Ben and Adam die in a malfunctioning car in Montana
This review contains spoilers for the series, including the full series of events. To watch the series first, click here. I highly recommend doing so as this review recaps most events in the series, and it’s also just really good.
Jet Lag: The Game is a travel and game show based on using the portions of or the entire world as a game board. In the first season, the game is Connect 4 across the left 22 of the lower 48 of the United States. Two teams of two are given the usual colors of yellow and red, and must go as fast as possible to claim a horizontal or vertical line of 4 US states. They each have a strict budget of $5,000 for hotel and travel costs. To claim a state, a team must go to the state capital building and then draw a card, which will list a random challenge. Once the challenge on the card is completed, the state is claimed.
The show is created by Wendover Productions/Half as Interesting, and the contestants from there are Sam (voice work), Ben (writer), and Adam (also writer). To round out the teams, Bryan from Real Engineering is brought on to team up with Sam, while Ben and Adam make up the other team. This is a pretty good cast for the most part.
After an on-site spoken instructions segment, the game starts at 4am in a hotel in somewhere. I’ve watched the series several times, including for this review, and cannot remember where this hotel is. 4am is also incredibly early, and it’s clear they were awake before filming started, so everyone is very tired.
Each team gets a little time to strategize. The show itself has motion graphics to explain everything, but I don’t, so I recommend finding a map of the US. Sam/Bryan’s immediate plan is to claim California and Nevada. With those two states, there are six different pairs that allow a full line of 4. This is a very powerful move. Ben/Adam, the designers of the game, also discuss this plan but decide to take a completely different strategy. They opt to start with Colorado and Wyoming, as they can get started claiming much quicker, their capitals are very close to each other, it makes for a great start to defending against the California/Nevada pair, and they’re not bad spots to have if the left half of the playable area ends up not causing any lines.
Ben/Adam barely make it through airport security on time, including a struggle with getting a boarding pass, while Sam/Bryan are generally just meandering their way onto the plane. The rush is a great idea however, and Ben/Adam land in Colorado before the other team even takes off.
Rather than claim Colorado immediately, they drive to Cheyenne, Wyoming. This allows them to stay hidden from Sam/Bryan, as you only know the other team's location when they claim a state, and they'll still get to claim Colorado because they'll have to drive back to Denver to get the next flight as is. This is a good bit of strategy, albeit potentially unnecessary.
There's a pretty good bit where Adam has to reroute around a train track because a train passes, and then they make it to the state capitol. Ben/Adam have a bit where they rate each state capitol building out of 7 - it's a good bit, and I have my opinions on the ratings that I'll share later.
The first challenge, "catch 3 different local bugs", is pretty decent and allows for some good fun. More importantly, it shows that the team doesn't really know much about bugs. They do get the three bugs in a solid amount of time, and hold them in Adam's water bottle, which I really hope he at least washed out at some point.
Meanwhile, Sam/Bryan land in San Francisco and start their drive to the state capitol of California. This is where they learn that Wyoming is claimed via a video, but they take this as good news strategically as they can still claim their pretty powerful set.
Ben/Adam make it to Colorado. The next challenge is "get one team member intoxicated". Adam is the dedicated driver for the entire series, so Ben takes on the challenge in the form of 4 shots of vodka, which seems like a lot. I don't think this is a great challenge overall, but it seems like it lands well with this group specifically, so I have no complaints.
While Ben/Adam claimed Colorado, Sam/Bryan are getting Chick-fil-A. After that however, they do pull their challenge for California and get things rolling. The challenge "eat spicy food" is a little misleading - specifically, you have to go to a local Indian restaurant and ask for the spiciest thing on the menu. For the most part, this challenge is fantastic, although I do worry a bit about any service worker having to deal with an imprecise order. (That's just a nitpick though. I still really love this challenge.) The spicy food ends up just being a cup of sauce that the pair pour on a couple samosas. Bryan eats it as if it weren't even spicy, but Sam struggles with the challenge. It does get completed.
In the meantime, Ben is definitely drunk. (To his credit, drunk Ben has the same speech skills as sober me.) They learn about California getting claimed and have some McDonald's.
Sam/Bryan take a scenic route to Nevada's state capitol. While Bryan is doing a bit of edgy, barebones political humor, Sam shows a solid knowledge of climate issues in relation to wildfires, which proves that he really is the narrator for Wendover Productions and also actually adds to the humor of the segment. This is the only time Bryan makes a joke like this.
Sam then immediately forgets the name of Nevada's capitol, and we're treated to one of the top 5 bits in any season of Jet Lag.
The challenge to claim Nevada is "bowl a strike". Honestly, they struggled to find a bowling alley they could use more than they struggled to get the strike. Bryan bowls the strike on frame 2. This is a pretty good travel show challenge - there's a lot of bowling alleys in the world, and it's not an easy task in any capacity. I think I've done this exactly once in my life.
While Sam/Bryan are locating the second bowling alley, Ben/Adam are taking an apparently devious flight into somewhere. It’s not mentioned in this part of the video. Upon landing, they see the Nevada video and Adam is disappointed that Sam/Bryan got to bowl and they didn’t.
Bryan does a pretty good bit about an eagle statue, which he actually failed to do on a previous pass because the camera was on photo and not video. We get to see the photo - it’s good(tm) - and then Sam jumps into strategy. Sam makes two conclusions.
First conclusion, this portion of the game is very difficult. It’s hard to guess where Ben/Adam are going to go, and there’s a lot of different strategies now that the board is set with some pieces. This is absolutely true. If I try to come up with my own strategy, every single option seems bad. Second conclusion, they should take the east route and get New Mexico and Arizona for their attempt at a line right now. Ben/Adam are probably somewhere north, as it blocks off more routes to get states up there and so far they’ve been playing pretty defensive. Therefore, they should claim Arizona to block off Ben/Adam’s line and to get their line rolling.
The first episode ends with Adam announcing that he and Ben are in Arizona. This is fantastic editing, somehow answering several questions at once while also being a complete cliffhanger.
The first episode sets a good stage, but also really does smell of "this is the first episode of the show we've ever done" despite technically being season 2. (I'll get Nebula and watch Crime Spree eventually!) It's also mechanically as boring as the start of a usual connect 4 game, but it's still fun enough to watch.
Episode 2 starts with a reuse of the irony used at the end of the episode 1, and then Ben/Adam pull a challenge - "buy the local paper and solve one of the puzzles". They locate a paper at a convenience store, but wait until tomorrow to solve the puzzle for strategy reasons.
Sam/Bryan check into their hotel for the end of the night, get a free hotel upgrade, and double a $100 bill at the casino. Ben/Adam also check into a hotel, oddly named "Howard Johnson".
Solving a newspaper puzzle does not make for a great challenge for the most part, but it does make for some fun questions and a call to a mom. Ben/Adam were the right team to get this puzzle - I imagine this bit would be even more boring with Sam/Bryan. This isn't a slight to them, I just think Ben/Adam's humor works to actually make this entertaining.
They claim the state and get out of the airport before Sam/Bryan land in the exact same airport. Sam uses the background of the state claim video to locate the exact gate that Ben/Adam were sitting at when they finally solved the puzzle, and know they're going to Oregon. Which makes me wonder, how the fuck did he do this? Sam just knows airports like that? Sure! I guess it makes sense for him.
Ben/Adam being in Oregon continues their defense plays, this time giving them a tight schedule for their next flight (removing travel time, about 45 minutes to do a challenge). They take an Uber rather than a rental car to the state capital.
Sam/Bryan plan a little, and decide to go to Idaho. If Oregon gets grabbed, their only chance with their current states is California/Nevada/Idaho/Montana, so it's a sound play.
Meanwhile, Ben/Adam's Uber driver offers to help drive them wherever needed, as well as back to the airport, and apparently has some good strategy. The challenge they pull is "bury a treasure" which requires them to bury something worth at least $50. They opt to bury Adam's laptop charger, which after a google search to confirm prices probably does fit the bill for this. This is a neat challenge, but travel like this really should be a "leave as is" situation, so it's not something I'd put in a travel game. Thankfully, a group of people run into them doing this and likely take the charger immediately, so this isn't an issue this time.
Sam/Bryan are immediately alerted of this, then take a taxi to Idaho's capitol building to pull the next challenge - "find a statue and recreate it". This is a fantastic challenge and appropriately touristy for this kind of show. This is also just generally a very entertaining segment. They claim the state, and have Montana left.
Ben/Adam apparently have the budget left to make only one big play, and that big play is continuously unexplained despite being mentioned both before and after the statue segment. Sam once again uses his airport and research prowess to see that they could make a connection in Utah to a small airport in Butte, Montana to block off the only line Sam/Bryan can make by this point. Bryan then points out that if they can make it to Utah, they could take the exact same flight. They are able to do this, which makes for an incredibly good slow realization.
While Sam/Bryan figure that out and act on it, Ben/Adam are still being insanely coy about the flight. There's a solid amount of uncertainty in this section until we see Ben/Adam on camera with the camera Sam/Bryan is using.
This is an amazing moment, and the kind of thing that doesn't happen in every season. Writing about this part makes me realize that some of the later "better" seasons are actually pretty weak in regards to competitive closeness. (Season 5 didn't have anything like this, and everybody loves season 5! I love season 5! But you can't beat this level of "oh shit it's really down to the wire" in a reality game show.)
This also sets the next episode up greatly, which we're moving onto now. A couple strangers notice the commotion, which is pretty cute, and you hear the flight announcer mention possible weather issues. Adam deploys Ben to sit next to Sam so they can't strategize on the flight, and we cut to later.
The flight aborts landing, and the flight announcer mentions heavy winds and poor visibility. Due to safety issues, the flight ends up back at Salt Lake City and is scheduled for later, leaving both teams in Utah to grab a hotel and figure out what to do next.
Ben/Adam argue that this is a blessing in disguise, as this gives them a chance to grab Utah before the rescheduled flight. If they also get Montana, that makes a line and they win. Bryan is sad that he can't keep up with rugby.
Both teams go to claim Utah in the morning - Ben/Adam as it's part of their route, and Sam/Bryan as if they grab it they can prevent Ben/Adam from making a line.
Lots of challenges get pulled here. A lot of pulled challenges get automatically skipped (it's 4:30am so nothing is open) and veto'd (each team gets two vetos, and none have been used yet), but Ben/Adam end up vetoing themselves into "busk until you have $1". They somehow still manage to do this pretty quickly. I do feel a little bad for any families who happened to wake up with Adam yelling so loud.
This challenge is conceptually interesting, but I wouldn't put it in a show like this. Embarrassing yourself doesn't usually make for great content, so I find this segment just kind of painful for the most part. Either way, Utah is claimed, and both teams head back to Montana on the rescheduled flight.
Both teams get rental cars to drive to the state capitol. This isn't an issue for Sam/Bryan, but Ben/Adam's car rental place of choice isn't open early enough, so they have to swap to a different rental place. Sam/Bryan get a bit of a head start, but this can be brought back with an unlucky challenge pull.
Sam/Bryan have an uneventful trip and make good conversation about the rules and trip, talk about Montana and its weather, and wonder about the chance about pulling a card that says "claim the state immediately". These cards have requirements about travel and other onward restrictions, but for the winning state of the game, those requirements won't be touched as the game would be over by that point. Not a single one of them has been pulled yet.
Ben/Adam do not have the same luck, and their car dings about a few things - engine coolant overheating, check engine, drive start control malfunction. The theory they have is that the engine might've overheated. They call the car rental place to complain, which allows them to get a replacement car.
Ben/Adam's car was not started in the morning, so along with the errors the car gave, the running theory in the comments is that there was a chunk of ice in the engine coolant, preventing the coolant from flowing properly. Thus, the engine overheated and wouldn't function properly either.
Montana at this time is also not warm, and the car heater isn't working. There's a bit of kerfuffle about making sure Ben wears the proper layers, and the general worries about freezing to death. Thankfully they do get a new car, so this isn't actually an issue, but it gives me an excuse to open this review with the tagline of "Ben and Adam die in a malfunctioning car in Montana".
Sam/Bryan get to the capitol and pull a card, but the footage cuts before the card is visible. It's just a bit cheesy.
Ben/Adam are discussing the chances of themselves winning. There's a couple cards Sam/Bryan could veto themselves into, so a chance is absolutely possible.
They get to the capitol and pull a card, which is "eat the state dish". Right after pulling the card, the camera cuts to Sam, who is still at the capitol and hidden behind a statue. A little conversation ensues, and Sam/Bryan reveals the card - it's a "claim this state immediately" card.
Montana is claimed, and Sam/Bryan get a line after claiming exactly four states. Their reward is a trophy that's video edited in, making for a fantastic ending bit in an otherwise slightly disappointed ending.
Overall, I think this first season of Jet Lag: The Game is pretty good. Connect 4 Across America seems to get ignored, being one of the more complicated premises and also being the very first season of the show. However, despite having its growing pains it's got some really great moments, is pretty fun to watch, and consists of a very solid game design as well. It's certainly not my favorite, but it's still worth watching.
I do think there are some flaws. Some of the challenges aren't great and the ending feels anticlimactic due to Sam/Bryan's card pull. The "claim immediately" cards would become Curses, which were not used in future location claiming seasons, which adds to the early feeling of this specific run. Most of the challenges that are good, including ones not mentioned in the review but seen in the episode during the Utah segment, aren't all too interesting either. I also find that the off period of 9:30pm to 4:30am feels oddly early. None of that is a huge deal, however.
The budget system didn't obstruct much either, but due to the fact that it was specifically the US dollar, I don't mind this at all. There's a reason for that, which we'll get to in season 2.
There's one other thing to discuss and that's Ben and Adam's reviews of the state capitol buildings. This is a great bit, but I have my own opinions.
That covers the review! I don't know if I did this right! I hope you watched the show before reading this!