"THAT MAY HAVE BEEN THE WORST LEG RUN BY ANY TEAM EVER": So tweeted our good friend Linda Holmes tweeted tonight regarding The Amazing Race, and since I haven't been around for a few weeks to liveblog this season it's a good question with which to start. My immediate reaction was that The Groanies' decision to fly from Brazil to South Africa via NYC and London was a bigger snafu, but as she pointed out "this contained more DIFFERENT bad decisions and more KINDS of bad decisions" than that singularly bad error.
So, where does tonight rank in Race history, with a team Dan Fienberg called "impressively stupid," "pretty astoundingly stupid," and "pretty mind-bogglingly stupid"?
I'm not sure if it was "bad decisions" so much as random freaking out. And all credit to Kynt for remaining supportive the entire time and not going all "My Ox Is Broken!"
ReplyDeleteThat said, not stopping to ask for directions is inexcusible, as is not having the passports. Passports and travel docs should be kept in the front pocket of the pants in these situations. Period.
Nate and Herb stopping their bus to pick up Ron and Christina: nice or stupid?
ReplyDelete<p>Nice - and canny, if you can convince the team that speaks Chinese that they owe you a favor.
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Smart. If they assumed that Kent and Vyxsin were out of the Race, there was no risk to helping them.
ReplyDeleteAlso, have the teams not watched the show enough to know that when Phil greets "You are the _____th team to arrive" rather "You are team number ______," something is up? (Either you're about to get penalized or get a "keep racing" message.)
ReplyDeleteI don't mind double-length legs in concept, but this time, it sure seems like the outcome is a foregone conclusion and they tried to wring more drama out of this leg than there was. (Did we need to spend so much time with them lost on the way to Narita?)
My concern is more with the fact that we've had, what, 4 weeks of show? And 2 "To Be Continued" endings? If this is because we won't have official NELs, then I'll grudgingly accept it, but I just don't think it makes for compelling TV. It it wasn't obvious earlier, then it sure was clear that we weren't going to have a real ending to the episode when we hit the 51 minute mark and teams were still pounding the candy (not a euphemism) and lugging the horn (also not a euphemism). The editing delivered a bit fat zero on the tension meter.
ReplyDeleteThe pseudo-NEL was, I assume, designed to improve the leg; since all of the teams were going to be on the same flight to China, a two-part leg gives them a chance to not arbitrarily eliminate the team that happens to have the slowest yak. TPTB could not have known ahead of time that one team would make a sequence of egregious errors that would put them hours behind the other teams.
ReplyDeleteI get that we want each episode to be exciting, but what tension could there really have been?
Matt, that's exactly what I was wondering too, because both times he's said it this season, I said to my husband, "That's weird. If Phil doesn't say, 'You're the first team to arrive,' then it usually means a penalty." Since these guys have been on the race before, you'd think the change in verbiage would indicate something is up.
ReplyDeleteOh, Kynt and Vyxsin. I have to say, I'm glad that Kynt botched the fanny pack just so that they're both culpable for one of the worst legs ever.
Needle in a haystack tension, though it ended up (at least appearing) not nearly as grueling as I thought from the description.
ReplyDeleteBut, Christine jumping out of a moving bus? Stupid.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I can't believe Christina hasn't thrown Ron off of a moving vehicle.
ReplyDeleteYou think that when these folks finish a leg they're coherent enough to hear anything beyond their number?
ReplyDeleteI thought the episode was meh, so I'll just ask how it is possible that we have not yet noted that Christina and Azaria are engaged???
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