S33.E01: We’re Back!/S33.E02: It Can’t Be That Easy

[peachmangosteen]

7 hours ago, chaifan said:

First, I think that's against reality show rules, aka actual laws against fixing results.

That's only for game shows.

Just now, chitowngirl said:

This would be a double leg, not a NEL, yes? Phil usually mentions to the last team that it’s NEL and they’ll have an extra task to do.

Yea, it seems that they're just not finished racing yet and there will be no extra task for the twins.

[ML89]

Re: Plane - or did they fly everyone to JFK (except the NYC area who got there) and then fly them at one time? I know the map showed LA, Charlotte, Chicago to London but that would be a relatively easy way to get everyone at the airport at around the same time. Have the teams said?

[Quilt Fairy]

9 hours ago, Zonk said:

I mean we all know the judges don't actually judge, it's people behind the camera giving them signs

Um, no, we don't know that at all.  In fact, as another poster mentioned, they would be in violation of FCC regulations. 

I didn't perceive either of the detours to be unfairly unbalanced.  Phil doesn't give his "pros and cons" speech anymore, but it still applies.  You read the options and decide which one your team can do faster.  And the teams did that.  If you have the stamina to run around London, you pick Digiben.  If you have OCD focus like the tall gray haired guy (what's their team? Penn & Teller or something like that?) you figure you can do the Banksy task more efficiently.  And the teams still, AFAIK, have the option of switching detours, which no one did.  

For the cake task, I definitely would have picked Germany, because I know that one is black, red and yellow.  But France?  I know France is red, white and blue, but I couldn't tell you if it was strips or bars or what the color order was, and there were a lot of red, white and blue variations, including Norway (which I thought might be Denmark). 

[Zonk]

1 minute ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Um, no, we don't know that at all.  In fact, as another poster mentioned, they would be in violation of FCC regulations. 

Um, yes, we know that, from countless people observing tasks and racers talking about it. I don't think the FCC regulations say what you think they say.

3 minutes ago, Quilt Fairy said:

If you have OCD focus like the tall gray haired guy

He doesn't have OCD or OCD focus.

4 minutes ago, Quilt Fairy said:

For the cake task, I definitely would have picked Germany, because I know that one is black, red and yellow.

It's not. It's black, red and gold.

[HurricaneVal]

Poor @Zonk....first I called it "orange" and now Quilt Fairy called it "yellow."  The German flag isn't getting getting its proper due!  Sorry, Zonk....

Yeah, the racers are only as fast as the limiting factor of their camera and sound crew.   I know that has been an issue on prior seasons when there's only limited space on an advantageous flight to the next destination, but there's only two seats left on the plane, not enough for the racers and crew, so they have to give that flight up and pick a different one.  That seems both fair and unfair, really.

[chaifan]

On the Holderness recap video (I also posted this on their page)...  it's an hour long, but there's not really anything to watch - it's them recording their podcast.  They put in a few still shots, but nothing new.  So if you want to just listen, you won't miss anything.  That said, I recommend it.  Information on how much information they have on the detours, It's a Clue!, dripgate, edited out challenges, a bit on Covid, info on other teams, etc. 

ETA:  They also explain they did get lost going to the Banksy challenge, as did all other teams, but also that one of the DigiBen teams said they completed that detour really fast.  So, maybe it was unbalanced, maybe not... 

Edited January 7, 2022 by chaifan

[Zonk]

2 minutes ago, HurricaneVal said:

Poor @Zonk....first I called it "orange" and now Quilt Fairy called it "yellow."  The German flag isn't getting getting its proper due!  Sorry, Zonk....

It's all in good fun. But I assume I'd better not call the US flag "red white and turquoise". I suspect I might get lynched. 😆

[Mediocre Gatsby]

16 minutes ago, Zonk said:

He doesn't have OCD or OCD focus.

He said he had ADHD and a special focus, I think. 

[Zonk]

2 minutes ago, Mediocre Gatsby said:

He said he had ADHD and a special focus, I think. 

Yeah, with ADHD you sometimes go into hyperfocus in especially stimulating situations. If you ask me only good part about ADHD, but ymmv.

[ProfCrash]

4 minutes ago, Mediocre Gatsby said:

He said he had ADHD and a special focus, I think. 

Hyper focus is a well known bit of ADHD. He calls it his super power but it is just a pretty common part of ADHD. 

Says someone with ADHD and lots of experience with hyper focus.

[Quilt Fairy]

This is from a former freelance NBC producer: 

Quote

  If your show is a competition of skill, intelligence, or chance, and it gives away a prize, and is broadcast in the United States, it's considered a game show by US Law. 

Whether or not this covers TAR, I've never heard or read anything about judging being controlled by "people behind the camera giving hand signals".   So I don't know that. 

Sorry I got the acronym wrong, I knew he said he had something.   I myself occasionally have SBFS (Senior Brain Fart Syndrome).  

[Zonk]

2 minutes ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Whether or not this covers TAR, I've never heard or read anything about judging being controlled by "people behind the camera giving hand signals".   So I don't know that. 

The judges are often just actors (for example the Holdernesses, in their podcast, mention that the "artist" at the puzzle task was an actor) or if they are the real deal they wouldn't know the standard TAR is going for. So yes, the actual person judging is behind the camera giving signs. That doesn't mean that they don't try to judge fairly, but it also means that they can adjust a task when it turns out too hard and would delay production too long. Especially if it doesn't change the order racers arrive at the pit stop.

I'm not familiar with US game show laws, but as other posters in this thread have noted before, Survivor has played way more fast and loose with rules than TAR ever did and even they apparently were never in violation of any laws.

[Bluesky]

7 hours ago, AncientNewbie said:

I'm not always a fan of stunt casting, but I can understand the attraction for production. You're starting with people who have been on camera, for whatever their original notoriety is, plus however many local (or national) interviews. I mean, I'd love to run TAR, but I also clam up under pressure and am not demonstrative at all and would be a complete snooze to watch. 

My biggest beef this episode was the excessive celebration from the train guys and the out of prison guy(s)....they were just so overboard. 

I think the “regular” people did fine over the years.  They had to audition, so they didn’t choose people who would freeze up.  The influencers or whatever they call them are always on, aware of their image. Boring.  

[IvyCeltress]

Lula and Lala what were their parents thinking? I hope they go soon.

I actually thought they said Boris Yeltsin and thought it would be hard.  Finally heard Johnson and thought it would be too easy unless there were a bunch of tables with Queen look alike with various world leaders.

 

I think the mail task would have been better is they put up a postal code In the tunnel and they have to see it then find mail with that code.

[bearcatfan]

As I’m watching this mainly because of Penn and Kim (though I used to watch this several years ago but got busy) I feel I need to defend them. First, there’s a clip on the CBS site where they are in the cab saying they knew it wasn’t really the queen. Second, they were both newscasters prior to making videos and Penn does video production for clients outside the silly videos they do. They both also had small parts in Iron Man 3, although I can only find Kim as she had an actual speaking part as a reporter, though it was brief. You would think Penn would be easy to spot considering he towers over everyone. 
 

I forgot to mention that in their podcast they stated that they had decided to do the dart task but their cabbie talked them out of it. Because they weren’t intending to do the cake decorating they hadn’t read that clue carefully. 
 

editing again to state that LuLu and Lala are not their given names though I can’t recall their actual names. I think one was Marissa. 

Edited January 7, 2022 by bearcatfan

[HurricaneVal]

31 minutes ago, IvyCeltress said:

I think the mail task would have been better is they put up a postal code In the tunnel and they have to see it then find mail with that code.

Quite frankly, when I saw the mail train and the tunnel, I assumed exactly that would be the challenge, with some extra detail thrown in, like several postal codes on the walls in several different colors and you had to find the letter with the blue postal code.  Or the one that ends in zero.  Something more complicated than what they actually did.  That would have been classic TAR.  Maybe they had to keep it simple for other reasons, limited time allowed in the venue, stuff like that?  Still and all, what a unique and quirky part of London that nobody really gets to see!

[Zonk]

28 minutes ago, bearcatfan said:

As I’m watching this mainly because of Penn and Kim

I didn't know them before, but they are ridiculously charismatic. I can see why they have such a big fanbase.

31 minutes ago, bearcatfan said:

You would think Penn would be easy to spot considering he towers over everyone. 

Pffft, 6'6", puny human (Marvel reference seemed appropriate).

I may or may not be 6'8" due to being half dutch.

[Netfoot]

1 hour ago, HurricaneVal said:

Poor @Zonk....first I called it "orange" and now Quilt Fairy called it "yellow."  The German flag isn't getting getting its proper due!  Sorry, Zonk....

When talking flags, yellow is properly called "gold" and white is properly called "silver". 

1 hour ago, Zonk said:

He doesn't have OCD or OCD focus.

Whether he does or not, I prefer to call it CDO, with the letters in alphabetical order, like they should be.

[SnarkShark]

Wow, just saw where that dude talks himself, and someone else, out of believing what's been true with every single clue drop in the history of the show. 

[Blergh]

I'm a bit surprised that France and Germany were the ONLY EU flags that the contestants attempted for the cakes.

I could see them avoiding Spain or Portugal's flags (with their coats of arms in the middle) among the more tricky ones but I wonder why no one opted for Italy or Ireland's easy-peasy tricolors.

[OlderThanDirt]

I quite enjoyed the Holderness podcast. I don't think they breached the 4th wall but it was interesting that if they stop and ask questions of bystanders it slows them down because their film crew have to get releases from anyone on camera.

[GenerationX]

Random thoughts on episode 1 - "London Calling"

• It seemed to me that someone with long arms could have just pushed the dart into the board
• If you're arguing or crying in the first two legs, you're not long for the race
• As always, Keoghan > Probst

As the last teams completed the Bens checklist at the Piccadilly Circus tube station at night, Digiben should have been playing The Jam classic "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight".

[RockShrimp]

Best part of the whole episode was the husband and wife (idk names yet) where he kept bitching at her to run when he said “we were at each other a bit” or whatever and the *look* on her face like “what do you mean *we*?” Killed me. 

[North of Eden]

How good to see The Race again and also get a last look before a world gone mad with hysteria and panic.

Didn't know it was two hours until it kept going. Lot to process so some quick takes

*Buffalo weeps but losing the cops was just a shoulder shrug

* Feel we haven't seen the last of Akbar's Attitude and his wife's response for taking the blame for HIS actions was right out of the classic battered woman's playbook

*In a first I only felt instant hate for one team  the You Tuber personalities. Don't like narcissists and when I found out their claim to fame was goofy videos that cemented my hate and who the hell as the first name Penn? On a positive note its good to see Ed Begely Jr is still getting work.

*Nice to have a representation couple that aren't stereotypes right out of central casting.

*Caro is radiantly gorgeous almost to the point see doesn't seem real.

*As the two hours went by I began to feel like I should be liking the latina beauties more than I was. At the end I would have been okay if they went home.

*Shocked that so many people didn't know what Big Ben looked like in order to be able to find Little Been

*Equally shocked that London has a whole underground railroad just for mail and that it never found its way to the silver screen as a James Bond set piece.

What makes me the happiest the most was they are STARTING in Europe so the real Killer Fatique will be kicking in places like India or Vietnam and its always fun to watch the westerners unravel as strangers in a strange land.

The end of next week and the beginning of the week after are going to be EPIC as we truly will be seeing something we've never seen before.  I just hope the indian father's restaurant was  not KO'd  in the self destructive lockdowns.

Edited January 7, 2022 by North of Eden

[Maverick]

2 hours ago, Blergh said:

I'm a bit surprised that France and Germany were the ONLY EU flags that the contestants attempted for the cakes.

I could see them avoiding Spain or Portugal's flags (with their coats of arms in the middle) among the more tricky ones but I wonder why no one opted for Italy or Ireland's easy-peasy tricolors.

 You had to replicate a cake that was on display.   Part of the task was to know both the flag and to know if the country it re[presented was in the EU.  France and Germany were the only correct answers.   The UK and Norway were there as red herrings and the others were not from Europe (Jamaica, Chile, Columbia, Sierra Leone, Russia, Thailand, Brazil and South Africa).  

Edited January 7, 2022 by Maverick

[Cotypubby]

1 hour ago, Blergh said:

I'm a bit surprised that France and Germany were the ONLY EU flags that the contestants attempted for the cakes.

I could see them avoiding Spain or Portugal's flags (with their coats of arms in the middle) among the more tricky ones but I wonder why no one opted for Italy or Ireland's easy-peasy tricolors.

I don’t think I saw Italy or Ireland on the table?

[Pj3422]

4 hours ago, HurricaneVal said:

Poor @Zonk....first I called it "orange" and now Quilt Fairy called it "yellow."  The German flag isn't getting getting its proper due!  Sorry, Zonk....

 

This is why there are Pantone colors. I’m guessing the color in question is PMS 123, but I don’t have my swatch book handy. 😁

[millennium]

Something is very, very wrong with this season:

I don't have a visceral dislike of any team!

[ByaNose]

7 minutes ago, millennium said:

Something is very, very wrong with this season:

I don't have a visceral dislike of any team!

Yeah, there doesn’t seem to be any team you outright hate. I thought I would hate Caro & Ray but besides that taxi skirmish they were fine. A lot of them have incredible backstory’s so it would have sucked if they were jackasses. LOL!!!

[vousviou]

8 minutes ago, millennium said:

Something is very, very wrong with this season:

I don't have a visceral dislike of any team!

I started out snarky, disliking the couple that makes videos for a living, the NJ couple that was fighting right away, and the overenthusiastic Detroit father and daughter....

....and then I thought, TAR is back, they managed to complete a season after having everything disrupted by Covid, and I really should give them all a chance.

You're right, they're all OK. At least in the first couple of episodes there hasn't been the ridiculous positioning for alliances and exclusions in the previous season. None of them seem unredeemable and I want to give them all a chance, and some of them seem genuinely fun and interesting.

I thought the challenges were fairly simplistic this time but still were decent for doing a first round of sorting, and I thought they worked well in the setting of London.

I'm glad the show is back and I'm going to do my best to enjoy it.

[Kitty Redstone]

So glad TAR and Phil are back!  Hearing the theme song brought tears to my eyes. 

I loved seeing London and the general excitement of the teams.  I'm not going to judge them for not knowing about a bobby or flags* or if a clue is a clue, because I'd probably be just as stupid about something easy while being filmed on a race around the world for $1 million.  I don't like ugliness toward one's teammate, though, and hope that Akbar stops running down his wife for not being a college athlete anymore and that Sam slows down long enough to listen to Connie.

Seeing Ryan Ferguson happy was awesome.  That guy has been through some shit.

Arun and Natalia seem like they have a great father-daughter relationship.  Like Natalia, my boys started watching TAR pretty young, too.  We would even watch reruns of the old seasons when the Game Show channel ran them way back when.  We always skipped a lot of season 6 for a reason which shall not be named, lol.

Also enjoyed seeing Kim and Penn.  Their videos are seriously clever and funny.  I'm still chuckling over their Axl Rose narrates homework parody.  The internet personalities label is unfair, I think, as it has negative connotations; what they do takes a lot of actual work and talent.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to the before and after, who comes back, and just the overall anticipation that TAR always brings.

*I don't know very many flags because I don't give a fuck about flags.  I do know that Norway is not in the EU because I ship there and not the EU because of the EU's return policy and VAT threshold, but I couldn't tell which of those cake flags belonged to Norway.

[30 Helens]

I missed the traditional beginning where Phil sends everyone scrambling with a raised eyebrow and a dropped hand. And while I understand the impulse to “freshen up” a long standing show (as long as you don’t go to extremes— yes, I’m looking at you, Jeff Probst), modeling your new intro after Big Brother is not exactly fresh. Honestly, I was expecting someone to start dancing around with a giant key that some intern put into the wrong envelope. 

Just about everything else I had to say about this episode has already been said. But I would like to offer the following advice to future racers:

1. If you’re looking for a clue on the Amazing Race, and you find an envelope that says, in big bold letters, “The Amazing Race”, it’s probably a clue. For the Amazing Race. TAKE IT. Don’t stop to sort and categorize the other non-clues unless instructed to.

2. If you do waste lots of time ignoring, sorting and categorizing, and your partner makes fun of you for it, don’t get mad at her. She’s probably had to put up with a bunch of dumbass behavior already.

3. Learn to drive stick. (Always good advice, and c’mon, you know it’s coming…)

[Leeds]

2 hours ago, North of Eden said:

 

The end of next week and the beginning of the week after are going to be EPIC as we truly will be seeing something we've never seen before.  I just hope the indian father's restaurant was KO'd  in the self destructive lockdowns.

KO'd?  Knocked out?  You hope his restaurant failed???

[Leeds]

3 hours ago, OlderThanDirt said:

I quite enjoyed the Holderness podcast. I don't think they breached the 4th wall but it was interesting that if they stop and ask questions of bystanders it slows them down because their film crew have to get releases from anyone on camera.

For our next debate topic:

There is no 4th wall in reality tv.  Discuss.

[calvinshobbes]

14 hours ago, iMonrey said:

 

The problem is that most of the challenges nowadays seemed designed for the audience rather than the racers. That's why we have so many zipline "challenges" or hot air balloon "challenges" and the like. They are visually interesting to us watching at home but not particularly challenging for the racers. I think the mail challenge was simply designed around them finding and showing off that cute little mail train, like "Oh, look, here is an interesting thing we can use." They're more interested in how it looks than anything else.

That is because many people and casual  viewers are “watching”  the show while also on their phone or tablet typing away. Visual tasks are going to be easier to follow for viewers than intricate memorizing word/song tasks (those are usually accompanied by wearing costumes to engage the viewer). 

[SVNBob]

18 hours ago, Zonk said:

Yeah especially after he criticised the drippage of one of the first cakes. But that team had to redo one of the cakes anyway, so no time lost for them. I mean we all know the judges don't actually judge, it's people behind the camera giving them signs and I guess production noted how everybody blazed through the dart-task and thus lowered the difficulty on the cakes.
 

I think that was the actual reason he was harsher on that particular drippage.  Since they had to go redo one cake, they might as well redo both. 

 

15 hours ago, meep.meep said:

Why show two episodes at once? 

A few reasons:

1. Premiere hype.  That's normal for reality shows, but given the nature of TAR and this season in particular, there was a lot of hype.  Good idea to capitalize on the ad revenue by showing more on one night than usual.
2. Lack of other premieres to follow it.  Other than that new doctor drama series (which we bailed on at the halfway point), there wasn't much else CBS could use to fill the timeslot.
3. Both legs/episodes were in the same city, so why the hell not?

 

15 hours ago, blackwing said:

I too assumed everyone knew what a bobby is... not sure where I learned it but I would think that anyone who read books like Paddington or Sherlock Holmes or any other book set in England would probably have come across the term at one point or another.  I was surprised at how many people didn't know it.  And yes, why wouldn't people just ask a local if the clue says to find "the bobby" and they don't know what it is.

To be fair, the iconic British bobby hasn't been a thing in the UK for ages.  The police typically look like this now:

More or less the same as American police, plus a high-vis jacket or vest.  Because of that, it made sense to me that the younger teams, like the Millennial-esque flight attendants wouldn't know what a "bobby" was.  And note that it was a pensioner, an old lady who likely grew up with the image of a bobby still as a thing, that told those two what one was.

12 hours ago, HurricaneVal said:

I didn't get a close look at all the sample cakes in the cake challenge, but I have to say if the available flags were indeed South Africa, Jamaica, Norway, Germany, France, the UK, and some made up flag with purple (!), then that was really kind of unfair.  With official Brexit so recent in time, that was a bit mean.  Yeah, it was all over the news, but official Brexit was only, what, a month old by the time the race started?  I could see that was an easy red herring mistake to make.  Norway not being a part of the EU is also a bit obscure to the casual European politics observer.  Thankfully nobody put up the South African or Jamaican or fake flag.  At least none of the racers were that dumb!

But......still......the choice of cakes, if the list above truly was the totality of the flags available, was unfair.  If you look at it psychologically, I could see how hurried and flustered racers could easily make the mistakes they made.  I think there may have been some subconscious manipulations at work.  If you eliminate the South African, Jamaican, and fake flags you're left with Norway, France, Germany, and the UK.  All solidly European countries.  The flag of Norway looks like a good, solid, flag.  It look generically European.  I can see why that was an attractive and perceived to be a "safe" choice.  I can also see team choosing the UK flag because it is so familiar--hell, they've been seeing it all day, and those doing to street art detour have it abstractly seared into their brains.  I can also see them choosing the UK flag out of unconscious politeness, this is their current host country after all!  I can also see why racers wouldn't automatically gravitate toward the German flag.  The German flag is made up of scary colors: black, red, and orange.  It looks formidable, so I could seen them unconsciously shying away from that cake and gravitating to the safe and true "red, white, and blue."   On the other hand, the German  and French flags are simple with the three wide color stripes, so why wouldn't racers immediately gravitate toward making them rather than the more complicated UK and Norway flags?  The choice of flags was a little unfair, but the simplicity of the correct flags was entirely fair

I liked that the UK flag was included as a semi-obvious trap.  Ditto Norway, since I knew it was a Scandinavian flag, but not sure for which country at first.  Then I checked the flags of the EU to find that the other two Scandis (Denmark and Sweden, plus Finland which gets lumped in with the other 3) are EU members. 

That said, I would have gravitated to the two tricolors, even without the EU restriction.  Because they're tricolors.  Just 3 stripes; one horizontal and one vertical.  So easy to do, and given the judge was flat out stating which flags were wrong, would not have been a large waste of time if they were wrong.

That said, TAR could have picked some interesting options instead of France and/or Germany if they'd wanted to make this task harder.  The Czech flag would have been good, with the triangular field of blue instead of a stripe.  And Malta's two color plus small cross in the corner would have been cool.  But Cyprus's flag, which is Cyprus, would have been a killer.  Same with any of the flags with heraldry like Spain or Croatia.

 

12 hours ago, Riplet68 said:

Have they always known what the 2 tasks on a detour were before they picked them?  I thought they just got a clever name, had to pick from that, than got told what the task was when they got to it.  Led to people choosing really bad tasks cause they didn’t have a clue what they would be doing.

Unless things have changed, Detours come with explanations after the clever names from the jump.  Roadblock explanations require the team to decide who is doing the task first before reading on.

12 hours ago, Hera said:

I agree that the detours were imbalanced time-wise. If the producers had wanted to, they probably could have evened up the Ben detour by making everyone go to Piccadilly station on foot instead of giving them the option to go back cab, which—predictably—everyone took. As for the darts one, each of the teams that did it had one person who could reliably hit the bullseye early on, so I wonder if that made it seem faster than it actually would have been for a team where both members were totally new to throwing darts.

This may have happened.  There's a still on the Amazing Race subreddit of LaLu doing the darts task.  So it appears that they also Bald-Snarked the Detour, which would further add to their last-place performance.

 

4 hours ago, GenerationX said:

Random thoughts on episode 1 - "London Calling"

• It seemed to me that someone with long arms could have just pushed the dart into the board
• If you're arguing or crying in the first two legs, you're not long for the race
• As always, Keoghan > Probst

As the last teams completed the Bens checklist at the Piccadilly Circus tube station at night, Digiben should have been playing The Jam classic "Down in the Tube Station at Midnight".

It wasn't quite midnight when the last team got to him.  But thanks to his timepiece (thus explaining his name), we could see how far behind the Football couple was: nearly a full hour behind the previous team (Football's time was 8:38 pm.  Previous team was 7:45 pm.)

And given that, we also know how imbalanced the Detour actually was, since Football was in dead last place at the start of the Detour due to their taxi and his "leadership" and "searching skill".  But they managed to finish well ahead of several teams that started the art detour before and while he was still looking for Bobby.

2 hours ago, 30 Helens said:

I missed the traditional beginning where Phil sends everyone scrambling with a raised eyebrow and a dropped hand.

That still happened...sort of.  It was part of the video message the teams got that sent them to their "local" airport on the way to London.

[CSunshine76]

4 hours ago, millennium said:

Something is very, very wrong with this season:

I don't have a visceral dislike of any team!

YET! 😉

[Haleth]

3 hours ago, SVNBob said:

So it appears that they also Bald-Snarked the Detour, which would further add to their last-place performance.

Really?  We should have seen that.

[North of Eden]

6 hours ago, Leeds said:

KO'd?  Knocked out?  You hope his restaurant failed???

Thanks for pointing that out...NOT...see what happens when you leave out one word.

[kcrabtree06]

 

13 hours ago, bearcatfan said:

As I’m watching this mainly because of Penn and Kim (though I used to watch this several years ago but got busy) I feel I need to defend them. First, there’s a clip on the CBS site where they are in the cab saying they knew it wasn’t really the queen. Second, they were both newscasters prior to making videos and Penn does video production for clients outside the silly videos they do. They both also had small parts in Iron Man 3, although I can only find Kim as she had an actual speaking part as a reporter, though it was brief. You would think Penn would be easy to spot considering he towers over everyone. 
 

I forgot to mention that in their podcast they stated that they had decided to do the dart task but their cabbie talked them out of it. Because they weren’t intending to do the cake decorating they hadn’t read that clue carefully. 
 

editing again to state that LuLu and Lala are not their given names though I can’t recall their actual names. I think one was Marissa. 

Thank you!!! I love Kim and Penn from before the race and I am tired of people hating on them just because they are YouTubers. They rarely have their kids in their videos. I find their videos funny and pretty spot on. They’ve also written a book and are very open and honest about Penn’s ADHD and Kim’s anxiety. They’ve mentioned several times they are legit TAR super fans who have seen every episode. I would much rather watch them over a true family blogger who has their kids on camera every second of the day. 

Edited January 7, 2022 by kcrabtree06

[preeya]

22 hours ago, blackwing said:

There were four flights - L.A., Chicago, New York, and one in the southeast that I couldn't make out, probably Atlanta.  There's no way all four landed at the same time to enable all teams to rush out of the airport at the same time.  It was obvious that everyone had to wait until everyone arrived in London.  So I'm not sure why they did it this way. 

THIS ↑.  When I saw all the teams run out together in London, my first reaction was WTF; "This had to be scripted" which adds a credibility issue to the show.

[BarneySays]

7 minutes ago, preeya said:

When I saw all the teams run out together in London, my first reaction was WTF; "This had to be scripted" which adds a credibility issue to the show.

I'm not sure about that.  I always assumed there was a day or two of orientation at the start point before the race.  If true, they probably did that in London and then dropped them off a starting point. 

[chaifan]

10 minutes ago, BarneySays said:

I'm not sure about that.  I always assumed there was a day or two of orientation at the start point before the race.  If true, they probably did that in London and then dropped them off a starting point. 

According to the Holderness video, they did arrive in London that day.  They didn't say how long everyone was waiting for other teams, but they said one thing they were surprised the show didn't air was almost everyone falling on the run out of the airport.  There was some sort of dip in the road, and it caught the lead runners, and everyone else fell on them.  Kim & Penn and (I think) Akbar & Sheri didn't fall because they were far enough behind.  Penn said it was like a bike crash on the Tour de France. 

As I said earlier, the whole beginning of the show - "the race starts NOW!" and flight to London - was a waste of air time because it was obvious they released all Racers from the airport at the same time, no matter when their flight left the US, arrived in London, etc. 

But Barneysays does raise an interesting question that I don't think I've seen discussed...  when are the Racers "oriented"?  When are they told the rules, how/where to sit in a cab to fit in the crew, how far they can get from their partner, etc? 

[blackwing]

37 minutes ago, kcrabtree06 said:

 

Thank you!!! I love Kim and Penn from before the race and I am tired of people hating on them just because they are YouTubers. They rarely have their kids in their videos. I find their videos funny and pretty spot on. They’ve also written a book and are very open and honest about Penn’s ADHD and Kim’s anxiety. They’ve mentioned several times they are legit TAR super fans who have seen every episode. I would much rather watch them over a true family blogger who has their kids on camera every second of the day. 

I don't necessarily hate them because they are YouTubers.  I firstly dislike him because I think he seems like a high strung jerk.  He asked Anthony for help with the mail.  Anthony didn't want to help him but told him what to look for anyways.  Then he automatically assumed that Anthony was trying to trick him.  I'd be curious to know if he actually apologised to Anthony later on... "hey sorry man, you tried to help me and I dismissed you because I didn't trust you, I'm sorry I made an assumption that you were a snake".

It does take a certain kind of narcissism to film videos of your family and put them on the internet to make money.  People try to make a living, and that's how we get the Kardashians of the world.  I get it.  But I also dislike them because to me it seems like they are always "on".  They recognise that this is a way to promote themselves even more.  So everything they are saying and doing is very calculated.  I'm sure they knew that wasn't actually the Queen, but he goes through this whole show of kissing her etc.  All the while probably thinking "oh this will look good on TV" or "this will be a good moment to mention in our video recap".

The fact that they already have their own recap of the first two episodes on their own site.  And a full hour long at that.  Yeah, these two are opportunists.  They may be big fans of TAR but they are also doing everything they can to exploit their appearance on the show to grow their fame and fortune.

[Zonk]

12 hours ago, OlderThanDirt said:

I quite enjoyed the Holderness podcast. I don't think they breached the 4th wall but it was interesting that if they stop and ask questions of bystanders it slows them down because their film crew have to get releases from anyone on camera.

It also didn't use to be the case. Used to be that the amazing interns were following teams, to secure releases, so that the teams could continue racing right away. Guess the budget cuts that crept in over the years are also noticable here. Which is a bit sad, since of course because of it, teams will interact less with the locals.

But it's certainly interesting to know that this has changed.

11 hours ago, North of Eden said:

What makes me the happiest the most was they are STARTING in Europe so the real Killer Fatique will be kicking in places like India or Vietnam and its always fun to watch the westerners unravel as strangers in a strange land.

They are certainly not going to go to India, because of covid and probably not to the rest of asia either.

10 minutes ago, blackwing said:

I'm sure they knew that wasn't actually the Queen, but he goes through this whole show of kissing her etc.  All the while probably thinking "oh this will look good on TV" or "this will be a good moment to mention in our video recap".

A more charitable explaination would be that they were playing along because it was fun. Why wouldn't you?

It's also not like everybody pointed at the guy at the puzzle task and said "You are not an artist, you are an actor hired to play an artist. Reeee!". You've gotta suspend some disbelieve to have fun on the race.

7 minutes ago, blackwing said:

The fact that they already have their own recap of the first two episodes on their own site.  And a full hour long at that.  Yeah, these two are opportunists.  They may be big fans of TAR but they are also doing everything they can to exploit their appearance on the show to grow their fame and fortune.

Of course Youtubers will put recaps of their TAR appearance on their Youtube channel. That's like complaining that a singer is selling albums and promoting them on the radio.

They make content people want to watch.

Edited January 7, 2022 by Zonk

[Hera]

1 hour ago, blackwing said:

He asked Anthony for help with the mail.  Anthony didn't want to help him but told him what to look for anyways.  Then he automatically assumed that Anthony was trying to trick him.

To be fair, it wasn't just him—he and Taylor were both surprised and dubious about how easy the task was, and convinced each other not to trust Anthony. I think if it had just been Anthony and Penn or Anthony and Taylor at the task, then they might have accepted that there really wasn't anything more for them to do and gone back when Anthony did. It was the presence of another person who couldn't believe the task was that easy that did them both in.

[PaperTree]

12 hours ago, Maverick said:

Part of the task was to know both the flag and to know if the country it represented was in the EU.  France and Germany were the only correct answers.   The UK and Norway were there as red herrings and the others were not from Europe (Jamaica, Chile, Columbia, Sierra Leone, Russia, Thailand, Brazil and South Africa). 

Thanks!  I knew someone here would have posted all the countries and enlightened us😎.

[xcrayon2215x]

The twins going on about a random breakup got on my nerves. Everyone else is fine, I am glad to see the Amazing Race again. I like Ryan and Dusty.

[Hpmec]

16 hours ago, IvyCeltress said:

Lula and Lala what were their parents thinking? I hope they go soon.

I actually thought they said Boris Yeltsin and thought it would be hard.  Finally heard Johnson and thought it would be too easy unless there were a bunch of tables with Queen look alike with various world leaders.

 

I think the mail task would have been better is they put up a postal code In the tunnel and they have to see it then find mail with that code.

Yes, totally agree that the tasks weren't up to TAR standards. Like this was a budget version of the game. The mail task  should have had the clue hidden in an envelope with a specific postal code on it that they had to decipher from seeing the numbers randomly arranged on the walls of the tunnel. And that envelope hidden among hundreds in the bin, each with a different code.  That would have been a challenge. A clue dumped in the bottom of a bin? Not worthy of TAR. 

And Boris with the queen? In previous seasons, there would have been a ballroom full of Queen impersonators and the next clue would have been given to contestants who could find the one wearing a particular tiara. Again, they took the bargain basement approach.

 

[iMonrey]

Quote

I've just watched Clint Eastwood's movie The 15:17 to Paris and while I can't say it was the best film I've ever seen, I will say that I'm glad to have watched it, and doubly so since I am a TAR fan. It's an interesting look at team Anthony & Spencer from behind the scenes (so to speak). 

Same. I'm kind of rooting for them now. They really are heroes, especially Spencer. When they met up with Taylor and Isaiah at the airport, Spencer showed him the cuts on the back of his head. He got sliced up pretty badly. And still he ran off to help someone else after subduing the gunman. 

Quote

Is the movie any good?

Umm . . . it's a master class in how to turn a five minute incident into a 90-minute movie. Spoiler alert: plenty of filler. Also? Alex Skarlatos - not a good actor. Spencer wasn't bad, though.

Quote

I'm not familiar with US game show laws, but as other posters in this thread have noted before, Survivor has played way more fast and loose with rules than TAR ever did and even they apparently were never in violation of any laws.

Survivor was also sued by Stacey Stillman after its first season, when she accused producers of manipulating the votes. Survivor was exempt from established game show rules because it is classified as an entertainment program rather than a game show. It's reasonable to assume Amazing Race and Big Brother fall under the same umbrella.