It’s amusing to me that the beauty queens probably helped Danielle and Eric mutually decide on which team is the least trustworthy because they took up Danny and Oswald’s yield prostitution (and also lied about how it came about).
Sure, if they hadn’t, it’s not likely that Danielle and Eric would have had a lot of difficulty agreeing on another team, but it may have made them more certain about that one.
They “built up” a 20 minute lead. Not only is that a pretty trivial amount of time, but you’re talking about a team that managed to bleed out something like a four-hour lead in the past. Even if they didn’t lose 10 minutes of time at the bunching before the helicopters, that 20 minutes was not going to last long anyway.
I never saw Mole, but I do like the idea of “Let’s stress out the racers, wear them down, then put everything on the line with a thinking task.” Although I didn’t like the task design of a 10-minute limit, then they get the clue anyway.
I can’t remember which blonde went first, but her first answers exactly matched her partner’s. If she had stuck with Romber as the first answer, they would have gotten it right immediately. Also, I noticed that the second blonde kept the last three digits the same so she seemed pretty confident of them. I was wondering why she just didn’t try every possible first number with the same 3 last numbers. I’ve always said that if I went on something like this, I’d prearrange an easy code for this kind of situation.
I also think that they were told that they had to fly into Oakland. I hate that it came down to one task and taxis but it often happens that way.
I thought of going in and just selecting all zeroes for the code or something like that, but the teams clearly had no opportunity to talk to each other once they knew the nature of the task, so I don’t know how that could have been worked out reliably. I did think that the time limit hampered the excitement of the task, though.
One question I had - I know they had to do a detour in Hawaii (that surfboard thing or the underwater cave). But was there a Roadblock at any point? I kept waiting for Danielle to have to do one, since Eric had used his up, but it didn’t look like the leg included one.
I’ve thought for a long time that TAR should have multi-step tasks that teams could complete in any order. For example: Go to point A, point B, and point C in any order you choose. At each point, a man dressed as a pasha will hand you a puzzle piece. When you have all three pieces, assemble them to form your next clue.That would be bunches more exciting, especially on the final leg, if different teams took different routes so they were all coming from different places with no knowledge of where the other teams are.
I would love it if they had more like when they told them to go to the capital of the counry Chernobyl and all but one thought it was Moscow. I would also like it if they weren’t forced to go by plane. Sure, from Djakarta to Seoul there’s not much choice, but what about from Paris to Rome? Plane or Eurorail?
They did not air anything Roadblock related. Often the Roadblocks from the first leg (I think only one has been shown through 11 seasons) and the last leg will be edited for time. Wikipedia indicates no Roadblocks aired for the first and last legs of this season and the one for Leg 7 in Poland was edited out.
Agree with zut and SaintCad about the different ways to mix up the game a bit. I would love for TAR to hire whoever put together some of the puzzles for Treasure Hunters to write some clues.
Actually I’m generally OK with allowing them to hire cabs, because it’s a trade-off of time versus the resource of available cash. Not to mention that hiring a cab is no guarantee of arriving first or even at all, with the number of times we’ve seen cabbies get lost.
Given the huge amount of cash the BQs had and the fact that they always follow cabs, I’m not so sure this is true.
If it were a trade off (time v. money), it wouldn’t bother me so much. But it seems to have no downsides. Make them read a map or pay a “cab penalty”
Hmm, it occurs to me that giving three groups of people car keys, pointing to a map, and saying “the first ones here get a million dollars” might not be the safest thing in the world.
The idea of prohibiting teams from following cabs is interesting. But then it becomes an issue of maps, and someone said that Oswald & Danny got screwed because they had an inaccurate tourist map that took them all over Guam. So where do the teams get their maps, and which one should they get if they don’t even know where they’re going to be after the next clue?
If the Amazing Producers want to put the focus on navigation, I wouldn’t mind seeing them provide more maps to the contestants, instead of making them find their own.
I would love it if they would have them get to a city and be presented with all tasks at the same time. Then it would be up to the teams to decide what order is most advantageous for them in reaching the finish line. Just a simple “Here are all of the tasks in Paris. When you have completed them all, proceed to the pit stop at…” It would be awesome because you’d see other teams along the way, but you’d never know if they’d completed all of the tasks or if this their first one.
I know the cost/logistics turned out to be prohibitive, but I really liked it in the early seasons where there was a Fast Forward on every leg. It became a question of strategy of when to use it, and it still didn’t guarantee you first place (since only the trailing teams would use it except at the very end of the race). Now, with just two FFs in the whole race, it always makes sense for the lead team to take it, and all it does is put further distance between them and the rest of the pack.
I’m also not a fan of the Yield and I hate the Intersection. I’d like to see those replaced with FFs, at least.
I like the Intersection, but I don’t like how it has been used. So far, the Intersection has always been on a Fast Forward as well as a Detour. I’d like to see the Intersection kept away from the Fast Forward (maybe the Intersection ends when the clue for the Fast Forward is given?) and also used twice in a race.
Another artificial bunching point. I’ve heard that the producers limit what airlines the contestants take so that it is more likely that they all have to take the same flight. What would be interesting is to see how long it took the teams to actually DO the Amazing Race i.e. travel time minus waiting in airports and waiting for a building to open.
I’m wondering if having the teams fly into Oakland had the double effect of limiting the flights they could take and hopefully ending up with cabbies who were less familiar with downtown SF. Although presumably airport cabbies would be, even from Oakland.
I totally agree with Robot Arm that having the teams drive themselves to the finish line would be incredibly dangerous. Yes, they’re supposed to obey speed limits; but do you think they really would, with a million dollars on the line and another team right on their tail? No, either walking, biking, taking a cab or a train, or some other mode of transportation that keeps them out from behind a wheel strikes me as being a definite liability limiter on the part of the producers.
I sailed the Eagle and while I may not have your knowledge of the lines aboard the ship they are sailing, I’ll put my general ability to clew-down right up against yours.
One more reason for flying into Oakland was to get the view of SF as they crossed the Bay Bridge. There’s less opportunity for a good skyline shot going North from SFO.