Because that increases your odds of being U-Turned later in the race. I really don’t understand how this is confusing, especially since we just saw, in this very episode, one team get U-Turned for no other reason than that another team didn’t like them.
Other teams liking you is much less important than other teams not disliking you. When other teams like you, they might team up with you to do a particularly difficult task together. That can be a big help, but it’s still dwarfed by the downside of another team disliking you: They are much more likely to U-Turn you.
If that’s true, then you have strong incentive to keep their save intact. The longer a bad team stays in the race the better your chances to go further.
There may actually be another practical reason not to force the Dentists to use the Save:
Remember that the goal through most of the legs is not to get eliminated, or to put it another way, to make sure it’s alway some other team that gets eliminated. Forcing the Dentists to use the Save just means that some other team is not eliminated. If you have a choice, it would be better to narrow the field and eliminate someone, so long as you can be sure that someone is not you.
Or, to be more clear: come leg nine (when the Save is no longer in play anyway), would you rather be in a Race with four teams and a NEL coming up, or a Race with five teams and no NEL? Because forcing the use of a Save makes the latter more likely.
In the early going, before you’ve got your bearings, you want to keep more teams around because it gives you more chances to screw up… because someone else could screw up even worse.
Agreed, zut. I thought of that one as I was brushing my teeth this morning.
If the save really does take the place of a NEL, you don’t want the save used because it can’t be used on you, only on the dentists. A NEL can be used on you.
But does the Save mean that no one is eliminated that leg or does the Save mean that the next-to-last team gets eliminated instead of the holders of the Save? In other words, had last week not been an NEL, would Bethany & Adam have gone home because the Dentists had the Save? I’ve been thinking it’s the latter, that teams now had to make sure to come in at least 2 from the bottom rather than just not last in order to not get eliminated.
If I was correct, you want them to burn it on a leg where you’re near the top, so that in a leg where you’re near the bottom, you don’t have to worry about beating two other teams. If I was wrong and the Save just turns a leg into an NEL for the team holding it, then there’s no reason to try to get them to burn it.
No, I don’t think that’s the case at all. Once you check in at the mat and Phil says “You are team #–”, you’re checked in and safe. If the Dentists come in two hours behind everyone, and use their Save, there is no way Phil is going to find the second-to-last team resting at the Pit Stop and tell them, “Oh by the way, haha nevermind, you are now eliminated!”
I’m not actually sure how the Save works, but I’m reasonably sure the teams themselves know what happens when the Save is used. Based on the fact that Bethany & Adam weren’t particularly worried about landing in next-to-last place, and that the Dentists had to explain that they didn’t use the Save (when clearly there were no eliminations), I’d conclude that the Save means no one is eliminated on that leg.
I can’t imagine the Save would eliminate a team that wasn’t last. I would guess it creates a “floating NEL” and if never used the next leg after it expires will be a NEL (but won’t be if the Save gets used before that).