Explorace Ramblings...

I've had a peeve with the first season of Explorace ever since I saw the first episode, it never caught my attention and in my opinion, the whole first season sucked like hell. As an ardent The Amazing Race supporter, I expected for an adrenaline-pumping race (at least) across Malaysia and not some pissy one-on-one challenges.

Okay, I'll be clearer this time. I have watched every episode of the fifth season of the race made by CBS, and later when I saw the reruns of Explorace on 8TV, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was so disappointed with the show that I actually muttered out "what the fuck?" at one point while watching it. There were so many things wrong with the show that I seriously doubted the viewership ratings that were as claimed by TV3. Among the horridly screwed up parts were:

1. Wrong host. Daphne, if you're reading this, no offence but you're totally not suited to be the host of a reality game show, you talk too much and you lack the air of a reality show host. Find someone else. Please. Deduct 5 marks for incompatibility.

2. Speeding up the clips. No we don't enjoy seeing people move like lighting in a race. It defeats the purpose of watching a race. If it were in real time, everyone's feet would burn up and the whole damn show would be over in less than 5 minutes. Deduct 10 marks for screwing it up.

3. Voice issues. We don't need narration for every single incident that happened in the race. Just show the race as it is and leave the talking to the team members! No editing or voice-overs please I beg for the mercy of God! Deduct 10 marks for stupidity.

4. All talk and no action. Despite what the show is targeting (or preaching), the first 30 minutes of the show is all talk on how they're gonna kick the other team's arse, the next 30 minutes featured Speedy Gonzales-type videos of the team members in action. For heaven's sakes, just shut up and move your arses! Deduct 15 marks for rubbish and time-wasting.

5. There is no race. You heard me right. The currently format of the race means that there is no real race to begin with. You start of with teams going "head-to-head" with half of the teams eliminated by the end of the first round. And you call this a race? Deduct 15 marks for deceiving people that it's actually a "race".

6. Advertising issues. You can take all of your advertising and product-placement and go shove it where the sun don't shine. Holding team members accounted for damages of cars was a stupid idea in the first place. If you don't want the cars to be damaged, then don't let the team members near it within a 10km radius. Deduct 10 marks for stupidity and ugly advertising.

7. Race tasks are lame and agonising to watch. I mean, if you see the tasks that the producers thought up with, it is totally lame. The tasks are all jumbled up and you need to collect keys (seriously, what the fuck?) to win the race? Deduct 10 marks for mismanagement of race tasks.

8. No excitement. Watching this race is as fun as watching both grass grow and paint dry at the same time. Deduct 10 marks for torturing the viewers.

The Amazing Race = 98%
Explorace = 15%

I DON'T CARE IF EXPLORACE HAS TO COPY FROM THE AMAZING RACE, JUST MAKE SURE THAT IT DOES NOT SUCK LIKE HELL!

Some suggestions:

1. Get a better host, preferebly a guy like Phil Keogan.

2. Leave the clips as it is.

3. Leave the audio sections as it as and the host should speak less. The essence of reality lies within the actions and words of the team members themselves.

4. Trash talk - 3 minutes, full adrenaline action - 57 minutes.

5. Take the same 12 teams and make it truely into a race, give us realisation on which team's ahead of the other. Throw in stops in the race and some interesting twists in between.

6. Cut the shit. Enough said.

7. The Amazing Race did a fabulous job on this part, Explorace failed miserably. The Amazing Race managed to incorporate part of the lives of the locals into the tasks and pull them off remarkably.

8. Alongside the "don't touch it" suggestions that I've already mentioned, take the cameraman and walk with the team members if they're on foot, ride with them if they're driving/taking a taxi. The cameraman also represents the 3rd team member and should give the viewers a view on what's like it to participate in the race. Either that or the cameraman should be treating the race the same way as the cameras would while covering a Formula 1 race. Keep track of who's leading and let the suspense build up until the ending.

If you'd compare Malaysia's editions of usual reality shows with Ameriaca's ones, as in Malaysian Idol and American Idol, the Malaysian version is on par with its American counterpart. Explorace was unfortunately a cheap pirated copy of The Amazring Race.