The Amazing Race Australia season 7 (henceforth TAR Aus. 7) did something annoying, but they put a fresh spin on it.

Watching 3 seasons of TAR (Aus. 7, a rerun of US 32 and US 35) simultaneously showcases a full spectrum of pros and cons about the series. (To be honest, you think I’d be sick of the show after so many late nights watching TAR being shafted to weird time slots and that much reality TV, only 2 of which are fresh and available on legal streaming as a result. The quality of the recaps/Wikipedia content on US 32 is top-notch though, so even without watching the actual videos, I can understand everything *chef’s kiss*.)

For one thing, the different incarnations do the annoying thing of borrowing tasks from previous Races…although after a bunch of Races in different countries, you definitely will end up recycling something along the way and (almost!) no one will remember. For a specific example, I’m listening to a podcast on Aus. 2 as I write this post and US 35’s “push the tuktuk out of the maze like it’s a 2000s move-the-car game” is actually a take on Aus. 2’s “push the car out of the maze…[you get the idea]”, while Aus. 7’s raft-building finale seems to be a take on an early task in Aus. 2.

So a celebrity season is no surprise for Aus. 7 – prior to this season’s launch, it was done in China, with a bunch of concessions made for celebrity filming schedules. However, the people at Network 10 – who produced this Race – decided to use their somewhat odd for TAR, yet extremely altruistic, gimmick of having their money go to charity instead of themselves (China’s went to the Racers and the US TAR‘s attempts at “celebrity editions”, including the YouTuber version (US 28), also went to the Racers – however, similar “celebrity shows”, such as I’m a Celebrity…, also use this gimmick – in fact, that’s probably where the producers/Beau Ryan poached this idea from!). Behind-the-scenes content says the celebrities had buffets, but aside from that and the luxury hotel upgrades the celebrities got for winning legs, there were no concessions like China’s. In fact, at one point, the celebrities having to camp on the beach – with a big campfire, a la Survivor – becomes a big deal.

…This altruism leads to a rather divisive ending, to say the least (no spoilers on that here, since – knowing my audience has more US readers than Australian ones – I assume you’re more familiar with US TAR than TAR Aus. 7, despite the latter being the focus of this post). However, my take on it is the celebrities could’ve given the money out of their own pockets, so it matches the whole “feel good TV” TAR is occasionally known for. It almost makes me wonder what would happen if, say, Rachel Reilly had to do the same – she’d never have gone on TAR thrice (and Big Brother twice!) if the prize money wasn’t for her and her loved ones… *sighs sadly and shakes head*

…Now, I’m not saying other versions should do this. I think this worked here because it was 1) following up some pretty lacklustre COVID-affected seasons in its own continuity and 2) an Australian season – as I said, Australian TV has done TV shows for charity before. However, I mentioned at the very beginning TAR has its pros and cons (…like a Detour or something, haha…). The US seasons’ strengths are 1) it’s the OG so it does almost all the experiments and 2) it’s extremely cutthroat as a result, in comparison to some of the tamer international TARs. Doing a US TAR for charity would therefore undermine the very nature of that version of it.

What I’m saying is maybe they can try it if they have enough charities to go around – although in my honest opinion, hospitals, while worthy causes to funnel money to, are not charities – and if it bombs, then it can be resigned to TAR history like the Family Edition. That way, any “Celebrity Edition” would take the “do it for the money!” that is an inherent part of TAR, give these people a mission much bigger than themselves and yet not take double the amount of time to film like the Chinese one. It’s win-win!

Meta context: You’ve gotten this far – so April Fool’s! This was the usual deviation from scheduled programming that (usually) comes out every April 1st – or as close as possible to that – on this blog. However, all this content are genuine thoughts on TAR I have.

As noted previously, this was written when TAR Aus. 7 and US 35 were fresh and a rerun of US 32 happened to be running.

Update: Originally, I was going to say what these guys said – “it’s for charity, so that’s how they can get away with the ending!” However I watched this video after I wrote this post and because I wrote this post at 1 am, I didn’t remember I’d added a bit more to that argument.