"It Was Like a Caravan of Idiots"--Amazing Race March 8, 2009

[Julie]

Almost time! That might be my favorite episode title ever.

[lorene]

And it really was like a caravan of idiots!

[Julie]

And it really was like a caravan of idiots!

It was! A great AND fitting title. How perfect.

[Rude And Not Ginger]

Good episode. The Yield was used in the best possible way - yielding the team that was already in last place.

I really like Mel & Mike, I hope they go far!

[Rude And Not Ginger]

Good episode. The Yield was used in the best possible way - yielding the team that was already in last place.

I really like Mel & Mike, I hope they go far!

Doh, I mean U-Turn, not Yield.

[Grace]

Great episode. I want to talk about the episode, but don't want to ruin it for our west coasters who haven't seen the show. Do we have spoiler tags or anything for this board?

Or, should can we at least add [R] to the subject so people are warned not to read this if they haven't seen the episode?

[Julie]

There is a way to do spoilers, though I haven't played with it.

This is a test: [spoiler:2un7oa27]Yeehaw![/spoiler:2un7oa27]

Yep, that works. Just type [ spoiler ] Your spoiler here [/ spoiler ] without spaces.

[Grace]

Hooray!

[spoiler:3fugqipo]Surely the two brothers will be the next team eliminated. They blew a huge lead! The arrived on the first flight with the other two teams and messed up so badly with the stacking and then unable to find the house that they came in second to last. I think the reason they didn't have enough cabfare was because the driver had to wait all day for them.[/spoiler:3fugqipo]

[Wash]

Spoilers should hopefully not be necessary now, so...

Over on TwoP, they were speculating that the only reason the Constructors ever found the house was that Mel spotted the cameraman down the street doing the "look at the stupid people who are standing around despondently only 15 yards from their destination" shot. I think they're probably right.

Pretty decent episode overall - a nice mix of skills in all the challenges, a good use of the U-Turn, even if it was used for all the wrong reasons, and the bobsled looked like a lot of fun. It honestly surprised me that people were so clueless when it came to the Chekhov anagram - even if you don't know any Russian playwrights, have none of you ever watched Star Trek?

Kind of disappointed to see Amanda and Kris go, they were a little bland and she did rely on him too much, but it's just so refreshing to see a young couple on this show that actually like each other. I'm surprised that there aren't any teams I'm actively rooting against this season too - Tammy and Victor are a little annoying, in that he's gone from arrogant ass to whiny ass in one episode and she's just too passive, and the Redheads' constant "We don't need a man" proclamations are a little grating, but there's definitely no Nate & Jen's out there.

I'm expecting the Stuntmen to go in the next episode or so. How they managed to spend pretty much all day looking for that house is just beyond me. I doubt they'll go all the way, but I'm liking Mel & Mike so far. I'm also impressed with the sisters and the blondes - obviously catching the earlier flight helped both teams immensely, but even without that both teams had pretty flawless runs this leg.

[mozg]

I am just hoping that at some point the 'We're flight attendants' team gets their asses handed to them. I'd like to see a final three of Luke and Margie, Kisha and Jen, and Mark and Michael.


I think those three teams are really interesting. Victor and Tammy ... eh. All he does is whine and control things. Mel and Mike are kind of boring. Jamie and Cara are no longer amusing with the 'no boys' schtick. The Christie and Jodi are also fairly boring, since the strategy of every blond female team has been to play up the blond thing. Oh, and did they mention that they're flight attendants and that they know how to get flights with connections?

[Sarahfeena]

Good episode...I loved when the u-turned team were speculating on who u-turned them and got it exactly wrong. Interesting effect of the blind u-turn...the team responsible doesn't have to take the rap, but someone else might.

[mozg]

It won't matter for this U-turn, because the U-turned team is out of the race.

[StGermain]

At least I didn't hear a word about Mel's groin.

And how in the world can so many people not have heard of Chekhov? I can understand not being familiar with his works, but not being familiar with his name? Inconceivable!

StG

[Sarahfeena]

It won't matter for this U-turn, because the U-turned team is out of the race.

True. And I agree, the team that used it did so in exactly the right way.

[Julie]

I had been kind of rooting for Mark and Michael, but dayum. They seem stupid.

The blondes can be dippy, but they also seem very aware of their dippiness. When the one said something like "I was hoping to look really smart... but I didn't" I thought that was funny. I think that was Christie? The one who did the roadblock? Still struggling with names.

The redheads are also funny, but I think their shtick would get old really fast if they're always talking about "no boys." I can't even begin to tell these two apart, but the one with her hair pulled back this episode looks so familiar but I can't place her.

There was a thread on the dope a while back about deaf people that said the deaf often have problems with written language, so Luke might have been at an extreme disadvantage there.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

I found this episode kind of boring. It was strange that they revealed the transportation snafu in retrospect, rather than showing players reactions as it developed.

A wood stacking challenge? Not very interesting. They chose however to show a ton of woodstacking and very little of the shutter assembly. I'd guess the shutter assembly was even more boring than the woodstacking!

Come on TAR! Don't start phoning it in on the tasks.

I guess I was also a little underwhelmed by the blind u-turn after they'd been hyping the big new thing coming this week.

Here's hoping for more next week.

[Hentor the Barbarian]

Unfortunely, the Domebo quote buttons don't seem to work on my Palm Treo, but the is in reference to Julie's comment about the deaf having problems with written language. Why did they pick Luke to do a task entitled speed reading then, I wonder? I noticed that his mother also commented on English being a second language for him as well.

[Julie]

That's true, Hentor. The task did talk about "speed reading."

My only thought it maybe they are a little afraid of too many tasks requiring hearing, like that hang gliding task from a couple of weeks ago? I thought Kris and Amanda chose the wrong person, too, not because Kris had a problem doing it, but it wasn't a physical task so Amanda should have done it (not that it ended up mattering).

[Grace]

A wood stacking challenge? Not very interesting. They chose however to show a ton of woodstacking and very little of the shutter assembly. I'd guess the shutter assembly was even more boring than the woodstacking!

I don't understand why more people didn't pick the shutter building to begin with. Even if I'd picked the wood stacking challenge, as soon as I saw how much wood that was, I would've immediately turned around and gone to do the other task.

[mozg]

That's true, Hentor. The task did talk about "speed reading."

My only thought it maybe they are a little afraid of too many tasks requiring hearing, like that hang gliding task from a couple of weeks ago? I thought Kris and Amanda chose the wrong person, too, not because Kris had a problem doing it, but it wasn't a physical task so Amanda should have done it (not that it ended up mattering).

Margie told Luke he should do it because he is a good reader. I don't think either of them considered that it wasn't just reading words, but grabbing a bunch of letters and then unscrambling them into the name at the end.

As soon as they said 'Russian playwright', however, I knew it was Chekhov. I haven't read any of his plays, and I'm not an expert on Russian theater, but I did think everybody knew the famous Russian writers... Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Nabokov and Turgenev. I would've been able to get Pushkin, Gogol and Solzhenitsyn, although spelling can be tough with the longer names. Not so much an issue if you have the letters and just need to put them in the right order. Unless you're deaf, in which case sounding it out doesn't help.

I couldn't believe so many of them had never, ever heard of Chekhov though. He's got to be in the top five of all time most famous Russian writers.

[rivulus]

My partner and I always imagine being on TAR one day, so we sit there and ask each other which task would we have picked. (I would totally have gone for the shutters. I've assembled enough furniture from a box that I'm sure we could have managed the shutters.) The thing about these two tasks is that they seemed to be pretty close together in that little town -- within walking distance. Take a glance at one, and if it looks too hard/time consuming, go do the other. One look at those gigantic wood piles and I would have gone running to the shutters...

Oh, I had a terrible thought when whats-his-name lost his fanny pack. We had a lot of Bosnian immigrants in our old neighborhood, and there was a BIG divide between the majority of the Bosnians and the few households of Bosnian gypsies. There was a lot of badmouthing of the gypsies and blaming random stuff on them. Apparently, I absorbed more of the bad vibe than I thought... because when the fanny pack went missing, I immediately assumed that the gypsies stole it. And then spent the rest of the episode flagellating myself for thinking that!

[Spiny Norman]

A wood stacking challenge? Not very interesting. They chose however to show a ton of woodstacking and very little of the shutter assembly. I'd guess the shutter assembly was even more boring than the woodstacking!

I don't understand why more people didn't pick the shutter building to begin with. Even if I'd picked the wood stacking challenge, as soon as I saw how much wood that was, I would've immediately turned around and gone to do the other task.

People get target fixated, and I can easily see why one would go for the laborious-but-simple(-looking) task rather than a multi-stage build-find-and-mount one. Even so, walking around with the shutters & ladders was idiotic. Locate the spot as fast as possible - i.e., at a brisk jog - carrying nothing. If you absolutely must have 3 teams dragging their gear all over the place, SPLIT UP! (Not a Hasher in the crowd, obviously. It's a check, you idiots. Split up to find the trail. Ahem.)

I was surprised at how many people hadn't heard of Chekhov, yet came up with the name in what looked like relatively few tries. I can't help but think that they must have come across it, but not consciously filed it under "Russian Playwrights".

Dammit, but I love this show.