KELLYCLARKSON! Oh, there were moments during tonight's Amazing Race finale (kudos to Luke's t-shirt at the map, and the incident occasioning the post title), but as Linda Holmes tweeted: "I enjoyed you, Amazing Race, but you don't know how to build a race anymore. That was an appallingly designed leg."
The tasks simply didn't provide the level of challenge which any episode of the show is supposed to provide, and especially the finale. What was the degree of difficulty? Where was the physical effort or memory test? the task that required patience?
What I treasure in this show is when it rewards skill. Tonight's ep didn't, with one exception I'll leave to below the fold. Yes, we have a winner, and it wasn't unjust, but it wasn't justified either. It just happened.
I'm actually satisfied with how Zev and Justin were eliminated: part of Race strategy is figuring out which Roadblocks go to your weaker competitor. Without a chart in front of me, I'm still going to assume that there was some earlier task that Zev could have done which would have left more flexibility for Justin to take on the dancing here.
He was the race and I was the amazing.
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It got very dusty in my living room just then.
Agree wholeheartledly, Adam. Two poorly designed legs. There were very, very few chances for anyone to get ahead by anything other than luck, and I really hate that.
ReplyDeleteWould someone please get Flight Time and Big Easy their own show on the Travel Channel? They are just so damned watchable.
I actually didn't mind the first leg--the waxing was a FIFO challenge, but there was actual skill involved in the rest. Indeed, it certainly seemed that the mixing task enabled Zev and Justin to make up some time. What it looked like to me was that they might have visited the mixing task first and realized that everyone was there, and their only chance to make up time was to try the other end of the detour.
ReplyDeleteThe final leg, however? A bunch of pure "find this place" tasks tied together with rounds of taxi roulette.
Also, loved the Amazing Editors' cut from Justin explaining that someone would have to be drunk to buy a bikini from them to the rows of caprihinas sitting out.
ReplyDeleteI wish that they would have the final city be somewhere with public transportation so they could eliminate the taxi element from the last leg. That's really what decided that last leg - a bad taxi. Of course, I am still befuddled why Gary & Mallory kept that taxi for so long.
ReplyDeleteTaxis have proven relevant and exciting in the past in finales--recall Uchenna and Joyce begging for money so they could pay their taxi driver or Colin and Christie's incredible use of Earl the Maniac Town Car driver.
ReplyDeleteI don't mind a little taxi drama/karma, but I'd prefer to see more "find your way" or "drive yourself" instructions in the final city. Not to take anything away from J&K, who were as worthy as anyone among the final three teams, but basically everything that happened in Miami was dictated by taxis - not just G&M's awful luck, but the Globies' cabbie had to stop for directions, which allowed J&K to take the lead. Particularly where you have fairly evenly matched teams (as here), and a set of tasks that don't require skill or knowledge, it just seems dumb NOT to let the racers decide the race.
ReplyDeleteAgree with Adam's general point in the post about Roadblock strategery, but I just wanted to add that I thought Justin and Zev made the right Detour choice, even though the bikini selling didn't pan out. (Really? Beachgoers are that demure in Rio? That's not what I learned from Michelle Johnson, Demi Moore, and Michael Caine.) J&Z took a shot at the road less traveled, which was really their only chance at that point to pull themselves out of last place.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think the Trotters said when Zev and Justin arrived to "start" mixing drinks that "they're back," which implied to me that they might have visited the drink detour first, realized everyone else was doing it and it would be hard to make up time on it and took the calculated risk.
ReplyDeleteAnd while I've never been to Rio, I rather expect that contributing to the inhibiition were the HD camera crews following Zev and Justin around. I can totally see that being harmful to the chances.
The problem here is that they were dependent on one taxi -- the locations were remote enough that you couldn't switch cabs once you left the airport. (Hence the ~$340 allocation for this leg of the race.)
ReplyDeleteAnd the trailer park task was STOOPID.
Even with the amount of ass-pixelation that was going on down at the beach?
ReplyDeleteWhat did Luke's t shirt say?
ReplyDeleteI figured other cultural factors were in play -- pasty Americans speaking garbled Spanish are not your best sellers of bikini tops.
ReplyDeleteThe final leg of last season was just taxi around L.A. Taxi Roulette is fine earlier in the race, but in the final leg, give the teams a damn car and let them make the navigational mistakes, not some rando driver.
ReplyDeleteExactly. I'd have no problem at all if last night's finish had been the result of the Globies themselves having to stop to ask for directions, or Gary & Mallory getting themselves hopelessly lost and refusing to stop and ask someone for help until it was way too late.
ReplyDeleteIt was something like "Sinister Deaf Kid."
ReplyDelete(That said, the leg construction still sucked.)
ReplyDelete<span>Agreed wholeheartedly on the disappointment of allowing random taxi karma to fully dictate the winner. And a big boo for the trailer park challenge in place of a skill/memory challenge that could have reshuffled everyone and that, I suspect, might have given the edge to G&M.</span>
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<span>I don't begrudge J&K their win (and feel not-terrible about that money represented something real to them, and not just the glory of first place), but it seemed like pure luck at the end of a string of middle-of-the-pack racing all season. It just doesn't seem right that a team that didn't win a single leg (and never much impressed with strategy) stumbled into the final win. Totally agree that the transportation in the final leg should be much, much more self-directed.</span>
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<span>Also, not that it mattered all that much, but while a seven-mile bike ride was surely hard, there was clearly no drama in it . . . as Big Easy said, they could see by Mile 2 that there was just no possible way to overtake J&K (and they were the one team that might have been able to pose a realistic last-ditch hurrah on a purely physical challenge). </span>
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<span>The final four finished in the exact reverse order of my rooting order. Alas.</span>
No final task will ever be lamer than the Season 7 split a deep dish pizza "challenge" in Chicago, but this was pretty close...
ReplyDeleteYou know how the waxing task could have been made awesome? Make it a FastForward, and be specific about what had to be done--pits, legs, arms perhaps. Pretty sure Zev & Justin wouldn't have gone for it, but the other teams might have.
ReplyDeleteI was okay with Kisha and Jen winning but disappointed in the construction of the leg. I knew they'd be better than the Globetrotters at anything detail-oriented. I just figured the detail would be the memory task about the trip. I didn't think it would be as vapid as "Floridians like trailer-park living. Make a stereotypical Florida trailer."
ReplyDeleteThe waxing...it was painful to know that Zev and Justin were going to have to go through it. I loved Flight Time trying to impress the esthetician with his rippling stomach and she was all, "Eh." I do love the Globetrotters and would watch them again.
another annoying thing: At no point during this season of the Race did money management matter.
ReplyDeleteAgree with what everyone's said already. I miss the days of truly daunting tasks and fast-forwards - Uchenna and Joyce shaving their heads is particularly memorable, but there were others that were equally as "second thoughts" provoking in the early seasons.
ReplyDeleteThe waxing has to be one of my least favorite tasks ever. Pointless, FIFO, and utterly mean.
ReplyDeleteChiming in late, after watching it in a 2-day extravaganza with my kids, to say that it was pretty obvious from the mid-show interviews who was going to win; K&J were totally giddy. That might have been the worst editing of all.
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