Well, you’re in a completely overwhelming visual environment unlike anything you’ve seen before.
How are you to know that this isn’t the rural Indian version of a payphone. Old dudes sitting under a tree and you give a quarter and he let’s you make a call.
Combined with the natural desire to not get up in a stranger’s space (though hopefully that tendency dies quickly as you play the game) and I can understand having a bit of a blind spot. And groups can collectively be stupider than their parts as someone assumes something is so obvious that another team must have thought of it so that can’t be it.
My problem with the game was that there really weren’t many ways for a team to go horribly wrong. Everything was pretty linear and self contained. Which means if there had been any huge excitement it would probably have come from bad cab drivers and that isn’t excitement I enjoy. I just feel awful for teams that lose the taxi lottery.
The stunt ment doing the rickshaws was really the only time anybody self navigated.
I think the only time they’ve actually driven a motor vehicle on Indian city streets was the season they had to take a driver’s test. I wouldn’t unleash inexperienced Westerners on India’s streets if I were the producer, either. Hell, I’d have second thoughts about unleashing walking Westerners on India’s streets. From what I’ve seen, Indian cities make Boston and Atlanta look like those cartoons where all traffic flows in harmony, usually to the tune of Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse”.
There are ways to require navigation without requiring driving. (I agree that it would be a bad idea to require them to drive themselves).
I wouldn’t mind seeing the show provide drivers but then have the drivers rely on the passengers for navigation (if you don’t say “turn right” they don’t turn right).
I’m not surprised at the momentary confusion at the phone myself. It broke from the standard rhythm and formula of the race and exhaustion is starting to catch them (there were quite a few signs of mental fatigue this episode even if no one actually broke down).
The elephant painting seemed like the perfect speed bump task: looks good on camera, features an animal that may cause trouble, and when it comes down to it really wouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes. I doubt it acted as more than a ten minute penalty which is something that could have been made up even without a disaster for another team.
Nobody else was scared that Mel would have a coronary right there in India? And that guy that was kicked by the camel - that was a big kick!
I wondered about carrying the water - was there any rule you could only use one bucket at a time? because those weren’t big buckets - I’d carry two. The basket for silage (that sure didn’t look like hay - it looked like chaff or bran) were too big to carry two, depending on the weight. I half-expected the judges to make the teams got back and redo at least the silage part of the task, since they didn’t use the tools required.
I can’t believe Mark and Mike went for the elephant in the haystack challange. Have they never seen the show?
I’m worried about the mom from the previews of next week.
Well, I’m hoping that the editing habit of what we see in commercials = nothing really serious holds true in this case.
Not sure if our commercials were similar so I’ll spoiler it. In the commercial on CTV you see her son and Phil dive for Margie and the mat beneath her, so I’m hoping she just needs some rest and water and she’ll be okay. Pit stop would help her recover somewhat, but depending how well she bounces back it could put them out of the game. If she’s got heat stroke, she’ll be really dragging (from personal experience I just wanted to drink lots of water and sleep).
I don’t get all the love for Mike and Mel. They say a lot of the right things on camera but jeez I am so sick about heaing the old mans groin and the fact that he is 68 yrs old. the old man did very well in the Roadblock but he whine all the way through it.
He can whine all he wants if he actually does it. And he did!
I’ll admit that some of my Mel love comes from knowing who he is and what he does outside the Race (and ditto with Mike), but they’ve been REALLY amusing to me in the Race itself, too.
I don’t even recall him mentioning his groin. Maybe I missed it. His edit is to say he’s too old for this stuff, he’s disappointing his son, and they are so totally screwed. Now that I know that’s his edit, whenever they start doing that I’m going to assume he kicks butt.
I liked when the muted the sound for a few moments to give us a taste of Luke’s experience.
Luke crying was endearing, but I have to admit I laughed out loud the way they edited it. There’s the redhead bravely trying to hold back her tears and not cry too much, then cut to Luke and he’s blubbering inconsolably.
Oh, and not to be culturally insensitive, but the nose flute is disgusting.
It’s funny the number of people who don’t play wind instruments who don’t really get what the presence of a spit valve implies. You really have to watch where you walk on a set of band risers after a performance, ya know?
He didn’t mention his groin this episode, but it’s all he could talk about in episode 2, when they couldn’t paraglide off the mountain due to high winds, and all the other teams had decided to walk down the trail instead.
He reminds me of Gretchen from season 7, who also had to verbally broadcast all the troubles she was going through, even though she was doing a reasonably good job on the challenges.
They always do that; they haven’t changed their editing style in 14 seasons. Everyone’s got a schtick and/or personal challenge to overcome. They continually drive the point home the first few eps, then back off it mostly. During the show, they like to show us what challenges they’re facing. It’s easy to show us teams fighting, or getting lost, etc. But, sometimes there are things they can’t show, so they encourage the racers to talk, talk, talk about it. We won’t know if the groin injury is still a problem, but if it is, I expect to hear about it because they can’t really show it. If someone gets a toothache, we’re going to have to hear about it.
I also think they instruct the racers to chatter endlessly about what they’re doing. Case in point, the stunt brothers: (paraphrased) “Mark, look through the hay, Mark. Gotta find that elephant. Looking for that elephant, Mark? Gotta look for it. Gee, this is a lot of hay. This is ridiculous. Are you looking, Mark? Look for that elephant, 'k? Ooof, hay. Ohh man, look at all this hay. Mark- are you looking? For the elephant? Gotta find that thing. Looking… for an elephant… in the hay… wow, this is a lot of hay…”
Shaddup!