The Amazing Race Asia

The Amazing Race Asia
Created by	Michael Mckay
Starring	Allan Wu 吴振天 (previously known as 吴振宇)
Country of origin	Asia
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	37
Production
Running time	60 minutes
Original release
Network	AXN Asia
Release	November 9, 2006 – Present
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The Amazing Race Asia is a reality game show based on the American series, The Amazing Race.

On 17 October 2005, CBS gave other countries the chance to franchise The Amazing Race. The Asian cable TV network AXN Asia was among the first to acquire the rights to produce a version for its territories. The show is produced by Australian television production company ActiveTV, for AXN, in association with Buena Vista International Television-Asia Pacific (BVITV-AP). The host for the show is Singapore based Chinese-American actor Allan Wu.

The ultimate prize is US$100,000, whilst the American show gives away US$1 million. The general manager of SPE Networks-Asia which runs AXN, Ricky Ow explained the smaller prize, saying, "It is not really about the money but the adventure and opportunity to be in one of the world's greatest reality shows".

The fourth season will premiere in 2010.

The Race

Teams

Each of ten teams on The Amazing Race Asia is composed of two individuals who have some type of relationship to each other. Only a total of 60 participants joined as of now in every The Amazing Race Asia seasons, the fewest number of people to have started in The Amazing Race franchise.

The participants are all required to be able to communicate in English, despite various languages around Asia. The contestants chosen to appear are from various Asian countries and not limited to one country of origin. Participating countries include all citizens of the continent of Asia except the Middle East as well as non-Asian workers who are living in Asia for a long period of time. From Season 2 onwards, Japanese residents are able to participate, having been ineligible for Season 1.

Summary

As usual, at the beginning of each leg of the race, each team receives an allowance of cash with their first clue (exception for those who were penalised due to being last in a non-elimination leg), with the cash usually in U.S. dollars. Any money left over after a leg of the race can be used on subsequent legs except in season 1's non-elimination legs where the last team to be checked-in must surrender it. The exception to this is the purchase of airline tickets, which the teams pay for using a credit card supplied to them by the show. Also, in The Amazing Race Asia, the route markers are also colored yellow and red with the exception in the second leg of Season 3, when the route markers were colored yellow and white to avoid confusion with the flag of South Vietnam, similar to US's Season 10.

For the Asian edition, teams will not depart immediately from starting city. Instead, they remain in the starting city during the first leg entirely (Season 1) or in part (Seasons 2 and 3) depending on the clues. For the second season, teams needed to perform an additional task within the vicinity of the starting location. There were no pre-arranged flights for leaving for the first overseas country; every team can book a flight as they wish. The exception was in Season 1, in which all teams were required to take AirAsia flights, as the said airline was a Race sponsor.

Clues

All route information and clues in The Amazing Race Asia are adopted from the original American version. Season 2 introduces the Intersection marker, while Season 3 introduces the U-Turn marker. Generally, both formats are similar, but a few differences still can be seen in the race.

Like in the Roadblock, teams can generally perform the task without a time limit; however, if the tasks require the teams to form a queue, generally the clues will state that teams must perform within a predefined amount of time. If a team fails to do the task within the time limit, that team will lose their turn and will be required to let the next team try.

For Season 1, the first Fast Forward was available in the second leg, not the traditional middle of the race. Only one Fast Forward was offered during Seasons 2 and 3, while not included as part of an Intersection marker. Also for the Yield, it was an option on two consecutive legs in Season 1.

In Season 3, both the Yield and the U-Turn were seen in separate legs (the U-Turn replaced the Yield in the 12th season of the American version) and since a team can use each once during the Race, it is therefore possible for a single team to use their U-Turn power even if they have already used their Yield power in a prior leg (Geoff and Tisha, Season 3).

So far, all the tasks are not censored during the show.

Zabrina & Joe Jer were the only team who did not use any Fast Forward or Yield option but still won the entire race.

Race legs

Summary

Basically the structure of the race is similar in both versions of the show. As the teams travel to different locations by following the route information, performing some various tasks, and checking in at the Pit Stop.

Teams normally complete all tasks and check in at the Pit Stop before they are eliminated. Occasionally, on an elimination leg, if all other teams have checked in and the last team is very far behind, Route Markers may instruct them to go directly to the Pit Stop without completing the rest of the leg. Exceptions implemented in The Amazing Race Asia are: the teams unable to get to the next Route Marker because they have to do some task to earn it while all other teams already checked in or the location of a task is closed beyond the hours of operation. In this case, teams will be led by the production staff to the Pit Stop and be eliminated by Wu (Brett & Kinaryosih, Season 2) or Wu himself coming out to the team's current location to announce their elimination there. (Sophie & Aurelia, Season 2; Mai & Oliver, Season 3).

In some legs, the first teams to arrive win prizes, usually from the show's sponsors. Season 3 is the first season to award prizes in every leg of the Race.

The Amazing Race Asia also has one leg known as a "superleg," where the clues tell teams to "Find Allan Wu." This kind of clue showed up in Season 2, but Wu erroneously referred to his location as a "Pit Stop." This kind of leg did not show up in Season 3.

Also, the clue which directs a team to the Finish Line mentions it not as such but as a "Final Pit Stop." Instead of having an elevated red carpet with The Amazing Race logo enlarged on it as is used in the American edition, the Finish Line consists only of a regular check-in mat for the final three teams.

Non-elimination legs

Each race has a number of predetermined non-elimination legs, in which the last team to arrive at the Pit Stop is not eliminated and is allowed to continue on the race. In Season 1, the clues directing teams to Pit Stops sometimes replace the 'may' in the traditional clue phrasing "the last team to arrive may be eliminated" with "the last team to arrive will be eliminated," pointing to a certain elimination point. In Season 2, all clues directing teams to a Pit Stop other than in the penultimate leg have always used may be. In later seasons of the American version, clues directing to a Pit Stop other than in the first leg always used may be.

In the first two seasons, the first leg was a non-elimination leg. By comparison, the fifteenth season of the American version was the first season to have the first leg being a non-elimination one, although there was an elimination at the start of that season's Race. Before this, the first leg had always been an elimination one.

For Season 1, the last team to arrive was required to surrender all their cash and are not allowed to acquire any money prior to the start of the next leg, similar to the penalty used in Season 6 of the American version. However, unlike Seasons 7 to 9, teams are not required to give up their belongings.

For Seasons 2 and 3, two non-elimination penalties were in use. Supposedly, the last team to arrive will incur a 30-minute time penalty for the next leg unless they arrive first at the next Pit Stop, also known as being marked for elimination, similar to the rules in Season 10 and All-Stars of the American version. However, the penalty in Season 1 is also used in one non-elimination leg, to avoid the possibility that the teams will have to survive again after the time penalty in case another non-elimination leg comes into play.

Rules and penalties

Most of the rules and penalties are adopted directly from the American edition; but in some of cases, the Asian version has been seen to have a unique set of additional rules.

Rules

• Each team will sign a confidential agreement preventing themselves from revealing the details of the Race before airing. Teams will be fined with five million U.S. dollars if the contract is breached.
• If a team member is injured during the race, he/she has to pass medical evaluation to ensure they are fit to continue the race. In the American edition, if the injury is not serious or life-threatening, the team may choose to continue or quit the race. This occurred to Marshall & Lance during Season 5. Margie suffered heatstroke at the end Leg 7 in Season 14 and their team was allowed to continue.
• Teams must follow local road laws and regulations and be responsible to pay any fines and demerits they incur during the race.

Penalties

• If teams violate speeding laws, the number of minutes for the time penalty is the amount of speed in kilometers per hour that the team traveled minus the legal speed limit then multiplied by two minutes. However, this penalty is only served at the beginning of the next leg of the race, and causes criticisms from among the teams (see criticisms). While speeding is also against the rules in the American version (as shown in Season 2 and Season 13), the penalty is not given in a measurement of time additional miles per hour over the speed limit but rather of time gained plus an additional 30 minutes.
• In the American edition, the teams who quit a Roadblock must serve a four-hour penalty assessed starting from when the next team arrives at the task site, whereas in the Asian edition, this four-hour penalty applies at the Pit Stop prior to checking in and not at the Roadblock itself.
• Hitchhiking (travelling in privately owned vehicles) is prohibited; if a team violates this rule, they incur a one hour penalty. In the American version, a hitchhiking team generally does not incur a time penalty. But if the clue says that the team must take an appropriate form of transportation, they are asked to go back and take it as directed (Nathan & Jennifer, Season 12). Note that Nathan & Jennifer committed this mistake on their way to the Pit Stop and had been possible to correct the mistake whereas Sahil & Prashant committed their mistake for one of the earlier tasks in the leg and may not be corrected before receiving their next clue.

Countries and locales visited

As of the third season, The Amazing Race Asia has visited 19 countries and has visited 4 continents but not the Americas. Countries in bold have not been visited in the original American edition as of time of filming.

Countries that The Amazing Race Asia has visited are shown in color.

Asia	Oceania	Europe	Africa
China India Indonesia Japan Malaysia Oman Philippines Singapore South Korea Taiwan Thailand United Arab Emirates Vietnam	Australia New Zealand	Czech Republic Germany Hungary	South Africa

Criticisms

Time penalties

Season 1 has seen a greater use of time penalties. While time penalties were generally served prior to the team being allowed to check in to the Pit Stop (therefore possibly pushing them down the ranking lists and opening them to a possible last place finish and certain elimination, as was the case with Sahil & Prashant in Leg 5, Season 1), controversy has arisen over the fact that some time penalties are served at the beginning of the next leg.

This was the case with Andy & Laura, who departed the Chard Farm Winery Pit Stop in Queenstown at the start of Leg 7 with a 92-minute time penalty as a result of Andy's speeding in Leg 6. Had this 92-minute penalty been applied prior to Andy & Laura being allowed to check into the Pit Stop at the end of Leg 6, it would have pushed them into last place and certain elimination. Melody & Sharon, who were eliminated in that leg of the Race revealed in a press interview that they were really shocked that this 'speeding rule' did not apply at the Pit Stop, despite having learnt how the rules could be applied.

Miscellaneous criticism

Despite the success of the first season, many fans criticised that teams didn't always "self-drive" to their next destination. Fans also criticised the fact that teams were always clumped in the same flight. This was according to an interview with Wu. The second season promised to tackle these issues. Others have criticized the show for blatant commercialism of their sponsors on the show. This is most prevalent in tasks that involve the use of HD cameras as well as the prizes of leg races that are usually technological gadgets supplied by sponsors, rather than vacations and trips like the show's American counterpart (which is sponsored by Travelocity).

External links

• Official Site
• The Amazing Race Format makes a pit stop in Asia Pacific
• The Amazing Race Asia at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com