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Let’s face it. Theme park fans make horrible bosses. We can be insufferable taskmasters, dismissing any new attraction that falls below the highest level of quality that a park has achieved in its past.

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A fatal ambulance crash in the East Bay, the slow-moving mass of lava consuming homes in Hawaii, and a study to protect the threatened monarch butterfly are all featured in today’s Current.

Now, it is our money that we are spending, so we fans have every right to be picky. But no athlete sets a world record on every attempt. No filmmaker wins an Oscar every year. As hard as I might try, I sure know that I don’t write a better column every single week.

The only way to avoid the pressure of topping your best every on every attempt is to aim low, delivering consistently mediocre work that improves just a tiny bit each time, but never so much that it requires real effort to surpass.

There’s a lot of space between that lazy mediocrity and the unattainable perfection of constant record-setting improvement. As much as I would love to see a new trend-setting winner every time I preview a new ride or show, I try to remind myself how difficult it is to reach that level before getting too upset when a new attraction falls short.

But outrage gets attention in social media, so many fans seem to love to bury any new attraction that doesn’t improve upon what they’ve seen before. Witness the scathing reviews that many fans are leaving on the Internet about the new Fast & Furious Supercharged installation at Universal Studios Florida. Some fans are calling it Universal’s worst attraction ever.

It’s far from that. It’s a plus version of the final encounter on Universal Studios Hollywood’s Studio Tour, with an exhibition of show cars and a couple of pre-show rooms in its garage-themed queue. It surely beats the bone-rattling Rip, Ride, Rockit roller coaster just down the street in the Florida park. But it is the third new screen-based attraction in as many years at Universal Orlando, and some fans are getting frustrated with what they fear is Universal falling into a creative rut.

Universal Creative has done some of the best work in the industry, including the most impressive land I’ve ever seen, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Diagon Alley. It also has designed the best-looking water park in Universal Orlando’s Volcano Bay and has overseen best-of-class attractions such as the Waterworld stunt show, the Men in Black Alien Attack shooter ride and The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man dark ride.

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So I think those precedents help explain why some Universal fans get upset when the company keeps cranking out screen-based motion simulators.

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Largest U.S. theme parks report no COVID-19 outbreaks since reopening There’s nothing inherently wrong with that type of theme park attraction. Heck, the best new ride of last year was a screen-based motion simulator, Walt Disney World’s Flight of Passage. No one complained about that, except for its often-hours-long wait time. But fans want variety from the best theme parks. Disney and Universal draw millions more visitors each year than your average Six Flags park in large part because they don’t just offer roller coasters and carnival rides. They offer a wide variety of shows and experiences that trigger different emotions and physical feelings throughout the day.

So I won’t come down too hard on Universal for Fast & Furious Supercharged. No, it’s not the company’s best work, but it’s still a fun ride. But I am looking forward to seeing Universal change it up with some different types of experiences in the future.