Watch US show

THE EPISODE of American game show ‘Amazing Race’ which features Shetland, entitled ‘Get Your Sheep Together’, is now available to watch online. 

US TV critics have been having their say since the show, which reaches around 12 million American viewers and over 100 million globally, was broadcast across the pond on Friday. Several felt it had been the most watchable episode of the CBS network’s series.

Shetland-based challenges included ‘Pony Up’, where the teams had to cut 50 blocks of peat and then take it up a hill using a pony, and ‘Light My Fire’, where they had to make an Up Helly Aa-style Viking torch.

Entertainment Weekly says that contestants Tim and Te Jay realised during a challenge where they had to herd sheep into a pen at Berry Farm that “their normal tendency to scream nice, polite statements over their shoulders will not work as well with sheep as it does with people…so they just make sheep noises instead. As in, ‘bahhhh’ at the sheep until they get annoyed, in which case it becomes more, ‘Bah, bah – NO! Bah – no, STOP BAAAH!’”

In its recap of the third episode of the 25th season of ‘Amazing Race’, an entertainment site called Gossip & Gab amusingly mistook the word “peat” for “peep”, “which is what they use to build fires with because of the lack of trees. Then using Shetland ponies, [the contestants] have to deliver the peep to a shed on the top of a hill.”

For the TV Equals website’s Californian scribe Luke Gelineau, meanwhile, “I guess you have to use a Shetland pony when you’re on the Shetland Islands, right? That’s the only thing I knew about Shetland before tonight! The construction of the torches wasn’t that exciting, but I have a soft spot for people getting frustrated at animals that don’t listen to them, so I loved seeing those ponies freakin’ out!”

Davie Gardner, who worked as the producers’ local fixer when it was filmed, described it as a “huge challenge” which had involved hiring around 50 locals to work in various roles. He said the locations were carefully chosen to highlight some of Shetland’s most eye-catching scenery and culture.