Amazing Race, 4/15 (Spoilers as always)

We were confused too. It looked like it took the “teachers” an hour to do the bike task.

Federal Teachers did the Speed Bump after the Detour and before the Roadblock.

Rachel was directing them to the bar where they had to pick up the speed bump clue.

Exactly my point. Brendan and Rachel were getting in the cab, meaning they were at the tavern or pub or whatever where the U-Turn was set up, having finished the second leg of their U-Turn and the walking part involved after the detour legs. We know that’s where and when they were because they then hopped in a cab.

We saw the teachers finish the bike challenge, so we know that the very next thing they had to do was walk on foot to the U-Turn tavern/pub/whatever place to get their next clue, when they too could then hop in a cab after reading the next clue.

That means they had to have run into Brendan and Rachel at the U-Turn place, and Rachel then tells them to walk a kilometer “that way.” I can’t see any way that makes sense.

I was confused, but in retrospect, I think the Amazing Editors were showing us some clips out of sequence.

I think the real-time version was that Big Brother finished the second leg of the Detour, and headed to pick up their next clue. They ran into the Federal Teachers, who had just gotten the Detour clue and were looking for the bike repair shop. The teachers headed to the bike repair while Vanessa and Ralph (we don’t have a decent nickname for them yet?) finished standing in line for water.

Showing it out-of-order was mildly confusing, but created a little more dramatic tension, since we thought the teachers were closer to the pack than they really were.

I dislike editing designed to make us think that teams are a lot closer than they are. Trying to make it look like it could be a foot race to the Amazing Phil when it’s obvious that there was probably a couple hours between the second to last and last team.

This is my main gripe with the show too. It is silly sometimes but as I mentioned above, the weird thing is they didn’t even bother in this episode.

That and bunching bother me. I recall a very early season (1 maybe) where at the end there was some team still in Alaska when the winners finished in NYC. I grow annoyed when the teams arrive at some task at different times only to find the place closed until eight in the morning.

I understand the bunching from a logistical point of view (with tight timelines on the production side and limited bodies it will suck hard if the teams end out spread between two or three legs of the race or having to pass up doing cool things at some cool location because you can only have access for 9 hours and need to make sure everybody is there in that window).

But from a viewers point of view it does kind of suck. When they go through period of a ton of bunching I’d prefer they just get rid of the staggered starts on each leg and just reset it with a group start every leg. And if travel between legs is necessary and everybody has to be on the same flight/boat/train/etc., just do that in the gap between legs and restart in the new location.

I like this idea! They would do the staggered start after they arrive in the new town.

Yeah, I think the clips being out of order is the best explanation. When Rachel directed the teachers a kilometer “that way,” she was in all likelihood directing them to the bike challenge. We had already seen the teachers finish the bike challenge at that point, but at least it makes sense if it was simply shown out of order.

The speed bump was after the teachers caught up. More specifically, the teachers caught up in the location where V&R got their next clue and were leaving as the teachers pulled in and then had to do the speed bump.

The teachers did actually catch up to V&R if it weren’t for the speed bump.

Why don’t they show the time that each team makes it to the pit stop? It would be interesting to see what the time gaps are. Or do they feel it would ruin the suspense?

They show the departure times, so I can think of two reasons not to. First is that not showing arrival times gives them flexibility to manipulate the departure times instead of being locked into leaving with the same deficit as they arrived. Second, and probably the more likely reason, is that showing the arrival times would completely undercut the manufactured drama when they show two teams racing to the finish only to discover one showed up over an hour before the other.

Part of the reason they don’t show arrival and departure times regularly is that there are sometimes adjustments made due to technical or shooting issues and they don’t want to have to explain them all.

But she’s a bear to be around.

But they used to with one quick sentence from Phil: “Due to technical issues that caused a delay, so-and-so has been credited time and will be departing 12 minutes early.” or similar. No muss, no fuss.

Midget twin porn stars.
THAT’S what they need.