The Amazing Race - season 15 (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

The Amazing Race won yet another Emmy last Sunday and returns for its 15th season tonight on CBS with a 2-hour premiere at 8 p.m. EDT (but there is a possibility of overrun due to sports programming, so pad those DVRs, just in case).

The cast and other goodies from the CBS site:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/amazing_race/

 

[Josh Dial]

I'll be watching, as always. Regarding the chance of overrun due to football, I've stopped recording on any of our three American CBS feeds, because sometimes it's as much as 45 minutes over (this happened TWICE last year). Instead, I simply record on CTV--normally I don't do this, as our HD CTV feeds suck (I swear they are simulcasted with like 20 other feeds, because the picture quality is so poor), however, since TAR isn't in HD, I don't really care.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Since it's a 2-hour premiere, I'll have to record Cold Case on one of my 3 old school ReplayTVs to catch overruns since I have 2 shows recording in the 10 p.m. timeslot tonight. It shouldn't be a problem with the 1-hour TAR episodes later since I only have 1 show being recording at 9 p.m. on my HD DVR on Sundays.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Fun premiere, that royaly sucks large for that team that never even got to start the race lol.

Should be a fun season and...Mika. That is one fine lookin' woman right there.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Anyone else remember Mika from her 2-episode appearance on "Nashville", some weird lame reality show on Fox a few years ago?

 

[Brent M]

I don't know what it is about this show now, but I don't seem to enjoy it nearly as much as I used to. The past couple seasons I've almost felt like it's a chore to watch which was never an issue in earlier seasons. From what I saw in the first two hours the teams they selected for this season seem very boring. Maybe it will pick up, but I'm not nearly as excited to watch as I have been in the past.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Originally Posted by Josh Dial

however, since TAR isn't in HD...

With each passing season, this fact is becoming more and more ridiculous.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Originally Posted by Mike Frezon




With each passing season, this fact is becoming more and more ridiculous.

Yes it is.

 

[Mark_B]

My understanding that this is HD, just not widescreen HD. It looks to me like HD, it's just not widescreen. I know when I watch what I know is SD stuff, I can tell. I can't with TAR. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought I read that somewhere.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I might be wrong but I think that TAR is merely upconverted and not HD, It certainly isn't HD, I can say that for sure.

 

[ThomasC]

Originally Posted by Mike Frezon
With each passing season, this fact is becoming more and more ridiculous.

I think it's a portability issue. It's a fast paced and unpredictable show; is there any other show like it that's in HD? What's the battery life like? There are hikes that can go on for hours. Remember when Tammy and Victor got lost last year in Transylvania? I think the cameraman was running low on batteries, but they got finished in time. HD doesn't seem to be a high priority for CBS anyways; Survivor just got it last year, and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson just got it last month.

This is what Phil Koeghan has to say about it:

Given that fresh look, why hasn't "The Amazing Race" followed the industry trend and moved into high definition?

"I think it should be in hi-def," Keoghan agrees. "The complication, or one of the challenges that we have is that we do utilize a lot of foreign crews when we're traveling. It's very difficult to just turn up in Siberia and say, 'Oh, let's call the local guy with the HD camera and he can come down and supplement our shooting.' It's a little bit more complicated than, say, facilitating an HD shoot on 'Survivor,' where you can fly all of the equipment into one spot and you've got all your technical support there, you've got a guy who can sit down every night and look after the equipment. We're moving at breakneck speed, 28 days, flying hundreds-of-thousands of miles, or at least anywhere from 75,000 miles in a given race, so we just don't have the same luxury of being an 'Idol' or 'Survivor,' where everything is brought to one place, it's 69 degrees, where the air-conditioning is perfect. We're out sweating in Botswana or anywhere else and that's been a huge part of the challenge. But, I absolutely agree with you. I'd love to see the show in HD. I don't think there's a show on TV that lends itself more to HD."

http://www.hitfix.com/articles/2009-3-28-phil-keoghan-discussing-biking-across-america

 

[Mike Frezon]

I've been railing about this the past few seasons. It's the most confounding decision by a program that just won it's seventh consecutive Emmy.

I noticed with interest this week that Fox news is now letterboxed on 4:3 screens...giving them the ability to spready out their bottom-third graphics on their 16:9 picture without losing them on 4:3 sets. That got me wondering about saturation levels of HD sets and HD service into U.S. homes. And here is an extremely popular program (on the "Tiffany" network) still shooting in SD...when most cable networks (like TLC for gosh sake) have been shooting their shows on HD for years.

And professional HD cameras are just as durable and portable as any SD cam on the market.

 

[Josh Dial]

Originally Posted by Mark_B

My understanding that this is HD, just not widescreen HD. It looks to me like HD, it's just not widescreen. I know when I watch what I know is SD stuff, I can tell. I can't with TAR. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought I read that somewhere.

It's definitely not in HD, for the reasons stated in the article Thomas quoted and linked above. There are a lot of complications that go along with shooting a show like TAR, and I fully understand that. I'm just hoping that we'll see in in HD in the next few seasons.

 

[Mike Frezon]

We can put a man on the moon for goodness' sake...and get video and audio back to Earth.

(I'd post a "big grin" smiley right here...but that function is not working for me this morning for some odd reason.)

Get the Serbians HD-cams!

 

[AnthonyC]

We just got an HDTV this summer...and what never really mattered to me before was now running through my head the entire episode. That said, I think the premiere was excellent, especially the second hour. I enjoyed the last season a lot but most of the tasks seemed incredibly simple, so it was reassuring to see that the challenge creators haven't completely gone soft.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Now that you've got an HDTV, Anthony...don't stand too close to Phil's eyebrow. You'll think he'll scratch you with it when he arches the darn thing! That thing could be dangerous!

)

 

[Paul D G]

What? No comments on the season yet?

The interracial couple is starting to annoy us with their referencing about their being interracial (picking the zebra, the yin/yang hat, etc). Fact is I didn't even notice until they started mentioning it during every interview.

Glad to see Lance and Keri gone. They were incredibly annoying.

I heard a rumor that after being eliminated Ron dumped Marcy.

And I wish CBS would schedule football for 3.5hrs rather than just 3 hrs. Every season each episode is never aired on-time. You know the game's going to be on longer than 3hrs so just schedule it so. You can't fill in an extra 20m with commentary and commercials if it ends reasonably? I have TAR scheduled to record for 2hrs and I STILL missed the last 15m last week!

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

I'm just glad that Team Caveman is gone, (that's Lance and Keri to everyone who isn't me hehe). His constant need to show off his manly strength by ripping apart VCR's with his bare hands and asking if he could kick over a snowman he just built began to grate my nerves big time.

Team Tammy Fay (Mika and Cynaan sp) is becoming increasingly shrill, they could go however i'll miss Mika a little.

 

[Mark_B]

Originally Posted by Paul D G



And I wish CBS would schedule football for 3.5hrs rather than just 3 hrs. Every season each episode is never aired on-time. You know the game's going to be on longer than 3hrs so just schedule it so. You can't fill in an extra 20m with commentary and commercials if it ends reasonably? I have TAR scheduled to record for 2hrs and I STILL missed the last 15m last week!

I agree. Fox finally did it. They don't start first run programming until 8:00. If the games end on time they show reruns until 8:00. They just need to eliminate 1 show from the Sunday lineup and start everything at 8:00. Have gameday wrap up if anything ends on time. I remember when the games started at 4:00 and they never finished on the 3 hours and then the nfl moved the start time to 4:15. I have my dvr set to record TAR, then the show after it which I don't watch and then Cold Case, which we do. Cold Case is set to run 3 hrs PAST the ending. This way I am sure to get it altho this week they pre-empted Cold Case and went to the news after that doctor show. Was that everywhere or just my local?

 

[Steven Wesley]

Of course, if you look at the ratings when there is a football overrun, the Race seems to do quite a bit better than when things end on time.