The Amazing Race Canada Will Not Leave Canada

If you were to ask a fan to describe the salient features of The Amazing Race, the first thing he or she would probably cite is that it is "a race around the world." Yet the attribute that makes the show compelling to viewers makes it a challenge to salespeople: if The Amazing Race is, by default, international, how are these foreign rights professionals supposed to sell its format in other markets? This week, we got our answer: The Amazing Race Canada, premiering next summer, will not actually leave Canada.

Let's leave aside the fact that confining Canadians to their home and native land (where my Canucks at?!) does not actually reflect the reality of their travel habits, in that 60% of Canadians over age eighteen hold passports (versus 30% of Americans). Let's also gloss over the fact that the season of The Amazing Race that is generally agreed to have been the worst was the "Family Edition," in which the contestants did not leave the continental U.S., which suggests that the Canada-only version is destined to be super-boring.

The real issue here is that, in my experience as a Canadian, Canadians are less interested in watching Canadian versions of TV series they already know. That The Amazing Race Canada will remain in the country is not actually surprising to anyone who's watched Canada's Next Top Model or Project Runway Canada or The Bachelor Canada: franchising a known TV series to Canada results in lower budgets, shittier production values, and a shameful reminder of how bush league our TV industry actually is -- never more clear than when you can make a 1:1 comparison with a show that, in its original incarnation, you might have really loved.

In case you have gone through life without meeting any Canadians in real life, I'm going to let you in on the complicated nature of the Canadian psyche: we define ourselves as "not-American," which is why you will often hear one of us obnoxiously bragging about socialized medicine. (It really is pretty great, guys.) However, even as we claim superiority over our American neighbours for our health care, our short election cycles, our generous parental leave, or whatever else, we know all those things are boring, and that you have us beat on all the stuff that's fun: beaches, roller coasters, a four-day Thanksgiving, and above all TV. Oh sure, lots of it gets imported to Canada, but sometimes Canada doesn't get them until weeks or months or years later. (Don't even get me started on Project Runway Season 2, when Canada was two weeks behind and I had to go on a full media blackout to avoid getting spoiled as to the winner, but I DID IT! It's one of my greatest triumphs, though admittedly it was easier to achieve in the days before social media). And some of it doesn't make it to Canada at all, which is particularly heartbreaking to my dear sister whenever she sees me tweeting about Embarrassing Bodies or I Was Impaled.

Canada has tried with TV and has had some hits that we wouldn't be ashamed to put up against American programming -- Kids In The Hall, Kenny Vs. Spenny, Slings & Arrows, various unscripted shows about people in Toronto trying to fix up and/or sell their houses -- but...that's the complete list, I think. The rest is awful, paid for with government grants artificially propping up an industry that would never be viable otherwise. In recent years, Canadian editions of American reality formats have proliferated, but it's hard to be proud of them when we know that (a) no American would ever care to watch them, and (b) we are only watching to catch that one episode when they supposedly shot outside the Shoppers Drug Mart by our office.

So, The Amazing Race Canada will probably be another embarrassment, though it will no doubt try to camouflage its shortcomings by playing up the country's (admittedly impressive) natural beauty. But the other things we like about The Amazing Race will probably be absent. After all, how much tension can reality producers wring out of contestants jockeying for the last two seats on a plane headed from Whitehorse to Thunder Bay? BOTH THOSE PLACES SUCK.