Post by Dale on Sept 28, 2012 14:24:31 GMT -8
I did this for seasons one and two in preparation for season three. And it's about time I do this for season three since season four is three episodes in right now.
I'm not gonna pull any punches. In fact, I'm going to land them all very hard with no regard to how hard they hit, or how much they may hurt.
After a lighthearted first season and a very good, character-driven second season, I expected good things for the third season.
And then, it actually started. I don't know how everything that looked so promising just disappeared after, like, two episodes.
I'm (not) sorry, but this had to be the worst AFFR season to date. It was a major comedown after Bob's stellar first two seasons. There was very little to enjoy in it.
That's not to say there weren't some crumbs among the ashes. I'd say legs one, three, six, and ten all stand up very well against some of the best legs of the first two seasons, in terms of quality, tasks, and even satisfaction with the end result when it comes to the eliminations. And legs two and eleven aren't too bad, either, despite not being very exciting. Also, the route was a well-planned one, and the tasks were pretty good. It gave me the feeling that, prior to starting things out, Bob actually took the time to step back and think about what he was doing when he plotted out the course and the tasks.
Unfortunately, Bob undid all of this hard work with three major snafus. I mean major.
Firstly, he put together what was probably the worst, blandest group of teams ever. On paper, they looked like they'd make up a good cast. But on practice, they were just so . . . boring to read about. The only truly interesting ones were Celia & Lede, Cid & Hilda, Irvine & Selphie, and Vaan & Penelo. And what's worse is that he made things even more boring by eliminating the only two potential villain teams in Malak & Rafa (for Malak) and Celia & Lede extremely early. Thus leaving behind a F8 that way too easily got along. No villains or antagonists or drama-starters that could keep things interesting. The closest thing we got to antagonists were . . . a couple of buff boys whose physical strength was feared by everybody. Not good.
Other than the interesting Celia & Lede, the bottom half of the teams are extremely disappointing. Kiros & Ward had potential, but got booted due to a lame twist. One implemented by Bob just because he wanted an eleven-team race when he could've just been happy with twelve. Malak & Rafa had a dynamic doomed to failure, and one that would've been too uncomfortable to read about. Godo & Yuffie's father/daughter bickering would've grown tiresome at one point. Cloud & Aeris were a bland dating couple that were NOT fun. At all. And Setzer & Daryl were a team who was all but shoehorned into the race at the last second, and one I was glad to see gone before the F6.
Of course, if you thought the bottom half was disappointing, the top half is just dire. While I had nothing against Cid & Hilda, Irvine & Selphie, or Vaan & Penelo, they still weren't as interesting as past teams to make the upper halves of their seasons. And Lucil & Elma, supposedly strong Chocobo Knights, disappointed with their numerous screw-ups (especially Elma's). And Tidus & Wakka and Blank & Marcus? Well . . . I'll get to them soon enough. . . .
Secondly, the overabundance of strategy. It seemed like dynamics between and within teams was thrown out the window most of the time this season to focus too much on strategy. While I don't mind a little bit of strategy coming into play, there's such a thing as too much of a good thing, and this season was an epic example of that. It just felt like teams overthought situations by coming up with strategies they didn't really need to come up with and either ended up paying dearly for them or just didn't get the results they wanted. Now, if you like all that strategy business, that's fine. But if you're like me, and you want to see the actual racing, not the strategy (except for in tasks), then . . . that's a problem. I couldn't see where any rivalries between teams existed or hear how some teams felt about others because Bob was so hellbent on shoving strategy down our throats.
Thirdly, something I brought up on the prediction thread for season four. The terrible, terrible, terrible writing. For starters, I cut, copied, and pasted what I wrote there:
When it's pretty clear who's going to be saved out of a particular leg's bottom two teams almost every single time, that's not good writing. When you get the feeling that the usual method of "letting natural selection take its course" has been thrown out the window to make way for obvious favoritism toward two particular teams over all of the others, that's not good writing. When you see all the teams you expect to go early, go early, and all the teams you expect to go far, go far, with no surprises or upsets at all, that's not good writing. It's terrible writing. Flat-out.
Pretty much how I feel about it. Bob used to write very unpredictable occurrences and end results for each leg. Sure, some teams you'd expect to see fall out early, fell out early. And some of teams you'd expect to go far, went far. But there were still some surprises in that some weaker teams did go a bit farther than you'd expect, and potential powerhouse teams bit the dust earlier than usual. But not this season. No, it was predictable all around. Not completely -- I'd say Celia & Lede's early elimination was one of the few surprises, as was Setzer & Daryl's elimination by way of Daryl's cheating. But everything else happened as one would expect.
Oh, and let's talk about the favoritism I mentioned. I'd already known that men's teams were Bob's favorite team composition over coed teams and women's teams from an AIM chat with him. But I never thought I'd see it on display so openly this season. I mean, my God, the number of times Tidus & Wakka or Blank & Marcus would screw up, but then somehow avoid last place was unbelievable. Granted, the latter team never had that many screw-ups, but the former team absolutely did. And yet, something rather convenient would happen to save them. (Oh, how convenient that, after messing up the Speed Detour, Aeris is suddenly bad at Gears after being so good at them initially. Oh, how convenient that, after messing up at the Tomb of the Unknown King and being put far behind due to a U-Turn, Wakka drew a song from his and Tidus's world that he was very familiar with while Hilda only drew a song from her and Cid's world that she was only vaguely familiar with.) Blank & Marcus's saves didn't bother me as much, since at least they'd only either make one mistake to hit the bottom two, or just have bad luck. Still, it was clear Bob had a weird hard-on for them. Whenever they were in the bottom two with another team, I always rolled my eyes because it was obvious that said other team would be the one to get the chop. It was almost like Bob was actively doing whatever he could to deliberately get both teams to the F3. Which would've sucked. It wasn't until after Tidus & Wakka finally got put out of their misery at the F4 that I started thinking that maybe I'd been wrong.
On the whole, I thought the ONLY thing to save the endgame of the season was the ultimate top two. In hindsight, Vaan & Penelo and Irvine & Selphie were the ONLY two teams this season I could call consistently strong and especially deserving. Had Cid & Hilda made it in there in lieu of Blank & Marcus, it would've been an even better F3.
So there it is. Bad season. Bad, bad, bad season.
Bob, it's not that I think you're a terrible writer. Quite the opposite, in fact. I think you're brilliant, actually. This was just not one of your better seasons.
But that's that for the summary. Now for my favorite and least favorite moments. There really won't be much of the former, I'll tell you that.
Favorites:
And my least favorites:
Those are my thoughts. How about all of yours?
I'm not gonna pull any punches. In fact, I'm going to land them all very hard with no regard to how hard they hit, or how much they may hurt.
After a lighthearted first season and a very good, character-driven second season, I expected good things for the third season.
And then, it actually started. I don't know how everything that looked so promising just disappeared after, like, two episodes.
I'm (not) sorry, but this had to be the worst AFFR season to date. It was a major comedown after Bob's stellar first two seasons. There was very little to enjoy in it.
That's not to say there weren't some crumbs among the ashes. I'd say legs one, three, six, and ten all stand up very well against some of the best legs of the first two seasons, in terms of quality, tasks, and even satisfaction with the end result when it comes to the eliminations. And legs two and eleven aren't too bad, either, despite not being very exciting. Also, the route was a well-planned one, and the tasks were pretty good. It gave me the feeling that, prior to starting things out, Bob actually took the time to step back and think about what he was doing when he plotted out the course and the tasks.
Unfortunately, Bob undid all of this hard work with three major snafus. I mean major.
Firstly, he put together what was probably the worst, blandest group of teams ever. On paper, they looked like they'd make up a good cast. But on practice, they were just so . . . boring to read about. The only truly interesting ones were Celia & Lede, Cid & Hilda, Irvine & Selphie, and Vaan & Penelo. And what's worse is that he made things even more boring by eliminating the only two potential villain teams in Malak & Rafa (for Malak) and Celia & Lede extremely early. Thus leaving behind a F8 that way too easily got along. No villains or antagonists or drama-starters that could keep things interesting. The closest thing we got to antagonists were . . . a couple of buff boys whose physical strength was feared by everybody. Not good.
Other than the interesting Celia & Lede, the bottom half of the teams are extremely disappointing. Kiros & Ward had potential, but got booted due to a lame twist. One implemented by Bob just because he wanted an eleven-team race when he could've just been happy with twelve. Malak & Rafa had a dynamic doomed to failure, and one that would've been too uncomfortable to read about. Godo & Yuffie's father/daughter bickering would've grown tiresome at one point. Cloud & Aeris were a bland dating couple that were NOT fun. At all. And Setzer & Daryl were a team who was all but shoehorned into the race at the last second, and one I was glad to see gone before the F6.
Of course, if you thought the bottom half was disappointing, the top half is just dire. While I had nothing against Cid & Hilda, Irvine & Selphie, or Vaan & Penelo, they still weren't as interesting as past teams to make the upper halves of their seasons. And Lucil & Elma, supposedly strong Chocobo Knights, disappointed with their numerous screw-ups (especially Elma's). And Tidus & Wakka and Blank & Marcus? Well . . . I'll get to them soon enough. . . .
Secondly, the overabundance of strategy. It seemed like dynamics between and within teams was thrown out the window most of the time this season to focus too much on strategy. While I don't mind a little bit of strategy coming into play, there's such a thing as too much of a good thing, and this season was an epic example of that. It just felt like teams overthought situations by coming up with strategies they didn't really need to come up with and either ended up paying dearly for them or just didn't get the results they wanted. Now, if you like all that strategy business, that's fine. But if you're like me, and you want to see the actual racing, not the strategy (except for in tasks), then . . . that's a problem. I couldn't see where any rivalries between teams existed or hear how some teams felt about others because Bob was so hellbent on shoving strategy down our throats.
Thirdly, something I brought up on the prediction thread for season four. The terrible, terrible, terrible writing. For starters, I cut, copied, and pasted what I wrote there:
When it's pretty clear who's going to be saved out of a particular leg's bottom two teams almost every single time, that's not good writing. When you get the feeling that the usual method of "letting natural selection take its course" has been thrown out the window to make way for obvious favoritism toward two particular teams over all of the others, that's not good writing. When you see all the teams you expect to go early, go early, and all the teams you expect to go far, go far, with no surprises or upsets at all, that's not good writing. It's terrible writing. Flat-out.
Pretty much how I feel about it. Bob used to write very unpredictable occurrences and end results for each leg. Sure, some teams you'd expect to see fall out early, fell out early. And some of teams you'd expect to go far, went far. But there were still some surprises in that some weaker teams did go a bit farther than you'd expect, and potential powerhouse teams bit the dust earlier than usual. But not this season. No, it was predictable all around. Not completely -- I'd say Celia & Lede's early elimination was one of the few surprises, as was Setzer & Daryl's elimination by way of Daryl's cheating. But everything else happened as one would expect.
Oh, and let's talk about the favoritism I mentioned. I'd already known that men's teams were Bob's favorite team composition over coed teams and women's teams from an AIM chat with him. But I never thought I'd see it on display so openly this season. I mean, my God, the number of times Tidus & Wakka or Blank & Marcus would screw up, but then somehow avoid last place was unbelievable. Granted, the latter team never had that many screw-ups, but the former team absolutely did. And yet, something rather convenient would happen to save them. (Oh, how convenient that, after messing up the Speed Detour, Aeris is suddenly bad at Gears after being so good at them initially. Oh, how convenient that, after messing up at the Tomb of the Unknown King and being put far behind due to a U-Turn, Wakka drew a song from his and Tidus's world that he was very familiar with while Hilda only drew a song from her and Cid's world that she was only vaguely familiar with.) Blank & Marcus's saves didn't bother me as much, since at least they'd only either make one mistake to hit the bottom two, or just have bad luck. Still, it was clear Bob had a weird hard-on for them. Whenever they were in the bottom two with another team, I always rolled my eyes because it was obvious that said other team would be the one to get the chop. It was almost like Bob was actively doing whatever he could to deliberately get both teams to the F3. Which would've sucked. It wasn't until after Tidus & Wakka finally got put out of their misery at the F4 that I started thinking that maybe I'd been wrong.
On the whole, I thought the ONLY thing to save the endgame of the season was the ultimate top two. In hindsight, Vaan & Penelo and Irvine & Selphie were the ONLY two teams this season I could call consistently strong and especially deserving. Had Cid & Hilda made it in there in lieu of Blank & Marcus, it would've been an even better F3.
So there it is. Bad season. Bad, bad, bad season.
Bob, it's not that I think you're a terrible writer. Quite the opposite, in fact. I think you're brilliant, actually. This was just not one of your better seasons.
But that's that for the summary. Now for my favorite and least favorite moments. There really won't be much of the former, I'll tell you that.
Favorites:
- The Beach Games on leg one.
- Yuffie's reaction to beating Yoko at Battle Panels.
- Daryl saying she wanted to kick Malak's ass if he and Rafa didn't get eliminated.
- Malak's humiliating comeuppance.
- Irvine & Selphie's Fast Forward recovery on leg three.
- Lucil & Elma's heroics to save Hilda from Celia & Lede.
- Hilda transforming Cid into a mu to prevent him from throwing their race away.
- Celia & Lede's early comeuppance, even if I wasn't thrilled with them going out so early.
- Lucil & Elma and Irvine & Selphie doing so well with the Lead Detour on leg four.
- Cid getting transformed into an oglop at the Fast Forward.
- Irvine & Selphie beating Cid & Hilda's Fast Forward.
- Cid's subconscious making him utter "boobs" on leg six, helping Hilda finish the So Many Detour.
- Selphie yelling hello to Rinoa in the Forest Owls' train, followed by her faint reply.
- Lucil & Elma winning the Fast Forward and getting back into the game after their Speed Bump.
- The surprise reveal of Daryl's cheating.
- Cid & Hilda becoming the first team to win two legs without a Fast Forward either time!
- Tidus & Wakka losing fourth place by trying to go to Deling City without their car.
- Lucil & Elma awesomely denying Tidus & Wakka a quick Detour completion at the Catch the Bird Detour on leg eight.
- Vaan & Penelo's reaction to being spared elimination at the Castle Oblivion Pit Stop.
- Irvine & Selphie dominating the Sharp Memory Detour on leg ten.
- Tidus & Wakka screwing up the Sharp Dresser Detour.
- Tidus's "Well, it was nice knowing you" confessional with Wakka, regarding Lulu.
- Penelo and Irvine dominating the pig Roadblock in Pork City.
- Vaan & Penelo's reaction to winning the penultimate leg.
- Tidus & Wakka FINALLY being eliminated and NOT being conveniently saved in spite of their screw-ups.
- Penelo being stuck listening to Maechen on leg eleven.
- Vaan & Penelo winning the race and Irvine & Selphie finishing second, as they deserved to be the top two of the season.
And my least favorites:
- The way-too-rushed first part of leg one.
- Cloud & Aeris refusing an alliance with Godo & Yuffie -- when you're trying not to go home first, it should be all about who you've been with and who you know.
- Malak being stupid and making Rafa do the second trial that he should've done, and then making her take on the wrestler.
- Malak's entire behavior at Battle Panels, including yelling at Daryl for fixing the dice and then saying, "I can beat a girl!
- Malak's words about Rafa after their elimination.
- Cloud being a douchebag and very openly snubbing working with Godo & Yuffie at the Intersection on leg two. Yuffie can be a bit much, but the openness with which he blew her off was cold and almost heartless, made worse by him not at least giving his reason for doing so to Aeris or . . . someone to make it look less mean.
- Vaan not getting penalized for getting out of his airship to hook up his hovercraft at the Roadblock like he should've been.
- Cloud & Aeris not getting eliminated over Godo & Yuffie at the Adamant Grotto Pit Stop.
- Tidus & Wakka rather conveniently winning the Fast Forward on leg three because Selphie dropped her bomb and just-as-conveniently scared Elma into dropping hers.
- Tidus & Wakka wasting their Fast Forward for no other reason than the task sounding fun.
- Blank & Marcus totally messing up in finding the right word at the Vain Detour and not knowing how to tell Celia & Lede, and then having the gall to act like they should be okay with it after they trusted them.
- Celia & Lede and Cid cornering Hilda to intimidate her into giving up the "paladin" answer.
- Cid nearly telling Celia & Lede said answer.
- Celia & Lede going off the rails by attacking Hilda.
- Tidus & Wakka's lame "no point in keeping an advantage we don't want" reasoning for wasting their Fast Forward on leg four.
- Tidus & Wakka stinking up most of leg four, but still getting through because conveniently, Aeris can't work Gears for squat, and Wakka just-as-conveniently finds a loophole.
- Daryl lying to Vaan & Penelo about their hidden child at the Seek Detour on leg five.
- Lucil & Elma not overcoming their U-Turn and, due to Elma calling out the RPS man on his tell, finishing last at the Lahan Pit Stop.
- Marcus telling Blank he's "kinda messed up, Bro" just because he wanted Lucil & Elma to stick around on leg six.
- Vaan & Penelo and Cid & Hilda stupidly renting the cars on leg seven, leaving them with little money for the cabs. More points taken for Cid & Hilda going the full way, anyway, while at least Vaan & Penelo abandoned their cab when they got to the limit of their money.
- Wakka's overly-convenient save by getting the familiar song at the Roadblock -- their screw-ups plus the U-Turn should've had them gone.
- Cid & Hilda getting eliminated at the Great Salt Lake Pit Stop after pulling their team dynamic together and winning two legs.
- Blank & Marcus winning the Fast Forward on leg eight.
- Tidus & Wakka winning leg nine after Irvine & Selphie clearly finished that Reaper Creeper game first, with more than enough of a headstart.
- Vaan & Penelo overcoming their statue of Hachiko Speed Bump.
- Lucil & Elma getting eliminated at the Shibuya UG Pit Stop.
- While understandable, Penelo helping Tidus & Wakka at the wall-painting Roadblock on leg ten.
- Blank & Marcus's trick to steal business from Irvine & Selphie on leg eleven.
Those are my thoughts. How about all of yours?
