'The Amazing Race' on CBS HD - Page 24

Speaking of abacus lady, when one of the two last teams walked by her I noticed the whitish colored shawl almost covered the abacus. IOW, the woman was more incognito than actively using the device.

Of course it is - as I keep telling my wife it is in the "script".

She gets very mad at me when I do that. She watches just about all of the reality shows and I don't watch any. But I hear her comments during the show and I check on them for her here.

Sooo glad this is back. What a sad story about the girl with no legs, wow, she sure has a strong will.

Those race blinders sure were on full force in this episode, that team was first and just blew their lead. Good to see so many teams telling lies and not helping teams. It is a competition for $2 million, not a competition to make friends.

I like the dramatic difference between the "fans of the show" and two normal people. The fans misdirected the Chippendales to knock a strong team out while one couple essentially gave away the chance of to win a million dollars. I mean if your going to be competitive for one leg this was the leg to do it on.
Edited by spid - 10/3/12 at 11:54am

Every time I think the teams are really missing something totally obvious, I think about how I feel on that first day in Europe after the overnight flight from California. To put it plainly, I'm pretty freaking stupid. It's only pure luck that I haven't been hit by a truck from not looking the right way in London, or walked into a river, or something equally boneheaded.

And flying west to east is harder than flying east to west for most people, it's often hot as hell in their destination city (as it was this time), they don't speak the language, etc. etc. And they aren't just trying to stay awake until it's time to check into the hotel and get some sleep, they are running all around. As much as I'd like to see teams really read the clues and try not to miss the obvious, I do try to cut them some slack. I would make the worst team ever seem like Lewis & Clark by comparison.

Excellent point. My first trip overseas w/my wife was to London. We had no clue where we were going, despite hours of preparation on my part. My wife also almost got run over by one of their famous taxis. Stupid foreigners!

Pappy! You know it just wouldn't be right unless you had at least one producer conspiracy theory to rail against each season right? They're deliberately trying to frack with you Paps! Those bastards!!



It was definitely noticeable from a viewer standpoint that she seemed more "engaged" at some times than others for sure. But I think that it's mostly just a matter of time/duration/focus. It's something I've thought of over the years watching the show. I wonder how many hours she had to sit there looking like she was computing on her abacus? To just sit there for hours on end pretending to be figuring something out surely begins to take it's toll and it looked like she was getting a bit bored or tired near the end there to me. Same with the ping pong champion girl too. And since they use regular, non-actor, local people many often seem like they don't completely understand what is going on or exactly how their actions can influence the players as well. It's just one of the variables the players have to deal with. But of course there will always be those like rgathright above who proclaim that the show is "scripted" or rigged....



Yep. It's got to be much more difficult than some of the armchair/couch contestants seem to think. No question that many of the players really do turn out to just be bad, but there's way more to it than that. I'm quite sure that most of the contestants feel like they're going to be able to cruise through before they actually get down to it as well. Then the reality of the situations/conditions kicks in and they're served a nice big slice of humble pie. The smarter teams often make mistakes too, especially early on, but they seem to learn from them going forward.


ron

It's definitely harder than it looks from the armchair.

We ran a Challenge Nation (http://www.challengenation.com/) race in NYC this summer. While we were just doing it for fun and knew we weren't finishing anywhere near the top, we did treat it somewhat seriously. There was one clue where we didn't fully follow the directions and were penalized for it in the end. It was a stupid mistake, but in the heat (literally and figuratively) of a race, it's pretty easy to miss something that might seem simple otherwise. I think we wound up finishing in about the top 40% (I think there were over 100 teams that finished).

If anyone is in a city where they have a Challenge Nation race, you should definitely give it a look, especially if you are an Amazing Race fan. They really sent us all over the city. We had to take a subway from downtown to midtown and we did cover a lot of ground in just a few hours. It was pretty funny that, in such a large city and with only 100 teams or so, we wound up constantly running into different teams in the subway and near locations where the clues directed us to go.

Damn, that sounds like a blast. I would love to take part in something like that, but I can't run anymore after back surgery so it would be a waste of time "strolling" around.

Didn't really need to run (if you don't really care where you finish), but there was a lot of walking. Most teams were in it for the fun and maybe 10 very competitive teams looking to win. The winning team finished in an astonishing 1:16. We finished in 2:21.

Here's the clue sheet if anyone is interested:
http://imgur.com/h77PW

I'm way too competitive to do it just for fun. Especially since I see it's a regional qualifier type thing that leads to a national championship.

I'm a little late to the party as just last night I was able to catch up on Ep 1 and watched last nights show right after. I'm already getting frustrated because my initial picks are being eliminated. This season is better than the last as there are a couple of teams that I can root for. However, interestingly, there isn't a team (yet) that annoys me so much that I'm rooting for them to get knocked out. Fallopian tubes and bad cabbies.....what a day!

Those Sri Lankan sisters are a hoot. I hope they stay around for the duration. Phil's reaction to the stink was priceless.

It's pretty obvious they are trying to shed prizes. Its also consistent with people here saying that most people don't redeem prizes because they don't want to pay tax on them.

As to the collusion thing if you have that team who can win $2M in the final 3, I think that's a real possibility if that team gets to the final 3 and has any kind of ally in the final 3. I'm surprised nobody else has thought of this since the announcement of this potential $2M prize.
Edited by pappy97 - 10/8/12 at 8:20pm

Not rooting against the monster truck team? I think I might be Their comments last night trying to justify ending up on the wrong flight were odd. I guess it's good they didn't panic when they didn't see a team in Hong Kong, but teams aren't uber-competitive aren't fun IMHO. They were saved by an obvious bunching point in this last ep, in fact that was one of the more blatant bunching points in TAR history as they didn't actually have to do anything but ride on a motorbike driven by someone else for a minute.

I think you can make a case that Amy & Daniel are gone more so because of the bunching point that saved the Monster Truck Pair than the bad cabbie. No way could the Monster Truck team make up being hours behind without the bunching point.
Edited by pappy97 - 10/8/12 at 8:19pm

Not that saying this can change anything for the current race, but instead of getting the first flight out. Maybe check flights to see when they ARRIVE.

Many seasons do offer flights that depart an hour apart yet arrive in the opposite order. This time it didn't happen, but it's always fun to watch when it does

I think the Sri Lankan girls are extremely annoying. Their voices grate on me and their constantly saying the same thing over and over is driving me crazy.

What was up with that short guy not being able to tie a balloon? Seriously? Wow, that was kind of sad.

That seriously may have been the dumbest and biggest waste of time I've ever seen on this show. What did that even prove or accomplish? No one actually beat the bulls as far as I saw, so what was the point. Just hand over the next clue in 5 minute increments and it would have served the same purpose.

I'll bet they actually had something more intricate planned but the producers pulled it out at the last minute. Maybe to make sure the racers made it to a later event at a certain time. Or maybe because there were some safety concerns with what they originally planned. The last thing they want is for a racer to get killed doing something. Of course, there have been many injured racers throughout the seasons. Whatever it was, I do agree it seemed rather pointless.

I think the racers should have ridden the bulls. Looked like it would be fun...well, for somebody younger than me.

I was more worried for the bull's safety than I was the contestants. Those poor animals looked like they were going to crash and burn hard.

I cannot stand them either, the sooner they go out the better. The look on the guys face trying to tie the balloons was strange, he acted like it took a huge feat of strength.

That's just it: I used to just rail on bunching points, but I do get it: you just can't have teams even half-days apart, let alone, say, 24 hours apart, because of the logistics with the crew and stuff. But if you are going to do a bunching point, it should have some kind of task, not just a way to reduce everyone's several hour lead over the Monster Truck Team to a few minutes without a real task.

Maybe as another poster said there was a task that was scrapped, but that would be giving TAR producers too much credit. It seems like, given the travel from China to Indonesia, they just wanted a pure bunching point without a task, IMHO.

I don't know how valid it is that few redeem the prizes, but if it is that would seem to be even less of a reason to get rid of them to me. But really I suspect they may not be much of a real cost to begin with anyway. I bet they are pretty much all provided gratis or for very low cost in exchange for the promotion their inclusion and description in the show provide. Just like the cars they use in the show etc. These days with DVRs and commercial skipping that kind of in-show promotion is quite valuable, especially for at least partially targeted viewing audiences like TAR probably has (travelers etc).



Yeah, the monster truck dude seems pretty overbearing and not very likeable to me too. I even cringed a little at the way he yelled at his wife for no real reason right before they hit the mat. I understand the pressure and all but still....



Me too. It's not like I dislike them as people or something but they seem to constantly be soooo loud and obnoxious. They would drive me crazy in no time.


ron

I remember reading somewhere that contestants sign that any hint of prize collusion on these type shows is a disqualification & forfeit of any prizes...
I believe on Survivor & Big Brother just being caught discussing prize collusion is grounds for expulsion...

I can't remember exactly what Phil said, but something he said made me initially think that the contestants were going to ride the bulls not the mopeds. And my first thought was someone's going to get seriously hurt doing this. So I think they must have decided that having the contestants ride on that timber behind the bulls was too dangerous. The fact that the mopeds usually lost to the bulls tends to support the theory that the contestants were supposed to ride the bulls and mostly win with just a couple of teams losing to the mopeds and falling behind.

I can't recall seeing a Travelocity commercial so far this season. I wonder if Travelocity dropped their sponsorship or dialed it way back and that's why we aren't seeing all the travel prizes.

I doubt Uncle Sam cares how much The Amazing Race paid for the prizes. I'd assume they would still tax the recipient at the "retail" price.

I think that's probably right, but we were debating the cost to the show and whether reducing expenditures on prizes was their big focus or not. I don't doubt that at least some contestants of game shows may decline prizes because they can't afford the extra tax cost, but I've always wondered why those people wouldn't just sell the prizes/services if they really didn't want them or couldn't afford the taxes, and then keep the difference. I suppose it would come down to the tax valuation as you mention and just how much they might be able to get for them to see whether it penciled out or not.


ron