At the risk of being the odd one out on this thread I thought it was not so good this season as it was last season (present company excepted). For me there were a couple of things that gnawed...
Not a worry at all, everyone prefers a different flavor and I'd be lying if I said you were the first person to state that they preferred the Alaska/Yukon season to Central America. Glad you watched both
...2 - a LOT of footage of the characters and what they're doing.....a 10 hour show could easily be condensed to half that in my view and still be interesting and show some of the life on the road.......I guess that was what Toyota and the other sponsors paid for
Upfront I have zero input on the production or which footage gets used but I will say that in my participating on numerous XO threads on a dozen forums, it's a hate-love with "getting to know" the characters. Some wished we would have highlighted more of the camp life, camaraderie and personality and others want just to see the vehicles in foreign elements locked in 4-Low. I totally get both sides and I'll just say that I think Clay and the production team have an end goal in mind and they produce it to meet that goal. Based on viewer input from this season, we very well may see a change in that next season?
3 - insensitive use of that video camera at government check-points etc......many parts of the world that would have resulted in the camera being destroyed and the rubber gloves being put on......many many people have been locked up (or worse) for less.
To be fair I think we were actually quite reserved on camera use at borders, checkpoints and customs. Much of what you did see came via "stealth" camera use and while we did get busted at one border, it was only because the group got a bit complacent to the leniency we had found en route. Now, I don't touch cameras and as the guy that was generally guiding the border process, it had me nerve wracked every time I saw a camera come out. They were very clear in their motive, film a documentary which includes many, many borders and customs interactions. I'm glad they captured what they did without any more hassle.
...I hope that they get their act together when they get to South America else I wont bother
There are two sides to that coin. This season (CenAm) has been wildly more successful than season one. Obviously there are many, many factors involved in those analytics including the cache of the 1st season, the increase budget, etc but viewership and subscriptions are up massively this season so perhaps their act is together? It's 100% naive for them to think they can produce a show that will please all, I think they have a goal to please as many as possible and they produce as such. Again I've been participating/moderating in 20 similar threads on a dozen forums (ExPo, TacomaWorld, local 4x4 forums, FJC's, etc) and comments are all over the place with extremes at both ends
