ozlsn

Yes, sorry, there was a post way upthread saying that the poster played football (I think? Sorry, I thought I'd quoted it, but no) in the Arizona sun that I was referring to. The challenges are run in place, and judging by the difference in shadows at about 9am rather than at midday. If the flags thing marking the bags is correct I think it's possibly just to get an idea of filming problems and timing. Agree that this was a stuff up. Apart from anything else the lack of shade and running it in the middle of the day was a really bad idea. I actually wondered how much leeway the medical personnel have to say "actually running this challenge now is a really stupid idea." Because the contestants not being able to drink during the challenge together with running the challenge at midday in what was a fairly hot, non-cloudy day from the footage we saw - well, you'd hope that the medical staff would be able to step up and say "actually from a safety perspective it would be better to wait a few hours until it's cooler" and be listened to. As I said earlier, this was an entirely predictable situation. I don't know - a resting heart rate of 105 while the person is lying down with their legs elevated is really not a good sign. Certainly I think if he hadn't been evacuated he would have been in quite serious trouble. Yeah, basically. And frankly I think if they want to look at costs of filming time vs ICU and helicopter evacuation costs I think they'd have been better off listening to the safety people. ICU isn't cheap. Fresh, well-hydrated recruits who were doing it first thing in the morning - seriously, go back and look at the shadow difference between the 'demo' and the actual contestants. The contestants have tiny shadows straight under them, the recruits have longer and much more visible shadows. I really hope that they have learned something from this, because that could have gone a lot worse than it did - how many helicopters do they have on standby exactly? What would they have done if Scott and Caleb and (just because I can) Peter had all needed to be evacuated simultaneously? Scary stuff.

Totally agree. When Jeff said "you can feel the heat coming off the sand" both of us here said "they should do this at a different time, that's ridiculous". The first BP they read out I went "Oh, OK, raised but not critical." Then it went up - having been through a similar thing with preeclampsia where my blood pressure went from ~170/100 to 220/115 in about 90 minutes (and then back down again with the aid of BP drug #3 being administered via IV - I was already on two drugs and reading 170/100 at the start of the appointment) I was sitting there going "wow, that's really not a good sign, I seriously hope they have the right drugs handy." I didn't read Jeff as being gleeful, just very focused and trying to do multiple things at once - commentate, reassure Caleb, direct crew and inform the rest of the cast what was happening. My impression was that that was a larger area than they normally have for these things, particularly with only four members in each team. Maybe the crew just buried the bags a bit deeper without realising, or as someone else said, the tribes kept moving dirt on top of where they hadn't searched yet and then had to move it again. I really think this was a very bad miscalculation by the Production team. Someone said earlier that they train in the Arizona sun - well, yeah, I play outdoor netball in temperatures of up to 40oC/104oF (which is when my competition pulls the plug on games), but the big differences are that I slept in my own bed the night before, ate well through the day, I have a water bottle handy that I can drink from at the end of each quarter (about 10 min quarters on hot days), I didn't have to fetch the water in my bottle from a well and then purify it, and I've usually been drinking consistently during the day before the game and am well hydrated. Yes this is Survivor, and yes they push them - but this was an entirely predictable situation that they could have avoided by running the challenge outside of the hot part of the day, or by modifying it slightly. Even my competition shortens the game time on hot days and encourages everyone to drink during the breaks because the last thing anyone wants is people collapsing from heatstroke. In total agreement. What shocked me was that no one appeared to realise how serious it was until it was approaching critical - and that the game wasn't stopped or at least paused when the first person collapsed. I didn't actually realise it wasn't an immunity challenge until they held the immunity challenge later in the episode - I'm still not convinced that Caleb realised it was a reward rather than immunity challenge at the time either... or anyone on the Brawn team. That felt a lot more competitive than you would get for a fairly punishing reward challenge when you knew you'd need at least 3 of the 4 team members competing reasonably healthy for the next challenge (except Brawn who need everyone and all the help they can get apparently.) It just felt off to me - whether it was a reward challenge and everyone just got into competition mode, or whether it was originally a combined challenge that then got modified I don't know.

Yeah, this. I was looking at the "Rotterdam Centraal" sign and thinking "wouldn't you get off here, even if you thought you were in a suburb of Amsterdam or something?" Damn. If they'd gotten it on the first try they probably would have made the train that Green Team were on. I was really hoping the cheerleaders would win this leg. Hee. To both of those comments. My first thought was that she was a former exchange student. Yes. Between that and male Chaq's "Stop sulking" there was a lot of infantalising of teammates going on this episode.

I kept imagining production chasing them down the beach going "stop! stop! our insurance doesn't cover this!!!" The thing that stood out fo me about Andrew was at the merge when he said something like "I'm finally back with my Bayon brothers." I think he was completely dismissive of pretty much all the women there - yes, he worked with Tasha but I don't think she was in his final three, no matter what she thought. I thought the same thing about Ahab - Stephen will drown (metaphorically speaking) trying to get Joe out. I wondered that too. That is, when I remember she's there. The upside of Andrew being gone is hopefully we might get to see some more of the other players? That made me lol. It's not so much the breathing part though I think as the talking part that goes with it. I kind of hope she gets booted soon, although I'm also enjoying not having her featured in the editing. Yeah same. Probst would drive me nuts if I were trying to focus. I get that she's frustrated, but I still don't think she's going to drum up more support by basically haranguing people at tribal council. If she can't manage it in small group conversations at camp I doubt anyone's going to have a Road to Damascas conversion at tribal without some extremely new and shocking information being inadvertently revealed by someone. And I wish they'd show us the schoolyard picks again, and do the challenge where you get to chop other people's ropes. This group should be savvy enough not to reveal their alliances... but stranger things have happened.

Me neither. I still can't reliably tell the reporting teams apart. If I need a hashtag to tell me which one is which then editing is not doing their job. Also I don't really have any idea what the actual relationship of about half the team members is. In my world. I suck badly at knitting, crochet, embroidery... ;-)

See this is one of the reasons why having returning player seasons annoys me. I'd much rather see people having to actually work together from scratch and to build alliances the hard way. At the very least they should make them do talking heads (pre game in a closed room so no one hears perhaps) outlining who they're planning on working with. Then production can screw them all over more easily.

I have to say Abi brought to mind John Weaver's quote about the Republican presidential debates: “Imagine a NASCAR driver mentally preparing for a race knowing one of the drivers will be drunk. That’s what prepping for this debate is like.” Except I think Abi has more than just booze going on there.

I think like them he was overthinking it. I actually would have considered swapping who was dribbling the ball and who was calling given how badly they were doing at it. I had forgotten there was a new pope to be honest, and actually didn't make the connection between "new pope" and Francis. Part of my brain still goes for John Paul II when asked to name who the pope is, heh. The main thing I got out of Nick and Sabrina's penalty taking was that they're really not good under pressure - there was no reason for them to take a penalty at that point, and they'd had over 20 more goes at it than anyone else which should have given them an advantage. Ditto at the Mentos challenge - her freaking out about not having enough letters was totally a not good under pressure moment. I was hoping they'd be eliminated, oh well.

I always wonder that, particularly on TAR. I mean... you're applying (in the US version certainly) for a race-around-the-world. Surely you'd have a brief look at a map before heading off? I could kind of understand it if they told them to fly to Djibouti or Timor Leste perhaps, but Chile? Is not exactly a low profile destination. Well, not if you've watched any TAR at least! I couldn't understand why more teams didn't try the language detour. I thought Hamilton and Michaelia should have at least had a look at it before opting to go the EP route - although I suppose they did guarantee themselves first place and a trip, so I guess that could have been the main motivation. I can kind of see that... but I think I'd still have tried the other option and kept the pass in reserve. That made me laugh out loud. Best comment of the night. Given there were only two teams who attempted it, and one gave up really easily I'm not sure it was a sucker bet task. I think they could have at least tried it. I had no problems with not wanting to get in that costume - my fantasy race partner and I both agreed there was no way we were doing that half of the Detour, and we were home on the couch! ;-)

My only complaint was that basically nothing in the first half of the episode mattered - not even the flights to Toronto as it turned out. It was only from the market and then at TSN that had much effect. A few minor position changes at the final RB, but overall it was TSN that made or broke teams. Also if you're going to do anagrams then make the teams show you their completed anagram before getting the clue - I hate this "let's just wander around and... oh look! Follow them!" Got to say this cast is SO much better than the casting of the last seasons of both TAR:Original and TAR:Oz/NZ. I may end up disliking some of them, but for now I'm really happy that they're not all dating couples, and that they seem (to me at least) to be reasonably diverse. Seconding the thought about Sabrina, especially with TAR:Canada which is generally a lot more physical than the other versions. Also how quickly did she end up giving her partner her backpack?? Seriously here, don't pack what you can't carry and run with. Sheesh! That should definitely be another TAR rule. :-)

I didn't think NZ vs Aust was a total failure, but it wasn't the best season ever. I actually probably would have liked it if they hadn't tried so hard to ram the "look! Aussies vs Kiwis! Ooh!" down our throats Every. Single. Time. Also starting the race with "Racers ready? Set? Now let's all stop and do a tug-o-war..." really killed the suspense the first episode. If they'd just run it as a race without some of the national competition bullshit I probably would have liked it better (also if that Melbourne team had gone out earlier and if some of the casting had been a bit different. As pretty much always then.) I really like this idea, especially seeing as they appear to have finally killed off the FF after neutering it badly. Agree that only one EP should be able to be used per leg, which would also contribute to the strategy side. Do we switch Detours, or keep struggling or burn the EP now... could be interesting. I wouldn't mind the Save being the first leg reward, but only if the conditions include that once it's played, it's played regardless of whether it was an NEL or not. That was very poorly thought out in S25. I think the problem is that smartphones have become so ubiquitous that it's impossible to avoid them really. One thing I would like them to do with the product placement car leg is have to put in GPS co-ordinates to get directions. And then have to follow the map with the labelsand directions in Chinese or some other language. I think that would be awesome somewhere like Singapore or Japan for example. As to finishing cities... I'd kind of like them to do a penultimate leg somewhere that gives more options for returning to the US. If they do have to go through LA or NY then maybe have them arrive in the middle of the night/extremely early and have things they can do which are still open? The stadium challenge from the end of this season could have been done at night for example. As to returning teams... no one out of the season that Dave and Connor won. Worst season ever for me, was excited for the first couple of minutes with the brass band and then all the teams came out and it was all meh. If they did do another All Star I'd like the first say 5 legs to be on the 12 hour pitstop basis and then maybe have a few extended pitstops. Yeah I know it's an OH&S issue for the crew, but I'd like to see how some of these later season teams cope with the conditions that Flo was under. ;-)

I think she probably did, but was meaning "if I win an individual reward challenge then I will choose you to take with me" rather than "I will not get a reward that I have won because I will give it to you." Someone said pretty much exactly that last week (forget who). Have they had this many team reward challenges this late in recent seasons? My vague memory is that they were pretty much all individual by this point. Undoubtedly - they don't want us to turn off because we have no one we want to see win. Even the extent of Russell Hantz's arseholishness didn't really get shown until they were at final 3, which is when I knew he wouldn't win - these are the people you're allied with and you're treating them like that? What exactly were you like with the people you weren't allied with? I don't think Mike's anywhere near that bad, but I think he'd still grate on people a lot living in very close quarters the same way he did to begin with - by trying to do everything himself and then being irritated that no one was thanking him. The paranoia wouldn't help either. I'm still hoping for him, Sierra or Carolyn to win, but of those three Mike has by far the worst social game, worse even I think than Rodney and Will's.

Thanks for that list - I looked up every airline I've flown on and all but the US ones were 15lb, which is probably why that's stuck in my head. Heh. Damn, if I'd known United had unlimited carryon weight I would never have checked my backpack! And totally agree, stuff sacks are fantastic. I kind of want some of the recent racers to post a list of what they took and how much their packs weighed now!

E. (or F because I think someone else had E. up above): Carolyn's identified as a "mamma" and so should be giving up rewards because that's what mammas do, place their sons before themselves. Even when said sons aren't actually, um, their sons. Rodney actually reminds me of a boy I used to work with, who'd never encountered women who fell outside of his predetermined categories of "authority figure", "relative", "sexually attractive". He had literally no idea how to deal with me, who was 15 years older than him and who he really obviously didn't find attractive (the feeling was entirely reciprocated). Rodney seems to be dealing with it by putting Carolyn into the "relative" box to some extent. Mind you there's also G. Rodney's entire focus is on food because he's huuunnngggrrryyy... Yeah this season is pretty much down to the least worst option as to who to cheer for. Sierra came pretty close to winning the Immunity challenge if the editing is to be believed. She may have started off slow but she was the only one anywhere near Mike at the end. I still can't believe that in this group with so many "superfans" that no one she didn't tell apparently knew she had the idol. Either she hid it really well or this bunch are too nice to search her bag. I couldn't believe how happy I was when Mike won though, mostly because I knew how much it screwed up everyone else's (particularly Dan and Rodney's) plans. And then watching Dan screw up the advantage and be taken out by Carolyn... awesome.

I took it as being partly a security issue rather than a reducing the time deficit. I think if all five teams had caught the night arriving flight then they would have done it as the HOO bunch/staggered start. I'm wondering what Hayley's reactions to seeing herself on TAR are actually. Because for someone who never yells she's had quite a number of montages. Yes, the speed bump was using typewriters. Thanks Show, now I feel old. And I said the exact same thing about the calculators! I agree, a lot missing. Pre-existing relationships, tasks that are a choice (let alone with pros and cons), mat time questions about something other than "so, done it yet?" Well if they want to take it on as carry-on luggage then 7kg... seriously I wonder if some of these bags are being checked in because they look much too big for carry-on!