Amazing Race 11/23

Cafe Society
21

Oh. My. Fuck. Never have I seen so many Spousal Abuse teams in one race, and except for Teri & Bolo, none of them are amusing. Even the old couple have issues! None of them compare to Jonathan of course, who is like a combination of Frank & Paul from season one, multiplied by Colin’s intensity, factored by Ian’s stubborness, and even sprinkled with the shrillness of Flo. Not to mention Derek & Drew’s brains – “WE’RE NUMBER ONE! WE’RE NUMBER ONE!” “No, we’re not!” (Ok, that really is an insult to the Wonder Twins…they’re bloody Einsteins compared to Jonathan.)

Can’t say much about Victoria, except she’s so freaking airheaded that she doesn’t even seem to realize how demeaning Jonathan is towards her. You know that old saying about how some people deserve each other? In any case, I think they’ll go out soon, considering all the footage we’ve seen of them so far – the teams who get a lot of coverage early in the race usually go out early. Usually. (I think Flo was an exception…a frightening thought.)

To be fair, a lot of mixed-gender teams favored the male player on Roadblocks – Flo only did one, and I think Christie only did 2 or 3. I like this new rule, a lot of fans have been clammoring for it. Of course, now I have to go re-watch my TAR tapes and see how this would have affected earlier races…guess I know what I’m doing this holiday weekend. :cool:

22

That’s pretty much exactly what I was just saying to my mother. Thanks to Jonathan, Colin suddenly looks relaxed, charming, you name it. With any luck, all that “passion” will make his head explode in spectacular fashion in the near future (like next leg, pretty please with sugar on top).

I like the new Roadblock rule, but I have to say I’m concerned about this season otherwise. If this is what almost all the teams were like on just the second leg, what will the remaining teams be like by about leg 8 or 9?

23

Does anyone else think that Jonathan and Victoria are faking the awfulness? No couple could possibly be that bad, and if they were, I doubt they’d do it on film in the first 2 episodes.

24

On the other hand, there are people that clueless around.

25

If they’re faking, they have some damn good role models.

This dude is nuts. He ripped on VIctoria for the longest time, then she says one thing, “maybe you should write down the directions” and he goes ballistic.

What a disgusting guy. “I’m SOOOO proud of myself. I’m SO proud of myself.”

<turns to wife>

“You owe me an apology.”

Not only did he conk her in the head with that door, he shoved her when she said he should write down the directions, then really got in her face when he demanded an apology.

26

Yeah, Jonathan’s antics at the Viking Village made me wonder if he was faking it. I mean, he was literally running around the camp like a six-year-old off his Ritalin. The looks on the faces of the other team – the utter disbelief and appreciation for the ridiculousness of the situation – were priceless. I’m thinking there’s no way a grown man can act like that and not twig to the fact that every other adult is looking at him like he’s a moron.

The boat thing? Hated that. Requiring teams to depend on each other is a bad idea. One thing that seperates TAR from other reality shows is that you don’t need to suck up to the other teams. Just race.

New roadblock rule? I’ll reserve judgment. I’d like seeing Roadblock tasks evenly split between partners, but the reason Kim did so few last season is that a substantial portion of the Roadblocks were heavily physical. That hurts the non-male teams. (Seriously, think about the finale last season. The rock-climbing task totally wiped out the Moms.) I’ll support this new rule if the producers put in more tasks that favor courage, patience or skill over brute strength. The zipline this ep is a good start.

Ummm… shouldn’t Team Hellboy get a time bump since they had to wait for tthe geriatrix to return their car? That seems unfair. Aren’t the production crew supposed to watch out for these things?

Leaderboard Comments:

  1. Kris/Jon. Who? They’ve had almost no screentime. However, their strong showing (second last week, first this!) and apparent lack of dysfunctionality makes them look like they’ll go far.
  2. Jonathan/Victoria. Die.
  3. Gus/Hera. Holy cow. I had this team pegged as going home this week, and yet they pulled out a third place. Hurrah for co-ordination, I guess.
  4. Hayden/Aaron. Liked them last week. Little less sure now. I’ll wait a bit.
  5. Lori/Bolo. Heh. Comic relief. Given Lori’s lapel-grabbing move this week, Phil better hire some security when they’re eliminated.
  6. Adam/Rebecca. Meh. Whatever. Please work through your relationship issues off-screen.
  7. Don/MJ. OK, they’re human. I still like them.
  8. Freddy/Kendra. See Hayden/Aaron.
  9. Lena/Kristy. Oh, please don’t poop out. We need an all-female team to go at least halfway. Plus I rather like this team.
  10. Meredith/Maria. I’m sorry to see these two go, because they looked like they were having such fun. Still, they weren’t very good as racers, so they would have gone pretty soon anyway.
27

I think each week, we could probably put together a good list of things to learn to do well on this race in the future. An example from week one would be:
Know whether you need diesel or gas.

A couple were mentioned this week, but to start a list:

  1. Befriend the locals. If you can get one to go with you, life will be much easier. Not just in terms of time, but you will avoid the stresses of navigation.
  2. Ask for a senior citizen’s discount, should one apply to you. I don’t remember seeing this before and it strikes me as brilliant.
  3. Practice driving a stick, an automatic, a bike, roller skates, and any other mode of transport you can think of.
  4. Learn 3 or 4 simple phrases in 5 major languages. Didn’t really apply here, but it will in the future.
  5. Race. If you go slow at everything like the female friends, you will lose early and often.

I thought I heard Phil say they had to divide into two teams through their own choosing. Perhaps this was an attempt to raise some tension between teams down the road.

Quick question. Did they dump the yield this time around? What about the fast forward? Have I missed hearing about both of these?

28

Why do I love this show? It drags lurkers like CROdellp out of the shadows. :wink:

29

There’s an interesting question…had Team Geritol just kept going to the Pit Stop, would they have been required to go back and get their own vehicle before they could check in? Would they get a time penalty? Does it matter, by the rules?

Assuming that you don’t HAVE to check in at the Pit Stop with the vehicle you started with, if I were Team Issues I would have let Team Geritol leave first, because they CAME BACK TO GIVE ME MY CAR! Jesus…don’t any of these people have any common courtesy or appreciation for doing the right thing?

30

Still going strong…so far it’s hard to pick clear favorites, it’s much easier to pick the ones I hate. I was also a tad sorry to see the M&M’s go, but they had to be the worst racers I’ve ever seen on this show. Just all and all terrible. When I think of all the people that wanted to be on this show, that two girls that were just so clueless made it kinda saddens me. I don’t think there’s ever been a season where driving a manual transmission car didn’t happen at least once…usually several times.

If I had been Don/MJ, I think I would have seen if we could have just kept going…I mean…everyone’s going to the pit stop anyway…so you’ll get your stuff. And you most likely had your little bag with you anyway, as most contestants keep that with them at all times. I wonder if they were told specifically to go back.

I also like the no more than 6 Roadblocks rule. Although I agree with the other poster that said there should be fewer pure physical ones. The mom’s last season had a good 20-30 minute lead over Colin/Cristi, and Colin still beat them up the wall. And probably would have beaten Chip too. That’s taking the show from “good racing” to “youngest in shape person” which I don’t like as much.

Didn’t really like the boat thing too much, but this early in the game it wasn’t as big a deal, although they should have made the players randomly draw for teams. I think Phil said in the voiceover that they had to decide among themselves how the split was.

And I also liked seeing the penalty be awarded before the team checked in. Last season’s it seems to me that it was always added on at the beginning of the next leg.

I wonder if that kid helping them was an indication of how well the show is known now, and if they’ll limit that sort of assistance in the future. And how the hell did he get home? It looked like they sort of abandoned him at the Viking village.

31

I have seen them do it this way at least once before. In season four the clue said “make your way on foot to the Pit Stop” and Reichen and Chip got in a car and drove to the Pit Stop. They got a thirty minute time penalty right there which did not affect their standing.

I haven’t seen seasons 1-3 ( :frowning: )so I don’t know if there was anything before that.

32

The boat thing was rather annoying, but on second thought I believe it was an attempt by the producers – at the mercy of uncooperative plane/train schedules --to add some interest to what was a dead zone in the itinerary. This presumes that Reykjavik-Copenhagen-Oslo was the only flight available and there were no trains to Voss in the middle of the night. And the Voss detour tasks couldn’t be done at night.

Here’s how I think the timing went: The flight left Reykjavik at 12:45 PM (I think the ticket agent said “quarter to one”). It looks like it arrived in Oslo around 8 to 9 PM. (Remember it’s August and it was dusk by the time they were in the parking lot.) So best case scenario, a team gets done with the roadblock and winds up in the Viking village by about midnight. (The last team to get there - M&M - looks like they arrived slightly before dawn.)

I’m guessing the Hollenfoss-Voss train left between 10 to 11 AM and that it was a 4 hour train ride. This means they get to the detour around 3:00 PM. Given the high latitudes that gives them 6 hours to complete the detour task and get to the pit stop while there’s still light. Even M&M could – and did – manage that.

33

The “Is there a senior citizen’s discount?” line cracked me up. I don’t think any other senior team in the race has bothered asking that.

The auto thing is tough to call from the viewer perspective. It is possible that the clue had specific language about turning in the car which is effectively boilerplate and hasn’t mattered at all in the race up to this point. If that’s the case then they needed to turn around and exchange cars. OTOH, if the clue just specifies driving to the location then I would have kept going, checked in, and then dealt with it.

And I definitely would not have let another team leave first if this happened to me; they stole my car after all. :slight_smile:

Finally, ammount of footage being given to a team isn’t really a good indicator. While more weight is going to be given to teams who are leaving soon for what footage is shown, the big deciding factor is just if it is good television (Chip and Kim got a lot of footage in the first few episodes last season while Collin and Christie apparently had not decended intensity driven madness at that point). Jonathon regardless of his other features is anything but boring. He could be around for a long time to come.

34

Wow! Now we know what the Nutty Professor was all about at the CIA - his first shot and that arrow hits the bullseye. My daughter was ecstatic, it being her team. That guy’s a dark horse all right.

Otherwise, thought it was a very flat programme. Hoping for better things next week in Sweden.

35

I noticed that, too…who are those guys? If TAR follows the Survivor rule of editing (and it does), this means that they’ll be in the final 3.

36

I was going to ask the same thing… The CBS website still gives definitions for them in their glossary, but that could just be leftover from last season. :confused:

Another question on top of all of that, can only one person drive the vehicle? I’m curious why Maria and Meredith didn’t switch. They both can’t be that horrible.

In the previews for next week, it looks like they’ve got a challenge at Ikea. :dubious:

37

Well, it IS Sweden. And it IS reality tv…product placement wouldn’t be new.

38

That is an interesting question. Here’s what I’m wondering:

Obviously Team Hellboy left their keys in the car, right? Otherwise, how would Team Geritol make off with it? It’s reasonable to assume also that Team Geritol also left their keys in the car, otherwise they’d have known right away they were in the wrong car.

In addition, if I recall correctly, the teams left their baggage in the cars. And, you’ll remember, all the cars were unlocked, since Hellboy went from one to another.

So we’ve got a bunch of cars sitting around with keys in them and personal effects in them. I would think, then, that the production staff must have someone watching the cars to prevent theft. Or else all the teams are beyond stupid; a distinct possiblity, I’ll grant, but not that probable. And obviously the production staff isn’t checking to make sure teams leave with the same car they thay arrived in.

So, given that… wouldn’t it be possible to really fuck with the other teams? Granted, I’m positive Don and MJ taking the wrong vehicle was an honest mistake, but what if a team did it on purpose? Hey, these guys have better maps! We’ll take their car!

Or hey, all the other teams have better maps, so we’ll go car-to-car and steal eveyone’s map! If you can steal one team’s map, you should be able to steal everyone’s map, right?

Or what if a team had something really important in their car? Money? Heart medication? Sunglasses? Take it all!

I think it’s pretty obvious that that’s unacceptable. I don’t know what the official rule is, and I’m sure this case was an accident, but the producers shouldn’t allow teams to make off with each other’s belongings.

And even this case troubled me a bit. Even though this was an accident, it slowed Hellboy down, due to the actions of another team. I’m thinking they should get a time credit for it. And if Geritol had gone all the way to the Pitstop in Hellboy’s car? Hoo-boy. If that isn’t a penalty, it should be.

39

If I were Jonathan’s victim/spouse, I would suggest that we switch, so he can demonstrate his undoubtedly superior map-reading skills. Then I could sit in the front seat and scream at him while he gets us lost.

40

I’m sure there’s a firm rule about messing with other people’s belongings. When MJ suggested they just keep going, Don said, “We can’t, it’s stealing.” And there have been instances in previous races when teams went ballistic on other teams for merely touching their bags.

I’m guessing D/MJ weren’t penalized because (1) they immediately went back once they realized their mistake, and (2) they lost a lot of time anyway, including one whole position. Still, it would’ve been cool to see TWO teams sitting on the “Penalty Rock”. :smiley:

And is anyone else wondering if the Norwegian boy (or “Norse Fern”, as other TAR fansites are calling him) is still stranded at the Viking Camp?? It really looked like the Mormon Sisters dumped him in the middle of nowhere!