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Update: The Amazing Race: Aus v NZ

Seven schedules a double episode next Monday night.

2014-08-19_2312Heads up Amazing Race: Aus v NZ fans.

Next Monday Seven will play a double episode from 8:40 – 11pm.

This means The Goldbergs is out on Monday.

The following week it will air from 8:40 – 10pm.

It’s somewhat disheartening that an Emmy-winning show is not quite firing this season. The Australia – New Zealand rivalry and the late finishes for the show have been conspiring against the simplicity of the format.

Teams head to Namibia, Africa and come face to face with the local wildlife. Tension is running high and threatens to turn physical between Kiwis Jono and Johnny. The heat and conditions take their toll on one team and the pit stop conclusion stuns all.

Meanwhile, Brynne: My Bedazzled Diary has already concluded, at just 3 episodes long this season.

19 Responses

  1. Love love love the Amazing race, am really enjoying this season as well. Complainers will complain. 7 sucks at the timing of the show…but as im a night owl this doesnt bother me. Go TARA.

  2. Season 1 had this exact Monday-at-8:30-ish/after-the-X-Factor timeslot.

    The problem is twofold: The ratings drop David predicted in his review if the Aussies were out early is true, but like the show itself it didn’t account for losing over half the Aussie cast to start with (five teams compared to eleven). Add that the two halves were clearly cast by different people, with the Kiwis much better chosen than the Aussies, and there’s just no appeal when they’re pushing the theme so hard.

    Then you’ve got the race design itself. Great locations, but the tasks have been dreadful. The tug of war drained all the energy out of the explosive start, and the producers have been more concerned with showing their own cleverness (LOTR ripoff, pedometers) and resorting to tired stereotypes than good legs. Case in point: This week, we got “Thailand = Thai massage!” TAR Canada went to France…

  3. I’m not sure why there’s so much complaining here. The casting is excellent (partially because some of the Nu Zullunder eccents are so funny). Amazing Race Asia reigned supreme over the US version (and had similar length episodes to this current series). Inset interviews are hardly new to the show, and if the casting is good they work.

    The scheduling is the only problem — and it is brutal.

  4. It’s on way too late. Should be back at 7:30 like it was in season 1, and I think it should just go back to just Australians and not competing against New Zealand. I was excited for this season but just after 1 episode I have decided to skip it this year. Disappointing.

  5. I’ve loved the Aussie version and am very proud of Seven for giving it another crack, but the magic just isn’t there this season at all. Even Grant Bowler (the best host possible!) seems so wooden it’s as though he’s physically being marionetted by the director off screen. I wish Seven would just bring back the original format of The Mole (with Grant at the helm) and do a winning show again.

  6. Channel 7 needs better program editors and needs to start shows on time. I got to watch the 1st ep on a replay. But the length of the show was shocking. There was about 5 minutes of non-stop piece to camera. Have a few comments and then show the challenge. Instead they interviewed one team, then we heard from another, then another. The Mole suffered then same fate. What should have been 1 ep a week with 2 challenges and an elimination turned into a 3 night a week drawn out nightmare.
    Worst editors at Seven

  7. I agree with you completely barrington. I enjoy the US version of the show. Can’t understand why the Aussie version has to have all the ridiculous narration from the contestants. We are not blind or stupid so don’t need the constant explanations

  8. barrington – you cleary have not seen the Asian versions of the Amazing Race – they dont get much worse than that!
    Whilst The Aussie versions all have a unique Aus flavour they are on par with the US version if not better.
    Hats off to the Aussie producers for achieving this.
    Unfortunately the Aus version has never rated well here. I salute 7 for tyring to breathe some life into the old girl one last time.

  9. Sadly predictable that this would happen.
    Channel 7 have been notorious in the past for their poor treatment of both the The US and Aus versions of the Amazing Race with their haphazard scheduling/ unsuitable timeslots.
    .
    God knows why they would purposely kill one of their homegrown shows like this.
    Whilst not as good as the US version, I’m really enjoying this – have always been a sucker for TAR so it’s great to see a local version.

    Really disappointing to see it churned through in big late night slabs rather than 1 hour weekly instalments like it should be.

  10. I have still watched every episode so far. It’s a good series. I also don’t mind the timeslot. It’s the same slot the show had two years ago.

    However I agree they should have tried it in a 7:30 slot first – perhaps on a Wednesday or Thursday. Doubt it will be back next year with those ratings. A shame, it’s a good show.

  11. Hope they’re losing lots of money on this one.

    An 8-10 week run at 7:30pm Tuesdays would have flowed nicely into 10 weeks of Dancing with the Stars to fill out the rest of the year.

    I assume that the partner broadcast in NZ (which airs on Tuesday nights) is the biggest issue with shifting it away from Mondays now that it has started.

  12. This version is hands down the worst treatment of the format I’ve seen. The constant unnecessary contestant interviews completely kill the flow and pace of the show and they just end up either repeating what we already know, or tell us what we are seeing. There’s also too much overtly produced bitchiness and the casting isn’t great. This series is a prime example of how not to make engaging television and how to kill a successful, award winning format. Well done channel 7.

  13. Who didn’t see these double episodes coming? The treatment of this show is terrible, and it’s not actually as bad of a season as I expected, although there is way to much cut to contestant narration scenes.
    The changing episode lengths and the random start times have had me PVR and watch the following night, except last week when I forgot it was on and had to use online catch-up. I can’t even series link it because the start\end time varies, I have to manually enter a new recording each week.
    A double episode it just going to lower the ratings even further for that second episode. I wonder what the NZ broadcaster will be doing with this. If the US can show a tightly edited 42min episode once per week, why can’t we? The only allowable double episode should be the finale, as long as it starts at a decent time.

  14. Seven has this strange way of sometimes conspiring against its own shows being successful. How else could you explain strangely ignoring the obvious Thursday night timeslot and then throwing in occasional double episodes wjich lead to ridiculously late finishes. All while pursuring an unnecessary Aus vs NZ storyline.

    Still a good show worth watching, but the dumbing down of Seven shows continues. Just call it “Amazing Race Rules” and be done with it.

  15. I had watched previous seasons of the Australian version of amazing race. I didn’t bother this time round because the previews and articles prior to airing indicated it had gotten the MKR treatment. That was a turn off.

  16. 7 your stuffing this up. You put this on at 9:00 and you dig it further in the ground. The show is considered one of the best editions of TAR in the entire world and your just stuffing it up further. It should have been 7:30 Monday, with that singing show on Tuesday and that stupid makeover show on Wednesday. But you lack the common sense to see that.

  17. This is pretty much the death knell for the show. My biggest gripe with this season is the MKR style studio comments from the contestants that completely ruin the flow of the show and are totally unnecessary. I wish they stuck with ActiveTV producing it.

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