time to reveal fascinating insights into their different strategies and individual experiences - from their highest highs to their lowest lows.The five teams reunite for the first time to reveal fascinating insights into their different strategies and individual experiences - from their highest highs to their lowest lows.The five teams reunite for the first time to reveal fascinating insights into their different strategies and individual experiences - from their highest highs to their lowest lows.
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The second series had a thrilling finish with just seconds separating between the winners and the couple who came second.
This episode was a reunion show which took a look back at the adventure of the 5 couples that started the race, this time spanning South America.
They had to race through 17 countries and over 21,000 kilometres.
What struck out the most was a lot of the couples had issues. Emon and Jaimul the estranged uncle and nephew who had been apart for 10 years after a family dispute. Rob and Jen, a married couple with Rob having hearing problems. Jo and Sam are mother and son. Jo travelled in her younger days but has had health issues and Sam suffers from ADHD.
In the reunion show all of them talked about just how momentous the journey was and how unprepared they were such as dealing with language barriers. They had to constantly keep track of their finances, get food, work to earn money, rely on the kindness of strangers (easy to do when followed by a BBC camera crew) and plain old hustling.
There were downsides. One couple had to drop out as they lost their money belt. One couple were shocked by the poverty they saw in Brazil and decided to donate some of their winnings to charity.
It was an enjoyable second series and one that had a lot of heart and some thrilling moments.
This episode was a reunion show which took a look back at the adventure of the 5 couples that started the race, this time spanning South America.
They had to race through 17 countries and over 21,000 kilometres.
What struck out the most was a lot of the couples had issues. Emon and Jaimul the estranged uncle and nephew who had been apart for 10 years after a family dispute. Rob and Jen, a married couple with Rob having hearing problems. Jo and Sam are mother and son. Jo travelled in her younger days but has had health issues and Sam suffers from ADHD.
In the reunion show all of them talked about just how momentous the journey was and how unprepared they were such as dealing with language barriers. They had to constantly keep track of their finances, get food, work to earn money, rely on the kindness of strangers (easy to do when followed by a BBC camera crew) and plain old hustling.
There were downsides. One couple had to drop out as they lost their money belt. One couple were shocked by the poverty they saw in Brazil and decided to donate some of their winnings to charity.
It was an enjoyable second series and one that had a lot of heart and some thrilling moments.
This review covers Series 2.
This second series of the BBC's popular "Race Across the World" programme will now always be overshadowed by the news that one of the contestants from the 2019 race was sadly killed in a road accident only this week. His name was Sam Gardiner and in this gruelling trek down South America from Mexico City to the southernmost point of Argentina, he was partnered by his loving mum.
A sufferer from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), he was an engaging, if sometimes irritating presence in the show. Completely devoted to his mother, we learned that she actually adopted him at age 6 months and she movingly related on camera the moment that she realised she loved him as much as she did her other, natural-born son. Sam proved himself a hard worker, a useful trait as the teams in the show often have to carry out menial tasks for pay and / or bed and board. His own preference for more comfortable, which always means more expensive, modes of travel or accommodation, served to drain their budget to perilously low levels, especially as his indulgent mother always caved in to his demands, but more than once on their journey, both of them expressed their delight at the things they had seen and done together as well as appreciating the opportunity it had given them to deepen their own bond.
As for the other contestants, they also naturally had their own trials and tribulations. One couple was unlucky enough to lose or have stolen half of their funds, with it seeming a harsh editorial judgment not to allow their funds to be replaced, this mishap, unsurprisingly, forcing them to exit the race early.
The other three remaining teams comprised a sometimes niggling young married couple, who seem to have lost the spark in their marriage due to the husband losing the power of much of his hearing, a self-confessed privileged young brother and sister looking to reconnect as siblings and finally a thirty-something uncle and his teenage nephew, both of Pakistani extraction, reuniting after a wider family fall-out separated them years before.
Along the way, we got to see with them the wonders of the Iguazu Falls in Brazil, the Mayan ruins at Petanque and the desert dunes of Huacachina, amongst many others which contrasted starkly with some of the manual tasks and low-cost places they had to endure to preserved their funds. It was also intriguing to see the travellers affected by separate political unrest in Chile and Bolivia. One particularly dramatic moment occurred when the brother of the two siblings collapsed at one point with a seizure although thankfully he recovered to continue.
It all came down to a dramatic finish with very little to choose between the winners and losers but in the end, for me, it was the most likeable, or if you prefer least disagreeable couple who won and then generously gave up their hard-earned prize money to the care of the poor children they had witnessed sleeping rough on the streets of Sao Paolo in Brazil.
My wife and I are quite hooked on the programme now even though we would never open up in front of the camera in the way the competitors seem to be expected to do. Maybe I'm just a cynic but there are times in the programme when I feel the producers manipulate the racers in their tribulations fir the dubious purpose of making "good telly" and more than once, I felt the cameras could have been turned off.
Still, we've now watched the first two series and will certainly cadge a lift alongside the next five competing couples for Series 3.
This second series of the BBC's popular "Race Across the World" programme will now always be overshadowed by the news that one of the contestants from the 2019 race was sadly killed in a road accident only this week. His name was Sam Gardiner and in this gruelling trek down South America from Mexico City to the southernmost point of Argentina, he was partnered by his loving mum.
A sufferer from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), he was an engaging, if sometimes irritating presence in the show. Completely devoted to his mother, we learned that she actually adopted him at age 6 months and she movingly related on camera the moment that she realised she loved him as much as she did her other, natural-born son. Sam proved himself a hard worker, a useful trait as the teams in the show often have to carry out menial tasks for pay and / or bed and board. His own preference for more comfortable, which always means more expensive, modes of travel or accommodation, served to drain their budget to perilously low levels, especially as his indulgent mother always caved in to his demands, but more than once on their journey, both of them expressed their delight at the things they had seen and done together as well as appreciating the opportunity it had given them to deepen their own bond.
As for the other contestants, they also naturally had their own trials and tribulations. One couple was unlucky enough to lose or have stolen half of their funds, with it seeming a harsh editorial judgment not to allow their funds to be replaced, this mishap, unsurprisingly, forcing them to exit the race early.
The other three remaining teams comprised a sometimes niggling young married couple, who seem to have lost the spark in their marriage due to the husband losing the power of much of his hearing, a self-confessed privileged young brother and sister looking to reconnect as siblings and finally a thirty-something uncle and his teenage nephew, both of Pakistani extraction, reuniting after a wider family fall-out separated them years before.
Along the way, we got to see with them the wonders of the Iguazu Falls in Brazil, the Mayan ruins at Petanque and the desert dunes of Huacachina, amongst many others which contrasted starkly with some of the manual tasks and low-cost places they had to endure to preserved their funds. It was also intriguing to see the travellers affected by separate political unrest in Chile and Bolivia. One particularly dramatic moment occurred when the brother of the two siblings collapsed at one point with a seizure although thankfully he recovered to continue.
It all came down to a dramatic finish with very little to choose between the winners and losers but in the end, for me, it was the most likeable, or if you prefer least disagreeable couple who won and then generously gave up their hard-earned prize money to the care of the poor children they had witnessed sleeping rough on the streets of Sao Paolo in Brazil.
My wife and I are quite hooked on the programme now even though we would never open up in front of the camera in the way the competitors seem to be expected to do. Maybe I'm just a cynic but there are times in the programme when I feel the producers manipulate the racers in their tribulations fir the dubious purpose of making "good telly" and more than once, I felt the cameras could have been turned off.
Still, we've now watched the first two series and will certainly cadge a lift alongside the next five competing couples for Series 3.
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