Amazing Race: week 3

Sorry not to have posted last week, but I was psyching myself up for Survivor.

I’d like to offer some advice to competitors on the Amazing Race: think about the challenges before you decide who will perform the Roadblock and which Detour you’ll do. For example:

1. If you're afraid of flying, don't choose the challenge that involves travelling in a helicopter (loud "gay" bloke take note).
   
2. If you're afraid of heights, don't volunteer for the challenge that involves climbing a building and rappelling back down the side (one of the Danielles - and I totally don't care which of you it was - take note).
   
3. If you’re at a swimming pool (even in Moscow) there’s an extremely high likelihood that the challenge will involve swimming. If you can’t swim, don’t offer to do the challenge before you know what it is (the wife in this year’s token black couple, take note).
   
4. If you’re at a swimming pool and you know the challenge involves jumping off a diving platform and then duck diving to retrieve the next clue, and you’re mortally terrified of deep water, don’t offer to do the challenge (Desiree, take note).
   
5. If you are the partner of one of these people, and you know that there’s a really good chance they’ll freak out and freeze, say something. Or perhaps don’t, because it does make kinda good television.

Some other observations:

1. The "hippies" are going to do very well on both the physical and mental challenges. They get a big tick from me for taking the time to stop and admire the Russian cathedral this week, and treat the place with the respect it deserved. From memory only one other team even bothered to look up.
   
2. The nerds are just adorable.
   
3. Phil really doesn’t like the frat boys. I haven’t seen such a tight cat’s bum mouth from him on the welcome mat since Jonathan and Victoria. Phil, I’m with you 100% on that one.
   
4. Lake’s wife either deserves a medal or sainthood or a good smack upside the head for putting up with him. Also that weird circular bandaid on the side of his neck has suddenly disappeared. I’d LOVE to hear suggestions from people on what it might have been concealing.
   

Next week we get the second half of the current Moscow leg. While this kind of programming tomfoolery normally gets up my nose, at least this week it means there's a chance the frat boys won't win it. There's also still time for the Danielles to overtake and show no sympathy when the boys stuff up. It hasn't happened yet, but it will happen. Even if I need to get involved to make it happen. They really annoy me.

Thank you Lake

Sorry seems to be the hardest word, which is a sad, sad situation in a culture where individuals no longer takes responsibility for their own behaviour.

Now, thanks to Lake-Like-The-Ocean, we have the next best thing and the phrase "That may be partially my fault" has already become a staple form of confession at our place.

Reality TV gives so much and takes so little.

Amazing Race: week 1

I probably should have taped the show since I was kind of planning to blog on it, but the contestants are just a blur of stereotypes in the first few weeks anyway, so who cares what their names are.

The last series (well, the last one we Oss-ies got to see, anyway, since Channel 7 decided to skip the series where familes of four raced around North America) had:

• an old couple;
• a black couple;
• a pair of roller girls;
• a pair of college room mates who bore a spooky resemblance to each other;
• a pair of frat boys who oggled the roller girls and the Barbie twins;
• a mother with her annoying offspring;
• a suspected wife beater; and
• a gay couple.

This season we have:

• an old couple;
• a black couple;
• a pair of roller girls who bear a spooky resemblance to each other;
• a pair of frat boys who are oggling the roller girl Barbie twins;
• an annoying mother with her offspring;
• TWO suspected wife beaters; and
• two blokes who claim to be just good friends, but take five syllables to pronounce the word "hello".

We also have a pair of self-confessed nerds and some middle-aged Texan "Glamazons", none of whom are taking the show the least bit seriously. The absolute prize for that, though, goes to BJ and Tyler, a pair of crazy cool cats who both have long hair and have been nicknamed "hippies" by the couple they nicknamed "Ken and Barbie".

There's some pretty funny names, too. The rollergirls are named Danni and Danielle. Wife beater number 1 is named 'Lake'. He introduced himself to the male member of the token black team in the following exchange:

Lake: "Hi, my name's Lake, like the ocean."
Ray: "Hi, my name's Ray, like the sun."

We saw Lake in medical scrubs, so the chances are he's not a lawyer and won't sue me for calling him a wife beater. I'm not suggesting that he (or Ken from Ken'n'Barbie ) specifically hits his wife, but you can just tell that the woman don't get a whole lot of respect or freedom. Abuse takes myriad forms, and far be it for me to laugh at such a serious issue. It's just scary that Jonathan and Victoria created so much interest - and such high ratings - that the producers now feel the need to include two relationships with that kind of dynamic.

We also got a whole lot of other typical Amazing Race moments. Yet again the teams are starting out in South America, this time Sao Paolo, Brazil. We had the token old couple staggering around and walking straight past the clue box, FIVE times, then claiming it had been moved to that spot after they walked past! Best of all we had someone not reading the instructions properly. Lake (I really don't like him, in case you hadn't guessed) started out in the back seat with the clue while his wife drove. He tells her to pull over at a phone box, and makes her phone the airport to reserve tickets on the first plane. They get back in the car with him driving this time. She reads the clue for herself and points out that they're specifically prohibited from phoning ahead to reserve tickets. He admits that the fact they're now running dog last due to the illegal roadside stop "may by partially my fault". I wonder which part wasn't his fault, and to whom the responsibility for that part rightly falls...

Amazing Race: the post-finale conspiracies

I'm having withdrawal pangs from decent Reality TV (and by that I specifically and unapologetically exclude Big Brother and Australian Idol, although I reserve the right to post about Idol if one of the contestants really bugs me).

Anyway, there was much talk at work last Friday morning about whether or not the Amazing Race producers bribed American Airlines (and remember, AA is who most of the stage winner prizes are from so they’re a major sponsor of TAR) to let Uchenna and Joyce on the same plane as Rob and Amber to make the last 20 minutes interesting. I had to know more, so I googled the topic and found a strange, scary underworld of fanatical people with waaaay too much time on their hands.

http://community.realitytvworld.com/boards/DCForumID54/1059.shtml is a particularly amusing little universe. This link should take you to the start of a topic about whether AA breached federal aviation safety rules by letting people on the plane after the door had been closed. NINETY posts!! on this topic later I found two gems that I reproduce here, hopefully without breaching copyright laws since I’m crediting the source. By all means read through all of the posts that were logged, but these were the only ones that really amused me.

The first is an interview Rob and Amber did with America’s version of TV Week. The second is an opinion from an actual AA pilot on what the rules are on letting people on a plane after the doors close, which stopped the topic dead and therefore seems to be the final word on the matter as far as TAR community is concerned. Either that or they all simulataneously found a life.


Rob and Amber Interview:

TVGuide.com: Coming to the finish line, how far behind Uchenna and Joyce were you?

Rob Mariano: We were about 30 minutes behind them, but we pretty much knew it was over when we got to the cigar shop. We were disappointed that they held that plane from Puerto Rico to Miami to let Uchenna and Joyce on. If they hadn't, we would have had the race in the bag. We were pulling away from the gate and then all of a sudden the plane backed up and the jetway was pulled out. American Airlines owes us a million bucks.

TVG: Sounds like you may have some conspiracy theories about the way this played out.

Rob: We'll leave that up to the viewers to decide. It was a bit sketchy to me. I don't know the last time you saw anyone re-open a plane door for somebody. And it wouldn't have been too dramatic if only one team was running to the finish line.

TVG: Was it difficult to relive the experience again last Tuesday night?

Amber Brkich: Yeah, watching the finale was a little rough. We had kind of forgotten about it and then, all of a sudden, all those emotions come back up again. It was tough because we were ahead pretty much the whole race and we were feeling really, really good when we got on the plane.

Rob: They didn't show it, but I was yelling and screaming at the producers on the plane. And the thing that got me is, watching the show, you didn't even really see Uchenna and Joyce lobbying that hard to open the doors. They just seemed to magically talk to the pilot somehow. In my experience, I've never been able to do that. Regardless, it's in the past and our hats are off to Uchenna and Joyce. They fought a good race, they ended up winning and we give that to them. If anybody else was going to win it besides us, we're glad it was them.

TVG: Rob, this is the second time in a row you've finished second after dominating the competition. That's got to be frustrating.

Rob: Yeah, it's tough. And Rupert ran away with that "America's Tribal Council" thing. So I've had three shots to win a million bucks — well, four shots Marquesas — and I came out second place three times. But we had a great time doing the race regardless. We got some awesome experiences out of it and we got to visit some great places and have a good time.

TVG: And you got some good prizes out of the deal, too.

Rob: It's not even close, bro. I'd trade all the prizes in a heartbeat for the first place win. I don't even want the million, I just want to come in first in something!

TVG: How does The Amazing Race compare to Survivor? Easier or harder?

Rob: It's a tough question. They're completely different shows, and I can't say which is harder. Survivor is more physically demanding on your body, but the race is definitely more stressful in the fact that you're always on the move. On Survivor, if your alliances are good, you can attain a certain comfort level where you can relax a little bit. Here, there's no relaxing. They're both a lot tougher than they look. I was blown away by the sleep depravation on the race. For the first three days, I didn't sleep at all and I was thinking, "This is like Survivor all over again!"

TVG: Did you go on the show with the intention of messing with the rules?

Rob: That's always my strategy with every game I'm playing. And not once during the race did Amber and I ever break the rules — we always played within them. But let me tell you something: Make sure your rules are well-defined, because we'll find a way around them if we have to. Some people have the philosophy that if the front door is closed, they'll sit and wait until it opens. Our philosophy is, if the front door's closed, let's go around to the back or to the roof or underneath. And I think that helped us a lot on the race.

TVG: It didn't win you many friends, though.

Amber: We've been doing this for a while now, and you learn that not everyone out there is going to love you. Your friends and family are there first and foremost. Those are the people who will love you before and after, and that's really what matters. And you know, after your first reality show, you go, "Oh, that was nice, we made a couple friends." But when you get a second chance like we did on All-Stars, you think, "OK, how many times do you get a second chance at winning a million bucks?" So this is our third shot and we're not going out there to make friends. We already have friends; we already have family.

Rob: A lot of the racers definitely had preconceived notions about us and I can see where they're coming from, to a degree. We're previous winners and you don't want the winners to win again, OK. But I think they took it to the extreme. More than half the teams out there were more concerned with whether they were beating us rather than where they were in the race. If they had paid more attention to their own game instead of what we were doing, I think they would have done a lot better. Of the teams, only Ron and Kelly really took the time to get to know us on a personal level. They would talk to us in the airports. What you don't see is that a lot of the other teams wouldn't come near us. I don't know if they were intimidated or what. But they did not make an effort, and when we made an effort to try and talk to them, they thought we were scheming.

TVG: Do you think your celebrity gave you an unfair advantage?

Rob: I don't think it gave us an unfair advantage. It definitely gave us an advantage to a degree, especially in Peru and Africa where people actually noticed us for being on Survivor. However, a lot of times, all we did was get locals to help us out. It's a simple concept and it's been done in the past. I got the idea from watching old episodes of the Race. Why the other teams never did it, I will never know. They saw us doing it, so they should have just followed our lead. But it's easy to cry about things afterwards when you don't do so well and look for excuses. I think it's obvious with a lot of the teams' post-interviews. You can see it.

Amber: I think every team has an advantage, you just have to figure out what it is. For example, Meredith and Gretchen's advantage was that they're an older couple and people kind of wanted to take care of them and help them out. So as long as you figure out what your niche is, you can use it to your advantage.

TVG: Do you think that you've left an impact on the game?

Rob: Oh, without a doubt. I wouldn't say that we impacted it in a negative way; I'd say in a positive way. We played the game differently than it's ever been played before. We've probably changed the game forever. I think people will think twice and realize that it's a competitive game for $1 million. That's a lot of money; it will change somebody's life.

TVG: You were definitely working like a well-oiled machine. How did you manage to keep the stress from impacting your relationship?

Amber: It's distracting when you waste time arguing. You'll stand there for five minutes arguing and other teams will pass you. Rob and I went into this game knowing our relationship wasn't worth $1 million, so we weren't going to throw away our relationship over that. A lot of people do go on the show and it hurts their relationships, which is unfortunate. But it's a great place to learn how to compromise. I think if you do that, you come out a better person.

TVG: There was one point where you seemed close to arguing, though, at that Fast Forward in South Africa.

Amber: Well, I wasn't talking to Rob at that particular point. So when he was telling me to make a decision I was like, "Too bad, I'm not talking to you." We had been lost for two hours and I was still mad about that. So that was one of our biggest frustration points. That was also the leg where we came in fifth place.

Rob: That was my fault also, because in retrospect, it wasn't 100 percent her decision. We were both indecisive — neither of us knew what to do. Here's the thing: We're a normal couple, just like everyone else. We do fight and we do argue. Especially when you're in that kind of situation, the stress gets to everybody. So, of course, sometimes we snap at each other, but we're smart enough to realize that we need to stop it then and there. Like everything in life, it's about compromise.

TVG: So what's next for you both? More TV?

Rob: Well, we've got the wedding show on May 24 and, after that, we've got a pretty full schedule. I'm going to play in the World Series of Poker this summer again and give that another go. And stay tuned, because we've got other things in the works. We're negotiating right now. As soon as we can tell you, we'll let you know.


What a pilot says

"Well, it's not a pilot directly - just a very good friend of mine who has been a pilot for AA for the past 30 years. Currently he's flying a Chicago/London run. He doesn't watch the show, but I when I called him and described to him generally what happened and he gave me some insight.

It boils down to the gate agent and the pilot. With AA (and probably other carriers) the gate agent actually gets incentive pay and bonuses based upon planes getting off on time or ahead of time. So, increasingly they are closing the gate 10 minutes before push back. My friend used to begin his pre-flight sequence check list 5 minutes before push back, but has had to increase it to 10 minutes because the gate agents are closing sooner these days and to delay his checklist would keep the plane on the ground longer than necessary. He added that if the gate agents are late closing they get "hammered" by the airlines.

He says that as captain he rarely gets a call these days to allow a passenger on after the jetway pushes back. However, that's more because he's on international flights. He experienced it a lot when he was flying domestic.

He also observed that the San Juan to Miami route is a VERY heavy route for AA. Miami is a hub so gate agents are always working hard to keep flights on time or early so people can make their scheduled changes in Miami. Whether a gate agent would call a pilot in an instance like this probably depends in part on the relationship they have. If it's tight the agent wouldn't hesitate at all to call the pilot IF the gate had closed early.

From there on it's totally captains discretion. If he decides to take them then he has to change his flight log and reinsert a new out time for the flight. So, it's also his issue if the flight is going to run late and he wants to avoid that.

He also added that this type of situation is a tough call for a pilot. He's sitting there and can see into the terminal and he'd have to have a heart of stone if the flight is running early to not let someone on the plane who has obviously just run up to the gate and is trying to get on the flight. My friend said he was especially lenient with families with kids when he flew domestic.

In the end he said he couldn't really determine if there was undue influence in part because he wasn't familiar with the show, but he laughed at the idea that a show producer could have that particular kind of clout on a specific flight. Still, he said without knowing the specific details he couldn't say absolutely that what happened was normal, but that it didn't seem at all unusual to him."

Amazing Race: finale!

The title on my last entry was "Second last episode" and I'm sticking by that claim. Sure, there was an hour of Amazing Race on the TV last week at the normal time, but since there were only three teams left it must have been rhe first half of the last episode. I'm sticking by that theory, and it's got absolutely nothing to do with any kind of mistake on my part about how many episodes were left. Honest. Really truly. Does anyone believe me?

OK maybe not, but it's absurd to have three teams left and pretend that one of them will be knocked out before the finish line. Lucky for Uchenna and Joyce it was a "non-elimination round". To get there the teams had to travel from London to Jamaica, all ending up on the same flight and with no advantage. Ron and Kelly used the time productively to have yet another fight about their 'relationship'. Kelly can't seem to understand that Ron is happy to be her boyfriend but just doesn't want to get married. I took the effort to rewind and copy her quote down verbatim, because I love a good double entendre: "I've been able to really show Ron what I'm made of. If he doesn't figure out the quality girl I am then he's missing out." Yeah, if he doesn't figure out that she's – hang on while I look up her exact words from week 7 – "a piece-of-trash redneck" he'll be missing out on a life of peace and tranquillity. At least he's had the grace not to ask to be sent back to Iraq to avoid her, tempting as it must have been at times. Oh that's right, he got discharged from the army, which proves his inability to commit.

Once in Jamaica the teams had to do the limbo to get a time when they could search a school for the next clue, then had to build a raft and use it to cross a river. Rob & Amber and Uchenna & Joyce were neck and neck at this point because as couples they were working with each other instead of standing around complaining like Ron and Kelly. Somehow she thinks she's still a nice girl if she calls him a "smart A" instead of what everybody over four years of age knows she meant. I hate hypocrisy like that.

The teams also learnt the classic Survivor lesson of just how much can go wrong during an 80km taxi ride: traffic jams, stopping to get petrol, being pulled over by random police patrols, drivers who speak English but need to be subtitled to be understood and – most devastating of all – flat tyres. It didn't help Uchenna and Joyce at all that the other teams could see their taxi's tyre deflating and were praying for it to explode. Not very nice, people.

It was enough to push Uchenna & Joyce into last place on at the pit stop, and be stripped of all their cash and possessions, but not quite enough to put them out of the race on the next leg. A remote resort in a poor country at 3am is not the best time to be begging. At least they were smart enough to aim for the airport first, where lots of wealthy travellers were just queued up to ignore them and refuse help. Is it just me, or do the white couples never have that much trouble begging? Had Uchenna & Joyce been less decent humans they'd have whipped off her scarf and claimed her baldness as proof of cancer.

By that stage the other two teams had collected a bag of 50 onions from one place in the middle of nowhere and chopped every one of them to smithereens at another place in the middle of nowhere. From there it was off to the Rose Hall Great House for the detour. The choices were to make a horse swim around a marker (unlike Survivor they denied me the pleasure of hearing them pronounce buoy as boo-ee) or golf. Mind you, the golf was just hitting a 16m wide green 140m off, but the tricky part was they all had to dress up first at the pro shop. Joyce and Uchenna managed to make up a lot of time because if you believe the editing he hit the green on his third shot. At least he hadn't dug a small canyon with his club head in front of the tee like Ron did.

The next leg was a flight from Jamaica to Puerto Rico. Rob and Amber were minutes short of making the 9.30 flight, but somehow managed to squeeze onto the 8.30 flight on another airline which was running late. Ron and Kelly had to wait for the next flight leaving three hours later, with Uchenna and Joyce another four hours behind that. Wow, this is going to be a boring final; the producers must be really disappointed at how easy it's been for Rob and Amber.

But wait! Jerry Bruckheimer's team managed to find a completely abandoned sugar cane mill that has regular daily opening hours! What were the chances of that! Isn't it funny how all these place use exactly the same sign writing company and the same font to dispaly their opening hours! And better still for Jerry, what were the odds that it wouldn't open until the next morning, by which time Joyce and Uchenna had caught up to the others and they were all even again? It's a miracle!

The real miracle was what happened next. Rob and Amber didn't read the instructions properly and fell well behind the other two teams! One person had to jump off a bridge about 30m down into the water. Who knows what happened, but they couldn't find their way to the start point, and both Uchenna and Ron were on their way back to shore by the time they did. With Rob already having performed six roadblocks it was up to Amber, and being the trooper she is she was in the water with barely a moment's hesitation. Mind you, Rob had to piggy back her to the car because she couldn't walk, but she wasn't complaining at all and Rob went up that little extra notch in my book as top shelf husband material. Can you imagine Jonathan and Victoria in a situation like that?

From Puerto Rico the teams had to travel to Miami. Rob and Amber managed to talk their way onto a flight that was just about to go, and Rob actually stopped to check with the flight staff that the doors were locked behind them and nobody could follow them onto the plane. Maybe someone at the gate thought that Joyce really does have cancer, because they phoned the pilot AND HE AGREED TO LET THEM ON! The look on Rob's face as the aerobridge slid back toward the plane was fantastic, but at least Amber managed a gracious congratulations for them.
Ron and Kelly missed the flight because they were too busy arguing with each other to follow directions to the airport. Kelly said 'left' when she meant 'right', but rather than getting over it and moving on they had to keep debating the point about whose fault it was while driving further and further in the wrong direction. Missing that flight is what put them out of contention, and there was much cheering here in Kingsville that our two favourite teams would be battling it out for the final.

The next clue box might have been back in the USA, but being Miami the local lingo is very much Spanish. The clue was to find a cigar shop called "The King of the Havanas" but the trick was that the shop is actually known by the transalation El Rey de los Habanos. Joyce and Uchenna's taxi driver asked a local for directions in Spanish, and they were sent straight there. Rob and Amber did the asking themselves in English, and sure enough nobody had ever heard of it.

In probably the most exciting finish for all the series I've been lucky enough to see, Uchenna and Joyce didn't have enough money for the taxi fare to the finish line in Fort Lauderdale. They tried begging from drivers of cars next to them at traffic lights along the way, but again no luck. I'm still not sure why the driver acted all surprised when they got told him at the end of the trip (and practically within view of the finish line) that they couldn’t pay him enough! They'd been telling him the whole way and begging in front of him. As easy as it would have been, they just couldn't bring themselves to run off without paying but were still $45 short. They managed to beg it in increments from a series of locals, one of whom asked "Can you please tell me what I'm donating for?" and made Joyce very uncomfortable trying not to lie.

For an atheist I have a pretty strong faith in karma and that good things happen to good people, and so it passed that Uchenna and Joyce were able to do the right thing by their taxi driver and still win the million dollars. Rob and Amber came a deserving second; we might not like some of the tactics Rob resorted to at times, but you cannot deny that nobody else played the game as hard or as smart. We didn't even see Ron and Kelly trying to find the cigar shop because they were so far behind (yeah!). Hubby and I were pretty happy with the order the three finished in, and it seemed the rest of the original entrants agreed with us. Either that or it's exhausting to cheer that hard, but there was a marked drop off in the enthusiasm level between Uchenna and Joyce's victory, Rob and Amber's arrival and Ron and Kelly dragging their sorry butts onto the finish mat. Kelly didn't let me down and kept complaining about Ron not wanting to marry her right to the end. Honey, you've already provided more than enough evidence to prove why that is; quit while you're ahead.

Amazing Race: second last episode!

Greetings from Brisbane!

Hubby and I are up here visiting the very good friends who first gave me the idea of running a Survivor Sweep, and we’ve had a few Amazing Race moments of our own along the way (namely rocking up at the War Memorial to discover the opening hours were yet to commence, and driving from Canberra to Yass via Goulburn because we didn’t read the instructions properly). Anyway, we JUST made it into Armadale last night in time to catch this week’s episode so here’s what I can remember of it without having taken any notes.


Ron and Kelly had to beg some cash in Istanbul to get around, and Kelly (who has been stripped of all her makeup along with the less important possessions like clean clothes) actually begged a woman at the airport ticket desk to borrow her lipstick so she’d feel human again. It was a very nice gesture from the woman, but there’s some things I wouldn’t share with a complete stranger and lipstick is one of them, especially someone whose skin is clearly suffering from the daily layers of Polyfiller.

The feature city this week was London, or more particularly the pre-bombing London Underground (and not long after the episode finished we got the news of the newest attempt, which was kinda creepy). Once again Rob and Amber managed to get the best flights and a helpful local who was more than willing to tag along and provide specialist advice in exchange for his fifteen minutes of fame. It made a big difference, because he knew that the best way to get around London us underground, not in a taxi swamped by the traffic above. It also meant they had three people looking out for the next clue flag from the massive London Eye ferris wheel. Actually even Meredith and Gretchen managed to spot it fairly easily so it can’t have been that hard because their eyesight hasn’t been the best so far (I just hope that their kids inherited their ‘inability to read instructions’ genes because if they have they won’t have been able to program the VCR, and the oldies won’t have to see how crap and/or sheer lucky they’ve been).


Rob and Amber continued to demonstrate the difference smart Detour choices can make. This week was “Brains or Brawn”, and was literally labeled thus. Hmmm, if you were the oldies who’d struggled a bit on the physical challenges all the way along, which one would you choose? Maybe brawn was the right choice if they don’t have the brains to make that decision. The brains challenge meant tracking some really clichéd Sherlock Holmes clues down, while brawn meant hauling five rowboats out of a lake and half a kilometer up a path. Naturally Rob and Amber picked the brains one, and with their sherpa’s help were so far ahead that they completed the Roadblock challenge and were out again before Ron and Kelly even turned up to discover they’d been yielded. The roadblock was a driving test in a double decker bus, which seemed to frustrate everybody to screaming point (ie. excellent choice by the producers). Kelly volunteered to do it – go figure – and immediately had Ron shouting instructions. He later claimed he could have done it with his eyes closed on the grounds that “I drove a $35 million machine”. Hubby and I both screamed at the TV, “No, you CRASHED a $35 million machine” but I don’t think he could hear us and he clearly wasn’t listening to Kelly either by that stage.


It seems like they almost managed to beg $35 million because they had plenty of taxi money to spend. Some of that came from Meredith, paying back what Ron and Kelly had spared him when it was their turn to be non-eliminated. The other big caring and sharing moment came when Uchenna tried to help the oldies with the boats. In the end it didn’t make much difference, and Meredith and Gretchen miss out on a place in the final three. At least they said really nice things about each other, unlike Deanna and whatsisname, who deserves to be erased from memory because he’s a pig. You know who I mean.

So who’s going to win? The ad for next week shows everyone hitting major hurdles, but Rob and Amber have probably a two hour lead judging by the daylight difference between their arrival on the finish mat and the remaining teams. They’ve played the game extremely well so I’d be happy for them to get it. Joyce also won a substantial amount of respect from me for the dignity with which she just got on with the head shaving (and may I say again that she probably looks even better with the new cut than with the skanky dreadlocks) so likewise I’m happy for them to win. It would be very, very funny however if Ron and Kelly win just to see them pretend to be happy about it when they’re both just waiting for the whole thing to be over so they never have to see each other again. This time next week we’ll know.

Amazing Race: week ?

Sorry not to have done updates for a while, but it's tough when the show doesn't finish until my bedtime! Anyway I promised a friend to do a report this week since she's got a family thing tonight and will miss the show. Karen, sorry to rub it in but you missed a good one.

One of the frustrating things about The Amazing Race is that we don't find out how close together the teams are at the end of one episode until the start of the next when we get their departure times. (The truly frustrating 'time' aspect comes when Channel 7 decides to skip an episode in favour of the cricket WITHOUT ANY PRIOR WARNING! OK I've had my say now.) For example, last week I would never have thought that Joyce's follicular sacrifice got them on the finish mat in first place but only nine minutes ahead of the last team to arrive and survive. Unlike Samson, however, Joyce claims the heavy-handed-haircut has made her stronger.

Rob hopefully learnt a lesson this week. The teams all managed to find the same 'Open 24 hours' travel agent (go figure) and book tickets on the flight to Istanbul via Delhi, but Rob just had to tease Gretchen by asking if she'd managed to get on "the earlier flight". It was kind of funny seeing the panicked look on her face as she replied, "Y-y-y-eah-h-h". Usually believing Rob on a matter of strategy would be a huge mistake, but in this case it worked because the token oldies and the token black couple kept looking until they actually found an earlier flight via Dubai. Rob was so cocky he even joked about having a big enough lead already, and not wanting to overdo it. He certainly wasn't overdoing it with joy when he found out that two other teams were hours ahead.

I keep hoping that Meredith and Joyce will learn a lesson and start reading the clues properly, but they don't. This week - like every week - they climbed the same tower two or three times looking for the clue box, which was right out the front. At least they knew what a garden gnome is, unlike Rob. I suppose it helps a bit that Meredith distinctly resembles a gnome, although I don't think gnomes typically carry all their stuff around in a plastic supermarket bag. More about the gnomes later.

The detour was a choice between columns and scales. On the first one the teams had to use a grid as a reference to find four specifically numbered columns in a chamber with an elaborate roof held up by dozens of them. The numbers then matched the combination lock on a box they had to pull out of the well that the entire structure housed. Ron and Kelly were the only team to try this option, and managed to get it right first go. They're on the brink of a major relationship implosion, but they're still being mostly nice about sniping at each other. Ron has a bad track record with sniping, although my husband assures me that an Iraqi farmer standing in his field pointing a shotgun at an American helicopter does not really qualify as a sniper. Ron's subsequent POW experience did get him out of the army though, which Kelly is using as evidence of him being afraid of commitment. The logic didn't make much sense to me either, but she's a beauty queen and we don't expect much of her.

The other option was to weigh people in Instanbul's version of Federation Square. Each team got a set of scales, a clipboard and a calculator, and had to keep weighing the people who wandered past until they'd reached a certain total. Apparently this is a popular local pastime, but I suspect it was just the same half dozen loafers that all three teams weighed.

The detour was a pretty boring one that involved climbing a rope ladder up the side of a tower, finding a key, rappelling down a castle wall, and opening a big leather-bound book using the key. The best scene, though, was Ron watching from the top of the tower as Rob and Amber stepped onto the finish mat in third place, behind Joyce and Uchenna in first place and Meredith and Joyce in second. Since this turned out to be a non-elimination round, Ron and Kelly are still in the race but down to the clothes on their back and their passports for the rest of it. It'll be fun to see how Kelly copes with no grooming aids of any kind.

In a weird new twist on the weekly prize (and I felt really ripped off for Joyce that she won nothing after shaving her head last week) the teams had to find a gnome early in the episode and carry it with them all the way to the finish mat. Each one had a different symbol on the bottom and the couple with the plane symbol won the prize regardless of what order they finished in. We saw Ron and Kelly's gnome on the floor in a taxi – accompanied by some scary music to tell us they'd left it behind – and didn't see it again. Since none of the other couples had the plane symbol on their gnome, and Ron and Kelly were last to arrive, it was obvious that they'd let the prize slip through their fingers. Oh no! How will they react when they find out?

Nah, we should have known that the scary music was a red herring, and sure enough Ron pulled it out of his back pack. They won $20,000 worth of product-placement travel from an on-line booking service that needs no further promotion and shall remain unnamed on this blog. Hopefully for them they can take it as two separate prizes of ten grand each, because if they keep going this way their relationship is going to have a shorter shelf life than a bucket of prawns in the sun.

Amazing Race: week 7

Thanks for nothing, Channel 7. After last week's episode they promised that it was moving to a 7.30 time slot this week. "Hooray", I thought. "I'll be able to write up a blog entry on it and still get to bed at a respectable hour." Nuh. At the last minute they put it back to a 10.30pm finish and my hopes of getting a commentary up in a timely fashion vanished.

Theoretically the racers are still in Africa, but I reckon this week's episode was filmed at the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo. Otherwise how on earth could they have managed to rustle all those wild animals up to drift past in the background at timely intervals like props? We saw ostriches, giraffes, several elephants, hippos, zebras, crocodiles and some warthogs that looked a bit like they'd actually been pasted in from the same tourism video that provided all the shots of Soweto a couple of episodes back.

Last week's huge ratings "woo hoo'" for the producers came when the brothers crashed their car and broke their cameraman. Waiting for a replacement of both left them well at the back of the pack, but they made up a lot of time at the detour and in fact were less than an hour behind winners Ron and Kelly arriving at the pit stop. This week the gay guys managed to break one car and get a flat tyre on another, needing two replacements. Land Rover must be really starting to question the PR value of this exercise, because right now their reliability looks up there with Lada's.

The detour this week was a choice between milking a goat and using the traditional African technique of carrying heaving loads on the head. Several other teams tried the balancing thing but gave up quickly. Token black couple Joyce and Uchenna seemed to be absolute naturals at it, but I was still somewhat stunned to hear Lynne and Alex – out of all of the teams – say something to the effect that Joyce and Uchenna were 'bred for doing that'. I'd have thought that a gay couple would be least likely to spout stereotypes. The brothers I'd have almost expected it from, but not the couple that must have to put up with similar crap more than anyone else in the race.

As mentioned, the option all the other teams took was milking about 300ml out of a goat. There's no way I'd be milking a goat. There's something just plain evil about them, as magnificently summed up by Seinfeld's George Castanza:

The Web brings people together because no matter what kind of a twisted sexual mutant you happen to be, you've got millions of pals out there. Type in 'Find people that have sex with goats that are on fire' and the computer will ask, 'Specify type of goat.'

Most of the teams had no idea what they were doing, and Boston Rob seemed to be missing some fundamental farming and/or anatomical knowledge by constantly referring to their goat as "he". The gay guys were completely out of their depth, and the brothers were titillated by the whole event.

Joyce and Uchenna were so busy looking at the animals they didn't read the clue properly and just took the flag at the start of their four wheel driving adventure ride instead of the pole and flag. They got all the way to the pit stop, only to have Phil tell them to go back and do it properly (but minus any clue as to what they did wrong). It showed how far back the others were that they were able to keep their 3rd place on the welcome mat despite the back tracking.

Not reading the clue properly didn't end up hurting repeat offenders Meredith and Gretchen much either. A couple of weeks back they had to return to the cave to look for their clue, which left Gretchen in rather a lot of pain. This week they first stopped in the wrong town and started looking for the water tower, then completely missed collecting their clue at the end of the roadblock challenge. Even though they somehow found the pit stop without any directions they were forced to go back and collect the clue. They're still in their customary place in the bottom three, but as other teams get elimiated they get to say now that they're "fourth".

The brothers weren't so lucky. They made the same mistake of stopping at the wrong water tower because they didn't read their first clue properly, but unlike the oldies they actually got out of the car and started climbing the tower looking for the yellow and black box. It left them at the back of the pack all day, and they didn't recover. They did, however, take an interesting strategic approach to their last place. Lynne and Alex had also thought they were last, and Alex – who's barely said three words all series – took the very smart option of putting on every piece of clothing he could in case they got the chance of staying in the race with only the clothes on their backs. Who knows what they were going to carry all those clothes around in, but it was pretty smart thinking. The brothers took the opposite approach: they stopped and changed into bathing suits and winter hats in the hope that their wacky fashion sense would keep them in the game. Nice try guys, but no cigar. At least they were already in their togs to take advantage of the pit stop's pool since they're not going anywhere in a hurry tomorrow.

The POW and the Beauty Queen pretty much cruised through all the challenges this week except for the crucial one of getting along with each other. Kelly started the episode quoting Corinthians, but changing the word "love" for "Kelly", so we ended up with "Kelly is patient, Kelly is kind." It was meant as a kind of mantra on how she was planning to treat Ron for the rest of the day. Honey, perhaps you should have read the rest of the verse:

"(Love) is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury."

Love might not, but Kelly sure did. By the end of the episode she told Ron that he's "a piece-of-trash redneck", and gloated in some kind of sarcastic, self-righteous triumph to the camera that for once it was Ron pointing out everything that Kelly does wrong. They came in second behind Rob and Amber on the finish line this week, but I reckon next week they're going to be first in the entertainment stakes for all of us out in TV land.

Amazing Race: week 5

Unlike Survivor, which grabbed my heart from the very first episode and hasn't let go, I'm only a recent convert to Amazing Race. I just couldn’t get into it while Channel 7 were showing it so late at night. This was partly because I really don't function without enough sleep, and partly because I get so angry at the ads suggesting phone sex and on-line dating services are populated exclusively by incredibly good looking people. (Remind me to dig the ACCC phone number out of that Survivor Palau post so I can ring up and complain about the false advertising).

Anyway, long-time fans of the show tell me that in the past the good teams used to be able to build up enough of a head start and keep it to be almost days ahead of the others. Now the producers build in enough transport hold-ups to prevent that from happening, and this week was a classic example of the impact that can – or can't – have on a team's success.

Rob and Amber started out with a six and a half hour head start over the last team, but since they all had to wait for the same flight it was wiped out and everyone began the day on an even footing. It served to highlight how little things are what really make the big difference. Joyce and Uchenna (the token black couple) and Ray and Kelly (the POW and Beauty Queen) were unlucky to be checked in by someone who wouldn't let them take their back packs on as hand luggage, so they had to wait for the baggage carousels at the other end. Ray and Deanna (a.k.a. this year's Jonathan and Victoria) finished second last in the previous leg but won this week. Why? Because Ray pulled a trick out of Rob's book and somehow convinced the cabin crew on their flight to move them to first class, meaning they were well-rested and first off the plane in Johannesburg.

This week's detour was a choice between rappelling into a cave and searching through the labyrinth for the clue, or matching the artefact to the tribe at a shamelessly tourist-focussed African village. Maybe the teams didn't have enough information in the clue envelope to make a clear choice, or maybe they just rushed in and picked the first option, but from previous series we know that having to search for the clue is fraught with danger and has been the downfall of many teams.

In Gretchen's case this week it was quite literally her downfall. She tripped inside the cave and gashed her head open, needing a stich, a very theatrical bandage right around her skull and a new t-shirt because the old one was covered in blood. Of course, failing to read the clue properly has also been a frequent downfall, and they'd gone right through the cave and were out the other side before they re-read the instructions and realised they had to go back, which is actually when she hurt herself.

Lynn and Alex (the token gay couple) were the only ones to go for the village from the outset, finding time along the way to express their relief that Johannesburg is a "real city" and not full of "chickens and camels". Hmm, there's not a whole lot of camels in Southern Africa guys, but thanks for the stereotype anyway; you're just nicely reinforcing the stereotype of American tourists.

Rob and Amber went for the Fast Forward, which allows the first team to complete it to go straight to the pit stop, but Ray and Deanna's head start off the plane got them there first. From the editing it was really hard to work out how long Rob and Amber waited to see whether Deanna's nerve would fail her as she tried to walk on a very shaky suspension bridge across the mouth of a massive cooling tower thirty stories up. She had a bit of a freak-out half way across (conveniently just before an ad break) but finally made it across, and we were treated to a camera shot from the top of the tower of Rob and Amber cutting their losses and running back to their car.

Winning the fast forward meant Ray and Deanna were first to the pit stop and won this leg of the race. They also won two cars, one of which hopefully has automatic transmission for Deanna's sake. Earlier she's been unable to find third gear and had been treated to a lecture from Ray. There's so many different tones of voice he could have used to say the words, "You can do so much more than you give yourself credit for", but he picked the one that made it sound most like an insult. I really hope that the next season is free of a couple with that type of relationship, because it's too depressing for a light entertainment show.

In this week's Roadblock the teams had to buy five items on a shopping list at a sprawling city market, then take them to a local orphanage. Rob and Amber happened to run into South Africa's biggest Survivor fan, who virtually completed the challenge for them and came along to give directions to the orphanage (lots of footage of happy African kiddies being cute) and then to the pit stop. The funniest moment on the entire series so far was her lining up on the finish mat with Rob and Amber as though it were the most natural thing in the world, and Phil having to ask who the hell she was.

Gretchen at some point changed into a clean t-shirt, and I'll bet she's glad she did. This was a non-elimination round, so she and Meredith get to fight on another day. But wait, there's a twist. Taking all their money just wasn't making it hard enough for the undead teams, so now Phil is taking everything but the clothes they're standing up in and their passports, and they don't get them back at all during the trip. They're going to have to squeeze either some shopping or laundromat time into their busy schedules, or at some point a zealous airport security guard is going to declare them biological weapons and not let them on the plane.

Amazing Race: week 4

I just love it when a team makes a statement: you know the producers wouldn't bother showing it unless it had big, sharp teeth and would come back to bite the speaker. This week the brothers kicked it off by declaring their ambition for the day was to not make any mistakes, then promptly getting lost.

The gay guys were first to the roadblock event, and judging by their squeals of delight at the cowboy horsie riding adventure challenge they were hoping they'd get to wear chaps. One person had to ride a horse through a slalom course of barrels in under 40 seconds. The token black couple declared they'd picked a "nice" horse (there's the declaration again): strangely they changed their minds after it bucked her off twice, especially when they found out they were stuck with their initial choice.

It was clear from the first episode of this series that Ray and Deanna are the new Jonathan and Victoria, and they cemented it this week. Ray declared (oooh goody, here comes his downfall!) that he was embarrassed to be stuck at the back of the pack with the 'bottom feeders' and people of the calibre of the gay guy and his Mom and the oldies. Naturally the oldies easily beat them at the challenge because Deanna's horse started shying away from her and she was clearly scared of it. I suppose it's hard to stay calm and not upset the poor beast (the horse, not Deanna) when your other half is screaming abuse at you. In the end, oddly enough, she recorded one of the fastest times of all. It didn't help them catch up though, because all three teams ended up on a plane so far after the first one that other teams were at the pit stop before they'd even taken off. Possibly my favourite scene for the week was Gretchen (one of this season's token old old people) referring to what Ray (aka Jonathan) calls the 'bottom feeders' as a menage a trois!

Somehow the gay guy and his Mom deduced that they must be ahead of the other bottom feeders when they were the only people to catch a particular train. The thought that the others had already left on an earlier train never occurred to them! And yet, somehow, they still made it to the detour before Ray/Jonathan and Deanna who decided to walk – in the wrong direction – instead of getting a cab. Scenes like that restore my faith in karma.

The detour involved cruising through a river delta in a rubber boat looking either for an island marked on a map, or for a specific shipwreck where their only clue was a photo of what the boat looked like thirty years earlier. The token black couple started looking for the boat but found the island by accident, and decided to grab the clue. I was actually quite surprised that they weren't penalised for it, but I guess the difference between the detour and the roadblock is that you can change your mind.

The key deciding factor for many of the teams was the seaworthiness of their boats. Either that or the crews were homophobic, because it was really only the gay couple and the gay guy and his mom whose boats needed to be replaced. Hmmm, interesting...

Rob declared at one point towards the end that he's always been lucky: "I was born with a horseshoe up my ass!" He's right, because this week alone:

• They got lost but still managed to find the roadblock site by accident;
• The first plane was held a few minutes so they could make it on and be saved a five hour wait for the next one, much to the horror of the others who had all just finished gloating that Rob and Amber were never going to make it;
• Their bags were last to be checked into the cargo hold so they were the first to be unloaded in Buenos Aries;
• They spotted that the gay guys had a map, and simply followed them to the detour site while everyone else got lost; and then
• Their boat actually sprung a leak, but it was still able to limp back to port while the others awaited a replacement.

Despite having taken a four hour penalty the day before, they made up the time and came in first for the second time this season. Can anything stop them? Ray took another step toward confirmed Jonathan-ism with the look on host Phil's face when they arrived at the pit stop: I can't work out whether it's better described as sheer disgust or "Please tell me I don't have to shake hands with this prick!"

Phil didn't seem much more impressed with the gay guy and his Mom; their names are actually Patrick and Susan but that's irrelevant now because they're out of the race. In many ways they are this season's Rebecca and Adam: she's tough and he's a girly quitter, although Mom is better than Rebecca at biting her tongue and not saying what she's actually thinking of her perpetually disappointing partner in the game. Somehow I don’t think Santa will be coming to Patrick this year.

The producers will be pleased that the token black couple are still in, because it looks like they're off to Africa next week and they'll be able to wring an emotional scene out of them recounting their slave ancestry: they do it every year, and the exploitation is ironic to say the least. The oldies also suffer the traditional severe injury that the oldies always seem to suffer, and there's plenty of blood: you'll just have to watch next week to see which one of them it is.

Amazing Race: week 3

Watching Boston Rob manipulating his way through the Amazing Race is what I imagine it must be like to have seen Donald Bradman bat. He is just a master of the sport; a natural, a freak. As my friend Kiwi Andrew put it, "He takes the game to a new level. Of course that level is down here (*points at kneecaps*), but still…"

Last week we had him bribing security guards and bus drivers. This week he bribed a taxi driver to leave the Rollergirls stranded and then somehow convinced two other teams at the Roadblock that it's impossible to eat 1.8kg of meat and offal, just because he didn't want to do it. This is only my third season of Amazing Race, but it's still incredible to me to see anyone simply give up on a challenge, let alone the lemming-like exodus we saw this week.

Best of all was the incredible show-down between the gay guy and his Mom (sorry, but it's too early in the game to bother remember names). In case you missed it there was some seriously Fraudian action going down, with Mom telling him to eat everything on his plate and Sonny Boy threatening to quit. He looked like he'd really do it, too. From memory Boston Rob was still there when that happened, so it'll be interesting to see if he manipulates the hairline crack into a full-on crevasse when necessary.

The Rollergirls were supposed to be driving themselves east from Chile to Argentina. At least they had the sense to realise something was kinda wrong when they saw the Pacific Ocean. It was impressive how well they made up the time, although from the editing it's hard to tell how manufactured the tension might have been. The dusk gave some pretty good clues, and suggested that Mother and Son really did get lost between the BBQ camp and the pit stop.

The detour options of paddling downstream or riding mountain bikes along a railway track were a bit dull. We didn't get any real details of how one of the Rollergirls almost died a few months ago white water rafting, but it can't have been that bad if they chose it over the bike option.
In the end they couldn't make up the time, so that's the last of the all-girl teams out. Somebody at work said that "it's the last of the good looking girls out": I'm presuming that means he doesn’t find the gay guy's Mom attractive…

Next week looks like we get another couple of rounds from this season's Jonathan and Victoria, which could be interesting. There's definite shades of Lori and Bolo and a bit of Hayden and Aaron there as well. Let's hope they don't get knocked out too soon.