Mini-Recap: The Amazing Race China 4, Episode 9

So the penultimate leg of The Amazing Race China season 4. I thought this was a solid leg. I think maybe a little bit too linear for a penultimate leg. But it had a lot of great tasks. Actually all the tasks were pretty good. It’s just that most of them were first come, first serve / get in line tasks.

We start off with the first Road Block which was actually pretty amazing. One of the best Road Blocks I’ve seen in a long time. It was very exciting. I think the Amazing Race has done these flying by yourself tasks before. But for some reason this one was a lot more exciting and maybe even a little more challenging as well. At least, the editing made it very exciting. I think having them do three different maneuvers and having them sustained for a specific amount of time was a little more challenging than previous similar tasks. Definitely more exciting than just simple flight simulators that TARUS has done. Hehe.

Next up were the darts. And I like the that they needed to hit the targets with each group of 10 darts instead of collecting hits and then just getting as many darts as they need. That allowed it to be a lot more challenging than it already was which is good considering this linear-ish leg.

The Speed Bump with the durian was okay. While I don’t understand Chinese of course, it didn’t seem like they were bothered by the smell that much. And I think that’s really the only challenge to that task.

The next roadblock was also a familiar one, but definitely more challenging. It required a lot more balance than the usual ropes course, especially when trying to grab the flag below.

The traditional dance/jumping task from TAR24 makes an appearance. But I definitely like this task a lot more. The dancing was a nice extra challenge. But the best part was that teams only had one chance to jump up and grab the flag per turn. That allowed teams to catch up. And with more than just four teams at this task possibly, it would have b een maybe even more exciting.

The last task with the making of the traditional Malaysian batik. At first I thought they were only going to piece them together. But I definitely like that they had to actually match the design while finding the same patterns and doing it correctly and doing the whole process as well.

Elsewhere, I LOVE TAR China’s graphics. They’ve definitely never skimped on the graphics budget or on effort. Like these from the Road Block and pineapples:

TARUS and TAR Canada really don’t put much effort into their additional graphics. Sometimes they look downright ugly, tbh. But I love TAR China’s efforts here. They always look sleek.

And finally, the Pit Stop location was great. Amazing view of Kuala Lumpur.

Overall I think this was a solid leg of tasks though I think the leg design could have been done a little bit better. The teams were all pretty close with each other still and it was a close finish to the end.

For the teams I really like this Final Four. They were all very deserving of reaching the Final Four and deserving of a spot in the Final Leg. Actually, this was all a pretty good cast overall as well. The TAR China casts have all been pretty good. Even though they’re celebrities they still do Race and give it their all. Especially these last two seasons.

So I’m definitely looking forward to the finale. I hope it will be just as good as the rest of this season has been. And last season’s finale was one of the best Final Legs of any TAR in recent memory.