Race Around the World review: next stop, documentary fame?

When the ABC first aired Race Around the World over two decades ago, it was a very different world being raced around. Handheld digital cameras were exciting and new. Keeping in contact with the folks back home was an adventure in itself; on at least one occasion contact was lost for days with a contestant in a dangerous situation.

The idea was to use this new technology to create a series of down-to-earth documentaries looking at different cultures around the globe. Many of the contestants went on to successful media careers, though the breakout star of the series was John Safran.

He used the format to create a series of insightful and witty sketches – streaking in Israel was one – suggests that comedy was a bigger draw than travelogues. Safran won the audience choice award; he was also disqualified for secretly filming priests giving mass.

Today anyone can make short films and put them online. It’s now a reasonably acceptable way of making a living, even if only a handful of people ever manage it. And if you’re a young person, it’s not like you or any of your peers are watching the ABC. Twenty-five years ago the ABC had a youth audience who would tune in to watch people like them getting a shot at making short documentaries on the national broadcaster but in 2026, what’s in it for them?

Racing around the world again

Well, the new version of Race Around the World – hosted by Zan Rowe – does fly the contestants around the world. It does also give them a spotlight. In a world where everyone is making content online, being on the ABC does lift you up a little from the pack. And perhaps most importantly, it provides them with feedback – but we’ll get to that in a moment.

Once you get past the extremely dramatic opening, the format is basically unchanged from the original. Six young filmmakers will be arriving in a new country every 10 days. Each week they have to deliver a finished film between two-and-a-half and four minutes long.

They don’t know where they’ll be going until the day before they leave. Good thing they’ve all grown up with movie-making equipment on their phones.

The Race Around the World contestants are Elliot, a video content producer; Jayden, a marine biologist; Kate, who’s described as a lollipop lady (she’s also an arts school graduate); Lucinda, who’s an internet personality and author; Mikaela, a sports marketing and film industry freelancer; and William, a data scientist (okay, he actually works in AI).

While they each have their individual quirks, they’re all basically the kind of people you’d expect to enter this kind of competition. They might be afraid of flying or worried about travel, but they’re still bubbly and open-minded, telling us they hope they have cute energy on camera. And they’re all in it to win it: the winner will get funding for a half-hour documentary to air on ABC iView.

The new Race Around the World contestants

The films themselves are always entertaining, even when they feel a little try-hard. Kate’s first film (she’s been sent to India) starts off with around 30 seconds of a topless middle-aged man dancing in silence with earbuds in. Eventually there’s a voice-over: ‘Jurgen,’ we’re told in solemn tones, ‘likes to dance the negative energy away.’ This is not the funniest moment in the episode, or even in her film, but it comes close.

Mostly though, these are earnest looks at people and corners of the world we rarely see, delivered with a commitment that makes up for the rough edges. Sometimes the subject alone was worthwhile. Dynamite fishermen in the Philippines, anyone? Other times, there was a fresh perspective on something familiar, like Elliot’s look at a Ukrainian cancer patient.

At times, watching Race Around the World really does feel like stepping back in time in a way that’s a little disorientating. A bunch of young people having adventures and telling sometimes pretentious stories relevant to them in prime-time on the ABC? What happened to the network that gives us Grand Designs?

Developing documentary skills

Enter the judges, who are all notably at least a generation older than the contestants. John Safran is the resident judge, presiding alongside two different judges each week. (In week one, they’re Claudia Karvan and Margaret Pomeranz.) He’s the one with the insight into the difficulties of the format and the stresses of trying to find and film a subject in a strange country with a ticking clock.

The others are there to give honest, forthright feedback on the finished product. For Karvan that’s largely an emotional response; Pomeranz gets into the nitty-gritty of what’s up there on the screen, which often means pointing out flaws. Many, many flaws. ‘It was vaguely amusing to start, and then I don’t know that it went anywhere’ is one of her gentler verdicts.

It’s not the kind of feedback they’re going to get from an online audience, and you could argue it justifies the entire project. It’s nice to make lightweight videos about interesting subjects, but there a certain level of craft and skill required to create something lasting. Will the contestants reach that level before their time runs out? The race is on.

Race Around the World airs Sundays on ABC TV and can be streamed on ABC iView.

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