NJRadioGuy

What gets me is just how insanely faked everything is. What most viewers don't realize is that the participants have to be mic'd up. There are makeup artists in the bathrooms where Gordon goes from Shlub to Chef, a camera operator (and probably a sound man), and TV-quality lighting. There is nothing spontaneous. Even if the customers/staff don't know this is a Ramsay setup, they know when the cameras are rolling and when to turn in to trained seals on cue. And of course everybody knows who Gordon Ramsay is. Really? What about someone who doesn't own a TV? I've never heard one person say "what do you mean, stop eating. Who the f@#$ are you?" And of course, none of the diners' or other secondary/tertiary staff members' faces are blurred, meaning every single person in there signed away their soul for 15 minutes of fame a release form. It was obvious Sandra didn't want any part of this from the beginning, so it begs the question, who contacted Production and signed the contracts to appear? Someone must have known it was Gordon Effin' Ramsay and not just a makeover show. As for the food...holy crap. A giant pit like that and no ribs on the menu? No pulled pork? That's a crime against barbecue right there. And from startup to service, it still takes a few hours to get barbecued chicken prepped, and there was no evidence of that happening. And a propane smoker? Really?? Protip, Gordo...the best barbecue restaurants in the world never clean out their pits, or at least not all that extensively because they're in use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Grease just burns off, or goes into seasoning the pit and turning it in to something magical.

What struck me was as the Wizard was coming in to dock, we see a view of Keith on shore, through the wheelhouse window, with a Disco camera crew filming him. That means he'd have to have notified production to say that he was coming up to Dutch to meet the boat, and that they should have a team ready for him. I'd liked Keith over the last couple of seasons, after he seemed to be a bit calmer toward staff and had come to terms of his alcohol problems and the failure of his marriage. I was hoping he'd turned a corner, but he just wasted everything in that one act. Was it played up for TV consumption? Maybe, who knows. Did he just come from a bar in town, perhaps?? In the end, he's proven to be the same old douchecanoe he always was. Sad, really. I generally like strong leaders with a strict moral compass who take no shit from anybody, don't suffer fools and don't accept excuses for failure. I learn best from the Professor Kingsfields of the world. There's some of that in Keith, but too much bad juju and rage to go along with it.

Just got through Episode 6 and yeah, it's OK. I like the sight gags and there's a ton of potential, but frankly this needs to get kicked up a notch or two into solid R-rating territory. The material just begs for it, in fact. Also, I hope they're not always stuck pressing the reset button all the time. I like growing stories, not just stand-alone episodes.

I was recently in Prague for a few days and there are any number of restaurants in which dogs are welcomed with their customers (or is that the other way around). The ones I patronized, the dogs were well behaved and I never saw any bad doggie (or owner) behavior, even during busy services. But I could also say the same about small children in Europe. No little yard apes running wild as I see far too often when I go out to eat here.

So here's the pitstop story I wanted to share. I made reference to this in the S30E06 original thread as well. This aired just a few months before my visit to Prague and I knew I had to find this pit stop and get my picture taken there. I searched for it on Google Maps and it took quite a while to find using Street View. So I bookmarked the location and set out on a very warm and humid Sunday morning in June. The racers would have been coming from the Kafka telephone nightmare Road Block, so I approached Letenské Park, where the pitstop was located, from the point of view of a racer who was only told that the pit stop was in the park (which is utterly huge, and about the size of New York's Central Park, incidentally). If they went on foot, it would have been about 3/4 of a mile hike to the entrance of the park. But here's where the fun begins. If they weren't told specifically in the clue (there are often parts of clues that aren't read on camera, so I just don't know), they'd most likely have entered the park at the main staircase. It's a LONG way up. About 500 feet due up, in fact. There was also a shortcut, and it was even steeper. Carrying backpacks, and in a panic to not be eliminated. It took my fat old self about 10 minutes to make the climb, wander around a bit and find the marked spot. The mat location was actually in the dirt, between the curbstones and the vegetation; I just liked this view of the city better. It was a brutal climb for a big guy like me and all I had was a small messenger-style bag, water bottle and a hat (not in the picture). Just getting here and making that climb was tough, and a vivid reminder of why I'd never be able to complete even a single leg on the Amazing Show. Only instead of a Kafkaesque phone room to deal with, I had an equally Kafkaesque (and ultimately futile) search for a place to buy a daily tram pass using folding money and not coins, which is the only way you can buy tickets from the machines. Not even the metro stations have attendants on Sunday mornings!

I, too, have been O'er the Sea to Skye, in 2005. Driving up from Glasgow in a day. Long before I found Outlander, of course. When I go back in 2020, I'll be going to Edinburugh, Culloden and Inverness, then on to Islay. My liver may or may not follow me home, begging for its life. I didn't get to any TAR landmarks in Helsinki, alas, although I was thinking about it. If they ever go back there and go to Suomenlinna fortress (it would be a fantistic locale), the Esplanade, ride the Pub tram or go to the most northerly metro station in the world I'll have 'em covered :) We did, however, take the Tallink ferry to Tallinn and visit the Brotherhood of the Blackheads building (below) from Season 15, Leg 9.

Here are a couple of mine that I can find the pictures of. The first two are Season 17 Episode 7 (Naryshkin Bastion at St. Peter and Paul Fortress, SPb, Russia), Hotel Stechelburg near Lauterbrunen, Switzerland in S14 Episode 1, Hellbrunn Palace in Salzburg, and the last one is the Catherine Palace Season 5, leg 4. I've also been in the park behind St. Isaacs in St. Petersburg for S17E06 but couldn't find the precise spot where the mat was located, and also, locally, Gotham Hall in Manhattan (Season 21 final mat) and the Unisphere in Queens (Season 1 final).

Oh, I loved that challenge and that spot looked, well, Amazing. I wish they'd go to the U.K. more often. Especially Scotland. Whisky-related tasks on Islay, for example!

It's possible to cast Everyman teams and make them enjoyable, but it's a very fine line, and in the runup to production, the producers have to make sure they've assembled teams who aren't cringeworthy to watch due to their ineptness. It's been said that TAR is either one of, or the most expensive unscripted show ever made. 22 racers, 11 (or more) camera operators, 11 (or more) sound operators, production assistants, lighting and A/V techs, medics, logistics people, and one famous and very expensive host all moving in sync around the world, once or twice a year. If Neilsen audiences tune out because painful-to-watch teams are being featured, well, ratings is how TAR lives or dies. So I get that they need telegenic teams, and preferably ones that viewers have seen on other CBS-branded shows. I don't like it, but I understand it. Me personally, I'd get along well with smart and well-traveled people, athletes or not, but yeah, the whole "exposure for their brand" crap is nauseating. I really detested the YouTube Famewhores characters, but I don't watch it for the people; I watch TAR for the places and the tasks. If the decent people can eke out a win over the douchecanoes all the better, of course. But the best way to "advance the plot" as I'd call it in a scripted series is to weed out the "I'm afraid of <x>" types in casting. We're about to be 31 seasons in, and they still get people auditioning who are afraid of heights, are claustrophobic, can't drive stick and who retch at the thought of eating bugs. I'm over it. I love to see when a team knows the local language and uses it to their advantage, or is worldly enough to know that when you arrive in Amsterdam at rush hour, you're nuts to take a cab into the center of town (train is much faster!). I enjoy seeing people succeeding at tasks that I could never, ever dream of accomplishing in locales that I'd give body parts to visit someday.

In your travels have you ever found yourself in places that were used for TAR pit stops or other locations featured on the show? Years before I started watching The Amazing Race, I happened to visit the Hellbrunn Palace in Salzburg, Austria. When I watched Season 14, leg 2 a few years later I saw that was the pit stop, and it sparked an interest in visiting these whenever I'm on vacation. I've subsequently visited about a dozen (I will chronicle my search for S30E06's in Prague in a separate message) and I'm wondering who else here has visited various pit stops and locations made famous by the show. Photos if you got 'em!

I miss those days, but to be honest, it can go a little too far. TAR Australia, Season 1 was mostly that and good ghods, they were dull as dishwater. Every season of the Mothership show, until a couple of years ago, had some version of "wacky cannon fodder" teams as well and more often than not I just wanted them off my TV. I'd also like to see teams of people who are die-hard fans of the show, who are intelligent, physically fit, multi-lingual, able to drive stick, not afraid of heights, able to eat utterly awful things that make us mere mortals gag, already well traveled, and where the actual competition is featured more than the drahhhhhhhhma. Where U-turning—and being U-turned—is understood as being necessary to succeed, and isn't taken personally. Maybe spend a bit of time in the U.S. as well? I'm sure there are some locales that could use the promotion and that feature world-class sights that would appeal to us armchair travelers.

The Tulsa guys have really grown on me. KC not so much. At least not yet. Atlanta, Harris County, Tulsa and Nawlins are my recent favourites, but Cleveland was tops. If I ever got whacked, I'd want Tom Armelli or Nate Sowa on the case. Sadly for the good people of Cleveland they're both retired. I'd just love to sit down with either of them and talk shop for hours, and smoke cigars with Det. Sowa. From the old shows, I kinda liked Memphis but Miami did nothing for me. Dallas was hit or miss. I really wish they'd get invited to do one of the big northeast cities, though, or some of the really rough places here in Jersey (Camden, Paterson, Irvington, AC, etc). I've got a good friend who's ex-Newark PD, mostly drugs, but also murder police and yeah, the stories he tells :) Anybody know where the new shows are being shot? I'm guessing they're still in Kansas City Kansas and hopefully Tulsa.

I think it's mostly filmed in Niagara on the Lake now. The first two seasons and movies were shot in Dundas, Ontario (part of the City of Hamilton) but city council voted for a break from filming. Story here, which mentions TGW and the BB&C building specifically. Here's a Google Street View of the BB&C in Dundas. Go east a bit and across the street to see Piccone's Food Mart and other local establishments that they never bothered to disguise. I haven't been bothered to look for the current location in NotL.

Just finished here as well. Good Christ, that was darker than I was expecting. This was far darker than the nastiest bits of G.R.R.M's imagination, in fact. So many major characters getting whacked, seemingly at random. I had about a 40% guess rate on who was going to make it to the end. Sadly I was right about getting 86'd. And when I was 8 YO, H.R. Pufnstuf was my favourite show, and yes, I was singing along to the theme song until....that happened. There...see that running away in terror? That was my childhood. Yeah. Like I'm gonna be able to sleep this week. This season had the vibe of True Detective Season 2, with likely similar ratings. I really have to wonder how can something so bleak get greenlit. I don't personally mind surviving a dark story if the good guys prevail at the end. In this case, sure some baddies deservedly met their ends but in the overall scheme of things, the city is worse-off than it was going in.

So. Part 5. Thoughts? Just binged it this weekend. Can't say I like the way they handled Rooster's departure but the Peterson's Ranch solution was the right one. Overall I liked a good chunk of it, but there were other things that disappointed.

Agreed. And they wasted great potential. The actress is skilled at her craft and I will miss her presence in that sense, but not the character at all. There's a real issue with the lack of female and minority firefighters in the country, and the bit in season 2 when she was competing to become a firefighter was one of my favourite story lines. If they'd kept her on truck and just gave her her fair-share of romances and trials-and-tribulations that other characters went through then great. I didn't even mind her marriage to Casey on the surface. It's a plausible scenario. But the instant they started to Mary Sue her is when the show went to a five alarm mess. It was "The Dawson Show, with Matt Casey and featuring Eric Severide."

She is. I wrote that before the announcement broke. Needless to say, that news made my day.

According to THR, she's out as a series regular but will make at least one appearance. Two new regulars coming aboard, Jennifer Love Hewitt and Ryan Guzman. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/911-season-2-adds-ryan-guzman-1114534

Command will always be in a white helmet. They give the orders. Where there are multiple white helmets, the highest rank rules the fireground overall, others with different responsibilities. Red is typically an officer in charge of a specific piece of apparatus—a ladder, truck, squad; either a captain or LT and he/she implements the orders given by the white helmets. Black or yellow helmets for the working firefighters, and blue (in some departments) for safety officers. Some departments use yellow for trainees. If there's no chief on the scene, then the ranking officer (red helmet) gives the orders until a chief arrives.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Walker, Spencer and Kinney have all re-upped. Chiefs generally don't run a single house. Battalion Chiefs are stationed in a house but are responsible for a few others in the area, with a district chief/division chief/platoon chief, depending on the terminology of the department, above them. Officers of the rank that Boden holds manage the scene upon arrival at incidents, with additional district chiefs being called on subsequent alarms for different aspect of fire command, and higher-ranking chiefs coming in as supervisors in major disasters. A Deputy District Chief like Grissom, and a District Chief would roll on a 1st or 2nd alarm working structure fire. Keeping to our TV universe, let's say a nearby station—I think they used 60 or 66 back last year, and the rat-infested CFD Station 19 (as opposed to another Station 19 a few thousand miles west), they might have a run and need a chief, in which case Battalion 25 (Boden) would be called. If that were real-life, he would likely be called out far more often than either the truck or the heavy rescue. Usually each piece of apparatus has a captain and senior officer, again, depending on individual departments' command structures. If Boden were to leave "51" then I could see both Severide and Casey running the ship, each as the leader of their particular company. But having a Battalion Chief in the station is a good TV decision. Harken back to Emergency!, and there was no chief in that house; it was just the Squad and Engine, with Cap't Stanley in command of the Engine. In earlier seasons, "Battalion 14" seems to have been their BC at working fires.

I agree. Now compare Gabby to Shay. Shay's character was OK, but the actress just doesn't click for me. Not then as Shay, and not recently as the supposedly romantic lead on the now-cancelled Lucifer. German just can't act very well, or at least, she has a hard time connecting with the audience. You could say the same for Tracy Spiridakos over on PD. Ms. Raymund is very good at her craft and she'll obviously land somewhere in a lead role sooner rather than later, and I wish her the best.

Is she leaving of her own volition or did the show decide to take another direction? Or perhaps since she was ostensibly the female lead, maybe her contract demands were too high at renewal time. I'm curious whether she jumped or if she was pushed out the apparatus bay doors. I really liked her character back in season 2 (??), when she was training to become a firefighter, and ultimately made it. That wasn't a bad story at all, and if they'd kept her on truck, or if they'd integrate Engine into the show, on that rig and treated her like any other FF then I probably wouldn't have had as much of a problem with Gabby. Her departure also leaves a gaping hole in the Chicago universe, since Antonio on PD will be affected (or should, if there's even the slightest bit of continuity. Ahem.), not just DoorMatt™. On the other hand I'm interested to see how much anguish Casey is going to go through this fall as a result, and how he'll come out the other side. Some potential for Jesse Spencer to hit a few home runs if the writing of Gabby's departure is up to snuff. I have to wonder, will he still be single at the end of next season or will he get a new love interest? Worst case scenario, this is a massive psych-out for the fans, and Her Magnificence returns in a Very Special Episode during the November sweeps or something.

They're the two most authentic ones on the show, despite how badly they're written at times. Come to NYC sometime...if you think the Chicago accent is laid on too thick, you should hear almost every real FDNY firefighter's Long Island accent! The first few episodes in, six years ago, I thought those two were actual CFD firefighters with SAG cards, just like Mike Stoker and Marco Lopez were on Emergency! in the 70s. As for Gabby's departure, YAYYYYY! I hope they actually kill Gabby off so we'll never have to worry about her coming back in a VerySpecialEpisode.

I just hope DoorMatt gets he testicles back before she leaves. And please, show, don't just write her out, but actually kill her character off--preferably on camera--so we know that's the end of Saint Gabby once and for all.

Well, if they feared internal reprisals, just leak the data anonymously to the media after the appointment is official. That's one story that no newspaper or radio would dare keep under wraps since it goes to the honesty and integrity of someone directly responsible for the safety of millions of Chicagoans. It was obvious that Boden wasn't going to get the gig since he's a star of the show. That and I doubt any battalion chief in any department would jump up to become the Big Cheese in one leap anyways. Plus there always has to be a foil for the heroes, so might as well be Grissom.