by Let’s go. After months in which he went through without our solution, the race around the world is back.
In this latest series in the non-Celeb edition, if you ask yourself, ten average joes will increase their minds against a continent who travel from the large wall of China, no less, to the southernmost tip of India, all on a series budget of 22 GBP per day. Oof.
And when the fifth season starts, this remains one of the most viewed television programs. I would argue for a good reason.
The managers must have known that they were on a good thing from the moment when it started in 2019. It was a travel show with a turn: instead of seeing a flawlessly dressed celebrity that took us to luxury hotels in Marrakesh, people were able to move through the train station in Istanbul.
What is not to be loved to see five unfortunate couples from British (most of them unwanted travelers), try to negotiate things like the language barrier or to manufacture cultural activities such as sweets and to treat chicken on a farm in the middle of the rainforest. It felt unhappily and crucial and appealed for parents who need a little slight relief and young people looking for the backpack trip trip inspiration.
The second season was started right at the beginning of the pandemic, when many of us longed to treat themselves to a little old-fashioned escapism from the comfort of our own houses. And it delivered: this route from Mexico to Argentina served beautiful views, drama – and decisive – a feeling of freedom. Who did not want to pack their bags and leave their normal life behind for a few months without a credit card or a mobile phone taking their names?
Spectators rose. And continued. The show produced its own celebrity spin-off, which is just as popular. The final of last year attracted 3.8 million spectators and at a time that was dominated by streamers and social media, this is an impressive figure of the metrics of everyone.
We can’t get enough. But why? Perhaps because breed, like all the best reality shows all over the world, is an expert to conjure up warm and blurry feelings in its number of spectators.
There are not really bad guys and heroes, although of course it always makes a good tour when the couples fall spectacularly apart and (in some cases) fall apart. Who could forget Shuntelle and Michael von Season two? Your journey came to a standstill due to a lack of means and communication somewhere in South America – and they later dissolved.
But by far the most heart -warming part of the show is to get to know the participants who are pushed to their absolute limits in the course of filming and whose relationships can develop in real time. It is like watching the best and worst moments of traveling that are distilled in bite -sized pieces.
We met in the third season alienated father and daughter -duo Claudia and Kevin, who took part in a traditional tobacco ceremony that also acted as a revelation for Kevin: “I think I now understand that Claudia really wants a father and not just a partner,” he said afterwards.
And there was Cathie, also in season third, who signed as a favor for the girlfriend Tricia on the show, but quickly noticed that she also needed a break. When she spoke about the stress of keeping her staff safe during the Covid pandemic, shortly before that, another tear enemy was sweeter than the couple won, the sweeter.
Even this season has already offered some heart -warming moments with the friendly approval of Brothers Brian and Melvyn about their shabby accommodation. “I can’t remember the last time we laughed together,” says Melvyn afterwards. Later, a visit to the grotto of Longmen in the realization that the couple has not been a photography together for 17 years – something that they are determined together with some warm tears about how much both appreciate the journey on which they have.
As a reality TV show, a large part of the pleasure is to watch people about cards and the language barrier and to think secretly: “I could do it better.” Or indeed see in places that rarely make it on television – like a large part of the Middle Asia, which was the focus of the third season – and the locals who live in them.
Where else could you work people as peasant hands in the middle of a Uzbek desert or go to the sea with fishermen in Peru? And saw how the friendliness of strangers, such as the brother/sister couple James and Betty, lost their passports and money (one of several occasions in which this happened), only for the bus driver to have them safe and well -founded.
And if these couples are strenuous after weeks of strenuous trips (often sitting on a bus for fourteen in a row), it is impossible not to share the mere joy and relief on their faces or to feel a envy that we have gripped from our sofas and not from our sofas. One day the show will no longer have any places. Fortunately, that’s not the case yet.
The race of the fifth season now streams on BBC One and IPlayer
