The Amazing Races Asia Memories episode last night was lame. Downright lame. Ok, I knew it was a chance for some of their bigger sponsors to hawk their wares so I was prepared for some unashamed in-your-face product positioning. Interestingly they never did this in the American series. Ok fine. But what I didn't expect was how the entire episode was nothing but a tourist video masquerading as the Amazing Race Asia highlights. How blue was the water, how dreamy the view, how vibrant was the city, how fantastic the buildings. Geez if I really wanted to know, I would have switched to Discovery Travel & Living. You guys were in a goddamn race, remember? Doesn't it make more sense to cap it off by having the teams talk about themselves, their lives before the race, what made them apply, how they got shortlisted, what pushed them forward, their high and low points, their strategies, the inter-team tensions, and how they braved it all to the finish line. Instead what do we get? A blinking tourist commentary about the beach, island, city streets and shopping. There was nothing new to learn about the teams themselves. Cheh. What a waste of 1 hour.
And the much-touted big-secret-to-be-revealed-in-Memories was no secret after all. I won't even waste my time mentioning it here.
Again, I noticed one thing. Whenever the camera focuses on the winning team, its virtually Zabrina all of the time. You hardly get any footage on Joe Jer and in the entire Memories show she only spoke like less than 10 sentences, and all of it during an outdoors shoot. She's noticeably missing from any indoors shoot, including the AXN promo video of TARA with Andrew and Syeon. Could it be that the real JJ is camera shy? It was a let down for her fans who wanted to see more of her, and I sure as hell know there are plenty out there.
There was another thing missing in Memories - the fact that they entirely skipped Singapore. Hmmm... I wonder why.
Don't get me wrong, TARA is definitely a memorable event for me but their Memories is one episode I'll quickly forget.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
OMG Dude.. you totally just spoke my mind. The entire episode was rubbish!!! LOL. I noticed that they totally skipped Singapore too.
I totally agree. What a waste of an hour.
Singapore was omitted because, frankly, they didn't do anything there, remember? Just a quick stop and a car wash task (i think) en route to bangkok.
and on joe jer, apparently the story is that she was overseas on work responsibilities when the promos and interviews were shot. no conspiracy theories and all that, just conflict of schedules, i believe.
Izad, yes in the end it turned out to be just a shameless product promotion with racers reduced to mere props. What a shame.
Sashi, yes I've always wondered why the Sg stopover (during the race) was so brief. Was it a permit / insurance / logistics issue? I personally thought Sg had a lot to offer, I mean imagine the teams fanning out in the MRT system to hunt for clues. On Joe Joer, wah she dat bizi and can still handle the race? Respect man!
Post a Comment