S37.E01: Double the Stakes, Double the Eliminations

[bioprof]

On 3/7/2025 at 3:37 PM, Skooma said:

I think it is totally, completely unfair to assume it was a combination of all three.  It was the clue.  People are innocent until proved guilty and no cab driver was proved guilty of anything except the inability to understand or read the English language.  Period.

The other female teams had no problems.  The other Black teams had no problems.  Not aimed at you but there has been a ton of these types of statements and sorry but the "rush to judgement" and assumptions without any evidence that happens these days on social media drive me crazy. 

One more thing, it’s possible the cabs were prearranged by TAR and the cabbies instructed to say “no” unless the clue was presented properly. The nurses admitted they didn’t read the clue but they didn’t explain the additional information , other than the Chinese language inclusion. It’s possible the clue stated they had to present the Chinese direction to the cabbie.

Agree it made no sense whatsoever to assume racism, sexism, etc.

Other teams had no issue whatsoever and presented the clue correctly.

Also don’t think it’s a stretch to assume TAR had arranged for the cabs ahead of time, given what we’ve seen in the past with teams suffering through no fault of their own over bad cab rides..

[PurpleTentacle]

1 hour ago, bioprof said:

One more thing, it’s possible the cabs were prearranged by TAR and the cabbies instructed to say “no” unless the clue was presented properly. The nurses admitted they didn’t read the clue but they didn’t explain the additional information , other than the Chinese language inclusion. It’s possible the clue stated they had to present the Chinese direction to the cabbie.

That's not what happened.

1 hour ago, bioprof said:

Also don’t think it’s a stretch to assume TAR had arranged for the cabs ahead of time, given what we’ve seen in the past with teams suffering through no fault of their own over bad cab rides..

It is.

[Brown44]

Was it a mistake on the nurses end why many cabbies was saying no? I'm 90% sure it was on them after they explained. But let's not forget the reason why the task of asking people for money was a one and done task, when no one would give money to the black team (teams with white women got money pretty easy) it was in a Asian country. 

Edited March 9 by Brown44

[Cotypubby]

16 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

I'll just have to believe you on that one. I personally can't remember a single time.

There have absolutely been multiple times where a team got through on the first try. I have no idea what season or who it was but I remember one team of professional dancers that had a dance Detour and they basically looked exactly like the example. It was perfect.

[Ilovepie]

On 3/7/2025 at 2:36 PM, HurricaneVal said:

That said, I wonder if production went with the Fork in the Road concept because they were really tired of teams switching tasks--sometimes even multiple times--in the Detours.  In the early seasons, you didn't see much task switching at all, but it seems kind of prevalent in these later seasons.  I think it has to do with the changes due to the COVID years, and now the task locations are fairly near to each other so switching is only a matter of walking over to the other group.  In the early days, I think the tasks were definitely not within easy switching walking distance, I think there was driving involved.

I was thinking it was because it always seems like one task is easier and then every team chooses the same one. This way it forces teams to have to do a less appealing detour that might be ignored when given the choice.

I just finished watching the first two seasons again, and I would say the detours have gotten more challenging and complicated compared to those seasons, but you are right that nobody switched - in both seasons I think I remember one time - one team switched from needle in a haystack task in a cool cave to hitting golf balls off a butte onto a putting green in hundred degree heat. 

[PurpleTentacle]

1 hour ago, Ilovepie said:

but you are right that nobody switched - in both seasons I think I remember one time

Watch one more season and you'll see one team switch all the time.

[Ilovepie]

8 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Watch one more season and you'll see one team switch all the time.

I started watching this show in Season three so I have probably already seen it 😉

Most recently, there was a team of two young guys and it was a cooking challenge or exactly stacking a pile of stuff onto a truck-like vehicle and they kept going back and forth to their detriment.......I am sure someone here remembers that! It's usually (not always) disastrous to switch if the detours are far apart or the team is in the back of the pack. I am also sure someone can name how many teams have been eliminated for switching too late in the game....

[choclatechip45]

On 3/9/2025 at 11:02 AM, zapper said:

dating nurses (DN) Courtney and Jasmin or married nurses (MN) Alyssa and Josiah?

I meant the dating ones. Though I do like Alyssa and Josiah!

[curbcrusher]

A couple of thoughts.

1) Fork in the Road :   I wonder if they were thinking they could better present the teams by creating "two parallel races" of seven teams.  In most seasons, all the teams in the middle get sort of ignored with the emphasis on the the couple running at the front and the couple running at the bottom. In this case you had two races so they might have thought they could bring more attention to more teams. Not sure it worked.

2) Sing option -- If I'd been a contestant and selected this I would have been pissed when I got to the venue and they said there were "movements." That's freaking dancing, and I choose sing because I have two left feet and no rhythm and I know that s rhythmic movement (dance) challenge  means that my team is getting Philelimiated at the detour site.  The option said one or the other not both.

 

[Neobie]

Part-time Hong Kong local here, I think there might have been a cable car ride that was edited out after the Buddha. We see teams start the leg in blue taxis (that serve only Lantau Island where the Buddha is on), but miraculously switch to red cabs (and new drivers) on the way to the Central Ferry Piers.

In the shot where Jonathan/Ana ask their driver for his phone to look up ferry schedules, you see them in Tung Chung town, driving past the Silveri Hotel. That only makes sense if they took the cable car down from the Buddha, to the station around the corner from the Silveri.

(The cable car usually starts at 10am, but the show could potentially have got special dispensation. Alternatively, they could have been directed to take a cab down to Tung Chung to switch cabs.)

In other news, Carson/Jack's taxi was going the right way (on the Tung Chung Eastern Interchange roundabout turning onto the North Lantau Highway) when they split from Jonathan/Ana...

Edited to add: Apparently on Scott/Lori's vlog, the original plan was to take the cable car up and down, but because of the rain they were directed to take taxis instead. (Thanks Xoruz!)

Edited March 12 by Neobie

[aghst]

The cable car is spectacular.

But I guess the racers would just sit in and ride for 10-20 minutes, admire the view.

[proserpina65]

I really didn't like the Fork in the Road as it played out.  Could've been interesting had the two tasks been more equal, but obviously the Cantonese opera task took far more time than the lion dance one.  Seems rather unfair to me that the last team who chose the dance task got to the pit stop before all but one team who chose the singing task and yet still got eliminated.  I hope the producers rethink how this works out if they use it for future Races.

Also, I've never been a fan of airport drama unless it's something really big.  (See Colin & Christie and their inability to make the faster flight on the final leg because they'd already checked their bags.)  So I could do with less of that.  But people actually racing hard to make various transportation options is fine.  Especially when it DOESN'T help them in the end.  Looking at you, Jonathan & Ana.  Or, more accurately, giving you the stink eye for being such jerks at the mat.

On 3/6/2025 at 2:23 AM, aghst said:

The dating nurses barely survived.  IF they'd have been eliminated because they couldn't get a taxi, it would have been a bad look to have them be one of the double-eliminations.

Why so?  We've seen teams in previous Races get eliminated due to difficulty getting a taxi.  Why would it have been a bad look for it to happen to them?

On 3/6/2025 at 2:23 AM, aghst said:

Or maybe the unpleasant possibility that because they were black, they had troubles getting a taxi.

Eh, the lumberjacks got a taxi, and teams who were white also had some trouble.  The dating nurses seemed to think that some of it was down to the drivers not understanding where they wanted to go because they weren't reading the phonetic spelling.  Which is down to Read the Whole Clue! on their part.

On 3/6/2025 at 4:43 AM, Fake Jan Brady said:

Because I'm deeply superficial I'm rooting for the jacked father and son

Yeah, I'm loving the father and son lumberjacks.

On 3/6/2025 at 5:01 AM, shura said:

What’s with the father of eight saying that he “empowers” his wife to make decisions so she doesn’t have to wait for his approval when he is out of town and she runs the household?

I suspect they're Mormon.  That rubbed me the wrong way, too, but I like her since she seems very capable so far.  Maybe we could hook her up with Ana as a teammate instead?

On 3/6/2025 at 9:22 AM, chaifan said:

I thought the "fork in the road" was a glorified detour. 

A detour where you could get eliminated even if you finished ahead of six other teams, as happened to the retired firefighters.  Seems like bad planning to me.

On 3/6/2025 at 9:49 AM, Browncoat said:

I don't know who's who yet, but that one guy on the tower was amazing!  He just scampered up that slippery bamboo like it was nothing! 

I think that was the Vegas performer who works in Cirque de Soleil shows.

On 3/6/2025 at 10:06 AM, anniebird said:

I think it's fair because the two teams that were eliminated came in last against teams who were doing the exact same task. If they had just eliminated the last two teams that would have been really unfair because the Sing task was so much more difficult than the Dance task. I hope they will send them out with the the two first place teams going together and then the two second place teams etc. That would negate the difference in difficulty between the two tasks.

That's poor planning on the part of the producers.  The tasks should've been more equal to begin with.

On 3/6/2025 at 2:26 PM, Tango64 said:

Still, I think people are reading too much into the "empowering" comment.

Eh, I think he meant it exactly as it sounded.

 

[proserpina65]

On 3/8/2025 at 7:32 AM, Browncoat said:

Season 4 was the first season I watched!  Clowns!  Millie the Virgin!  The air traffic controllers!  It might not have been the best season, but it hooked me on the show.

Yeah, it was season 6 where mactors (models/actors) started being a more significant group in the cast.  Also the season containing the horrific Jonathan.

On 3/8/2025 at 5:51 PM, chaifan said:

Was that the literal and figurative "needle in the haystack"?  I think that's the one most remember.  But I honestly don't remember any other "in the field" Philiminations. 

It was the two poker players who got Philiminated in the Netherlands because they couldn't complete either task in the leg's detour.  The haystack one was Lena and Kristy in season 6.  The other field Philimination I remember was Marshall & Lance in season 5 when Marshall was unable to continue the archaeological roadblock due to leg issues in Luxor and he & Lance decided to quit.  Phil came out to the site to tell them everyone else had already checked in and they'd have been eliminated anyway.  It was the first time he ever had to Philiminate someone in the field.

 

[Ilovepie]

1 hour ago, proserpina65 said:

A detour where you could get eliminated even if you finished ahead of six other teams, as happened to the retired firefighters.  Seems like bad planning to me.

If they want to split the detour and have limited spaces that are first come first served for each I think that's fine, but I would prefer if they only eliminate the people that actually come in last. The whole thing seemed unfair as it was presented.

[Quilt Fairy]

On 3/9/2025 at 2:29 PM, eel2178 said:

It was even more heinous, in my opinion, the season that the partner of the girl with the artificial leg was saying she had to go to the doctor in order to try to get a better flight time. That is when lying should have been made illegal.

You can trace that shit back to Charla and Mirna in S4 who used that "doctor, doctor" excuse more than once.  Still hate them. 

[proserpina65]

17 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

You can trace that shit back to Charla and Mirna in S4 who used that "doctor, doctor" excuse more than once.  Still hate them. 

I liked Charla because she mostly just powered through stuff, but Mirna?  Omg was she annoying.

[Browncoat]

On 3/11/2025 at 5:02 PM, Quilt Fairy said:

You can trace that shit back to Charla and Mirna in S4 who used that "doctor, doctor" excuse more than once.  Still hate them. 

I don't remember them from S4 -- weren't they later?

[Lantern7]

On 3/11/2025 at 5:02 PM, Quilt Fairy said:

You can trace that shit back to Charla and Mirna in S4 who used that "doctor, doctor" excuse more than once.  Still hate them. 

9 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

I liked Charla because she mostly just powered through stuff, but Mirna?  Omg was she annoying.

41 minutes ago, Browncoat said:

I don't remember them from S4 -- weren't they later?

TAR5. Just FYI. 🙂

[dkb]

Just the names Charla and Mirna bring back horrible flashbacks.

Pretty solid episode for me after not watching for many years. 

 

[Dirge]

On 3/6/2025 at 2:01 AM, shura said:

What’s with the father of eight saying that he “empowers” his wife to make decisions so she doesn’t have to wait for his approval when he is out of town and she runs the household?

Just oy. 

On 3/6/2025 at 6:22 AM, chaifan said:

And I also think the challenges really weren't equal.  Normally, I'd go for "sing" over "dance", because sing judges tend to be more forgiving than dance.  But this was "get into costume, get elaborate make up done, sing and dance" vs. " put on pants and dance".  If every team on one challenge finishes ahead of every team on the other, I think that's a strong indicator that they weren't balanced.

This really bugged me, too. I was thinking during the episode that the show has employees run through the tasks ahead of time, so they should have seen the time difference. But maybe I'm thinking of Survivor?

 

On 3/6/2025 at 9:06 AM, Haleth said:

Didn’t he say something like he’s happy she feels empowered to make decisions while he is out of town?

He definitely made it sound like he was congratulating himself for granting her the power to make decisions while he left her alone with 8 kids. 

I'm glad to see no famewhores on this season, though there are some racers (not whole teams, so far) whom I don't like. 90 minutes is still too long for me, though. 

[Skooma]

On 3/11/2025 at 4:02 PM, proserpina65 said:

Yeah, it was season 6 where mactors (models/actors) started being a more significant group in the cast.  Also the season containing the horrific Jonathan.

There were tons on Season 4 as well.  Tian & Jaree, Kelly & Jon, Russell & Cindy, Reichen & Chip.  All were professional models except Russell who was a wannabe actor/model and Chip who may have done a little modeling on the side.  Cindy was even a well known "Supermodel" that of course I never heard of, hah.

Also David & Jeff were wannabe mactors recruited by a casting agent at a bar.  The only likeable entertainers in the lot were The Clowns (Jon & Al) who got along fine with the everyday teams and seemed like decent guys.  Everybody else mentioned above pretty much looked down on them.

(And yes I had to look up the cast.  Like I said I have bad memories of that season).

14 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

I liked Charla because she mostly just powered through stuff, but Mirna?  Omg was she annoying.

I loved them both and they remain my second favorite team next to Oswald & Danny.  Golden entertainment.

6 hours ago, Browncoat said:

I don't remember them from S4 -- weren't they later?

Like Latern7 mentioned, it was TAR5.  The last of the Big Four TAR Classic Seasons for me.

[Tdoc72]

On 3/6/2025 at 3:08 PM, aghst said:

They wore T-shirts which said Salt Lake so maybe they're Mormons and wanted to have many children.

I assumed that too. And I took his little empowerment thing as maybe she was raised in a more conservative way and had to change to make it work for them. I didn’t get a weird vibe from him at all. And even now, seeing the 2nd episode, I still don’t. 

[proserpina65]

9 hours ago, Skooma said:

There were tons on Season 4 as well.  Tian & Jaree, Kelly & Jon, Russell & Cindy, Reichen & Chip.  All were professional models except Russell who was a wannabe actor/model and Chip who may have done a little modeling on the side.  Cindy was even a well known "Supermodel" that of course I never heard of, hah.

Also David & Jeff were wannabe mactors recruited by a casting agent at a bar.  The only likeable entertainers in the lot were The Clowns (Jon & Al) who got along fine with the everyday teams and seemed like decent guys.  Everybody else mentioned above pretty much looked down on them.

I didn't realize there were so many of them in Season 4.  I mostly just remember the Clowns, whom I really liked.  Oh well, I'm just really glad there aren't a bunch of mactors in this season, even though there are some teams for whom I don't particularly care yet.  And, of course, Jonathan.

7 hours ago, Tdoc72 said:

And I took his little empowerment thing as maybe she was raised in a more conservative way and had to change to make it work for them. I didn’t get a weird vibe from him at all.

I got a massive patriarchal asshole vibe from that little speech, so Scott has some serious redeeming to do at this point.  Lori seems okay so far, though.

[Hanahope]

I can’t imagine the grocery bills of the family with 8 boys.

The older  ladies and men were clearly the first two teams that were going to be eliminated.  
 

Racing in the rain must be twice as hard, especially that tower climb.

i would love to see that Buddah 

Edited March 16 by Hanahope