Amazing Race Season Finale 12-6-09 [SPOILERS]

Cafe Society
81

True, but that’s already the case. They’re constantly in the presence of someone from the show and frequently lots of somebodys. And human interactors at all kinds of stages could subtly influence the results (such as judging whether a completely cracked golem is good enough).

Doesn’t seem that big a risk to me (though I’ll admit it is a risk) and has the benefit of eliminating that which I most dislike about the game. Sometimes I wonder if we’re watching a reality show about how cab drivers around the world deal with wacky passengers.

82

Which is exactly what Meghan and Cheyne were doing. It seems like the other teams were screwed up by the fact that there were an odd number of chips. So instead of a perfect 500,000 in red chips, they got something like $552,000 (I’m just pulling these numbers out of the air, but you get the point).

I’m wondering what exactly the timing was on the poker challenge. I really doubt they all went to the judges at the same time.

83

Elimination Station was fun to watch this week, just listening to the teams talk about their experience. One of the CBS videos (I don’t remember which one), has Meghan saying that she’s had a crush on Cheyne since the 3rd grade! I love getting all these extra videos with the seasons now! I do miss Phil’s Diary from last season though.

84

Sure, but that happens anyway with any task where you need assistants. Like both the rappelling and the bungee task this time. That’s why they get a bunch of crews together, at least one per racing team, and let the racers decide which crew they want to use. In theory, they could give each crew a mini-interview and find the best one for them, thought in practice it seems they just always take one at random. Too bad for you if the crew you selected isn’t quite as fast as another. Using race provided drivers could work the same way.

Besides, I’m certain that at times they do call a bunch of cabs and have them waiting for the racers - like when they have a 1 AM start time from the Pit Stop that’s in the middle of nowhere, yet there just happen to be 7 cabs waiting around.

One thing I do like about using cabs though - you’ve got to balance whether or not to have your cabbie wait for you during a task, and pay them extra to stick around. Having a chauffer eliminates that risk.

85

It happens with the camera crews too. It’s just not something the teams get to complain about and expect it to be shown on TV. I’m certain I’ve read in the past about teams having to accommodate the camera crew. If they’re hungry or thirsty or having camera problems sometimes teams have to wait on their crew. “We lost because our camera guy really had to take a dump” isn’t going to make it into the final edit.

86

Knowing that Megan and Cheyne have known one another since childhood makes their seeming lack of chemistry make a bit more sense. They’re at a comfort level with one another that you wouldn’t expect from your average dating early 20-somethings.

87

Aren’t they both virgins?

88

Obviously I have no idea, but it was another couple on the show who were proudly proclaiming their virginity. It was the couple where the guy tried to throw the girl down a seven story waterslide.

89

Ah yes, Mika. Was she afraid of heights or water? Or was it both?

90

I just re-watched S13 and am plodding my way through S14 and I’m amazed at how much an improvement this current season (15) was.

Holy shit the S14 teams are dumb

From Victor’s “No…really…I have psychic powers. There’s no route markers, but…let’s just wander into the Alps…um…that way. I sense it.” (and the hillbilly woman doing the same thing) to Margie’s weird/sick enabling of her deaf kid’s tantrums (and playing the race card) a to Jamie’s racist and “Ugly American” behavior (she’s much, MUCH worse than KKKendra) to the stunt-dwarf brothers being so damned dumb that (as far as I can tell), the producers had to add a brand-new rule*, mid-leg…and they broke it again–they got something like 6 hours worth of penalties across 3 different legs.

But worst of all, in 13 (THIRTEEN!) previous seasons of TAR, out of about 312 racers–only one person ever lost their travel documents—and that wasn’t entirely his fault (S13…mom/son team)-he paid the cabbie, got out, closed the door, realized he hadn’t gotten his fanny pack, turned around within one second, dove for the cab and chased it half a block. Oops, but not totally brainless.

In this season, at least 4 teams lose their passports for some length of time. The stunt-dwarfs and the black sisters left their fanny packs just sitting on a dock. A Ken/Barbie team left it lying around in a gypsy camp and there was one other instance that I don’t remember. How dumb do you have to be to leave your fanny-pack lying around? (I don’t fault the autistic guy this season–his passport fell out of the fannypack. That’s different from taking off your fannypack and just leaving it on the side of the road). And I’m only up to Ep. 8–there’s still 4 to go and I think there’s one more bit of passport drama to come (IIRC)

Also, excluding the faux-hippies (who did it for for attention whoring purposes), no team has ever lost their shoes except for Dandrew (who really were just stoopid) last season. Again, one of the teams left their shoes lying around and ran all over Bangkok in bare feet (yuk.)

Looking back on S14 and S13, I’m pretty amazed at how good S15 was. No stupid stunt casting, very little “Ride in a cab with transvestites”/“be ballast” type tasks, very, VERY few stupid race rules (intersections, U-Turns, etc). This season was a huge improvement over the last two seasons (at least–maybe more)
*“No bartering with your personal stuff”. They did that early in the season and it didn’t incur a penalty. By ep 8, they did it again with two more cabbies (getting a 2 hour penalty per offense) and Phil says something like “As you know, there’s a rule about this” so it was clearly discussed with them.

91

Fenris, I think sometimes when we see what appears to be stupidity on the part of the racers is really just the producers changing the game play. For a couple seasons it will make sense to drop your gear and do the task without risking losing something important. Then future racers see that and drop their gear. Then the producers change things and racers lose the opportunity to go back and retrieve their stuff and it looks stupid to us. The next batch of racers will have seen this and start keeping their important documents and things close and seem smart in comparison.

Every season viewers in these threads add to the list: “new rule! Always have this, always have that, never do this, never do that.” The teams’ gear bags become more like magic sachels each season because every season a team will pull some obscure item out of their bag that gives them a significant edge during a particular task and everyone knows all the teams next season will have that item in their bags. The teams will use whatever strategies worked best last season. Of course the producers are well aware of this and do their best to anticipate what the teams are invariably anticipating, and shake things up for our viewing entertainment.

Of course we do sometimes get genuine idiots like Mika with her fear of heights, water and her own shadow who don’t even care about winning and are really there just waiting for their opportunity to have a huge dramatic emotional meltdown on camera so they can be the center of attention before getting booted off.

92

levdragon–apparently there have always been “backpack drop points” where they’ve got a crew member standing by to keep an eye on your stuff. One of the factors in Jonathon hitting Victoria was that he just randomly dropped his backpack on a street corner in…Italy? and she had to pick it up and carry it for him resulting in them coming in second and him smacking her. Since it wasn’t an official “drop” point, no one would be watching it for them.

What I’m talking about is different: there was no drop point at any of the places these guys have lost their stuff. And you’ve always had to have your travel documents to check in. Like I said…in 312 previous racers, no-one had ever lost their backpack, shoes or travel documents as much as the people on this one season.

I agree racers get screwed over by the rules. The Ken/Barbie team in S14 got screwed over by a “blind U-Turn” that was stupidly placed (there was no way to make up the time afterwards) and the Blondes (Dustin/Kandace–two of my favorite racers) got screwed twice by the idiotic “intersection” addition where A) they lost a 4 hour lead having to wait for slower teams and then having to wait for the slower teams to actually plod their way through the task.

To me, stuff like that is different than being dumb enough to just leave your passports lying around on a busy street, or in a gypsy encampment that’s being packed up or on a crowded dock.

93

Berlin. They were running for the Amazing Bathmat at the Brandenburg Gate when that happened.

94

Italy, Germany, they both were on the wrong side in WW2. :wink:

95

Wayne Newton’s guest house was featured on HGTV’s Next Design Star a few years ago.

96

I was reading the TWOP recap of the finale today, and the author indicates that Brian & Ericka’s judge on the poker-chip challenge made a mistake, and that they actually had done the challenge correctly the first time. If (a) that’s true and (b) the rest of the race was edited accurately, they probably would have come in second place. Anyone know anything more about that story?