S36.E08: That’s What Being Strong Will Do

[PurpleTentacle]

I was sure this was going to be a fakeout when they showed it in last weeks preview.

Production made it seem like it was the teams fault, but imo that was just straight up on the crew. The crew was behind them and just took a wrong exit at the roundabout, for no apparent reason. It's not like they were blocked or got seperated by external factors, they just weren't paying attention.

I'm not sure when Danny and Angie noticed. I think it was a while later. At the roundabout there were no houses on the side of the road, when they finally noticed, they were in a residential area. That also means the crew didn't even radio in when they noticed their team was gone. What a colossal fuckup.

After that, what the hell was the crew doing that it took them like half an hour longer to get to the task than it took their team? You'd think they'd have GPS.

I don't even get why they had this setup. The jeep was a four-seater. The trunk seemed maybe a little small, but I think it could have fit the backpacks.

Overall this was a very unsatisfying episode and ending for this team for me. I can't think of a production fuckup this big since the early seasons of the race and at least then production was trying to make things right for the most part, not just going "Oh well it's your fault that we fucked up. Goodbye!"

[Netfoot]

26 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Production made it seem like it was the teams fault, but imo that was just straight up on the crew. The crew was behind them and just took a wrong exit at the roundabout, for no apparent reason.

Even if it was Danny & Angie who took the wrong turn, the crew should have followed. If D&A had turned North for some reason and ended up lost in St. Lucy, the crew wouldn't be able to tell them they were going wrong. That would be improper interference in the race. 

Having said that, I only learned in this episode that they had a crew car following them, and that they had a HT radio with which to communicate with them. Perhaps rules were imposed upon teams, which I am unaware of. But racers getting lost is what I expect to see on TAR. Not a crew vehicle leading the racers from point to point.

I used to live less than 400 meters from the bandstand at Hastings Rocks, where the pitstop was. But that was many years ago.

[Irlandesa]

3 hours ago, rr2911 said:

Did the crew lose them or mom n son made a wrong turn and lost them?  The fact that they made no attempt to get back to them made it worse.

They showed the crew car in the background going straight (2nd exit) while it looked like Danny & Angie went right (3rd exit).  I suspect they got the tiniest bit of distance between the cars but just enough that the crew car lost sight of Danny & Angie when they entered the roundabout ahead of them, didn't see which exit they took, and assumed it was the 2nd.  Or maybe they thought they followed another car.

It would have been pointless for Danny & Angie to turn around and go back because it looks like they lost communication with their crew via their handhelds.  If they had that, they probably could have coordinated to find one another again in much less time than it took.

I think it's unfair they got penalized but I wonder if the rule is that they need to slow down to make sure the crew is on their behind even if that means going super slow.

[freeser]

9 minutes ago, Irlandesa said:

I think it's unfair they got penalized but I wonder if the rule is that they need to slow down to make sure the crew is on their behind even if that means going super slow.

It doesn't seem fair that the team should have to make sure the crew is behind them at all times. The team was driving in a strange country, driving on the opposite side of the road they are used to, going around a stupid roundabout (I personally hate roundabouts) and trying to figure out where to turn.  Then in addition to that they are supposed to be keeping an eye on the crew car too???

The crew has one job - to follow the team car.  I would think the minute the crew lost sight of the team car they should be the ones to use the walkie talkie to contact them. We really do need an explanation from someone in charge to explain this situation.

[PurpleTentacle]

22 hours ago, Skooma said:

Because every time they ask directions the sound guy has to take out a legal form (sound guys, the unheralded jack of all trades of TAR) allowing for the direction giver(s) image to be allowed to be broadcast on American TV.  That's the law and TAR has always followed it since day one.

As far as I know in early seasons they had interns running behind the teams who would do that and the team itself could just continue racing. That's why you see a lot less humming and hawing in earlier seasons about getting directions. But early seasons had quite a bit bigger budgets and so the amazing interns got cut at some point.

17 hours ago, Haleth said:

Danny and Mom were right back in it at the fish trap challenge. 

They were not. They started quite a long time after all the other teams. When they had only assambled the bottom frame of their trap, the other teams were almost done.

14 hours ago, bunnyface said:

I'm not where I can go back and watch, but it seems like Danny and Angie were doing the roundabout "wrong."  I think they were cutting people off because there was a lot of honking and turning and it seems like they had to go back around again.  If the crew did the roundabout "correctly" instead of cutting people off (dangerously) to follow, it would be easy to be separated.  Then Danny and Angie just went straight to the task without trying to find their crew.  If the crew stopped to try to find them before going on, that's lost time too.

I did go back and that is not what happened. That roundabout had no solid line, so you were allowed to change lains in it.

It's also not how roundabouts work. You can always stay in a roundabout and do another turn around, if something didn't work out correctly. The crew just straight up took the wrong exit, while still in full view of their team and then didn't even radio them, to let them know that they lost them.

12 hours ago, bioprof said:

It’s possible that the teams were required to radio their turns to the crew.

No, it's not.

11 hours ago, Tango64 said:

They drive on the left in Barbados, so if Angie mistakenly went counterclockwise in the roundabout as we do in the states, that would explain the honking and how they separated from the crew.

She did not. She went the correct way in the roundabout.

10 hours ago, Browncoat said:

Those cars were barely big enough for the teams and their backpacks, much less two more people with camera and sound equipment!  I don't think the cars even had backseats, did they?  Seemed like an open-ish area where they put their bags.

They did have backseats. Sound guy and camera man also would have fit. I think the problem would have been to fit 4 people and the backpacks.

Maybe next time production should just get cars that are fit for purpose. It's one thing to do this in rural europe, with barely any other traffic, to show off your nice two seater cabrios, it's quite another to do it on a densly populated island, with cars that are that small for seamingly no reason.

9 hours ago, Notabug said:

As I recall, racers are also told to obey all traffic laws and speed limits.  If Angie was going the wrong way on a roundabout, the crew wasn't going to double the problem by doing the same and production probably would've had a fit if they did; let alone if both drivers got citations for it. 

Except she was not.

8 hours ago, Netfoot said:

They have to rent what the rental companies have available. Small SUVs are very popular. If every team needed two and then a dozen more for Phil, advanced crews, etc, etc, maybe they could only find SUVs in sufficient quantity.

Considering they had bigger cars for the crew, that is impossible.

They could have put the team plus their operators in the bigger cars and split up everybody else in the smaller Jeeps and it would have come out the same for number and type of cars used.

Fact is, production thought these tiny Jeeps would be cute and make for good scenery shots with the roof down. Well everybody had their roof on and it completely ruined this leg of the race.

8 hours ago, Notabug said:

In other seasons, teams were given time credits for production issues like this and I presume if it was the crew who made the mistake and took a wrong turn or didn't follow the traffic laws; Danny and Angie would've been given a time adjustment for it.  It seems to me that, based on what we saw, it was D&A's error that caused them to lose their film crew; hence, they had to wait for the crew to catch up.

Time credits were given, but if a team went out due to a production fuckup, they were still out.

There was a final leg where teams had to count the right number of chips in a casino. One team lost that leg, because their teller kept counting their chips wrong, when checking if they had the right amount. The team was just sol.

Also, like I said before, it seems like production was trying way more to make things right and fair in earlier season. Now they are like "Fuck it. Not like we have to. If we lie enough, our viewers will come up with the weirdest theories to justify our fuckups."

7 hours ago, J-Man said:

In their exit interview, Danny said that their crew didn't arrive at the beach until 90 minutes after they did, and that after waiting for quite a while, they ended up using another available crew that was already at the beach.

90 minutes?! What was that crew doing? Enjoying a nice beach vacation?

3 hours ago, rr2911 said:

Someone already posted about this, but if you recall, Angie seemed to make a wrong turn or was going on the roundabout the wrong way.  People were honking at her so she did something she wasn't suppose to do. 

Angie did everything right and people honking at you in a south american country is a poor indicator of you doing anything wrong.

3 hours ago, rr2911 said:

Like I said, someone explained what probably happened.  It made sense.  It was Danny's and Angie's fault in my opinion.

It made no sense and also wasn't their fault.

34 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

Even if it was Danny & Angie who took the wrong turn, the crew should have followed. If D&A had turned North for some reason and ended up lost in St. Lucy, the crew wouldn't be able to tell them they were going wrong. That would be improper interference in the race. 

Yes, there really is no "wrong turn". Where the racers go, the crew needs to follow.

34 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

Having said that, I only learned in this episode that they had a crew car following them, and that they had a HT radio with which to communicate with them. Perhaps rules were imposed upon teams, which I am unaware of. But racers getting lost is what I expect to see on TAR. Not a crew vehicle leading the racers from point to point.

There clearly was nothing out of the ordinary. The racers were supposed to drive and the crew was supposed to follow, how it's always been. They were just supposed to also keep an eye out to not lose each other.

That they had radios makes the thing only more baffling. Angie and Danny clearly didn't notice that they lost the crew behind them, until they were out of radio range. But the crew should have noticed right away and radioed them.

That that happened and then the crew took 90 minutes to get to the right location, even though they presumably had GPS, makes me wonder if that crew was sober...

[Skooma]

9 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

As far as I know in early seasons they had interns running behind the teams who would do that and the team itself could just continue racing. That's why you see a lot less humming and hawing in earlier seasons about getting directions. But early seasons had quite a bit bigger budgets and so the amazing interns got cut at some point.

The sound man handing out the releases was based on what Season 1's Guido's explained and I heard it repeated by several other teams down the years. 

But sorry I never heard they had interns somehow magically running down miles and miles of highways of self-navigation.  That logistically would be impossible.  🤷‍♂️

[PurpleTentacle]

19 minutes ago, Skooma said:

But sorry I never heard they had interns somehow magically running down miles and miles of highways of self-navigation.  That logistically would be impossible.  🤷‍♂️

They always have additional crew running close behind the teams. So I don't see how that would be logistically impossible. 🤷‍♂️

In season 1 they still figured a lot of things out, so maybe the interners came later.

In general it probably was always a case where the sound-guy had to do it, when additional crew wasn't availible, but at some point they just got rid of the additional people who could do it, completely.

[PurpleTentacle]

I'd highly recommend to listen to the Rob has a Podcast Recap and Exit Interview this episode. From those it becomes absolutely clear that this was all the camera teams fault, not the racer's.

For some reason production couldn't even get a hold of the camera team for those 90 minutes they were lost. Even though of course they had cell phones. Something went seriously screwy there.

[GenerationX]

You adjust your driving when someone is following you.  It requires careful attention to who is behind you, what decisions you are about to make in traffic, and what the situation will then be for the car behind you.

Pushing a wheelbarrow on sand is no simple task.

I liked the fanfare at the mat with the dancer, stilt walkers, and musicians.

[chaifan]

6 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

They always have additional crew running close behind the teams. So I don't see how that would be logistically impossible. 🤷‍♂️

I agree.  We know there are additional crew cars in just about every leg, as we see exterior shots of cars and shots of cars from behind in traffic.  It's just that the teams aren't responsible for those crews and have had no special instructions to not lose them.

I'm with the "Angie & Danny got screwed" crowd on this one.  I could see how TAR wasn't able to make a determination of whose fault it was at that time, and had to just proceed with the day in the best way they could.  But still, they got screwed.  They better offer them a spot in the next reunion type season.  (Aren't we about due for one of those anyways?)

In a perfect world, next week we'd see Angie & Danny back with the rest of them, Phil explaining there was a production screw-up that cost A&D significant time, and so the Philimination is rescinded.  Then that leg becomes a double elimination leg. 

Also in a perfect world, Angie & Danny are watching this season as we all are on TV, see Phil's casting calls at the end of each episode, and say "why not?"  And they apply again and are put on TAR 37. 

 

[PurpleTentacle]

19 minutes ago, chaifan said:

I'm with the "Angie & Danny got screwed" crowd on this one.  I could see how TAR wasn't able to make a determination of whose fault it was at that time, and had to just proceed with the day in the best way they could.  But still, they got screwed.  They better offer them a spot in the next reunion type season.  (Aren't we about due for one of those anyways?)

Sad thing for them is, even if they are invited back, this was by far the best shot they had at winning. They excelled at self-navigating. That's how they made it so far, in mostly solid placements. There isn't going to be a season with this much self-driving again anytime soon (or at least let's hope, because that would mean another pandemic).

So it sucks that they were screwed out of this opportunity, while doing everything right. What sucks even more is that it will leave a very bitter taste to the entire season. It wasn't a great season to begin with, but now it's so bad, it might be down there with family edition... I mean is not leaving south america really any better than not leaving north america?

[Netfoot]

6 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Fact is, production thought these tiny Jeeps would be cute and make for good scenery shots with the roof down.

I thought the idea of splitting crew from racers was some sort of CV19 precaution to minimize the risk of transmission.

6 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Angie did everything right and people honking at you in a south american country is a poor indicator of you doing anything wrong.

Angie did not drive around the roundabout the wrong way. That is clearly visible in the footage. She was turning right with exits on her left, which is only possible if she is going around clockwise, which is correct. It appeared she was in the outside (left) lane of the roundabout and circling. If you are in the outside lane you will have people on the inside of you, trying to turn left off of the roundabout and exit. They are very likely to honk at you for blocking their exit lane.

Oh, and we don't at all consider ourselves part of South America.

6 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

the crew took 90 minutes to get to the right location, even though they presumably had GPS

I wouldn't count on that! Hell, they didn't even appear to have a spare wheel!

Out of curiosity, I've been trying to trace where the teams are going and by what route, by looking out the window of the vehicle to identify where they are, moment by moment. It turns out that a 30 second clip of them talking in the car is actually constructed from little snippets of video taken from all over the place.

One moment Danny & Angie are at the top of Broad St. looking across the Swing Bridge to Independence Arch, passing the House of Assembly on their left. They turn right (around the Treasury Department building) and cross the Careenage (Constitution River) on Bridge St. In the space of a single sentence, they are 1 Km away, passing by my friend's house on Bay St. A split second later with Danny finishing his sentence they are another 1½ Km further up Bay St., passing a house I recognize. So they are  making their way south on Bay St. But then, they are back to the House of Assembly and the Treasury Department building in the heart of Bridgetown. Next, they are getting honked at on the Henry Forde roundabout way up the ABC Hwy., 9½ Km away by the best route. 

So it seems what we see and what we hear are manufactured by the editors from whole cloth.

2 minutes ago, chaifan said:

I'm with the "Angie & Danny got screwed" crowd on this one.

I tend to agree with this. As I said earlier, unless they were operating under unusual rules which we are not aware of (and I somehow doubt that this is the case) the crew failing to follow them/getting lost is not the fault of Danny & Angie. I do not see why they should be penalized at all, far less eliminated. 

[Lovecat]

On 5/1/2024 at 10:31 PM, WatcherUp2 said:

Why does a team get penalized for their crew getting lost? That's so unfair.

No crew = no footage of the team doing the task.  I'm sure I've read that this is one of the ironclad rules of the Race, including having to have all of your documents (and the clue, I believe) in your possession when you check in, and never losing your Amazing Fannypack.  I mean, sure, crews are people with agency to make a wrong turn and get lost, unlike a passport, but they're making a teevee show here, and this is a rule that has been instituted to ensure the end product.  I wonder if the delay was caused by A/D going all the way to the task, vs. pulling over at the first convenient place (which is what I thought they were supposed to do in this situation).  It is possible that the crew, who presumably has GPS and not just a soggy map, first went back to the point where they lost them, and when they weren't there then had to continue on to the task.  I don't know how powerful those walkies are; we did see Danny tell the crew they were headed to the task, but I'm not sure we heard any acknowledgement from the crew.

ETA:  Yegads, now I see the crew was misplaced for 90 minutes??  Did they pull over for a beer or something?  I'm no fan of Angie and Danny's but I would like to know how this all went down.  Is it possible that they had to take a time penalty for losing their crew, less than 90 minutes, but still enough time to put them in last?  Curious minds want to know!

Edited May 3 by Lovecat

[PurpleTentacle]

34 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

I thought the idea of splitting crew from racers was some sort of CV19 precaution to minimize the risk of transmission.

The camera crews have been in the same car as the racers for the whole season. Racers also usually don't switch crew between legs, so I don't see how that could be covid related.

37 minutes ago, Netfoot said:

Oh, and we don't at all consider ourselves part of South America.

I mean what you consider yourself doesn't change geographical facts.

16 minutes ago, Lovecat said:

No crew = no footage of the team doing the task.  I'm sure I've read that this is one of the ironclad rules of the Race, including having to have all of your documents (and the clue, I believe) in your possession when you check in, and never losing your Amazing Fannypack.  I mean, sure, crews are people with agency to make a wrong turn and get lost, unlike a passport, but they're making a teevee show here, and this is a rule that has been instituted to ensure the end product.  I wonder if the delay was caused by A/D going all the way to the task, vs. pulling over at the first convenient place (which is what I thought they were supposed to do in this situation).  It is possible that the crew, who presumably has GPS and not just a soggy map, first went back to the point where they lost them, and when they weren't there then had to continue on to the task.  I don't know how powerful those walkies are; we did see Danny tell the crew they were headed to the task, but I'm not sure we heard any acknowledgement from the crew.

But it is also a competition and to keep it fun and interesting, teams shouldn't be screwed over by production. That's why in the past teams usually got time credits when production screwed something up. But it seems production cares less and less about keeping it fair and thus putting on a good show.

Teams were also told, that if they ever lost their crew, that they should just go to the next task and the crew would meet them there. Only their crew took 90 minutes to show up, during which time the rest of production couldn't reach them, even though they had cellphones and were supposed to be reachable.

A lot of things are possible here, but that doesn't change the fact that Danny and Angie did everything right and their crew screwed up royally.

[Lovecat]

4 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

But it is also a competition and to keep it fun and interesting, teams shouldn't be screwed over by production. That's why in the past teams usually got time credits when production screwed something up. But it seems production cares less and less about keeping it fair and thus putting on a good show.

Teams were also told, that if they ever lost their crew, that they should just go to the next task and the crew would meet them there. Only their crew took 90 minutes to show up, during which time the rest of production couldn't reach them, even though they had cellphones and were supposed to be reachable.

A lot of things are possible here, but that doesn't change the fact that Danny and Angie did everything right and their crew screwed up royally.

I was editing my post while you were typing.

[proserpina65]

On 5/1/2024 at 10:23 PM, Browncoat said:

I feel like building would be faster and less physically taxing.

I think that for teams arriving late, the seaweed task would be faster, if more physically tasking.  Angie and Danny should've done that one.

 

[proserpina65]

On 5/1/2024 at 11:18 PM, InDueTime said:

Second, what could be more simple than hauling something across a beach to fill one barrel?

Most of the teams seemed to think it would be physically taxing, and they were right, and that the distance between the barrels and where they were supposed to collect the seaweed would be hard to cross quickly.  Probably not wrong about that either, but I think Danny & Angie should've taken a chance on that one.

 

[meep.meep]

It's too bad this ended so sadly.  Teams shouldn't be eliminated because of production errors.  Maybe they will get to come back.

But there was a lot of good in this episode.  The street tennis was fun - Angie did great and even got a backhand in at one point.  You could tell the teams really like each other.  The footballer yelling out "Be great babe!" to his wife.

I couldn't figure out why anyone would build the fish cage and get all cut up.  Seaweed, especially dried seaweed, is light.  You didn't have to fill the wheelbarrows to the brim.  Run it down to the water where the sand is compact and it won't be hard to push.

For whoever was wondering - Barbados is in the Caribbean, not South America.

 

[proserpina65]

On 5/2/2024 at 6:41 AM, shura said:

What does losing the crew even mean?  Isn’t the crew supposed to follow them no matter where they are going, even if they are going to the wrong place or taking the wrong exit?  Weird that a team is penalized when the crew failed at their job.  Although, I guess it wasn’t a penalty, they simply couldn’t continue filming without the crew and had to wait, but still, Danny and Angie lost time through no fault of their own.

The crew were in a different lane and didn't see D&A move until it was too late to follow them off the exit.  And apparently they had a local driver - it wasn't a crew member doing the driving.  But yes, it does seem unfair to penalize them for something another person did.

On 5/2/2024 at 9:53 AM, bunnyface said:

I'm not where I can go back and watch, but it seems like Danny and Angie were doing the roundabout "wrong."  I think they were cutting people off because there was a lot of honking and turning and it seems like they had to go back around again.  If the crew did the roundabout "correctly" instead of cutting people off (dangerously) to follow, it would be easy to be separated.  Then Danny and Angie just went straight to the task without trying to find their crew.  If the crew stopped to try to find them before going on, that's lost time too.

According to their post-Race interview, going to the pitstop and waiting for the crew was what they were supposed to do.

22 hours ago, shura said:

Why was the crew in a separate car anyway?  I thought it might have been a Covid thing, but they did not use separate cars for the team and the crew on previous legs, everyone was just fine riding together.

Those little cars weren't big enough for the teams and their crews.

22 hours ago, chaifan said:

Driving in roundabouts isn't fun if you're not used to them.  (And most Americans aren't really used to them.)  Giving directions to someone driving a roundabout is maddening at best.  I was on vacation with a friend years ago, in a country with tons of roundabouts.  She was the driver.  It was understood that if I said "go straight" it meant act as if the roundabout was a normal intersection and just continue on the road we were on.  Otherwise, I'd say "turn at the first street" or third street or whatever, indicating which "spoke" we were getting off of.  But it took a few to get that down right. 

 

 

Yeah, I've driven roundabouts here in the US, but I'd still be intimidated as hell by ones in countries where they drive on the other side of the road.

19 hours ago, Netfoot said:

if Angie mistakenly went counterclockwise in the roundabout as we do in the states...

I don't think she was doing that.  I think she was in the far right lane, as we would be here in the US for exits, and needed to be in the far left lane instead.

11 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

I don't even get why they had this setup. The jeep was a four-seater. The trunk seemed maybe a little small, but I think it could have fit the backpacks.

The crew has a fair amount of equipment.  I don't think it would all fit with the racers and their backpacks.

11 hours ago, Netfoot said:

Even if it was Danny & Angie who took the wrong turn, the crew should have followed. If D&A had turned North for some reason and ended up lost in St. Lucy, the crew wouldn't be able to tell them they were going wrong. That would be improper interference in the race. 

Having said that, I only learned in this episode that they had a crew car following them, and that they had a HT radio with which to communicate with them. Perhaps rules were imposed upon teams, which I am unaware of. But racers getting lost is what I expect to see on TAR. Not a crew vehicle leading the racers from point to point.

I used to live less than 400 meters from the bandstand at Hastings Rocks, where the pitstop was. But that was many years ago.

Thank you for the local insight, Netfoot. 🙂

[proserpina65]

2 hours ago, Netfoot said:

I thought the idea of splitting crew from racers was some sort of CV19 precaution to minimize the risk of transmission.

They had the crews in with the Racers in previous countries.

[proserpina65]

2 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

I mean what you consider yourself doesn't change geographical facts.

According to what I discovered when I googled it, Barbados is part of North America, despite being closer to South America, so there's at least some room for debate.  I personally have never considered it part of either.

[aradia22]

Quote

Sad thing for them is, even if they are invited back, this was by far the best shot they had at winning. They excelled at self-navigating. That's how they made it so far, in mostly solid placements. There isn't going to be a season with this much self-driving again anytime soon (or at least let's hope, because that would mean another pandemic).

They got very lucky with this season aside from their exit. They're in a group that is terrible with self-navigation and not that great at tasks. They were able to do their alliance strategy and save themselves in the megaleg. And for all the complaints about the covid season, I think it affected the design of the tasks in a way that advantaged them as well. We didn't get a lot of tasks surrounded by people or crowds (except things like the balloon task) that really would have tasked Angie's ability to bear the heat. I don't think they would be competitive returning in a different season though maybe they might let Danny return with his sister. I don't think he's a huge fan favorite though.

[Netfoot]

6 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

I mean what you consider yourself doesn't change geographical facts.

Look at a map. We are over 350 Km from the closest corner of SA. Even Trinis who are only 15 Km from the closest point on the SA continent definitely don't consider themselves South American.

[Arkay]

2 hours ago, Netfoot said:

Look at a map. We are over 350 Km from the closest corner of SA. Even Trinis who are only 15 Km from the closest point on the SA continent definitely don't consider themselves South American.

In 1978, we went to Barbados for our honeymoon. It wasn’t thought of as South America in any way. Just Caribbean, used to belong to Britain so it’s an English speaking country.

It was raining when we landed but the rest of our honeymoon was pure beauty.

i agree with everyone. Whatever the rule may be, no matter who was originally at fault, there is no way the crew should be either a) 90 minutes behind or b) never showed up.

 

[david gideon]

I don't think the way TAR handled the team separation screw-up made the show look good at all. No wonder they weren't eager to air it.

[Notabug]

11 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

 

Teams were also told, that if they ever lost their crew, that they should just go to the next task and the crew would meet them there. Only their crew took 90 minutes to show up, during which time the rest of production couldn't reach them, even though they had cellphones and were supposed to be reachable.

Danny said that their camera crew arrived 90 minutes after them. But, he also said that another crew was assigned to them and they didn’t have to wait the 90 minutes but some lesser time.  In order to know if the crew’s error caused them to lose, we’d need to know how long they waited until a new crew was assigned as well as how far behind the second to last team they were.  There was no race to the mat and the light was not the same for Danny and Angie as it was for the others.  In the end, I think it is possible, if not probable, that they would’ve been last even without the production delay.

 TAR is a game show and there are laws about production interference in the outcome.  I don’t think TPTB would allow production errors to interfere to the extent that it changed the outcome.

[North of Eden]

I am not a Danny fan in any way shape or form so hopefully this won't be misconstrued as cheerleading for him but....it seems to me like it was the CREW who LOST them, not the other way around so the penalty seems unwarranted.

Either way one of my fondest sayings in life is that there is a special place in hell for whoever invented roundabouts. Every damn time I go through one I think this is the time I'll be in an accident.

Roundabouts aside I wonder just what it is that makes Barbados appear to be a navigation nightmare. I can't recall teams struggling this badly. It was just wonderful to break free of South America though....viva la revolution!

I wonder what the security is like on Rhianna's childhood home. I can imagine people wanting a piece of it.

The seaweed looked like a no brainer. I was stunned nobody wanted to do it. I was like...."how long can it take two people to fill up a medium sized barrel?" A second place finish seems to answer with "Not very long."

Notably Amber and Vinnie had wings on their feat leaving the beach and didn't even stop to examine Walla Walla's cage to make sure they were doing it right. No helping this time!

I'm sure the producers bought Rod and Letecia a bottle of wine for getting stuck in that mud patch which allowed them to generate a microscopic bit of suspense that they might come in last.

And Danny the opera might not be over until the fat lady sings but when she is standing center stage and clearing her throat you can probably bet the ranch she's going to sing and its over.

Lastly to end on a completely shallow note...the tennis comp was a fine display of Letecia's figure. I'm sure the unchosen opponents enjoyed watching her game play.

[Netfoot]

21 minutes ago, North of Eden said:

I wonder just what it is that makes Barbados appear to be a navigation nightmare.

It isn't that bad, really. But there are a few Gotchas. There can be very bad traffic on the popular roads which doesn't help. And there is generally nothing like a grid. But more to the point of navigation, one rather unusual thing about Barbados road sineage: The sign naming that road coming up on your right? It will very often be on your left side, attached to the nearest available pole, yards before (or after) the turn. Look at these screen grabs from google Maps:

The road on the right leads into Tino Terrace. (This is near where I live.)  Circled in red and on the left side, pointing back towards the turn from the nearest pole is the actual street sign.

Here it is blown up a bit:

Yah. We Bajans do things our way!

4 minutes ago, North of Eden said:

I wonder what the security is like on Rhianna's childhood home. I can imagine people wanting a piece of it.

Slim to none, I'd guess.

Her uncle Tony and I are good friends. (We are in the same club.) They are not close. I'd post his picture but it would have to be the back of his head because it wouldn't be right to post his face online. 

9 minutes ago, North of Eden said:

I'm sure the producers bought Rod and Letecia a bottle of wine for getting stuck in that mud patch...

I know that mud patch well. I was wondering if they realized that they were driving an SUV which would have 4WD... but then, no. Most of the rentals only look like they are 4WD because the tourists destroy the transmissions at a fearsome rate.

[vousviou]

One thing that crossed my mind is that the separated crew may have had an accident after the separation at the roundabout, and the rules may have said any problem with the crew's vehicle still meant the team had to wait.

At least one of those roads was flooded, and Rod and Leticia's car got stuck in the mud - I could imagine that conditions could have been bad enough to cause an accident.

I don't know why that wouldn't be mentioned, but it's possible some kind of litigation was involved and the corporate legal department wanted nothing on film.

That wouldn't be the fault of Danny and Angie, of course, and possibly not even the crew's fault, just dumb luck, in the same way that sometimes teams have been cursed by equipment breakdowns that were out of their control but the rules still meant they lost time.

[SDVegas]

6 hours ago, Notabug said:

In order to know if the crew’s error caused them to lose, we’d need to know how long they waited until a new crew was assigned as well as how far behind the second to last team they were.  There was no race to the mat and the light was not the same for Danny and Angie as it was for the others.  In the end, I think it is possible, if not probable, that they would’ve been last even without the production delay.

They were the second team to arrive at the detour, so odds are they would not have been the last to finish if they had been able to start immediately. 

[mbluecpa]

On 5/2/2024 at 6:32 PM, aradia22 said:

I really felt the 90 minutes with this episode.

The 90 minutes really hit me on this one too; prior episodes have felt stretched here and there but this definitely showed it more.  While I liked seeing Angie’s prowess at road tennis and that she really seemed to enjoy it, the Roadblock consumed a lot of episode time.  Ditto for the various navigation issues, even apart from Danny/Angie and their crew.  

22 hours ago, meep.meep said:

Seaweed, especially dried seaweed, is light. 

Juan and Shane mentioned that it was pretty wet and that any wet sand on it would add weight.  At a couple of spots, it looked like it took both of them to push the wheelbarrow.  But yeah - even if teams filled wheelbarrows halfway and made twice as many trips as J/S it seems like they could’ve finished that one quicker that the fish traps (and without bloody hands - ouch!).

I thought for sure the episode title was going to be Juan or Shane commenting after the seaweed, but Rod’s pushing the car definitely earned it.  I really like his voice-overs.

Rolled my eyes hard at Amber’s comment (paraphrasing) that the only thing in their relationship that they struggle with is working together.

[Shrek]

15 hours ago, Arkay said:

In 1978, we went to Barbados for our honeymoon. It wasn’t thought of as South America in any way. Just Caribbean, used to belong to Britain so it’s an English speaking country.

It was raining when we landed but the rest of our honeymoon was pure beauty.

i agree with everyone. Whatever the rule may be, no matter who was originally at fault, there is no way the crew should be either a) 90 minutes behind or b) never showed up.

 

It's way more N America than South, everything I've read says Caribbean or if pushed N. America & nowhere I can find says S. America. 

As for roundabouts, most countries use them rather than stop lights where possible as it keeps the traffic moving more freely under normal conditions, but most Americans I know don't like them because they're not used to them & therefore they don't get used correctly, with very few actually using indicators on them. 

[Electruck]

I was once in Australia in a car riding shotgun with a fellow American driving, and we had trouble with “go right/go left” because we were used to “go left” resulting in crossing an opposing traffic lane. 

Roundabouts aren’t common in my area and I’m pretty inept when faced with one. I can’t imagine doing one while driving on the left side of the road, in the rain, while trying to keep track of the crew and get the right exit. 

Regarding being frustrated with racers seeming unable read a map: I can read a map, but I have crummy spatial awareness that doesn’t help me with being able to follow one, or to remember how to reverse directions to get back to where I was. And to do it from the back seat where you can’t really see signs or what’s coming? Gah!

I haven’t watched TAR since S28 after years of being a devoted watcher (and two TARCons!), and when the opening credits started for this season, I realized how much I missed it! This may not be a top-ranking season, but I’m enjoying it. Even the team I found the most annoying, the cousins (“mad chihuahua energy” indeed! (Sorry I can’t remember writer’s name to credit them — Stargazer something, maybe?)), were keeping good cheer despite challenges, so I was sorry to see them go.

 I cannot get over Rod’s arm muscles. Dang.

[Netfoot]

48 minutes ago, Shrek said:

As for roundabouts, most countries use them rather than stop lights where possible as it keeps the traffic moving more freely under normal conditions...

In the city, the practice is to tear out the roundabouts (one by one)  and replace with traffic lights. The new traffic light system costs several million and the Minister of Transport rips off 20-25% of the budget. And a few years later they tear out the traffic lights and replace them with multi-million dollar roundabouts, and the Minister of Transport rips off 20-25% of the budget.

But on the highway, they can't easily do this because the disruption to the flow of traffic would be far too severe for the public to bear. So it's been roundabouts on the highway from the beginning.

[Browncoat]

1 hour ago, Shrek said:

As for roundabouts, most countries use them rather than stop lights where possible as it keeps the traffic moving more freely under normal conditions

And then there were the really big roundabouts I encountered in England (near London) that had stoplights so people could get in and out of them.  There was so much traffic, and no one was going to let you in or out.

[Shrek]

8 minutes ago, Browncoat said:

And then there were the really big roundabouts I encountered in England (near London) that had stoplights so people could get in and out of them.  There was so much traffic, and no one was going to let you in or out.

There is a roundabout on the way into/out of Cardiff that has 4 or 5 sets of lights on it as well as lights for getting onto it & is or was 4 lanes wide, it was great fun at rush hour. 

[Skooma]

On 5/3/2024 at 2:23 AM, PurpleTentacle said:

They always have additional crew running close behind the teams. So I don't see how that would be logistically impossible. 🤷‍♂️

In season 1 they still figured a lot of things out, so maybe the interners came later.

In general it probably was always a case where the sound-guy had to do it, when additional crew wasn't availible, but at some point they just got rid of the additional people who could do it, completely.

We will agree to disagree.  They have one lone security team car period on the road.  Extra crew are pre-positioned at Detour and Roadblock tasks.

On 5/3/2024 at 10:16 AM, PurpleTentacle said:

The camera crews have been in the same car as the racers for the whole season. Racers also usually don't switch crew between legs, so I don't see how that could be covid related.

I mean what you consider yourself doesn't change geographical facts.

Traditionally the camera crews switch teams on a regular basis so as not to become too attached to one team and be tempted to help them.

Officially and geographically all the Caribbean islands are considered part of North America.  Not South America.

https://visaguide.world/north-america-caribbean/

Edited May 4 by Skooma

[meep.meep]

39 minutes ago, Skooma said:

 

Officially and geographically all the Caribbean islands are considered part of North America.  Not South America.

https://visaguide.world/north-america-caribbean/

I don't really care what visa thinks.  This decades-long card-carrying member of the American Association of Geographers says it is part of the Caribbean.  Definitely not part of South America.

[peachmangosteen]

16 hours ago, Notabug said:

TAR is a game show and there are laws about production interference in the outcome.

Do we have confirmation on that? I know a lot of people think this about Big Brother and Survivor when it’s not actually true. TAR is slightly different though so I could see it being subject to game show rules but I could also see it being classified like BB/Survivor are so it’d be nice to know for sure.

I grew to hate Angie and Danny (table of 1 I guess but more so her than him) and wanted them gone but I thought this whole thing was bullshit and made the show look bad.

Edited May 4 by peachmangosteen

[Netfoot]

58 minutes ago, peachmangosteen said:

I grew to hate Angie and Danny (table of 1 I guess but more so her than him) and wanted them gone but I thought this whole thing was bullshit and made the show look bad.

I too disliked Angie and Danny and would have been happy for them to be eliminated, although in my case I was OK with her - it was him who got on my nerves.

That being said, I don't think they got a square break here. Unless there were factors we don't know about, I'm surprised at the final outcome.

[Skooma]

4 hours ago, meep.meep said:

I don't really care what visa thinks.  This decades-long card-carrying member of the American Association of Geographers says it is part of the Caribbean.  Definitely not part of South America.

Yes I just said it was NOT part of South America.  The Caribbean Region is a sub-set of North America.  So win-win.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_America

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/north-america-physical-geography/

Edited May 4 by Skooma

[tinkerbell]

On 5/3/2024 at 8:35 PM, Notabug said:

TAR is a game show and there are laws about production interference in the outcome.  I don’t think TPTB would allow production errors to interfere to the extent that it changed the outcome.

The game show laws are from the 1950s and were about giving contestants answers to questions on quiz shows. The language of the law referred to contests of intellectual knowledge. It was about producers pre-determining a winner.

I don't believe those laws apply to modern day reality shows. The contests on TAR are not always clear-cut, there's a lot that is subjective.

For example,  when TAR teams compete in a performance task, judged by a local, the judging can seem pretty arbitrary, even inconsistent.  I can't see the FCC getting involved in that the same way they would if a Jeopardy contestant was given answers. 

[rr2911]

Well, I watched the exit interview of Danny and Angie.  I was wrong about it being their fault but apparently it wasn't the crew's either.  A "local" was driving the car that the crew was in and apparently did not know immediately where the next challenge was.  Danny said so in the interview.

[Lakebum]

I have built similar traps with chicken wire, and it sucks. Truly death by 1,000 cuts, and all of the cuts are on your hands. So I would have done the seaweed for that reason alone. BUT, I would have done it just for the Save the Turtles aspect, too. And if I arrived last and everyone was doing the same task, it would only make sense to do the other.

[Netfoot]

After 22+ years of waiting, TAR finally visits my home country, and I was so disappointed.

First, in a country that experiences over 3,000 hours of sunshine a year, they give us a show in the pissing rain! Well, it does rain here. And I doubt TPTB can be held responsible for that. But it was a disappointment.

I'd hoped that some of the more interesting and beautiful aspects of Barbadian life might be showcased. We got Road Tennis and Long Beach at it's absolute worst, covered with sargassum! And we got a brief glimpse of Rihanna's childhood home.

Do we get to see a challenge at Morgan Lewis Mill? No.
Do they collect seashells on Bathsheba beach? No.
Do they swim with Sea Turtles? No.
Visit the Animal Flower Cave?  No.
Carlisle Bay? No.
Harrison's Cave?  No.
Do they dive on SS Stavronikita? No.
Go to St. Nicholas Abbey? No.
Andromeda Botanic Gardens? No.
Do they go anywhere near Cattlewash? No.
Do they go drink rum at Mount Gay Distillery? Or any other distillery? No.
Eat at the Oistins Fish Fry? No.

But what we do get is interminable driving around and getting nowhere in a vehicle with steamed up windows, and bitching about lost crews and lengthy penalties and delays.

And now we are crossed off the list, I doubt that they will ever be back. Not that the viewers have seen anything to make them want that to happen anyway...

 

Edited May 6 by Netfoot

[kassandra8286]

Netfoot, those pictures are stunning. What a beautiful island!  Totally get why you're disappointed. Talk about missed opportunities.

I didn't care for Angie and Danny either but they sure as heck got a raw deal with this debacle and I'm sorry they had to exit under such a cloud of controversy. 

[bioprof]

On 5/4/2024 at 11:44 PM, rr2911 said:

Well, I watched the exit interview of Danny and Angie.  I was wrong about it being their fault but apparently it wasn't the crew's either.  A "local" was driving the car that the crew was in and apparently did not know immediately where the next challenge was.  Danny said so in the interview.

Danny and Angie SHOULD HAVE immediately radioed to their crew when they lost them. They were still close and in range…Angie even said they should radio them, but Danny….who’s never wrong, apparently, nixed the idea. Wrong move, Danny. So it doesn’t matter who was driving the crew car ( if you believe Danny, that is ), they would have resolved the issue within minutes had they radioed immediately like Angie wanted.

The exit interview was only their version of what happened. TAR stated Angie made an illegal turn in the roundabout and all the honking and gnashing of teeth seems to indicate this was true. Nonetheless, they could have, and should have resolved the issue by using their radio.

Not a popular opinion, I know, but I’m so glad to have Danny off my screen. They couldn’t have won anyway. Angie , in her interview, said their strong suit was puzzles, not the physical stuff. Cough, cough….then why did she need help putting together a large format puzzle that my grandson could have done in just a few minutes?

Net foot, you’re so right about lost opportunities.

So many beautiful places….

[Netfoot]

3 hours ago, kassandra8286 said:

those pictures are stunning. What a beautiful island!  Totally get why you're disappointed.

Thank you, @kassandra8286, for saying so. I could have gone on all day, producing a gigantic list of photos from all-around the island, but I limited myself to a dozen. And I'm sure the same could be done for any country!

I just wish they'd hit one or two of the highlights available from that "gigantic list", instead of spending so much time on internal TAR procedures and screw-ups.

Also, I was highly surprised to observe how much of the footage was stitched together from tiny snippets of tape, recorded probably hours apart in locations miles away from each other. It's like a ransom note made by sticking together words cut from multiple newspapers from different days. I will doubt the reality of every scene they show me, from now on, for ever!

[PurpleTentacle]

On 5/3/2024 at 11:00 PM, Netfoot said:

Look at a map. We are over 350 Km from the closest corner of SA. Even Trinis who are only 15 Km from the closest point on the SA continent definitely don't consider themselves South American.

I looked at a map. You are closer to south america than anything else. Furthermore you are on the edge of the south american and caribean plate.

If you are not south american then what are you?

The only option I will consider is Caribean, if you go for these small sub-categories. But it's certainly not part of north america.

On 5/4/2024 at 3:35 AM, Notabug said:

Danny said that their camera crew arrived 90 minutes after them. But, he also said that another crew was assigned to them and they didn’t have to wait the 90 minutes but some lesser time.  In order to know if the crew’s error caused them to lose, we’d need to know how long they waited until a new crew was assigned as well as how far behind the second to last team they were.  There was no race to the mat and the light was not the same for Danny and Angie as it was for the others.  In the end, I think it is possible, if not probable, that they would’ve been last even without the production delay.

Yeah no. That's not probable or even possible. They got to the detour second. The side that all but one team took was not physical. There is no way they ever would have fallen behind so much that they would have come in last. Probable is that they would have come in second or third on this leg.

When they actually got to start the detour Juan and Shane had just gotten there. So at that point they were dead last.

Danny said their actual crew showed up around 30 minutes into the challange. So assuming that's all roughly correct and doing the math, it means that they sat at the beach waiting for 60 minutes. That's forever in the race, especially in these covid times.

On 5/4/2024 at 3:35 AM, Notabug said:

 TAR is a game show and there are laws about production interference in the outcome.  I don’t think TPTB would allow production errors to interfere to the extent that it changed the outcome.

There are no laws governing reality TV competitions. Courts have specifically ruled that game show laws do not apply. Production could rig the whole thing and it would be legal. Now, they of course don't do that intentionally, since it would make for bad TV, but they used to be much better at trying to keep it fair.

In this case specifically, even production wasn't sure if they should eliminate Danny and Angie. Apparently there was quite a bit of back and forth at the mat, but ultimately production saw no other choice that would make sense narratively, because of their "no non-elimination-legs" rule. In other seasons they probably would have slotted in a non-elimination-leg and given Danny and Angie a time credit for the time they had to wait at the beach.

On 5/4/2024 at 6:59 PM, Skooma said:

Traditionally the camera crews switch teams on a regular basis so as not to become too attached to one team and be tempted to help them.

Do you have a source? From any interview I've heard over the years they stick to teams throughout the race.

On 5/5/2024 at 5:44 AM, rr2911 said:

Well, I watched the exit interview of Danny and Angie.  I was wrong about it being their fault but apparently it wasn't the crew's either.  A "local" was driving the car that the crew was in and apparently did not know immediately where the next challenge was.  Danny said so in the interview.

Seems to be at least partially the crews fault if they didn't get there for 90 minutes. You'd think after 30 minutes at the latest they'd make the driver pull over and call production.

21 hours ago, Netfoot said:

I'd hoped that some of the more interesting and beautiful aspects of Barbadian life might be showcased. We got Road Tennis and Long Beach at it's absolute worst, covered with sargassum! And we got a brief glimpse of Rihanna's childhood home.

That's par for the course. TAR always does the dumbest and/or most stereotypical thing. Now you know how I feel as german. They usually go to Bavaria and do some dumb Lederhosen-stuff. It's already a breath of fresh air when they go to Berlin and do some stereotypical things there.

Though granted, at least they get here more often than once. But they never once got to my region and we have some pretty stuff here.

[Notabug]

28 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

. You are closer to south america than anything else. Furthermore you are on the edge of the south american and caribean plate.

If you are not south american then what are you?

 

According to the experts, the people who make the maps, Barbados is part of North America, whether you believe it or not.  It's really not subjective, it is a fact, even if you disagree with the experts.  

Edited May 7 by Notabug