The Amazing Race: The Complete First Season DVD Review:

Reality television has acquired somewhat of a negative reputation, because of the flood of terrible dating shows and forced situations which will guarantee conflict. What is worse is that these shows often rely on the worst tendencies of mankind, encouraging backstabbing, lying and cheating. The Amazing Race has many of these qualities, but there are more competitors which are examples of honesty, integrity and the best of mankind. As well as having so many wonderful people to cheer for, the scope of this show outdoes any other reality show on television. Traveling around the world, each episode brings a little bit of culture education with the entertaining drama of the race.

Winner of two Emmy Awards for Best Reality Program, The Amazing Race sends twenty-two competitors on a race around the world, from checkpoint to checkpoint. Each team of two must find their way around with minimal clues and only the allotted amount of money. At certain points there are tasks which must be completed, some physical and some mental. There are different types of tasks. The “Road Block” tasks must be completed by only one member of the team, and they must choose before finding out what they must do. The “Detour” task gives two options, one is usually more difficult but easier to find, while the other is farther away but easier to complete. The last team remaining at the end of the game wins a million dollar prize.

Even skill and able ness don’t seem to matter nearly as much as luck on this show. It is frustrating at times to watch certain teams get lucky with a good driver, while another team has a driver with either a broken car or an inability to stay awake. Sometimes luck seems more like karma, and cheating and dishonest teams are dealt a bad hand, but at times good people are left with unfortunate circumstances, and that is just part of the game.

The entire first season is fit onto four discs, which are in slim cases and placed in a cardboard case. Each disc holds three or four episodes. The chapter stops on each episode conveniently allow viewers to skip the introduction.

The special features on the disc are quite extensive, but that doesn’t necessary mean that they are good. The biggest feature is the All Access Pass, which brings an icon up on the screen whenever there is extra footage to be watched. The creators of the show explain this on each DVD, saying that the footage was only taken off because of the lack of time, but this doesn’t seem completely true. Most of the footage is just a rehashing of what has already happened, which ends up being a lot of talking. There is no need to watch any of this footage, which is mostly slow. There is even a scene in which one team thumb-wrestles.

Other special features include a deleted roadblock, a featurette in which some members of the race tell how they feel about the race, and a featurette about the production elements of the show. While the production featurette and deleted roadblock are interesting, I have little interest to hear people talk about a reality show. What is the point when you have already watched what they are talking about?



Ryan Izay