Amazing Race 3/6/11

They had the good luck of not picking the “Good Luck” detour, and doing the more reliably faster “Peace” option. Given that most of the teams smarter than they are picked the mud option, it must have looked easier based on the clues. R&C may have done just as well if they picked mud but probably not.

I’d love to seem them eliminated next, but they’ll probably hang around way too long so Ron can torture me.

My boys better cowboy up, or they’ll find themselves in real trouble. Seriously, I don’t remember them having this much trouble navigating on the last Race they were on. I remember them getting lost once, but nothing like every leg. Still, they seem to have unfailing courtesy to each other and the locals, as well as their fellow competitors. That buys a lot of good will from me.

StG

Kisha and Jen must have been popping out of those paper bras the whole time because every shot of them had the Amazing Blur in place. Odd, since Mallory’s and Vyxsin’s physiques seem more… blurworthy.

I actually thought that was very funny.

In the first two episodes, every time he-goth has been on screen, they put the graphic up “Kynt.” Except in this episode, they spelled it “Kent.” And I notice it’s “Kent” on the website as well. Was I imagining things?

It appears next week’s episode takes the racers to China. Depending on where in China they go, Sinophones Ron and Christina might have a huge advantage.

As I recall, he was “Kynt” during his original season. According to this, he changed his name back to “Kent” after his father died (whose death was mentioned last week), presumably as a way to honor his Dad.

You would think so, although the previews seem to indicate that Ron’s head explodes. But that could just be the Amazing Editors teasing us.

I wonder if they thought doing the prayers was going to be as exacting & difficult as learning the forms in the archery task.

I’m kind of surprised there are no non-stop flights from Sydney to Tokyo, but travelocity confirms it.

She is quite the chatterbox but I did like her line that she yelled to the guys throwing mud as she was leaving the Mud Challenge that there would be be two red heads coming that will good in those outfits (or something like that).

And then… we hardly saw them.

Qantas and Japan Airlines fly direct. I believe the 6:15 arrival flight was Qantas direct, and the delayed 6:00 flight was Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong.

Taking the flight through HK, even with a 3 hour layover, for a 15 minute advantage was stupid. You’re doubling the chances of being delayed for a nearly inconsequential advantage. I’m not surprised it bit them.

Right, direct, but not non-stop. I would have guessed there was enough traffic between Tokyo & Sydney for a non-stop to be economically feasible, but apparently not.

That’s what I was thinking as well, this isn’t near the end of the race, it’s right at the start. Fifteen minutes isn’t enough to make me want to risk missing the plane.

I’m surprised that they didn’t say something to the Globetrotters when they arrived at the mat. I would have thought the cameraman would have said something.

What’s the difference? I thought direct WAS non-stop, otherwise it wouldn’t be direct, because it’s stopping at an airport en route.

Yeah, I’m glad to see them go–the level of overly-hysterical drama was just too much. I completely understand that they were both freezing and suffering possible hypothermia, but…

…either dad is too fucking frail to race (or get out of bed unassisted, or eat using a fork, or…etc, given the amount of sniveling from the son) in which case they shouldn’t be there or

…dad is a lot tougher than the whiney, sobby, tear-soaked son makes it sound.

Regardless, I’m happy they’re gone.
The cowboys who I loved last time are getting on my nerves this time. So far, I believe they’ve gotten lost every time. Yeah, they kick ass at the actual challenges, but the “Can’t read clues, can’t read maps, can’t follow directions” thing that was kind of endearing last time is just grating this time.

That bothered me too. Intentionally or not they affected another team’s play outside what I expect are the allowed tolerances of the game. It seems Phil would have been pre-warned that this happened and should have imposed a penalty when they checked in.

As it played out, it almost seemed to say “Well, since you complained, we’ll do something about it. If you hadn’t mentioned it, we might have ignored it.”

Direct means that you don’t change planes, though there might be a stop along the way where some people get off and others get on.

True, although if you noticed the starting time for the teams at the beginning of the leg, they all left the Sydney Pit Stop within one hour of each other, so in that case 15 minutes would be a huge advantage.

Huh? I just looked on the Qantas website for flights from Sydney to Tokyo and the first result is a non-stop flight.

My thought was you may be able to find something faster in Hong Kong during the layover.