I recently found this blog and thought the rantings touched on a few of the issues that has been bugging me about our Malaysian version of The Amazing Race.
However, unlike this blogger, I am not concerned with who should be the perfect host or the race tasks or the excitement level or the talking. My issues are of a slightly different nature.
I watch Explorace on and off ever since it first appeared on the screen. When I happen to catch it on, I'll sit and watch it just to see how well Malaysians deal with pressure or even with foreigners overseas. It pains me a great deal sometimes when the contestants need to ask fro help to read the instructions despite the instructions being in English and the country is Australia. It also pains me to see the contestants asking for directions in their broken English and the English speaking foreigner giving them a blank look. Most of all, it pains me to see the contestants trying to ask the Australians for help when searching for a flag on a small section of the beach and the Australians making fun of the way the request was asked.
But I do understand that these are the limitations of the contestants themselves. This is beyond the network's responsibilities. However, what is within the network's abilities to prevent are the grammatical errors that are in the sentences that appear at the bottom of the tv screen. Two episodes ago I saw the line '...managed to caught up with...'. My first reaction was "What the hell...? Oh, maybe I saw it wrong." So being a typical myopic, I actually went closer to the TV to have a proper look. Yep, the words were still there and those were the actual words.
I was horrified. I would have expected a huge network such as TV3 to be able to find someone in their crew to be able to at least spot these grammatical errors. Worst comes to worst, ask Daphne to check them. She's from Sabah. Her English ought to be good.
This was not the only mistake of this nature. I've spotted a few but this was the one that really got stuck in my head. At first, I thought, it's not too bad. After all, we are only on national TV. Then it was pointed out to me that Astro has TV3 on it and that's when my horror really set in. We're on REGIONAL TV and that's what we are showing the other countries!! There is our government making a big deal about bringing up the standard of English in the country and a national network makes these sort of errors. The pain of it all!
The other thing that annoys me about the show is the use of visual overlay. During the recap sessions, TV3 likes to have a moving background against the clips of the race. This is the most painful moment of watching the show. The scenes jump up and down and the sounds come and go. Not only can you not see what was happening (in case you had stepped out a moment and missed it), you can't even hear it either! So usually I change to another channel when this segment comes on. And sometimes...just sometimes...I get stuck on another channel which shows smoother footage.
It was brought to my attention that the overlay problem has been there ever since TV3 first started using this trick on screen. That means, quite a few years now. If that is the case, why has nobody either remedied it or just gotten rid of the usage entirely? Why torture our poor eyes and ears with it? As far as I am concerned, if you can't do it well, either try harder or don't bother at all.
One other thing that has always bugged me about Explorace is that, if you don't want the teams to be together then why ask them to come in pairs? At which point does cooperative teamwork come into the whole scenario? At the end? When the big tasks are all complete? I don't get it...
I enjoy watching The Amazing Race. For me, the best part of the show is not the race itself but the human interactions. It shows how people behave when faced with obstacles and competition, how humans react when they want something so badly that they they would stoop to the lowest possible level just to get it, how childish some people can get and how double standards set it. That's the fun part. Reaching the finish line is secondary. That's why The Amazing Race always only eliminate the last pair to reach the pit stop, and I think that's fair. It gives the show an edge, something to get excited about.
The only time I got excited about Explorace was when the Sarawakians gave up without even trying hard enough!! It was so embarrassing! I can't say I can do better but I would have thought that they could have at least tried to finish the task. Oh, the other time I enjoyed Explorace so much was when Philip and Godwin were on. They are so cool. They didn't take themselves too seriously, they had fun, they had a funny strategy which I knew from the start would have annoyed the other pair and they were just fun to watch. Their segments were the best I've ever seen. I had hoped they would make it further but we can't all get what we want.
Oh, and I did try to get through to the official Explorace website. The feedback was through the forums, which does not always guarantee your opinions being read by the producers, and I was also asked to register and then wait for a confirmation email before I can voice my opinions. Talk about trying to discourage feedback!
However, unlike this blogger, I am not concerned with who should be the perfect host or the race tasks or the excitement level or the talking. My issues are of a slightly different nature.
I watch Explorace on and off ever since it first appeared on the screen. When I happen to catch it on, I'll sit and watch it just to see how well Malaysians deal with pressure or even with foreigners overseas. It pains me a great deal sometimes when the contestants need to ask fro help to read the instructions despite the instructions being in English and the country is Australia. It also pains me to see the contestants asking for directions in their broken English and the English speaking foreigner giving them a blank look. Most of all, it pains me to see the contestants trying to ask the Australians for help when searching for a flag on a small section of the beach and the Australians making fun of the way the request was asked.
But I do understand that these are the limitations of the contestants themselves. This is beyond the network's responsibilities. However, what is within the network's abilities to prevent are the grammatical errors that are in the sentences that appear at the bottom of the tv screen. Two episodes ago I saw the line '...managed to caught up with...'. My first reaction was "What the hell...? Oh, maybe I saw it wrong." So being a typical myopic, I actually went closer to the TV to have a proper look. Yep, the words were still there and those were the actual words.
I was horrified. I would have expected a huge network such as TV3 to be able to find someone in their crew to be able to at least spot these grammatical errors. Worst comes to worst, ask Daphne to check them. She's from Sabah. Her English ought to be good.
This was not the only mistake of this nature. I've spotted a few but this was the one that really got stuck in my head. At first, I thought, it's not too bad. After all, we are only on national TV. Then it was pointed out to me that Astro has TV3 on it and that's when my horror really set in. We're on REGIONAL TV and that's what we are showing the other countries!! There is our government making a big deal about bringing up the standard of English in the country and a national network makes these sort of errors. The pain of it all!
The other thing that annoys me about the show is the use of visual overlay. During the recap sessions, TV3 likes to have a moving background against the clips of the race. This is the most painful moment of watching the show. The scenes jump up and down and the sounds come and go. Not only can you not see what was happening (in case you had stepped out a moment and missed it), you can't even hear it either! So usually I change to another channel when this segment comes on. And sometimes...just sometimes...I get stuck on another channel which shows smoother footage.
It was brought to my attention that the overlay problem has been there ever since TV3 first started using this trick on screen. That means, quite a few years now. If that is the case, why has nobody either remedied it or just gotten rid of the usage entirely? Why torture our poor eyes and ears with it? As far as I am concerned, if you can't do it well, either try harder or don't bother at all.
One other thing that has always bugged me about Explorace is that, if you don't want the teams to be together then why ask them to come in pairs? At which point does cooperative teamwork come into the whole scenario? At the end? When the big tasks are all complete? I don't get it...
I enjoy watching The Amazing Race. For me, the best part of the show is not the race itself but the human interactions. It shows how people behave when faced with obstacles and competition, how humans react when they want something so badly that they they would stoop to the lowest possible level just to get it, how childish some people can get and how double standards set it. That's the fun part. Reaching the finish line is secondary. That's why The Amazing Race always only eliminate the last pair to reach the pit stop, and I think that's fair. It gives the show an edge, something to get excited about.
The only time I got excited about Explorace was when the Sarawakians gave up without even trying hard enough!! It was so embarrassing! I can't say I can do better but I would have thought that they could have at least tried to finish the task. Oh, the other time I enjoyed Explorace so much was when Philip and Godwin were on. They are so cool. They didn't take themselves too seriously, they had fun, they had a funny strategy which I knew from the start would have annoyed the other pair and they were just fun to watch. Their segments were the best I've ever seen. I had hoped they would make it further but we can't all get what we want.
Oh, and I did try to get through to the official Explorace website. The feedback was through the forums, which does not always guarantee your opinions being read by the producers, and I was also asked to register and then wait for a confirmation email before I can voice my opinions. Talk about trying to discourage feedback!
11:54 am |
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