Race Across The World Is An Excellent Show With One Big Problem

“Oh no, this might be the first bad series.” This thought came to me while watching the first couple of episodes of the latest series of Race Across the World. It just didn’t feel right, something was off, but I couldn’t place it. Then I remembered I felt the same way at the beginning of last year’s series only to fall in love with the show again as it continued. Fine, I’ll keep watching in hope the same happens again. Of course, it did. Now five episodes into the sixth series, the show is as engaging as ever, but I’ve figured out why Race Across the World always takes a few episodes to get good.

The issue: having five couples is a mistake. The show doesn’t fully work until the elimination at the end of the third episode. Sure, the show improves because we get to know the contestants more as the series develops, but the way it is designed there’s no way to truly know them before that elimination. Five couples, ten individuals, racing thousands of kilometres across days crammed into an hour programme is too much.

The making of Race Across the World is an incredible feat, capturing and editing so much footage, but with five couples it proves impossible. The balance is wrong. There’s no time to get to know people, no time to explore the places, just no time in general. It has to cut back and forth, back and forth, with near constant voiceover (Arrested Development season 4 levels) to keep the viewer apprised of every movement. By cramming a full leg of the journey into each episode it becomes too much about the race, the destination and not the journey, and once you’ve watched one series you realise the race doesn’t really matter until the last leg.

I understand the idea of eliminating a couple. It raises the stakes, makes the race concept important early on, gives a bit more drama to proceedings, but cramming five couples into those opening three episodes isn’t worth it. It’s also the only show on TV where it’s always sad no matter who goes; it’s very rare there’s a couple on the show who isn’t likable. It’s the show’s only flaw but it is a sizable one. The series would be much better starting with four couples.

The fourth episode comes along and suddenly the series is back to its best. Immediately it feels different. There’s time to breathe and it becomes the show I love. It being a race might be the main premise, the momentum of the show, but really that’s just an excuse. Race Across the World is about the people and the places. I don’t care about the distance covered, I care about the random guy who decides to pick up hitchhikers and drive them hours out of his way due to kindness (and the TV cameras). It’s a heart-warming show, life-affirming, showcasing the differences but importantly the key universal traits in people everywhere.

With four couples the show can further embrace that aspect. Spend the time showing the racers explore the locales and interacting with the people. Those are always the best moments, more than any frantic last sprint to a hotel lobby where we can judge their handwriting. The first three overly-stuffed episodes don’t have as many of these moments. They can’t. Thankfully, the fourth and fifth episodes have been wonderful. Margo drinking vodka for breakfast with locals on a train; Kush being force fed by an old woman; Molly holding her own against taxi drivers; Mark eating a blackened goat’s head at a feast of Kazakh food (complete with a big bottle of Fanta); Harrison cracking up being shown a Turkish man’s UK holiday photos because they prominently feature Tesco. I love this show.

Race Across the World is the only ‘reality’ TV series I can bear to watch. I wanted to like Destination X, thinking it would be similar but that was much more a Traitors knock-off with some truly obnoxious elements. Across six series, Race leaves me with minimal cynicism. Yes, there are some sob stories, which felt a little obtrusive and repetitive in series 5, but are usually, as with this current series, handled well and with heart. I don’t necessarily think the producers target people with sad backgrounds but rather that such experiences are common. Most people have some such issue or story which drives them.

Maintaining such a sense of reality in a show that could easily feel overly constructed might be its greatest success. There are still character narratives, heightened and pieced together in the edit, but they feel natural enough. The uptight person learning to let loose; or, the shy person coming out of their shell, gaining enough confidence to argue with a legion of Uzbekistani taxi drivers. It’s one of the reasons I refuse to watch the celebrity version of the show. It being regular people is what makes the show. There’s a realness and a messiness to the contestants, getting grumpy or upset with each other, real family interactions between people with no media training. And there’s always the unexpected that can’t be planned for, like Mark being ill and stuck in bed for a day, which allowed Margo time to explore the town they were in, one of the highlights of the series. These people should get ill more often.

Long may Race Across the World continue. It paints a wonderful portrait of humanity: connection and kindness, differences and similarities across cultures and countries, all with a beautiful backdrop of the planet. It’s the kind of show we need, now especially. A jewel in the BBC’s crown and a brilliant example of the corporation’s remit. And it has John Hannah’s voice. It’s perfect, or at least it is from the fourth episode onwards. If only the opening three episodes didn’t feel so rushed by the inclusion of a fifth pair, or offer extended episodes. It has me begging for someone to be sent home already, and I hate that because I like everyone!