What are some ways to improve Season 1?

[The Red Jaguars]

Season 1 is regarded as the worst season out of all 3 seasons of the show. Being a fan of the show for decades now, I have noticed that the very first season of the show was very weak compared to later seasons. Now, I don't expect this to be a high quality or perfect season, but there were a lot of flaws that you can see during this season that the producers never corrected even towards the later end of the season. Luckily, the producers corrected their flaws in the second and third season as the show progress. What changes would you have made to Season 1 though to make it better? It could be minor things that would've made the episodes flow more smoothly or overhaul something that was flawed.

In my opinion, the biggest flaw was the temple itself. It contained way too many easy rooms that had extremely easy objectives, while some rooms had no objectives at all! This was one of the biggest flaws of the season because it diluted the quality of the temple runs. Most fans don't take most of the Season 1 runs seriously because almost every room a team entered had no objective. Which is too bad, because Season 1 had a few strong wins like Galileo, Sultan Saladin, and Lawrence of Arabia. Plus, a lot of the rooms were just pointless - Heart Room, Fallen Columns, Observatory, Swamp space, Throne Room, Dungeon, and Torch Room were some of the worst rooms on the show. And I am probably missing some! If the producers put more objective rooms in the temple, I feel that Season 1 would've gotten more love. The only good rooms from Season 1 are the Shrine, Tomb of the Ancient Kings, and Bamboo Forest. Everything else had no objective or a way too easy objective.

Another change I would make was make higher standards for the kids in order to join the show. I know this was a new show for the kids and every season had their fair share of bad players. But Season 1 had a lot of kids with no talent, whether they made it to the temple run or not. I mean look how lop-sided some of the age groups were? All of the players in Lucky Pig were 10 and 11 years old. And in Mata Hari the Silver Snakes were 12 and 14 years old. And in Trojan Horseshoe, the Green Monkeys were considerably older than the Silver Snakes! Not only that, Season 1 featured some of the stupidest kids on the show - Kim, Sabrina, Kristen, Lisa, Ron, Justin from Zenobia, Golden Ship, etc. I know it was a new show, but when you get teams like Golden Cricket Cage making it to the final round you know your standards are very low.

What changes would you make?

[Purple Parrots Fan]

Pretty much everything you said. Everything was so damn unprofessional, and hard to take seriously. Also add Kirk's terrible hosting in Season 1. That guy had no idea what he was doing, no wonder he hated his performance that year. Season 1 sucked, period.

[Purple Parrots Fan]

Oh, and let's add the shoddy production Season 1 had. I mean, look how long it took to film Belshazzar's whole episode. And look at the downright TERRIBLE quality that was Blackbeard's episode. I mean, a girl scratching her butt? Was it really THAT much of a task to edit that out? Apparently so for these poor excuses you call editors. And my favorite, they couldn't get an intern to dress like a pirate for the legend either. Was this just an episode the producers didn't want to air? Not that I would've had a problem with that, but at least TRY to make your so called "Episode 1" in halfway decent quality. There's honestly no excuse for such atrocities.

I don't know if these are good enough reasons for you, but there you go.

[The Red Jaguars]

This show really needed a pilot episode because it was definitely not the type of show that you can pull off in one day and expect everything to go as planned. If anything, the entire first production day is opposite of that. It was a disaster! The Belshazzar episode alone took 18 hours to tape! Imagine how Katherine and Sean felt to spend almost a whole day in the studio. Not only that, they got screwed and had to delay their temple run only for it to be another disaster. Not only that, but Galileo and especially Dead Man's Hand had A LOT of difficulty that day with their temple runs. Dead Man's Hand was such a broken layout. You can tell that there is a big difference between the first day and last ay of Season 1 because they are much better quality than the earlier ones. (Although Galileo rocks. )

I definitely agree that Kirk was a lost cause in Season 1. His hosting was just so boring and deplorable. He was not witty at all and felt like he was not a part of the show. Plus, he fogged up so many times and messed up a couple of temple games even like John Sutter and Mata Hari. Although it wasn't entirely his fault. The guy had to officiate almost every round of the show including the moat, temple games, and temple run instructions. That was a lot of stuff to handle for a first time host. It was a great idea to give those tasks to Olmec because it meant that it was less stuff for Kirk to have to worry about. Kirk was definitely a better host in Season 2 and Season 3 even if he had his moments.

And Blackbeard's editing is just... awful. What a terrible episode. I can sort of see why people felt like it was a pilot. It had horrible editing (the butt shot in the moat and the terrible temple run angles), no historical figure in the moat, no credits in the temple run, and the temple run itself just sucked. Did a college student edit or something? No excuse for this, especially since the other episodes from that day like Oracle Bowl and Leonardo Da Vinci do not look this bad.

[Purple Parrots Fan]

Sean and Katherine were so exhausted and worn out they didn't even WANT to do a temple run. Plus, time was running late anyways. I agree with everything you said about Kirk. Especially his performance in Season 1. Like you said, it was like he was not even part of the show at all. Even Kirk has said in interviews he was so embarrassed about being put out there, with literally no direction from anyone. But do you know who is to blame? The producers. For throwing this show together in two seconds and NOT taping a pilot ahead of time. Hello, you're doing a show. If you producers don't even know how the show works, then why do a show?

The only positive thing I can say about early Season 1 is John Sutter and Galileo. So the producers did do something right there.

[The Red Jaguars]

I also felt that another flaw from Season 1 was that Olmec was very underused. He was the star of the show, but he hardly spoke during that season. The only time he narrated was when he narrated the legend and gave the temple run instructions. Kirk did everything else, which was also pretty hard for him. One of the best decisions they made in Season 2 was to give Olmec a bigger role in hosting the show. Dee Bradley Baker was much better than Kirk because he had more experience and wasn't constantly facing a camera or audience. If there was less Kirk in Season 1, I am sure some of the episodes would've felt less awkward and had more clearer instructions.

[Purple Parrots Fan]

Yeah, Olmec definitely did a much better job hosting. It actually made more sense for Olmec to get all of the hosting duties come Season 2. I mean, it was Olmec's Temple after all. And only Olmec knows the legend behind each artifact, hence the credits. They honestly should've given Olmec hosting duties from the start. It certainly would've been interesting hearing Olmec announce the temple games and rules of the temple. Then Season 1 would actually have halfway decent quality, and it would even be more watchable too.

[The Red Jaguars]

Another thing about Season 1 was that it had no variety at all either. It was like they only had 3 or 4 ideas only for a new temple game or temple room. Seriously, they rehashed the same idea countless times. Look at all the moat crossings? Only one day didn't use the overheard rope, and that in S1L9. The only creative moat was S1L1 with the Cobra Staff and S1L9 with the floating bridge. And then we had the temple games that featured the same damn 3 or 4 games. I like how almost every temple game had to be wet and soapy too even if it was a different concept at times. And the new temple rooms were rehashed older rooms too. Like the Royals Gongs = Three Gargoyles, Spider's Lair = Swamp, Well = Mine Shaft, Treasure Room = Golden Idols, etc. What was the point? Was it hard to come up with a unique objective? They did come up with the Shrine, which is the ONLY room they got right in Season 1.

[Purple Parrots Fan]

I personally liked the Aztec Footboard moat too, even though it was used on the worst filming day possible. But yeah, they had no variety whatsoever when it came to Season 1 moats. I swear, almost every single filming day had the same tired "climb across using the overhead rope" objective. A concept that many contestants struggled with. Same with the temple games. All you ever saw was the soapy ramp, up and down pulley objective. And A LOT of the rulings were unfair too, with all this "furthest along" crap. *coughMataHaricough* Oh well, at least we got the Shrine out of Season 1, and hell, the entirety of the show. That was the only thing the producers got right there, like you said.