The Amazing Race/YMMV: Difference between revisions

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== All Versions ==

* [[The Load]]: It always seems there's one racer who's near-useless on tasks, leaving their partner to do all the work (limits on Roadblocks have been made to discourage this).

** There are even times when teams become this. While every team leeches information in some way, there are also teams who constantly follow and copy off all the other teams, seeming never to do any of the work for themselves. Andre & Damon (US 3) and Flight Time & Big Easy (US 15 & 18) have gotten complaints about this by the fans and other teams.

* [[Scrappy Mechanic]]: The Intersection. Making two teams work together is more in line with something a show like ''[[Survivor]]'' would do. Instead of creating interesting interactions between the racers, it made whatever team arrived in an odd-numbered position stand around and wait for the other teams to show up. Sometimes they would be stuck waiting for hours.

** Not only that, but several of these were placed in legs where a team was "Marked for elimination". The intersection pretty much made survival impossible for these teams, as it bunched them with the pack until it's too late to get 30 minutes ahead of anyone else.

** The "mugging" penalty of American Seasons 5-9 for teams saved by non-elimination legs was widely loathed because it forced the [[Unfortunate Implications|awkward situation]] of well-off Americans begging for money (and later, other possessions) in impoverished nations just to survive in a reality TV competition. On top of that, it barely penalized teams time-wise since, most of the time, begging easily made up for the resources lost and they could do it even during pit stop breaks. At least it was a step in the right direction, as it was still better than the saved teams getting off scot-free like in Seasons 1-4.

* [[That One Level|That One Leg]] & [[That One Boss|That One Challenge]]: Almost every race, a couple teams state they had difficulty with one or two legs. Not to mention, there's almost always ''one'' challenge of ''any'' kind that trips up almost every team on it. These include:

** Repeating a phrase you hear.

** For female racers, there the oft repeated head shaving Fast Forward.

 

== American Version ==

* [[Accidental Innuendo]]: Millie & Chuck (Season 4) are a little infamous for this, especially considering they were labeled "The Virgins".

** Dustin & Kandice (Season 11), upset at Mirna for her attempt to cut in line and steal their standby tickets, gave this exchange to the camera:

'''Dustin''': Yeah, we'll make a beauty queen sandwich out of her. }}

** Season 20, episode 1:

'''Dave''': That's a little perverse, but we'll take it. }}

** Pretty much any task involving eating/making sausages are full of these.

** Cindy was either a neurotic [[Control Freak]] who saw herself as better than everyone else and had to be perfect at everything, or she was just a woman who was [[Freudian Excuse|over-pressurized into repeatedly having to prove herself and her relationship]] to her [[Education Mama]].

* [[Base Breaker]]: Some teams have garnered extremely polarized opinions in the fanbase:

** BJ & Tyler (Season 9) are the biggest example of this. Either you think that they're a quirky, lovable team that's fun to watch or an annoying, self-pretentious team that needs to stop mugging for the camera ASAP. There is no in-between. The majority of viewers fell into the first camp, but the ones that fell into the second camp instead were...[[Vocal Minority|quite vocal about it]].

*** It didn't help that, when they weren't chosen for All-Stars, they started whining about it online, complained about the validity of the teams chosen, and called themselves the most popular team to ever run the race ''and'' the "most winningest winners ever to win." That temper tantrum alone might have cost them their title as the most popular team to ever run the race.

** The entire Top 4 from Season 14. Tammy & Victor, Jaime & Cara, Margie & Luke, and Kisha & Jen were all so polarizing, they had the fans split into four groups, not so much rooting for one team as they were rooting against the other three.

*** Jaime & Cara even cited themselves as such in the pre-race interviews for Unfinished Business, saying that they were a team people loved or hated, there was no middle ground with them.

** Flight Time & Big Easy (Seasons 15 and 18), like BJ & Tyler, were a popular team with a small group of detractors, those who either thought they were trying, specifically and too hard, to be a fan favorite team, or else felt that "professional athletes" (as much as Harlem Globetrotters can be considered professional athletes) had no place on the Race. Made even worse when they came back for Unfinished Business, as they proceeded to consistently follow and leech information off of all the other teams. Though this strategy did not bother their fans, their detractors took issue with them "not running the race for themselves". Then they U-Turned the Cowboys, which pushed them into full on Base Breakers.

** Midway through Season 19, Andy & Tommy started talking about their Christianity while at a Buddhist temple, and were, to say, a bit narrow-minded in their commentary (as opposed to fellow Christian Jennifer, who said the temple, while not her religion, deserved the same amount of respect). This incident, along with being another [[Stunt Casting]] team (completely embodying what fans hated about Seasons 15 and 16), ''and'' the most blatant [[Expy|Expies]] of BJ & Tyler yet, caused a bit of a rift. And that's not even touching on the explosion caused by their elimination by cabbie collusion, with their fans upset that they were beaten by two teams who never figured out how to get to the Pit Stop on their own, and their detractors [[Call It Karma|calling it Karmic retribution]] for being so cocky when most of their wins had come more from other teams' mistakes and legs being specifically designed towards their strengths rather than their own racing skills.

* [[Attention Whore]]: Rachel Reilly (Season 20), is the only woman outside of Flo (Season 3) who seems to cry at the drop of a hat, but unlike Flo, who seemed to be just mentally and physically exhausted, Rachel just seems to cry for the sake of getting attention.

** Ask the fans to rank the seasons. Though there seem to be a few seasons that will hit the bottom of most people's lists (the oft forgotten Season 4, the Family Edition, and the [[Stunt Casting]] riddled Seasons 15 and 16), every single Season will hit the top of someone's list. Especially since most fans tend to favor one group of races over all the others:

** Seasons 1-4 have a freshness that the other seasons don't, as the lack of an established [[Metagame]] meant there was a lot more unpredictability than in later seasons, and teams would take bigger gambles without knowing whether they would pay off. Also, the lack of metagame meant there were dozens of racing styles employed by the teams, as opposed to the few that are employed in later seasons. There was more emphasis on teams exploring the game, with teams talking about their moves and strategies and how it affected their placement in the game, and heavy emphasis was put on how the teams interacted with each other. The clues, specifically figuring them out, were often more important than the actual tasks the teams had to do, with the emphasis being on the locations visited instead of what teams had to do at that location. Also, there were Fast Forwards on every leg (theoretically) giving every team one free pass per season, with the strategy of when to use it being a big deal.

** Seasons 10-14 saw the proliferation of the metagame, not just amongst two or three teams, but most of the pack, which meant more teams had a chance to succeed, and made the races more unpredictable. It also made the fields on these seasons (with the exception of Season 13) overall stronger than what had come before. The episodes became much faster paced, with less exposition and interaction shown between the teams, and more focus put on the challenges and strategy. The courses themselves were streamlined (mostly due to budget cuts) with almost no more mid-leg flights (which cut down on the number of airport equalizers that made the first half of some legs completely pointless), and the challenges were balanced out, firstly so that both Detour options were viable and not every team took the same one, and secondly so that there were less [[Eat That]], [[Luck-Based Mission|luck]], and brute force tasks, which gave teams that relied on brains over brawn a much better chance to win the race. Finally, non-elimination penalties were changed to time wasters, and the money given out to teams was lessened, putting the money management aspect back into the game.

*** With the game focusing so much on strategy, the top teams tended to be more focused on the game instead of enjoying themselves, and the last few legs tended to be very cutthroat, turning off fans who liked watching the show for the teams. Also, less emphasis was put on the travel aspects of the show, both in the editing and on the course, with the airports making less and less of an impact on the game. Because of the increased use of strategy, and fewer advantages coming from flight booking, intelligent teams started to dominate physical and travel savvy teams.

*** Part of the “appealing to the casual viewer” involved casting far too much [[Stunt Casting]], and not only did these psudo-celebrities take up a lot of airtime hamming it up for the cameras, they were also much less knowledgeable of the game, and the overall level of competition suffered as a result (though Season 17 did not seem to suffer, neither did 18, being an All-Star season). And the challenges, while more mentally challenging than before, were less visually thrilling, causing the “casual” base to complain that the race had gotten easier.

* [[Designated Hero]]: There are many teams who the producers expect to be popular, and are edited thusly, but instead end up coming off as preachy or annoying. This was pretty much most of the teams on Season 10, which led to Dustin & Kandice's popularity. (See [[Base Breaker]])

** Probably the only reason Lyn & Karlyn, Season 10, don't fully qualify as Houdinis is that they teamed up with two hapless teams (David & Mary and Erwin & Godwin), and then capitalized off the mistakes of these other teams.

** Eric & Danielle from Season 11, at the moment, are the only Elimination Houdinis to win the race. They are the only team to ever win the race while having more bottom 2 finishes than top 2 (in the first 11 legs, they had one top 2 finish). They also had two legs where they finished more than twelve hours behind the lead team, and were only able to catch up to the leaders due to the most blatantly contrived equalizer in race history.

** Mark & Michael, Season 14, who had a knack for getting tragically lost on every single leg. They are the only team to ever get multiple penalties on two different legs, and two different penalties on the same task (for sabotaging the other teams, and getting outside help when the clue told them that was not allowed), yet they managed to barely escape elimination on at least three separate occasions. This includes another team getting U-Turned, a team not having enough time to make up their Speed Bump, and a non-elimination leg.

** Brian & Ericka, Season 15, survived twice, despite huge deficits, because another team quit a task. Maria & Tiffany quit a Detour where they were physically unable to do either task, while Big Easy quit a Roadblock where he was unable to unscramble the name "Franz".

*** Inverted with Ken & Tina (13), where Tina was the domineering one and Ken was the nice guy.

*** Then there are "fighting couples," in which the girl can give as much nastiness as she takes from the guy. The women in these couples tend to be whinier as well.

*** Then after the immense popularity BJ & Tyler garnered on Season 9, every season thereafter the producers have tried to recreate that success with other quirky, lovable, usually male teams. These teams tend to have a marketable gimmick, and stick out like sore thumbs from the rest of the cast. The editing tends to focus entirely on the team’s personality, ignoring the technical aspects of the race and their interpersonal relationship (that is, unless the relationship is part of their gimmick). So far, Andy & Tommy (19) have been the most blatant Expy (though they were more of a Base Breaker, and many preferred fellow Season 19 team Bill & Cathi). Kynt & Vyxsin (12) and Jet & Cord (16) each achieved their own massive popularity, as well as Flight Time & Big Easy (15) and Mark & Bopper (20) to a lesser extent, while others have been less successful and overshadowed by other teams. Erwin & Godwin (10) were upstaged by David & Mary and Dustin & Kandice, Mark & Bill (13) by Dan & Andrew, and Michael & Kevin (17) by Brook & Claire, while Mel & Mike were simply overshadowed by the insane competitiveness of Season 14's Top 4 teams.

** If Season 19's cast looked familiar at first glance, that's probably because it was nearly identical to Season 7's cast. It had the same gender breakdown (2 Female teams, 3 Male, and 6 Male/Female), with 6 couples (the gay couple, the old couple, the black married couple, the couple who met on [[Survivor]] All-Stars, the couple in their 30s, and the couple in their 20s), one parent/child team, and a sibling team who looked (if not were) identical.

* [[Fetish Fuel]]: In Season 11, one Detour had the teams use a large bamboo pole to flatten dough while making a bundle of noodles. Kandice decided the best way to do the task was to straddle the pole and bounce up and down on it.

* [[Fridge Logic]]: This gem of a comment came from Mirna on All-Stars:

* [[Game Breaker]]: For a large portion of the series (mainly Seasons 3-9) allowing the teams to beg for money destroyed the whole "money management" part of the game, as begging easily garnered more money than whatever the teams were given at the beginning of the leg.

** The U-Turn, which replaced the Yield, from Seasons 12-16. It forced the team hit by it to go back and complete the other side of a Detour, and all but ensured they would finish last, especially if the they were already in last place to begin with. It didn't help that during these seasons the U-Turn was always placed on an elimination leg. The Double U-Turn was introduced in Season 17 to alleviate this, and it immediately became much less of a [[Game Breaker]].

** Intentionally invoked by Eric & Jeremy and BJ & Tyler from Season 9. The half naked pictures of them "frolicking" together that leaked onto the internet attest to that.

** Tyler & James (Season 10), who did not so much sit next to each other as ''on top of each other'' during post-leg interviews.

** Nat & Kat, Season 17.

* [[Internet Backdraft]]: Jet & Cord fans still hadn't dropped the whole "Dan & Jordan cutting in line" complaining a year later when the Cowboys returned for Unfinished Business.

** Bill & Joe (1) broke every unwritten rule set up by the other teams on the first season and did everything they could to win, even going so far as to try to prevent three teams from making their flight by blocking security. At the same time, they established the basis for what would become the Race's [[Metagame]], and were by far the most memorable team from Season 1.

** Wil (2) spent the majority of the Race arguing with his separated wife Tara and irritating everyone else he came into contact with. He was also the single biggest driving force behind that season, even over fan favorites Danny & Oswald, and actually became something of a [[Jerkass Woobie]] when it became clear that Tara [[Not So Different|was no better than him (and even *worse* in some aspects)]].

** "Charla!" (Though really, any time Mirna opened her mouth could count.)

** There tends to be at least one young couple in each race who like to call each other "Babe" or "Baby" to an annoying amount. Some of them really start ramping it up as the race gets further along, in basically a passive-aggressive way when they get annoyed at each other (''My Ox Is Broken'' really brings this home).

* [[Most Wonderful Sound]]: The triumphant fanfare that plays in the [["Previously On..."]] segments and during moments of success, nicknamed the Horns of Perseverance by fans.

* [[Nausea Fuel]]: One Season 6 Roadblock had teams eating a spicy Hungarian soup. Freddy not only threw up, but some of it got in his bowl, forcing him to eat it again unless he wanted a four hour penalty.

** Also from Season 6, eventual winner Kendra talking about the way people in Africa keep "breeding and breeding," which moved her and Freddy from a bland, inoffensive team to one of the most hated in record time. She was quickly stuck with the nickname "KKKendra."

** [[In-Universe|In an interview]], Claire (Season 17) said that no matter what she does for the rest of her life, she expects to always be remembered as the woman who got hit in the face with a watermelon.

** Something similar happened to Kent & Vyxsin. They were a very popular team in Season 12, due to their wardrobe, their relationship, and their general quirk of being a pair of [[Perky Goths]], but by Unfinished Business they had turned from "quirky and loveable pair of goths" to "just another fighting dating couple" (which was exacerbated Kent's injury in leg 5), grated on the nerves of many viewers, and the majority of fans were happy to see them fall short of making the Final 4.

* [[Portmanteau Couple Name]] and [[Idiosyncratic Ship Naming]]: Applied to some of the teams either by the fans, or [[In-Universe|by other racers and the fans adopt them]]. Examples of portmanteau names are Momily (Nancy & Emily, the mother/daughter team from season 1), Heave (Heather & Eve from season 3), and Dandrew (Dan & Andrew from season 13). Idiosyncratic nicknames include Team Guido (Bill & Joe from Season 1, self-named after their pet dog), Team Cha Cha Cha (Oswald & Danny from Season 2), the Double-Ds or the Pinks (Dani & Danielle from Season 9; the latter name for their wardrobe, and the former given by another team as a play on their names (but with a dose of If You Know [[Buxom Is Better|What I Mean]])), and Team [[Glee]] (Jonathan and Connor from Season 17, as collegiate a capella singers).

** Dustin & Kandice, who went from being the most hated team at the midpoint of Season 10 to being the fan favorite on All-Stars when the editors started showing their "evil acts" were actually them caring more about running the race than socializing with the other teams.

** Ronald became Season 12's most hated team member after Episode 2 showed him acting like a complete [[Jerkass]] toward his daughter Christina, constantly heckling her in front of other teams, and even telling her that she needed to lose weight. He continued to berate Christina later on at times, but eventually pulled himself together enough to regain the respect of a significant portion of the fanbase.

* [[Romantic Plot Tumor]]: Eric & Danielle being included on All-Stars, even though their relationship was nothing more than casual flirting on Season 9, and Danielle (& Dani) lasted all of four legs. This was an obvious attempt for Race producers to create their own Rob & Amber, as Eric & Danielle were offered the spot in replacement of Season 3's Flo and Drew (as Flo turned them down). Instead of a [[Super Couple]], they got an unpopular bickering couple that won the race over several more popular teams, and broke up right after the race was over.

* [[The Scrappy]]: Most teams -- even unlikable, annoying, or incompetent ones -- still contribute something. However, every once in a while some team comes along that just completely annoys the hell out of everyone with no redeeming qualities.

** Gary & Dave, Season 2. They were cast as a supposedly funny friends team, in the same vein as Kevin & Drew (1 & 11). However, their humor came off as ugly and irritating, had a tendency to start arguments with other teams (both real and fake... and somehow the fake ones were more annoying), and Gary would never shut up, much to the chagrin of every other racer.

** One of the few complaints about Season 18 was that the final four teams were all far to nice and willing to help each other, and there was not as much of a sense of urgency and competition as in some other seasons. It got to the point where people were calling for rules to be made against teams helping each other complete tasks. That's right, the ''fans'' were the [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys]].

** Art & JJ (20) decried other teams for "not deserving to be on the Race with them," pointed out that they were fine finishing second to a Fast Forward because it meant they had really won the leg, called out other teams for copying them simply because they went to the same travel agency, and then criticized Rachel & Dave for choosing to break a deal and not U-Turn Brendon & Rachel on a leg that they essentially saw as a [[Foregone Conclusion]].

* [[Tethercat Principle]]: There's something of a running joke among fans that Bill & Joe (1) are still stuck in Alaska, and David & Jeff (4) in Hawaii, because they never reached the finish lines of their respective seasons.

* [[That One Level|That One Task]]: Some of the challenges can be flat out ''sadistic''. Examples include:

** [[Eat That|Any eating task]], though special note goes to Seasons 5-7, which included two pounds of caviar, an ostrich egg, a bowl of spicy Hungarian soup, and four pounds of meat.

** In Season 17, [[Sadistic Choice|it was pretty much nails on both sides and picking which one would hurt the least]] - Either take parakeets to a boat which you had to correctly identify by locating a series of numbers on the hull (made even worse with how the teams had to do this at night), or ride on a tram and look for three signs that were well hidden if you didn't know what you were looking for; and if you didn't get them then you had to ride the tram again and again until you got them. To make matters worse, this came after a roadblock combining two of the most hated kinds of tasks into a needle-in-a-haystack eating challenge.

** Charla & Mirna (5 & 11), despite constantly trumpeting about how no one gave Charla any respect because of her size, constantly played up her dwarfism in order to get favorable treatment at airports and from locals.

** Caite's obsession with being the last woman remaining on Season 16, and her constant trumpeting of that fact. It only got worse when Phil brought it up in the finale.

* [[Unintentionally Sympathetic]]: Dustin & Kandice were originally cut as the "villains" of Season 10, but a combination of the other teams being either preachy and self-righteous or outright stupid, and the fans being happy to ''finally'' see a competent female team who weren't just competing, but were the favorites to win, caused them to jump in popularity, ''especially'' after they beat out the Fast Forward in leg 8. Their elimination, which was supposed to lead to much rejoicing from the fanbase, instead led to the most hated Final 3 in Race history.

** On Unfinished Business, Jaime was very subdued compared to her appearance on Season 14, but that, combined with Cara being distracted by her upcoming bar exam, meant that the cheerleaders were not the same threat they had been on Season 14, when they had been running even with Margie & Luke and Tammy & Victor, nor were they still a [[Love to Hate]] team.

* [[Wangst]]: There was nothing Flo (3) couldn't manage to complain about and blow out of proportion. She even almost quit the Race on the penultimate leg, when it was already down to the final three teams.

* [[The Woobie]]: Zach, Season 3. He came on the race with his friend Flo [[Relationship Upgrade|to see if they wanted to be more than friends]], but instead she spent the entire race flirting with another racer and verbally abusing him.

** Flo herself has some fans who see her as this, claiming that her periodic nervous breakdowns throughout the show are equal parts hilarious and endearing.

** Linda (Season 14), especially when she got lost during the Roadblock on leg 2 and wandered way off course, you just wanted to give her a hug when she started crying.

** Vicki (Season 17), though mainly during their penultimate leg, where Nick was at his nastiest towards her and decided to take a nap at the Detour while Vicki (who had pretty much done all the hard work during that leg) continued to try until Nick convinced her to quit too.

 

== Foreign Versions ==

* [[Base Breaker]]: Marc & Rovilson (Asia Season 2) are possibly the biggest examples of this in any foreign version. They were similar to BJ & Tyler (US Season 9) in that they were either fun and lovable or annoying and needed to stop mugging for the camera. On top of that, with a total of eight first place finishes including seven consecutive wins, some people also began to dislike them for making the season so predictable. Their third place finish was either a depressing end to one of the best teams or a satisfying finale in which one of the most annoying teams got what they deserved.

* [[Elimination Houdini]]: Terri & Henry, Asia Season 2. They were consistently second-to-last place on several legs. Also, they were spared by two consecutive non-elimination legs despite the huge time deficit between the other racers.

** Mo & Mos (Australia 1) came last on the first non-elimination leg, were saved from almost certain elimination thanks to Anne-Marie & Tracy quitting the same Roadblock they did, and survived the first leg in South Africa only thanks to [[Laser-Guided Karma|karma coming back to bite Richard & Joey in the ass for being unbearable to every other team]]. They finally were eliminated on leg 5 even though fate seemed to give them every chance to survive, first when they got lucky with an Intersection (allowing them to catch up to Sam & Renae), then again when Chris & Anastasia lost their car keys (and even when, by a small miracle, they found the key, they were unable to open with without Sam & Renae's help).

*** After Mo & Mos were gone, Matt & Tom slipped into the roll. First, on leg 6, Matt burned through all his arrows on the Rodablock, and only Jeff's charity kept him from having to take a four-hour penalty. They then came in last at the midpoint of the Super Leg, then were the last to check in ''again'' at the next Pit Stop, only to be saved by Chris & Anastasia's penalty.

* [[That One Level|That One Task]]: Asia Season 1, Episode 3 had a Roadblock where one team member had to dig deep in sand to search for a mini surfboard. This proved so difficult that it took two hours for the ''first'' surfboard to be found, at least an hour and half more for two more surfboards to be found, ''well into the night'' for one especially unlucky racer to find her surfboard, and ''five'' out of nine teams gave up on the Roadblock entirely and went for the 4-hour penalty. (Although it wasn't helped by most team members somehow not thinking to use or ask for shovels until much later on.)