THEY CLEARLY DON'T KNOW HOW TO PAINT: After 14 previous seasons of The Amazing Race (we don't count the Family Edition). you'd think teams understand that reading the instructions might be important during a racearoundtheworld. We saw more dumb mistakes during this leg of the Race than we have in quite some time, and if there's one thing I don't like on my Race it's bad racing. Seriously, Bertram van Munster: how about casting people for the show on the basis of who'd be really good at it, rather than on whose backstory seems most interesting?
[Also, a first on the Race: the 15 minute penalty. Let us never see it again.]
You may have favorites (or hateds) already; you may have nicknames for them which we can spread across the Internets. (Fienberg's getting started.) Do share.
I found the lesbians loathsome, so you can probably guess my nickname for them. I don't understand women who like to brag about being prima donnas. It's unlikely that the Race will ask you to find the closest Louis Vuitton and if your idea of roughing it is not using the valet, stay home. I know it's hyperbole. It grates.
ReplyDeleteThe brothers were also insufferable.
I like the Grands (-daughter and -mother) and the attorneys. I felt bad for Miss SC as I imagine it gets pretty old to have to be self-deprecating all the time. The cowboys were pleasantly surprising.
Oh: could someone please confirm for Dan (I'm curious too) whether a ride on the Olympic skeleton track was announced as part of the 1st-place reward?
ReplyDeleteIt was and I did confirm for him.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine actually knows the cowboys, and insists they are incredibly nice people, especially Cord, the redhead. So I am pulling for them I guess. Also, Fienberg is wrong in that they did not prove themselves to be hicks from Texas, but hicks from Oklahoma...
ReplyDeleteAgree with Meghan's sentiment regarding the lesbians.
I thought it was nice that the team that got eliminated tonight did not seem like the type that will spend the rest of their life killing themselves over what might have been. Seemed like a happy couple.
I agree w/Meghan re both the lesbians and the brothers (the snickering comments about Miss SC really grated). Happily, I don't dislike any of the other teams, and I have the WFC Phillies' 3rd base coach to root for.
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ReplyDeleteI'd suggest a new requirement for anyone planning to be on The Amazing Race: spend a couple hours playing "Can you name all the countries of the world?" on Sporcle. Then you'd know that Brazil and Chile may share a continent, but so do Libya and South Africa, and they're not exact the same country, with a common language or currency. Or, maybe, just read all the letters in your clues. So then if you see a country name that's five letters and starts with "C" you won't automatically assume it's China and try to book a flight there. (Shame on the TAR editors that we didn't get to see how she untangled that one.) Don't even get me started on people who sign up for the show with a fear of heights (or water or driving stick or eating meat or seeing bearded men or whatever other phobia is going to trip someone up this season.)
This appears to be the most mactor/worst "race around the world prepared" group we've seen. And sadly, one of the least interesting. Too many Jordans, too many people self-defined by their sexual orientation, too many people who already seem to be unenthusiastic travellers. It's only the first leg people! Why are you already exhausted and confused ?
As far as teams, I'm not liking the Louis Vitton women, and the brothers. (If I had to keep one RI team, it'd be the undercover cops. Though, I'd imagine their careers are over after tonight, unless the slimy drug cartels they try to infiltrate are TV-free) I didn't mind the two lawyers, except - Momtrapreneurs? That's one of the stupidest team self names ever. And I could have dealt with the cowboys if they weren't currency idiots and kept getting slowed down by their hats. Favorite team: probably marathon gramma and her grand-daughter.
And also, while I would have found many previous challenges daunting, this week's Roadblock would have been awesome! Beautiful views that could be enjoyed while you just went hand over hand the whole way? What's not to love!
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1. Gay Brother needs to shut up pronto. Straight brother seems relatively inoffensive. They clearly know race rules and are paying attention, based on the crazed hunt for a paintbrush.
ReplyDelete2. The 30 minute penalty for walking rather than funnicular seemed excessive. Doin git that way, was, if anything, likely slower.
3. A strategy question--once it became clear that Adrian was not going to be able to make it across the wire, shouldn't they have bailed and just taken the penalty? Seemed like enough teams had a hard enough time with the next task that a strategic immediate bailout might have been the right call there. (See, e.g., Rahb and the meat.)
4. Given that Big Brother seems to be built around the concept of "stick loathsome people in a house and watch them act like morons" and that one of the more loathsome people typically wins, I was pleasantly surprised by that team.
5. What's the over/under for "leg in which Killer Fatigue hits the Lesbians?" Because I'm taking the under.
6. Really liked the "you must get to LAX by public transport," though that got undermined by events beyond the Race's control with the flights.
As far as I'm concerned, the lesbians are Team Christy Cummings. (I will also accept Team Best in Show.)
ReplyDeleteDamn, my blackberry won't let me leave my name. Team Christy is from me.
ReplyDelete-marsha
This is one of the least interesting/most loathsome casts that TAR has come up with in a while. The cowboys did some good catchup racing, but they also converted all of their money into Brazilian Reals.
ReplyDeleteCrud. Missed it. Assumed that the DVR would roll over from last season, but forgot that we have Amazing Race 15 on the schedule, so Amazing Race 16 did not record. I assume there's nowhere to watch before next week?
ReplyDeleteFolks, I'm not seeing "most loathsome" at all. At least at this point, there don't appear to be any raging 'roid heads like we've had in the past, and IMO, no one that's truly hateable yet. It's the first episode, so personalities are still shaking out, but I feel good so far.
ReplyDeleteFor example, I already adore the cowboys and have a good feeling about the grandmother/granddaughter. Caite isn't nearly as odious as I thought she might be, and in fact, she made me laugh a few times ... with her, even, not at her. Though like gay brother Jordan, I couldn't have resisted a "the Iraq" reference. And I absolutely could not stop laughing when Coach & Daughter painted the inside of the wrong house.
I will agree with Hannah Lee's comment about "too many people self-defined by their sexual orientation." Dating Models, High-School Sweethearts, the Asian husband & wife ... why can't they just be racers first and heterosexuals second? Oh wait, that's probably not what was meant.
@JSG: I think I missed an episode or two last season, and I feel like I was able to watch them somewhere -- if not CBS.com, then perhaps a digital download from Amazon.
I agree that I didn't find any of the teams to be loathsome, which was a pleasant surprise.. After all, I don't think we had a single incidence of anyone yelling at their partner, and that's seemst to be a first for a TAR 1st episode. But, damn, none of them seem like they could win this thing. My wife and I always bet on the winner after the opening interviews, and on my first pass through I had precisely zero candiates to choose from. That's never happened before. Weak, weak, slate of competitors.
ReplyDeleteAll in all though, my favorite things about TAR are 1) Smart racing, 2) Stupid Racing, 3) Seeing happy couples see the world. I seem likely to get a lot of #2 and #3 this season, so that's alright. And the Big Brother couple seeming nice, and even a little bit competent? Stunning.
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The episode is already up at CBS.com. I'll be catching it later today.
ReplyDeleteLots of teams throughout Race history have claimed that they'll do well because "other teams will underestimate us." Last night, we saw other teams actually underestimate Miss Teen SC, culminating in her completing the Roadblock in first place.
ReplyDeleteThis would be awesome, except that they then:
a) misread the clue and descended the hill on foot
b) got lost looking for the next task, resulting in them not even being first pre-penalty.
So, perhaps the other teams misunderestimated them.
On another note, immediately post-race, I flipped over to Olympic coverage, just in time to watch a Canadian pair in figure skating. They were, in a word, awesome. They did great jumps, they were in sync on their spins, they did super-cool moves together. I was blown away, and then they get their scores, and they're in second, and the Chinese pair is in first... by TWELVE FREAKIN' POINTS. That had to have been the Greatest Short Program Evir, like they were doing quadruple jumps and levitating in their anti-gravity skates.
I can't figure out why this show isn't in HD yet...don't they have HD cameras portable enough to go on a racearoundtheworld?
ReplyDeleteLoved that Team "The Iraq and Such As" got tripped up on details (and Caite still maintained that she's proving herself smart so far), but disagree with the 30 minute penalty...usually in a transportation mix-up the Race penalizes you for the time you gained by not following the instructions, and it doesn't seem that they either gained or lost time by walking down.
Haven't figured out enough about the teams to love/hate any of them, but I do find it annoying how many people cited a fear of heights...do you really think you're going to get through the Race without experiencing heights of some kind? Heck, the first leg of nearly every season involves a rope walk/bungee jump/skydive/zip line kind of thing.
The penalty for not following instructions is thirty minutes PLUS any time advantage gained. If they didn't gain any time, then it's just thirty minutes.
ReplyDeleteWack...my bad.
ReplyDeleteI loved the "use public transportation" in LA opening, although the express bus from downtown made that simpler than it might have been.
ReplyDeleteI don't know anything about skating or how they score it, but the Chinese pair skated the most unbelievable program I have ever seen. It was beautiful. And they had drawn the short straw and ended up skating 1st so it's shocking that the judges scored that high. But they definitely deserved to be #1. Can't really tell you if there should be that big of a difference between 1st and 2nd but if they skate like that again tonight, they absolutely deserve the gold.
ReplyDeleteFound a video at NBC. Yeah, they were pretty good. And anyone who picks the Highlander soundtrack for their program is okay by me.
ReplyDeleteI concur with the broader point, actually. I'd actually rather people define by their careers/experience, etc. than by the fact that they're models who are dating. That's not particularly interesting.
ReplyDeleteIdeally, it will be their personalities that define them, like Ken & Gerard (gay brother/straight brother) or the Guidos. The labels they're given in the first episodes, when the producers are still hoping we can tell all of them apart, don't matter so much to me. (Though honestly, as a gay person, I will always remember the gay-inclusive teams first, not that I'll necessarily root for them.) One of the things I love most about The Amazing Race is its inclusiveness -- race, age and especially sexual orientation. YMMV, but when most scripted shows still don't bother to give us a full picture of our world, I love that I can still trust TAR to get it right.
ReplyDeleteOnce you choose who's going to do a Road Block, are you stuck with that decision, i.e., Partner X must complete it or quit and take a penalty, or can Partner X quit and have Partner Y complete it?
ReplyDeletePretty sure it's the former. You decide who's going to do it, and you're committed to that person doing it. Also, you make the decision before you find out what the task actually is (though the clue usually gives you a reasonable idea, and it's usually in view of the task itself, so it's rarely a blind choice).
ReplyDelete