S32.E11: Run On Your Tippy Toes

[iMonrey]

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YMMV, but my complaint about the alliance isn't really "pearl clutching", as in "oh, no, how dare they do something so dastardly!"  It's that it made for boring TV.

I didn't find it the least bit boring. In fact I thought this season was a vast improvement, in terms of casting and challenges, over the previous several. The tasks of recent seasons have consisted more and more of visually interesting things like zip lining and bungee jumping but nothing that really changes placement for the teams. They did so much better with the challenges this time. 

As for casting I was relieved not to see an endless parade of dating couples like we usually do. 

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I, too, have been a loyal watcher since season 1.  for all the reasons previously stated I hated the alliances, too.  Not only did it make for boring watching, but it eliminated some of the more interesting teams early.  some of them might have been able to get better.

Which team in particular did you find more interesting that was eliminated directly because of the alliance? Kaylynn and Haley? I liked them but they were chronically and consistently lost and in last place. Even if they hadn't been Yielded and U-Turned I still don't think they would have made it any further. Leo and Alana, Michelle and Victoria, Kellie and LaVonne - none of them were eliminated at the hands of the alliance that I can recall. 

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That is precisely why there is so much "fury over the alliance"- because it deprived viewers (and the other teams) of knowing what the result would have been without the outrageous assistance they provided each other throughout the entire race. 

They received assistance for sure, but the degree to which one finds it outrageous is purely subjective. It didn't bother me a bit.

[Brookside]

3 hours ago, sinycalone said:

I really think the ESM aspect had a more positive than negative effect 

 

 

 

 

ESM?

[sinycalone]

10 minutes ago, Brookside said:

ESM?

Eat, Sleep, Mingle...included in the first 12 seasons of TAR.  There was no isolation in those days.

[ByaNose]

1 hour ago, sinycalone said:

Eat, Sleep, Mingle...included in the first 12 seasons of TAR.  There was no isolation in those days.

And, sometimes the meals were elaborate. I guess it was a cost saving thing along with less intermingling to prevent an alliance forming......Oooooops!

[Cotypubby]

2 hours ago, iMonrey said:

The tasks of recent seasons have consisted more and more of visually interesting things like zip lining and bungee jumping but nothing that really changes placement for the teams.

Except, because of the alliance, often not much really changed the placement of most of the teams this season either. Tasks that should have been tough and could have allowed those in the back to catch up were rendered moot by simply giving the answers to the other teams.

[chaifan]

7 hours ago, hendersonrocks said:

I think these are quite different circumstances. Aparna was pissed that DeAngelo and Gary used an actual, legit mechanism of the race against them. DeAngelo was pissed that other racers worked together to keep them out by sharing answers with each other, *after* he thought the alliance they all agreed to (and yes, benefitted from) had ended. He and Gary asked other teams to work with them at the challenge and they said no, and then proceeded to work with each other against Gary and DeAngelo.

It was personal *and* outside the existing strategy mechanisms of the race. The Aparna and Eswar move was neither.

I agree there were differences in the two situations, but...  Gary & DeAngelo have said in a few post-race interviews that they had a super secret alliance with the Beard Bros since day 1, and that they had agreed to share their answers in the music challenge with them.  So, I don't think have grounds to be upset by being dissed by the bigger alliance, when they had plans with the Beards to do the exact same thing. 

And, I've realized TAR and Covid don't mix.  I have waaaayyyy too much time on my hands at home in front of my computer.  I've never spent this much time on threads or commented this much on any show, ever!  Help! 

[sinycalone]

14 minutes ago, chaifan said:

I agree there were differences in the two situations, but...  Gary & DeAngelo have said in a few post-race interviews that they had a super secret alliance with the Beard Bros since day 1, and that they had agreed to share their answers in the music challenge with them.  So, I don't think have grounds to be upset by being dissed by the bigger alliance, when they had plans with the Beards to do the exact same thing. 

And, I've realized TAR and Covid don't mix.  I have waaaayyyy too much time on my hands at home in front of my computer.  I've never spent this much time on threads or commented this much on any show, ever!  Help! 

But their wanting to work with one other team would have left the other two teams to either work  together or individually...and with a chance to succeed.

[Red Bridey]

This alliance nonsense ruined my favorite competitive reality show just as James Holtzhauer ruined Jeopardy for me. The race turned bad during the sauerkraut roadblock. Who's to say Blondies wouldn't have gotten ahead of possibly two teams had the alliance not shared the answer with each other...especially since at least two of those teams didn't read the clue and didn't know they were supposed to find and unscramble letters? I remember one of the Globetrotters spending hours trying to unscramble "Chekhov" which I thought ridiculous at the time, so sauerkraut may have broken either the Beard is or the NFLers. We will never know because THEY CHEATED. And I liked both the beard bros and the Nflers but this Survivor crap instigated by the boyfriends and their endless simpering gleeful delight at eliminating other teams disgusts me. Just another 2020 disappointment. I am so sick of this year.

Also, did tall beard bro run out of pomade just when the humidity got bad? His beard seemed much curlier in this leg. 

[30 Helens]

I thoroughly enjoyed the first 2/3 of this episode. FINALLY, everyone was racing for themselves, alliances left behind. It was fast paced, frantic, lots of jockeying for position. It was a real R-A-C-E, for maybe the first time all season. And then...

Well, we all know what happened. No need to rehash that.  

I really wonder what Phil thinks about the alliances. Sometimes he seems irritated/ disapproving, other times he appears to admire the strategy. I wish he would pick a lane. (Preferably the lane that sends all alliance teams into a dead end alley.)

In the end, the one redeeming part of this episode was Hung’s lion impressions. The growling, the hand claws.... hilarious.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, 30 Helens said:

In the end, the one redeeming part of this episode was Hung’s lion impressions. The growling, the hand claws.... hilarious.

And it seemed to work! At least as the show presented it, someone picked up on what she was doing and pointed them in the right direction.

[Justawatcher2.0]

for those who watch other versions of the race from other countries- do they have all this alliance crap? I ask because I got to wondering- we see the alliance as a product of Big Brother and Survivor (CBS shows) and even so far as that one season with contestants from those shows. Is it that the American version gets cast in a CBS reality slanted way and emphasizes the CBS alliance reality show style or have all the Race versions morphed into this? If CBS, either thru casting or editing, is driving this alliance business on the American version, it could explain a lot.

Will and James- the race has always had bold personalities that play to the camera. Will and James for me, fall into the category of "I want to be a reality TV personality". This season has felt like an audition for a future gig. 

 

[BarneySays]

On 12/11/2020 at 12:59 PM, scowl said:

I loved the alliance because I knew at some point a team would get screwed by it. It has always been a good strategy this season shows just how well it can work. I'm glad that TAR has a real social element between the teams because that is something that has been missing.

TAR has always had a social element to it.  The relationships between teams has always been part of enjoying the show- the rivalries and camaraderies.   Forming an alliance like this season is not social, it's strategic.  And the absence of this is one of the things that has made TAR a superior show to the banal survivor and bottomfeeder big brother.  

Waiting for someone to get screwed by the alliance seems a small reward for week after week of predictable outcomes, but YMMV. 

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 12/10/2020 at 3:54 PM, Dobian said:

Seriously, I think people are making too much of the alliance on that song challenge.  Any halfway intelligent team would have wrapped that challenge up WELL before the alliance did.  When I first heard the challenge instructions, I noted right off that the songs were to be in the order of the countries they visited, so when people were sticking Germany ahead of Colombia, I knew they had it wrong.  You don't need an alliance to read a freaking clue, and this isn't the first time these idiots DIDN'T READ THE CLUE!!!  I have watched plenty of these kind of memory challenges in previous TARs where teams figured it out very efficiently all by themselves.  If the Football Team had read their clue as well and done some logical thinking, they could have beaten the Dumbo Alliance.  These teams might want to consider that by constantly relying on other teams for cheats the way a student looks over at a classmate's paper during a test, they were weakening their skills at solving these kind of challenges.  The level of play was awful.

I agree with most of this, but for the part about "any halfway intelligent team." 

Even if you read the clue correctly, there are a few problems that intelligence in and of itself wouldn't solve:

1. There's a good possibility that a team doesn't remember all the music from previous legs. 

2. The version of the music being played by the band wasn't as recognizable as IMO it should have been. 

3. Tying the right flag to the right country (albeit someone who has been to the country and has a heads' up from watching previous season's of the race should know that there's a good chance of such a challenge)

Even if you spot a team Dayo and the circus music as the right countries in the right spots, that still leaves a lot of ground to cover if for the last two. You could maybe eliminate a couple of the eight(?) or so remaining flags by process of elimination, but that is still an awful lot of permeutations to have to go through. With having to physically lift the trunks and take them to the judge, plus having to wait for the other teams making their attempts, it seems like it could easily take a smart and systematic team a while to work through the highest probabile options, let alone the full set of possibilities.

[SG429]

11 minutes ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

1. There's a good possibility that a team doesn't remember all the music from previous legs. 

Esp. the France entry. The other 3 tunes were much more integral to the task itself, while it was just background music in the France task as racers attempted to concentrate on something else entirely.

[Netfoot]

20 hours ago, ByaNose said:

I guess it was a cost saving thing along with less intermingling to prevent an alliance forming......Oooooops!

I suspect it was to prevent the bonds of friendship from forming. In a misplaced effort to maximize the possibility of animosity, thereby resulting in sweet, reality TV strife and conflict!

6 hours ago, Justawatcher2.0 said:

Will and James for me, fall into the category of "I want to be a reality TV personality".

You mean "Fame Whores?"

1 hour ago, Chicago Redshirt said:

Even if you spot a team Dayo and the circus music as the right countries in the right spots, that still leaves a lot of ground to cover if for the last two. You could maybe eliminate a couple of the eight(?) or so remaining flags by process of elimination, but that is still an awful lot of permeutations to have to go through.

Yes, if you are sure about two, it still leaves 56 possible permutations, or an average of 28 guesses to find the result. If you can make an educated guess about which flags are more likely and which are less, you can begin with the more likely options and hopefully get to a solution in am lot less tries. But if you can't, and the law of averages runs against you, it's 56 tries for you. How long (Minutes? Seconds?) between each try?

 

 

[hhawks]

On 12/9/2020 at 7:27 PM, blackwing said:

I count Will and James among my least favourite teams ever in the history of TAR.  James is a whiny little shit and the one that’s always playing for the camera and oh so twee about everything.  But I’ve concluded that Will is a nasty person as well.  The way he was yelling at the minibus driver was inexcusable.   “Turn around!  Turn around!”  “No we just got passed!”   The guy isn’t your slave, Will.

I loathe these two so much but I’m convinced they win next week.  I wish there was a way to teleport these two to Antarctica.

Will and James may be my least favorite TAR teams too, for all your reasons.  Last year I cheered for the gay friends that almost won.  I forget their names but they played a game I could respect.

[hhawks]

On 12/9/2020 at 8:32 PM, ByaNose said:

After, living through the BB mob alliance it was horrible to live through another one on TAR. I seriously wonder if that’s why CBS held on to this for so long. Granted, they couldn’t have foreseen the BB debacle but just seeing their own (boring) show play out it might have given them pause. 

I've been a Big Brother and Master Chef primetimer but this is the first time I've visited TAR.  I was thinking of how TAR turned out to be as shitty as the 2020 Big Brother season and was comforted to see what others are thinking.  Gary in the art museum was my season highlight.

[Guest]

On 12/11/2020 at 5:19 PM, Cotypubby said:

Except, because of the alliance, often not much really changed the placement of most of the teams this season either. Tasks that should have been tough and could have allowed those in the back to catch up were rendered moot by simply giving the answers to the other teams.

It’s really a matter of perspective because I don’t think the alliance had anything with it. Yes the alliance helped each other but that has happened in every season. The only real difference here is that race kept bunching everyone together more than usual. The alliance teams stayed at the top because they were the top teams. Even without an alliance there is a good chance the results would have been exactly the same. After the first leg every team went home because of their own massive mistakes.

That’s why what happened to G/D doesn’t bother me much. They had every chance to figure it out. The only thing that could have saved them was quitting earlier or getting help from another team.

My main problem with the alliance is that it discouraged critical thinking. Of course you could also argue the lack of critical thinking skills is what caused them to turn to the alliance. 

Edited December 13, 2020 by Guest

[hhawks]

On 12/10/2020 at 7:37 AM, Spunkygal said:

I felt sorry for the city of Manila. I have never been there and probably never will, but surely there could have been challenges with more cultural, food or geographical tie-ins? Phil introduces the city by going on about how it’s the texting capital of the world so I was expecting some challenge somehow related to that, but nothing else was ever said about it. I learned that it’s a city with insane traffic, an animated traffic cop, high heeled shoes, people in dragon costumes and hungry horses. This episode didn’t get me interested in Manila, which is very unusual when I watch this show. Even if they are in locales that I know I’ll never visit, I’m usually intrigued by the people or the culture or the implements they use to prepare a dish or fashion or whatever. Not this time. 

All in all, I see why TPTB sat on this season for so long and I wish they had never unearthed it. Don’t know if I’ll watch next week.

Part of the show's attraction is learning about far away places and their people, but the last episode was pure 2020.  Avoid Manila.

 

On 12/10/2020 at 7:37 AM, Spunkygal said:

I felt sorry for the city of Manila. I have never been there and probably never will, but surely there could have been challenges with more cultural, food or geographical tie-ins? Phil introduces the city by going on about how it’s the texting capital of the world so I was expecting some challenge somehow related to that, but nothing else was ever said about it. I learned that it’s a city with insane traffic, an animated traffic cop, high heeled shoes, people in dragon costumes and hungry horses. This episode didn’t get me interested in Manila, which is very unusual when I watch this show. Even if they are in locales that I know I’ll never visit, I’m usually intrigued by the people or the culture or the implements they use to prepare a dish or fashion or whatever. Not this time. 

All in all, I see why TPTB sat on this season for so long and I wish they had never unearthed it. Don’t know if I’ll watch next week.

Part of the show's attraction is learning about far away places and their people.  But this episode was pure 2020.  Avoid Manila.

[hhawks]

13 hours ago, Justawatcher2.0 said:

for those who watch other versions of the race from other countries- do they have all this alliance crap? I ask because I got to wondering- we see the alliance as a product of Big Brother and Survivor (CBS shows) and even so far as that one season with contestants from those shows. Is it that the American version gets cast in a CBS reality slanted way and emphasizes the CBS alliance reality show style or have all the Race versions morphed into this? If CBS, either thru casting or editing, is driving this alliance business on the American version, it could explain a lot.

Will and James- the race has always had bold personalities that play to the camera. Will and James for me, fall into the category of "I want to be a reality TV personality". This season has felt like an audition for a future gig. 

 

Like so many Big Brother contestants, Will and James are there to promote their brand on social media as tv stars.  Which one of them said "I just love the Philippines?"  Its so hard to tell them apart due to their identical unlikable personalities.

[mbprocks]

The season has been downright awful. The alliance has sucked all the fun out of the race, and as "villains"  Will and James have had a certain fingernails on the chalkboard-ness to them. 

This year felt lazy ever since the moment when Will and James abandoned their car in the middle of Berlin and walked to the next task when they couldn't figure out how to use the clutch, when the clue clearly said they had to park their car in front of the hotel, and weren't penalized. Somewhere Michael and Kevin are STILL sitting out their penalty saying, "are you kidding me?"

Maybe the time off with the pandemic will recharge the crew and producers so they can reinstitute some of the rules of competition and make it a more enjoyable experience in the future.

[ByaNose]

1 hour ago, hhawks said:

Like so many Big Brother contestants, Will and James are there to promote their brand on social media as tv stars.  Which one of them said "I just love the Philippines?"  Its so hard to tell them apart due to their identical unlikable personalities.

And, that why I don’t want them to win. Reality life is short lived and they want capitalize on it while they can. That said, I think they are going to win so I’m preparing myself now so I won’t be depressed after the show ends Wednesday night. It will be interesting to hear the Mine 3’s exit interview. I doubt they’ll regret because they ended up in the Final 3 but do they regret it enough that it prevent two of the teams from winning?! Time will tell. Also, we are supposed to have a big storm in the Philly area on Wednesday/Thursday so I’m locked in for the night and the next day. I’m actually thrilled about it. LOL!!!!! 

[SnideAsides]

15 hours ago, Justawatcher2.0 said:

for those who watch other versions of the race from other countries- do they have all this alliance crap?

Will and James- the race has always had bold personalities that play to the camera. Will and James for me, fall into the category of "I want to be a reality TV personality". 

It depends on the franchise but generally the only ones with anywhere near as much strategy shit are Israel (which basically drags its seasons out to like three episodes per leg to justify the cost, meaning most legs have a voting Yield or U-Turn to fill airtime), Canada (where the tasks are much harder to counter the fact that they rarely leave Canada, causing a metric fuckload of strategic quitting that the producers haven't worked out how to disincentivise), and one season of the Australian version which was built around a network-enforced "Australia vs New Zealand" gimmick that nobody liked. All the rest? No deal. Like, they do still have the U-Turn and whatever but most non-US seasons have basically no overt strategy beyond the absolute bare minimum. Like most of the time they don't even tell us if a U-Turn is coming (unlike the US version, where it's the focus of the preview every. damn. time.) because it's such a damp squib of a twist they can't sell it effectively.

The "Will and James trying to be reality TV characters" thing would make sense because they both HAVE been on other reality shows before: James as a random midseason boot on the CW flop Capture, and Will was runner-up on one of the awful co-ed seasons America's Next Top Model was doing shortly before it got cancelled.

[Vermicious Knid]

Got to wonder now if Aparna trash talking DeAngelo on the last leg was because he had been so annoying and/or miserable to everyone throughout the Race.

[blackwing]

7 hours ago, ByaNose said:

And, that why I don’t want them to win. Reality life is short lived and they want capitalize on it while they can. That said, I think they are going to win so I’m preparing myself now so I won’t be depressed after the show ends Wednesday night. It will be interesting to hear the Mine 3’s exit interview. I doubt they’ll regret because they ended up in the Final 3 but do they regret it enough that it prevent two of the teams from winning?! Time will tell. Also, we are supposed to have a big storm in the Philly area on Wednesday/Thursday so I’m locked in for the night and the next day. I’m actually thrilled about it. LOL!!!!! 

They won't.  It's like Madison or Riley said at the pit stop, these are our best friends on the Race and the people we wanted to be with at the end.  So whichever one ends up winning (I agree with you, I think it will be Will and James), the other two will say something to the effect of "if we couldn't win ourselves, we would want our friends to win, we wouldn't have gotten as far as we did without them, so we are happy for them".

The themes have already been written and each of them already has their victory speech.  Madison/Riley: "we were consistently strong and made few mistakes and were able to rely on each other throughout the race, we compete as a team for beach volleyball but this added another dimension to our partnership".  Hung/Chee: "we are glad we could prove to our daughters that anyone can do anything as long as they are determined and never give up".  Will/James: "we've grown so much as a couple and our journey throughout this race has been fabulous, we did things we never thought we could do, who would have thought".

Will and James winning will be the worst winners ever for me.  There's more than a few teams that I have disliked that ended up winning, but at least most of those times I felt like the winners deserved it.  These two don't deserve anything.  They above all were helped so many times by their alliance, I feel like they should have to split the money if they win.

[sinycalone]

8 hours ago, Vermicious Knid said:

Got to wonder now if Aparna trash talking DeAngelo on the last leg was because he had been so annoying and/or miserable to everyone throughout the Race.

According to Gary/D's post-race interviews and their Twitter account, all the teams remained friendly enough to hang out, and to have group chats afterwards.  Of course, after viewing the race on CBS, there might have changed, lol.

[displayname]

On 12/10/2020 at 9:52 AM, Netfoot said:

Keeping it real! Yeah! Also known as rude and tactless.

Funny how the ones trying to "keep it real" always seem to be lost in their own heads lol.

[Chicago Redshirt]

On 12/10/2020 at 11:11 AM, Tango64 said:

Down 28 with 2 minutes left, you still don't walk off the field and head to the locker room. Of course, you're just going through the motions until time runs out, but you have to maintain some dignity in finishing it out. 

I'd rather be going through the  motions of completing the task, probably without any urgency, and have Phil come tell me the leg is over, than lie down and take a nap.

That season where Phil had to go find a team in the dark as they were hunting for a needle in a haystack and tell them it was over, I at least gave the team props for trying. I guess it's a sportsmanship, personal pride thing for me and not just the practicality of whether they could catch up.

But then again, the whole spirit of racing was abandoned in this season, so maybe the point is moot.

The analogy to football doesn't quite fit. The nature of football as a team sport, the rules of football and pro football's contracts with sponsors wouldn't allow for teams to forfeit games like that. They do allow such things as putting scrubs in during garbage time. No one (hopefully) would call that bad sportsmanship to field less-than-your-best squad.

The rules of the race let one take a penalty instead of completing a task. So I don't see what is wrong with it.

On 12/10/2020 at 5:09 PM, Netfoot said:

So what? If they had persevered, they might have solved the puzzle and been on their way in minutes. And they might have found another team sitting at the Amazing Bathmat, waiting out a penalty for some infraction, earlier in the race.

Yes, might. No certainty. But they had a chance and they just couldn't be bothered to try. These guys are professional sportsmen? Well, guess who's team they ain't never working for!

At the time they took the penalty, they knew there was pretty much no chance of them solving the puzzle within minutes or anytime soon. And they had no reason to think that any of the previous teams would be penalized enough for them to make a comeback. There was about as much probability of one of the other teams having a near-fatal accident on the way to the pit stop and being able to overtake them that way.

On 12/10/2020 at 7:44 PM, Netfoot said:

100 Meter Olympic finals. The gun fires and eight runners shoot out of the blocks. But by the 50 meter mark, it is obvious that Usain Bolt has got this. So, should the other racers just stop and wander off the track?

Again, it's not analogous to the situation here on a couple grounds:

1. The Olympians in this hypothetical are capable of finishing the race within a short time frame: Within 13 seconds, that race is over. The best possible scenario for G&D would probably mean lots of minutes, and there was a respectable chance given their mindstate that they would simply not finish it.  

2. There are other reasons to finish the 100 m than coming in first. Achieving a personal best, representing your country, etc. Those don't generally apply to the Race.

A more appropriate analogy: There are four people who are neck and neck in a marathon, and they are about 20 miles into the 26.2 mile course. All four of the top runners experience debilitating migraines at the same point. One person thought to bring pain medication with him and shares it with two of the runners but not the fourth. The three runners who have the pain medication soon recover and continue on their way. The fourth runner tries to go forward but isn't making much progress and can't see a way to do the other 6.2 miles at all, let alone faster than the people who had recovered. What reason would that runner have to carry on? 

On 12/11/2020 at 3:06 PM, Door County Cherry said:

Not only that, for most of these racers, the winning amount could be life changing for them.  I know not all professional athletes make a ton of money in their careers even if their salaries seem huge so normally I wouldn't begrudge them a space in the race but if DeAngelo thinks he has enough money then I kind of wish he weren't on the race.  

DeAngelo was a pretty successful running back with career earnings of around $40 million, and a net worth of somewhere around $15-$27 million from what the Interwebs tell me. 

Gary played a less celebrated position (tight end) and was less successful at it than D, and it looks like his career earnings were more like $18 million. 

Both are retired from the NFL. So they presumably have the time and the money to do trips around the world on their own.  

I get that neither needs their portion of the $1 million prize as much as anyone else on the Race, so in that sense, I'm OK with them not winning. 

Edited December 14, 2020 by Chicago Redshirt

[DawnDavenport]

On 12/12/2020 at 6:49 AM, tracyscott76 said:

And it seemed to work! At least as the show presented it, someone picked up on what she was doing and pointed them in the right direction.

The highlight for me was watching her basically attack the first lion that encountered! She was not gentle at all and I caught what I thought was the person recoiling from her aggressive behavior. Girl calm the hell down!

[BK1978]

On 12/9/2020 at 9:40 PM, dgpolo said:

I really think that this alliance was serendipitous. The stars were in alignment for those teams, at that time, at that place. I don't think it will be repeated because these teams won't be there. Some teams in the future (fingers crossed) may -try- to repeat it but then one team will take a wrong turn and get lost for six hours, or one teammate will break down at a task and won't be able to finish (Mika, Jen, Flo), or a team will decide to break away (Karlyn & Lyn), or the tasks won't lend themselves to 'sharing' (swimming, diving, dancing, needle in a haystack etc.) I think this was a pretty unique set of circumstances that will be hard to replicate rather than becoming common.

For people who have better memories than I, how many times have an alliance been this dominate?  I don't remember many seasons where that is the case so I have to say I agree with DGPOLO in this post.  Everything seemed to align right for these teams to do what they did.

On 12/9/2020 at 10:32 PM, ByaNose said:

I seriously wonder if that’s why CBS held on to this for so long.

That what I was thinking as well.

On 12/10/2020 at 9:37 AM, Spunkygal said:

I felt sorry for the city of Manila. I have never been there and probably never will, but surely there could have been challenges with more cultural, food or geographical tie-ins? Phil introduces the city by going on about how it’s the texting capital of the world so I was expecting some challenge somehow related to that, but nothing else was ever said about it. I learned that it’s a city with insane traffic, an animated traffic cop, high heeled shoes, people in dragon costumes and hungry horses. This episode didn’t get me interested in Manila, which is very unusual when I watch this show. Even if they are in locales that I know I’ll never visit, I’m usually intrigued by the people or the culture or the implements they use to prepare a dish or fashion or whatever. Not this time. 

All in all, I see why TPTB sat on this season for so long and I wish they had never unearthed it. Don’t know if I’ll watch next week.

My friend lives just outside of Manila and I brought up that it was on TAR.  He asked me, "Did they show how much of a shit hole it is?"  So maybe that is all there really is to learn and see about Manila. 

[Kel Varnsen]

The city sprint idea would have been more interesting if it didn't seem close to every other leg where they take place all in one city. Even my kids who are 7 & 10 and watching their first season commented on how everyone always travels on the same flight. Then I had to tell them about the TAR Glory days, when airport hustle was just as important as being good at challenges and people would sometimes find secret flights that would get them hours ahead. And now I am thinking about paying for a month of CBS all access to show them, but I am not sure if the Canadian Version has TAR (it didn't back in April when we did a trial).

Also good to see the whole alliance thing turned out exactly as I thought. No one seemed to realize that being on the bottom of an alliance is bad and no one realized that they could flip on their alliance, help Gary and D'Angelo. If they did that they could have eliminated a much stronger team and made it easier to win the finals.

Edited December 14, 2020 by Kel Varnsen

[Lamb18]

28 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

And now I am thinking about paying for a month of CBS all access to show them, but I am not sure if the Canadian Version has TAR (it didn't back in April when we did a trial).

You can't see past seasons of TAR on U.S. CBS All-Access. I watched nearly all the past seasons on Hulu - I had to buy a couple of the more recent ones.

[Ghost Bear]

Did anyone else notice the light stand positioned near the stage, behind the racers at the music challenge? It's in a fleeting couple of shots, on the left side of the screen.

Reason I bring it up is that I believe that's how the producers communicated to the judge if the flag order was correct; the couple times you see it flash, it's either green/red/green/red (which corresponded to the lower third graphic with check marks and X's) or all green (for the beard bros getting it right). It's not lit for a long time, just enough to communicate a yes or no result from the judge.

Which means that if I ever run the Race, to not only pay attention to where my camera guy is pointing taking a shot when I can't find a clue, to also sneaking a peek around me at a judge station to try and catch a glimpse of any outside messaging for correct answers. 😄

[Kel Varnsen]

1 hour ago, Lamb18 said:

You can't see past seasons of TAR on U.S. CBS All-Access. I watched nearly all the past seasons on Hulu - I had to buy a couple of the more recent ones.

Hulu is not available in Canada so that is too bad. My kids really got into this season so I would love to show them some of the super competitive ones.

[Giuseppe]

11 minutes ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Hulu is not available in Canada so that is too bad. My kids really got into this season so I would love to show them some of the super competitive ones.

You could try Amazon Prime Video, if that's an option for you.

[Netfoot]

BitcoughTorrent....

[blackwing]

7 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

The city sprint idea would have been more interesting if it didn't seem close to every other leg where they take place all in one city. Even my kids who are 7 & 10 and watching their first season commented on how everyone always travels on the same flight. Then I had to tell them about the TAR Glory days, when airport hustle was just as important as being good at challenges and people would sometimes find secret flights that would get them hours ahead. And now I am thinking about paying for a month of CBS all access to show them, but I am not sure if the Canadian Version has TAR (it didn't back in April when we did a trial).

 

4 hours ago, Giuseppe said:

You could try Amazon Prime Video, if that's an option for you.

Agreed, Amazon Prime.  It has every single season, starting from TAR Classic.  I may do a rewatch with my kids.  

[Kel Varnsen]

11 minutes ago, blackwing said:

 

Agreed, Amazon Prime.  It has every single season, starting from TAR Classic.  I may do a rewatch with my kids.  

Unfortunately not in Canada. I just looked and it appears Crave.tv has the streaming rights to the old seasons. Crave used to have one month free trials which we have signed up to a few times, but it looks like they changed it to a 1 week trial.

[LabScientist]

On 12/9/2020 at 11:22 PM, Netfoot said:

1. Gary & DeAngelo are idiots. Did they really think the Whine Five alliance was still in effect when there were only four teams left? And after seeing what happened to one of the alliance last week?
2. Gary & DeAngelo are idiots. You are the last team left at the last task before the Pitstop, and you voluntarily take a 2 hour penalty? It's an automatic elimination! They could have kept trying! They might have got it the very next try! There might have been some horrendous taxi screwup that made another team come late! Phil should have had to come and Guido them, because they should never have given up. Lena & Kristy should spit.
3. DeAngelo is an asshole. Such discourtesy. If someone gives you a gift and you really hate it you don't tell them that to their face. I've had my doubts about him for several episodes, but now I've got the proof.

ETA: (Netfoot is an idiot.) Twofold. 1, 2 & 3. Sheesh!

1. I don't think that G & D thought that the Mine 5 was still in effect. In fact, I am pretty sure, early in the episode they made the comment that the alliance was over since they were down to the final 4 teams. Meaning, that they were not expecting any of the teams to work together to complete a task and for the other 3 teams to be so blatant about it was pretty gross.

2. They knew that once the other 3 teams completed the task at basically the same time, they were done. They saw no reason to continue guessing. They were so close to having it right two times, I was really hoping that they would pull out the win. 

3. I don't disagree with you on this point DeAngelo really made himself look bad with his comments at the end. I do understand his feelings though. I cannot remember where I saw it, but I read that Gary and DeAngelo were actually playing for a charity and if they had won, they would not have kept the money. Whether that is true or not, I am not sure.

[Skyfall]

On 12/9/2020 at 9:55 PM, FlyingEgret said:

I am thinking that D&G actually read the clue and were placing the flags in the correct order but with one mistake. Which means that one of the other teams could have saved a lot of time by working with them.  Obviously that would never have happened but I take pleasure in knowing they got that part right without help from anyone else.  Doesn't equal a win, but still...

They did an interview. They knew the 2 the other 3 didn't know. They also had no point of reference for music in France.

[LabScientist]

On 12/10/2020 at 1:22 AM, jimjohnson9 said:

If this show is to continue, the time has come to penalize teams for this horrible alliance trend that has ruined some of the recent seasons. A race of this nature should be about the strongest teams finishing ahead - not the whimpering, sniveling also-rans ganging up to eliminate the strong teams that they can't compete with.

I agree with you. I have always like the Amazing Race because it was about the race, unlike shows like Survivor where alliances run the game and determine the outcome. The Amazing Race used to be about which team had the skills /abilities to complete the tasks the fastest or best. Every once in a while a team would get a bad cab driver that messed up their game but for the most part, the teams at the end were there because they earned it, not because someone else gave them the answers.

 

[tvfanatic13]

I really enjoyed this episode, but I realized why I did NOT like this season. They didn’t run a race around the world. They ran 11 separate races. Every single episode started with them even, and there was no time reward for winning. Probably my least favorite season of the Race, sadly probably the last one. 

[sinycalone]

1 hour ago, LabScientist said:

1. I don't think that G & D thought that the Mine 5 was still in effect. In fact, I am pretty sure, early in the episode they made the comment that the alliance was over since they were down to the final 4 teams. Meaning, that they were not expecting any of the teams to work together to complete a task and for the other 3 teams to be so blatant about it was pretty gross.

2. They knew that once the other 3 teams completed the task at basically the same time, they were done. They saw no reason to continue guessing. They were so close to having it right two times, I was really hoping that they would pull out the win. 

3. I don't disagree with you on this point DeAngelo really made himself look bad with his comments at the end. I do understand his feelings though. I cannot remember where I saw it, but I read that Gary and DeAngelo were actually playing for a charity and if they had won, they would not have kept the money. Whether that is true or not, I am not sure.

Gary and D did mention on Twitter (and I think on their podcast) that they were donating their money (if they won) to charities.

[Skyfall]

On 12/9/2020 at 10:51 PM, Door County Cherry said:

 

He had a chance.  He and Gary could have figured things out before the other three teams.  I think the U-Turn they did to another team is more of a challenge than the other three teams working together.  I think the bitterness is largely from not realizing that the other three teams had formed a smaller alliance from the five before this episode.  They likely would have made other choices.  

I found it easier to believe they all misunderstood the clue than I did that the married couple and boyfriends both realized their mistake at the same time.  TAR was deliberately tricky by changing up the order of the songs. I liked that touch of cleverness. 

So the penalty was two hours.  I wonder how long they did that task.  If I were Gary and D'Angelo, I think I might've gambled with the penalty earlier once I realized we were the odd team out.  Especially given how frustrating the task was proving to be.  It would've thrown a wrench in that alliance because it would have created a time limit before they were all racing against one another again.  Then the question would become whether or not another team opted to take the penalty or if they'd all continue to try to solve it.  

The strategy was there.  

Gary and D'Angelo were part of an alliance.  Including a much smaller alliance, it turns out.  I agree that alliances aren't fun to watch.  But CBS seems to love them and Survivor has infected all of their reality shows. 

I thought perhaps the leg might have been created to limit the influence of an alliance but when the final task happened, I realized that wasn't the case.  But he only suggested that people not work together given the fact that much of this was pure speed racing (although, not that much?  They were just easier roadblocks until the final task). 

One thing they could do in the future, though, is make sure the teams remain separated.  For this, they could have put them in separate areas of the park and had a radio playing the music via separate vans. 

I didn't like the alliance but the time for me crying about the fairness of it was once the last non-alliance team was eliminated and that happened before this episode.  

 

Another way to prevent this is to limit grouping the teams every episode. Back in the day the timing you got to the pit stop was crucial to your success.

[Netfoot]

27 minutes ago, Skyfall said:

Another way to prevent this is to limit grouping the teams every episode.

I think you are 100% right. If every episode/leg starts with a airport bunch, then the teams are generally running together. Hence five teams down the mine at the same time, leading to the alliance.

[Cotypubby]

Yeah, the main problems with this season stem from the airport bunching for every flight. There wouldn’t even be an alliance to begin with if the teams arrived at places and completed tasks at different times. You’re not going to wait 40 minutes for the next team to arrive to give them the answer. It’s different when they’re all there at the same time. 

[ByaNose]

All of that said, I do wonder what changes (if any) they implemented for the current season that was filming & stopped after 3 legs due to COVID-19. They held it for 2 years but you wonder if they even knew how bad it would play when it aired. It’s only now they are hearing the backlash. Did they have enough forethought to make and changes or thought it was just fluke? It’s gonna be a long time (if ever) before we find out. 

[SG429]

10 hours ago, ByaNose said:

All of that said, I do wonder what changes (if any) they implemented for the current season that was filming & stopped after 3 legs due to COVID-19. They held it for 2 years but you wonder if they even knew how bad it would play when it aired. It’s only now they are hearing the backlash. Did they have enough forethought to make and changes or thought it was just fluke? It’s gonna be a long time (if ever) before we find out. 

While they held this for 2 years, they also held production of S33 for 2 years. Maybe Race and CBS were trying to figure it out?

[Kel Varnsen]

14 hours ago, Skyfall said:

Another way to prevent this is to limit grouping the teams every episode. Back in the day the timing you got to the pit stop was crucial to your success.

I wonder if this type of alliance concept will evolve so fast it will basically implode. As we saw again in this episode that most teams got screwed over by that main alliance. So maybe in future seasons teams will go out of their way to keep these alliances from forming and staying together. Hopefully the final leg really drives that point home, like if the bears Bros win will Will and James have enough self awareness to realize they helped bring a really strong team to the finals and doing that cost them a million dollars. Will future teams realize that doing that is a bad idea. 

[momlyd]

Roku TV has the Pluto channel which runs seasons one through seven of classic TAR. UNFORTUNATELY, the times are odd and the episodes are all jumbled together. It's a bit of a crap shoot as to which season/episode you'll find. I was really excited to find the season with Colin and Christie and stayed up way too late to see the "MY OX IS BROKEN" for myself - then, Pluto switched over to a different season before that happened. ARGH