I don’t know how my interest in The Amazing Race got revived. I just realized that I’m watching it lately (via torrents) and that I’m even downloading the previous episodes! Right now, I’ve already watched Season 20 (just waiting for the final leg of the race) along with Seasons 19 and 18. I’m actually watching the previous seasons backwards. My BitTorrent right now is downloading Season 16.
It’s probably because of TV 5’s acquisition of the rights to do a Philippine version of The Amazing Race. Perhaps, it’s also because I keep seeing The Amazing Race on the list of latest TV episodes when I go check out torrents.to
Prior to my recent addiction to The Amazing Race, the last season of this show that I watched was Season 5 when the Philippines was a pit stop. That was in 2004, when I watched Colin and Christie prepared a rice field in Cavite for rice planting and that the pit stop was at the Coconut Palace. That was ages ago and I can’t believe that I’ve missed Seasons 6-15 (and still haven't watched Seasons 1-4). I have a lot of catching up to do.
For the record, I just spend 16 hours non-stop watching Seasons 19 and 18 yesterday (during my rest day). It was indeed amazing! It’s nice watching the show in High-Definition (from Season 17 onwards). There were a lot of changes to the game since Season 5 and the game totally improved – a lot!
Some of the things I’ve noticed right now in The Amazing Race is that the road block is almost equally divided into the 2 teams. One team member can’t perform more than 6 times in a Road Block. In Season 5, Colin did almost all of the Road Blocks. Also, I’ve noticed that Season 17 is the last time that the first clue to the race is strapped on their bags. Season 18 (moving forward) starts with a competition right away to get the first clue instead of racing to the nearest airport.
I’ve also reviewed the countries that The Amazing Race visited in the last 20 seasons and it’s sad to know that after Season 5, the Philippines was never visited again (compared to other Asian countries). I guess the TV show had a rough time during their stayed in the country that they promised never to visit again. It’s also a possibility that our Department of Tourism is not that accommodating to such reality TV or we’re still on the blacklist of potentially dangerous destinations in Asia. Whatever the reasons, I sure hope that they’ll visit us again soon.
Top 14 Countries Visited by The Amazing Race:
1. United States (All 20 seasons)
2. India (10 seasons - 1, 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 18, 20)
3. China (9 seasons - 1, 2, 6, 10, 11, 14, 16, 17, 18)
4. Germany (7 seasons - 3, 6, 9, 14, 16, 19, 20)
5. France (5 seasons - 1, 4, 6, 10, 16)
5. Russia (5 seasons - 5, 9, 13, 14, 17)
5. Thailand (5 seasons - 1, 2, 9, 14, 19)
5. Argentina (5 seasons - 5, 7, 11, 16, 20)
5. Italy (5 Seasons - 1, 4, 9, 12, 20)
5. Austria (5 seasons - 3, 4, 14, 18, 20)
5. Japan (5 seasons - 9, 12, 15, 18, 20)
12. Malaysia (4 seasons - 3, 4, 11, 16)
12. Australia (4 seasons - 2, 4, 9, 18)
12. Brazil (4 seasons - 2, 9, 13, 18)
(Data from The Amazing Race Fan Site)
I envy our Asian neighbors that are “suki” (frequent destination) of The Amazing Race.
It’s nice to know though, that although the Philippines is visited only once by The Amazing Race, it gained so much popularity that local channel TV 5 is staging a Philippine version of it. I am definitely excited to see who the first teams for The Amazing Race Philippines are.
Tayo navosit na once haha panis tayo sa Thailand.
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