S36.E02: Trust but Verify

[Norm from GA]

On 3/20/2024 at 10:57 PM, MerBearHou said:

I’m so glad the double-Dutch team wasn’t eliminated.  I really, really like them.

This is probably for the best for Mary and Chris — this is just too darn hard for him.  

Double dutch team should have been eliminated! Despite the official tally for the balloon challenge,  he only carried the purple balloons while she only carried red and yellow! It was so blatant, I'm surprised it wasnt edited out.

[Roccos Brother]

I officially hate the twins for not knowing who ELIZABETH TAYLOR is. Completely unforgiveable. They are dead to me.

[Kleav]

1 hour ago, ML89 said:

the ads that screw up iPadOS

I don’t begrudge them the revenue, but, yeah, it’s exasperating 

[david gideon]

14 hours ago, chaifan said:

I'm with others that this season doesn't seem to have the same oomph factor that TAR usually has.  I can't quite say why, though.

I feel the same way. Maybe because I know it's an earlier race, and 60m episodes have been padded out to 90m each. 

[HelloooKitty]

Oh my gosh those twins are…. They are not very bright, are they?

 

but also, the anesthesiologists repeatedly asking “did you find it? Do you know where it is?” IF THEY KNEW WOULD THEY BE WANDERING AIMLESSLY AROUND WITH YOU?! 
what kind of question is that?

[Skooma]

On 3/21/2024 at 9:12 AM, chaifan said:

I'm with others that this season doesn't seem to have the same oomph factor that TAR usually has.  I can't quite say why, though.  The tasks seem a little bland, just not that entertaining to watch.  For now, I'm chalking it up to recency bias, since last season was just sooooo good.

 

On 3/21/2024 at 11:52 PM, david gideon said:

I feel the same way. Maybe because I know it's an earlier race, and 60m episodes have been padded out to 90m each. 

Yes this Race was the last of the covid era races. More open as masks had about gone away but still a bit dicey to plan and schedule in advance not knowing what conditions would be when the Race was ready to start.

Also before the writers' strike and CBS letting TAR and Survivor know they wanted 90 minute episodes so this Race was planned and originally edited for the 60 minute format. 

Add in the more simple race layout because of covid restrictions just being lifted and you get a lot of filler in the re-edit.  The original 60 minute edit probably would have made these episodes more exciting.

So a plague (and possible new outbreak of same at any time) and a strike put some damper on this season.  So I'll give them all a break.  This season just drew the short straw. 

And the next season (that we saw last fall) was the return of normal racing so having seen that first just makes this season seem somewhat weird.

Edited March 25 by Skooma

[shura]

5 hours ago, HelloooKitty said:

Oh my gosh those twins are…. They are not very bright, are they?

but also, the anesthesiologists repeatedly asking “did you find it? Do you know where it is?” IF THEY KNEW WOULD THEY BE WANDERING AIMLESSLY AROUND WITH YOU?! 
what kind of question is that?

Can we really rule out that they would?  Remember how they almost climbed the pole with the Voladores for no good reason?

The anesthesiologists (or, rather, anesthetists)…  Walked back and forth on a bridge, got lost and then go “oh, it’s under the bridge!” and proceed looking for Elizabeth Taylor’s house in the underpass.  I also liked how seriously Vinny was explaining at one point how, in their work, “every heartbeat counts.”  They tend to, yes.

[dancingdreamer]

On 3/20/2024 at 10:19 PM, dancingdreamer said:

 

 

Edited March 22 by dancingdreamer
Posted twice

[aghst]

On 3/20/2024 at 4:59 PM, endure said:

Lots of egos in this group, not like last season.

Not sure if it's ego or false bravado.  Especially the black couple wearing red.  They talk a good game but maybe they're insecure.  They're the team in the first leg who talked up about how they jump rope all the time so that challenge where they had to jump through lassos would be easy.  Well it took him more than one attempt.

These first two legs were brutal on the parent-child teams.  The parent in both cases suffered in the heat and humidity.  Not a great choice by producers to plan back-to-back legs in the heat and humidity.

Was it a deliberate choice to weed out the less fit racers?  Even the youngest were struggling.

The children on both teams were very understanding and supportive as their parents struggled.

The difficult conditions probably contributed to difficulties navigating and following directions.

Puerto Vallarta is scenic enough but maybe LA weather would have been better for a double-leg.

I know they continue on to South America after leg 2 but maybe departing from LA instead of PV would add 1-2 hours at most to the flight?

[seacliffsal]

I really liked Mary and Chris' demeanor and attitude.  But, they just weren't a fit for the Race.  But, it really did seem like they were happy just being able to participate even for just a short time.

Several posts mentioned that it's nice to see positive parent-child relationships unlike last season.  I just want to remind those posters that it was Anna Leigh's attitude towards her father that we didn't like because Rob and Cory were fabulous as a father-son team.  So, just the one, not both.

I laughed when the twins were explaining to a woman about using Google to find Elizabeth Taylor's house and she just told them (and there were many other people in PV who told Racers where the house was).  No, twins, you're the ones among the few who didn't know Elizabeth Taylor and that she famously had a home there.

I would like the half-sisters to go next.  The one just couldn't accept what the pilots told her about missing a challenge and kept asking them the same questions over and over.  I wanted them to just tell her to figure it out as they had to keep, you know, racing.  She's the same racer who didn't wear the red handkerchef last week. 

[proserpina65]

On 3/20/2024 at 9:57 PM, PaperTree said:

"They wouldn't help us"

Waaaaaaah.  It's a race; remember???

It's fine if teams want to help each other, especially this early on, as long as they do it strategically.  But don't whine if another team does not want to share info or work together.

 

[proserpina65]

On 3/20/2024 at 11:00 PM, dizzyd said:

Have we been to Columbia before?

I think there was a leg involving mining for emeralds in Colombia.

On 3/21/2024 at 12:44 PM, Racj82 said:

It should be every team for yourself period imo. You are one missed clue or turn away from the bottom during every leg. You don't have to be rude about it but its a race.

Maybe it should be but it hasn't been since the very first season.  Teams have always helped other teams when they wanted to do so.

[meep.meep]

This was just terrible.  I don't really feel like watching more episodes.  They don't need to be 90 minutes.  They're just editing in a bunch of fluff.

What makes a show like this great is the editing.  You lose that and you lose the show.

Was that one of the sound guys helping Walla Walla mom out with the cold towel?

[eel2178]

9 minutes ago, meep.meep said:

Was that one of the sound guys helping Walla Walla mom out with the cold towel?

I'm guessing they have some type of first aid station at every challenge. It was probably someone with at least a little medical training.

In the US, it's required to have a nurse on every movie or TV set. I had a friend who would do that as a side hustle. He said he never had any real medical equipment available. If there had been a real emergency, calling 911 was really the only thing he could have done except for maybe applying pressure to a bleeding wound or providing a cold compress as shown.

[iMonrey]

5 hours ago, aghst said:

Was it a deliberate choice to weed out the less fit racers?  Even the youngest were struggling.

I wouldn't mind if it was. Realistically, Chris and Mary were never going to make it very far, he was struggling to run right out the gate. Another leg or two might have done him in. Things aren't looking great for Angie and Danny either.

However, choosing a face painting task in that intense heat and humidity was certainly bad planning on the part of the challenge designers. Most of them were sweating off the paint faster than it could be applied.

[aghst]

 Buy why cast them in the first place if they did try to get them eliminated early?

Hmm, in both parent-child teams, they are self-described super fans.

That one guy was hosting his own TAR games as a kid.

So maybe they were throwing the super fans a bone to get them on the show but trying to gently nudge then out, unless they suffered heat stroke or something.

[Johannah]

Wow.  I must be the only person enjoying this season. 

I find the dude-twins to be goofy fun.  They were laughing while saying they didn't know who Elizabeth Taylor was, as if they knew they should have.

[North of Eden]

I will choose to believe Chris was happy to be eliminated. He had to know slogging it through some god forsaken rice paddy or navigating some narrow alpine ridge would have been the death of him. Hopefully the daughter feels the same way.

In a similar vein I don't see how the mom from mom/son would fare any better iin challenging locals. They don't seem long for the race but that's fine so we can be spared the son weeping all the time.

So many teams look like they are on the razor's edge of self-destructing that any could go next. The cousins seems especially shaky to me. I like them but they don't seem cohesive enough to make the long haul.

Did enjoy the out of order screw up. It is things like that that keep the race fun after all these years.

I would like to have heard the whole song that was being played.

 

[iMonrey]

2 hours ago, Johannah said:

I find the dude-twins to be goofy fun.  They were laughing while saying they didn't know who Elizabeth Taylor was, as if they knew they should have.

I do find them mildly amusing. I suspect they will remain middle of the pack racers because they are young and fit but ultimately their stupidity will probably do them in.

[Browncoat]

I'm mostly enjoying the season so far.  I mean, we're only two episodes in!  It's always chaotic for the first few legs -- so many people!  I lose track of who's who, and how many there are.  I like seeing people try to self-navigate and get lost, but I'm not a fan of watching people nearly succumb to heat stroke.

6 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I do find them mildly amusing. I suspect they will remain middle of the pack racers because they are young and fit but ultimately their stupidity will probably do them in.

They crack me up, too.  And you never know, they might Dandrew themselves to the final three.

[vousviou]

On 3/22/2024 at 9:57 PM, Johannah said:

Wow.  I must be the only person enjoying this season. 

I find the dude-twins to be goofy fun.  They were laughing while saying they didn't know who Elizabeth Taylor was, as if they knew they should have.

I think it's too soon to say how good the season will be. It's not terrible though.

I'm finding the people to be pretty genuine, and not loaded with reality TV personalities performing for the cameras. The challenges have been decent enough and the one location so far is good.

I'll stick with it. So far I'm not seeing any really repellent personalities, and I'm seeing a lot of opportunities for teams moving up and down based on how well they perform. 

[ljenkins782]

On 3/21/2024 at 11:52 PM, david gideon said:

Quote

I'm with others that this season doesn't seem to have the same oomph factor that TAR usually has.  I can't quite say why, though.

I feel the same way. Maybe because I know it's an earlier race, and 60m episodes have been padded out to 90m each. 

There seem to be some casting misfires, like maybe they used the Survivor casting folks for a season, lol. TAR has consistently been better cast with the last 2 seasons being standouts, multiple teams that I really wanted to see win and sincerely enjoyed watching.

I don't have any early favorites in this one and there are several teams who seem too incompetent to have even made it out of the first episode. Not a great start to the season, but hoping it will pick up.

[AnnaBaptist]

On 3/22/2024 at 10:25 PM, North of Eden said:

 

I would like to have heard the whole song that was being played.

The song was "Cielito Lindo". They didn't play the part of the song where the lyrics are "Ay, ay, ay, ay, canta y no llores", which would probably be familiar to you if you heard it.

 

[Stardancer Supreme]

Ooow weee. This pack of racers... There's only 4 teams with any get up and go! about them. The rest of them, just strolling around the island like they have all the time in the world! This was so stressful to watch and not scream "RAAAAAACCCE!" at the top of my lungs. I might have lost my voice if I did that. Heh.

On 3/20/2024 at 10:02 PM, chaifan said:

I'm not sure why, but for some reason I'm noticing the Racers' backpacks more than normal.  A few observations...

In general, the backpacks are smaller than I've seen in other seasons.  Lots of what I would call a "day pack", slightly larger than a school backpack. 

The pilots have the largest backpacks of all the racers.  I think that's sort of funny because a) they're guys and b) they're military.  You'd think they could pack for 2 weeks in a shoebox.  The twins also have larger backpacks.  These guys look like they would wear the same outfit for 2 weeks in normal life, so again, it sort of surprises me.

The nurse anesthetists have one pack between the two of them.  And it's a small one at that.  I think it's good to pack light, but if you're packing that light why not split it between the two of you?

The woman in the Double Dutch couple has a length of rope in the side pocket of her backpack.  I find that strangely weird.

Non-backpack observations:  I normally love a super-fan team, but damn, Team Walla Walla is super annoying. 

I do not understand the moms' tactic for finding the right flag string. 

 

Totally agreed on the 2 observations I highlighted; that a team has only one backpack between them is a good idea! I have never seen that before.  And I wonder what bricabrac the teams might be carrying that they don't need; Shelisa (Yellow Married Couple) dumped puzzle books that popped out of her backpack last week. Michelle (Red Double Dutch Couple) might have just wanted to jump rope in the downtime. 

Team Walla Walla? Might be the next to go if the next leg was as strenuous as this one.

So many teams not reading clues, Team Twins dropping their clues, and so many teams not willing to ask for directions!  So Derek and Shelisa was the only team openly offered a map?  I guess the other teams didn't go by that stand with the helpful owner...

[smartymarty]

My strategy in picking a team to go all the way this time was to look at the size of the backpacks. The smaller, the more organized and understanding of the rigors of the race. We'll see if my theory pans out.

[Tim McD]

If I was competing on TAR and I heard one of the other racers say he didn't know who Elizabeth Taylor was, I would stop racing and go all Larry David on his ass for 20 minutes.

[Skooma]

On 3/22/2024 at 12:22 PM, aghst said:

I know they continue on to (edited out by me since it was a preview) after leg 2 but maybe departing from LA instead of PV would add 1-2 hours at most to the flight?

This was filmed before the last Race shown last fall so covid was still a concern thus no rushing around crowded LAX at that point.  Taking a charted flight was more wise then and there is no point in showing the Racers flying down on the charter to start the Race in Mexico.

If you mean skipping Mexico instead.  Well they still didn't have as many options as to what countries they could film in that season because some countries still hadn't removed all covid restrictions then.  So getting to go to both countries was a plus for them.

On 3/22/2024 at 1:19 PM, proserpina65 said:

Maybe it should be but it hasn't been since the very first season.  Teams have always helped other teams when they wanted to do so.

And I LOVE teams helping each other from the days of Kevin & Drew helping Nancy & Emily in Season 1 and The Band of Brothers on Season 3.  And what drama THAT friendship caused in the end! 

This is the AMAZING Race, not a straight up boring race.  Thus you find amazing ways to move forward in a leg including helping other teams when it is win-win for both. 

Comradery has always been a big part of this amazing adventure and always should be.  Win-win is win-win and strategy + heart = what makes The Amazing Race in part so damn amazing.

On 3/22/2024 at 2:40 PM, meep.meep said:

This was just terrible.  I don't really feel like watching more episodes.  They don't need to be 90 minutes.  They're just editing in a bunch of fluff.

What makes a show like this great is the editing.  You lose that and you lose the show.

Eh, like I posted above this season drew the short straw due to the tail end of covid making the race simpler than normal for safety reasons.  Then the writers' strike caused CBS to tell TAR (and Survivor) they wanted 90 minute episodes to fill gaps in the schedule.

So the race was planned for 60 minute episodes so of course the retro re-edit they had to do contains filler because they hadn't planned on more elaborate stuff to do on this race. 

Then we saw the Race that was run AFTER this one broadcast first last fall since this one had to go back in the shop for the 90-minute re-edit and wasn't ready in time for the fall season.  And that one was the first true post-covid, back to normal race with 90 minute edits planned into that Race so of course this Race seems a little weird by comparison.

So I totally give them a pass for this season.  They did the very best they could given what was thrown at them by worries of a new strand of covid popping up and the strike meaning they had to re-edit using more filler then they would have liked. 

And despite all that I'm enjoying TAR just fine this season.

Edited March 25 by Skooma

[proserpina65]

On 3/21/2024 at 11:28 PM, Norm from GA said:

Double dutch team should have been eliminated! Despite the official tally for the balloon challenge,  he only carried the purple balloons while she only carried red and yellow! It was so blatant, I'm surprised it wasnt edited out.

As long as they had two bunches of each color, I'm not sure it mattered who carried them.

 

[smartymarty]

18 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

As long as they had two bunches of each color, I'm not sure it mattered who carried them.

I thought they read the clue as seeing "each team member" had to pick up a set of balloons. Therefore both should have carried 3 sets, one of each color.

[proserpina65]

4 hours ago, smartymarty said:

I thought they read the clue as seeing "each team member" had to pick up a set of balloons. Therefore both should have carried 3 sets, one of each color.

I guess "pick up" doesn't necessary mean "have to carry separately the whole time" as long as there were two bunches of each color when they handed them off to the judge.

[Rodney]

On 3/22/2024 at 12:43 PM, seacliffsal said:

Several posts mentioned that it's nice to see positive parent-child relationships unlike last season.  I just want to remind those posters that it was Anna Leigh's attitude towards her father that we didn't like because Rob and Cory were fabulous as a father-son team.  So, just the one, not both.

...

I would like the half-sisters to go next.  The one just couldn't accept what the pilots told her about missing a challenge and kept asking them the same questions over and over.  I wanted them to just tell her to figure it out as they had to keep, you know, racing.  She's the same racer who didn't wear the red handkerchef last week. 

Elizabeth & Iliana were generally positive, too.  It wasn't just Rob & Corey who were all positive.

I think they're cousins, not half-sisters.

[SpecialKay]

On 3/21/2024 at 4:54 AM, luv2lurk said:

I can totally understand why the seasons were switched. Totally boring tasks - carrying balloons or looking for a special square coloured snowflake, then clown face makeup.

I had a hard time staying with this episode (and I did take a nap between it and Survivor) Could not wait for it to end. The teams are boring and we don't need 90 minutes of bridge confusion.

I have watched TAR since the beginning, so fingers crossed that it improves next week.

I have loved this show since it began but I think I would rather watch reruns of previous seasons then watch this snoozfest. If it doesn't improve dramatically next week, I am out until next season. Last season was so very very good, but this is dreadful.

[InDueTime]

Huh. Between this season and Survivor's current season, I'm good on the concept of several superfans on a single season. It's pretty obvious that superfan just doesn't automatically mean "great player."

Chris and Mary were a nice team, but they weren't going to get far if Chris got tired this early into it. 

I hope that there are better challenges. It seemed like the navigation through the city in the heat was more the challenge in itself. 

[chitowngirl]

I asked my 27 year old son if he knew who Elizabeth Taylor was. He was aware that she was an actress. Has never seen any of her movies. When shown a picture, he said that she look like any actress from her time. 😆 But at least he’s aware of her!

[PurpleTentacle]

"Yeah this could proof that we are ready for the next step. Sure. Sure" Every word higher than the last. Somebody is not ready for marriage.

The ending was funny. The teams are clearly already exhausted from the heat. Half of them were like "Let's go under random bridges!"

[aradia22]

This episode was a little more fun for me because I managed to enjoy some of the bickering (mostly the grandparent cops and the cousins). "You're like 7 feet tall. You're like Shaq." "I'm like Shaq???"

Also, the face painting was a nice touch for making the teams look goofy and slowing them down. 

The only really unpleasant part was seeing people struggle with the heat and genuinely feeling unwell. This was a tricky leg because they did not seem to be strict about the balloons popping at all but you couldn't know that ahead of time.