The Amazing Race Australia

Beau Ryan's amazing race around the world, have at it

This is close to me as an Australian super fan. I never thought I’d contemplate not watching the show, but here we are. The Australian version doesn’t remotely resemble the US version anymore - instead of a competitive and enthralling race it’s full of equalisers, mundane tasks and boring contestants.

Not that different is necessarily bad - but all the differences simply prioritise a drama based show, instead of being a fly on the wall of a hard fought competition.

No U turns or fast forwards to speak of. Taxis lined up and pre-organised, provided GPS so it’s almost impossible to get lost, no incentive to research or prepare and easy to mildly challenging tasks (selling $7 worth of fruit or eating spanakopita).

Then the big ones, which all revolve around it being more scripted, rather than a real race:

• Last season 10/22 legs were non elimination. It was absurd to just watch week after week teams being saved for the sake of the series going longer.

• This season with 18 teams (again, for the sake of the series going longer), and teams sitting out 5+ legs and being allowed to come back into the race with a speed bump (that is just to do the same task you just did again, taking all of 5-10mins).

• Tom and Tyler a couple of seasons ago - four teams left and they have a vote within the teams to U turn one team. Couldn’t be more obvious they didn’t want them to win.

Not to mention the horrible casting generally, where diversity and type casting is clearly prioritised over interesting people or even people who understand how the show works.

They’ve clearly chosen their audience, and it’s not the fans of the format.