Premeire Tuesday July 7 8PM Eastern
followed by America's Got Talent

...it's exactly like TARFE, which rhymes with barf, which stands for 'a complete waste of one hour of your life', except that...

* The grand prize is ridiculous. My running network joke for the summer has been NBC: We're Cheap And It's Paid For -- and they insist on proving me right every five minutes. A hundred thousand dollars? Pre-tax? For the entire family? Wanna bet there's no prizes for second place on down?

* The host looks like an escapee from the rejected cast line for Best Week Ever. Sounds like one, too. Isn't even remotely that funny, but you can't have everything. Or with this series, anything.

* There is, as the host was so careful to explain, no racing element. You get there when you get there, and no one cares about how long it took. So why all the shots of people passing each other? Because they had nothing else to fill the time with.

* Every family was cast to fill a stereotype. How many stereotypes can you name? How many can NBC name? Is it more or less than the total number of viewers?

* The challenges are stupid (with one ripping off TAR in its own right). Wow, you have to climb over a cabinet. Feel that physical strain. Smell that humor. Win a prize on the financially petty side. Close down traffic for several hours and inconvenience thousands of people.

* Cast introductions? When we have so many people to deal with, we surely don't need to introduce all of them. In fact, as a working number, 'hardly any' will do...

* In the end, we're watching an extended commercial for an RV rental company.

Why?

Next step: the Honor Of Appearing Of NBC contestant fee.

I want to thank you for saving me from wasting endless hours on this third-rate TAR wannabe ("Treasure Hunters" and "Highway 18" were second-rate, IMHO). I owe you one.

She only takes cash though. You can ask about money orders if you wish.

Okay, so that did suck. And to agree with and add to Estee's list . . .

*Reno Collier isn't a great host. I don't think Phil's hosting Emmy is in any danger of changing hands to this guy.
*Kids just can't emotionally handle the pressures of a reality television production (I'm not happy right now!). Leave the family element out of all future races.
*From what I saw at Meteor Crater, the Ricos are the next family to go, followed by the Cootes and Pollards in some order.
*The Presidential Obstacle Course was weak but it could have been great if mom wore the head of the VP and you had to get all the votes to the ballot box in the fastest time. And the family had to dodge donkeys and elephants at some point. And drunk convention delegates were involved.
*Thought the Pollards had 2 girls - my bad. The son was trapped in the corner of the Subway booth and I didn't get a good look at him because I was distracted by mom's make-up. Yikes!
*The DiSalvatores - Ewww and Ick.
*I hope the Montgomerys win.

As far as kids not handling the stress: some of them do better than the supposed adults. (See any season of Endurance for details.) The one good moment of the whole premiere was the instant spoiler being yelled out the RV's window.

Looking at your spoiler vs. the show's format, you may have been at an End Of The Road challenge. (It's amazing: we finally have a first-person eyewitness in-production spoiler and no one cares enough to make a forum around it.) Given the distance involved, this also potentially means either some major mileage being covered between challenges or a non-elimination somewhere along the way -- more likely the former.

The DiSalvatores are meant to be the Paolos. All we need is some more yelling. Plus screaming. And a few fistfights would be helpful.

I was surprised no one tried to make multiple vote-gathering trips within the three-minute limit. Especially with a Bush head on premises to provide inspiration.

I think contestant longevity may be directly linked to the length of their introductory shots. Did the Montgomery family get more than twenty seconds?

I've seen Endurance. Maybe the problem is that w/ TARFE and GART, the kids are with their parents.

Love TAR and TARA (lack of Hebrew and Portuguese kept me away from TARB and TARI) so I thought I would give this a bash.

Why oh why oh why did I put myself through it?

TAR is a race(ish)

Treasure Hunters was a race with difficult clues (although the good news for the Lairdbot is that on this showing he has been overtaken as worst.host.ever).

This is not a race, with stupid tasks, and teams who make the Paulos look normal.

Sigh, same time next week?

Arrrr Cap'n!

Just another Sleeperbloke

Something or Other