S37.E01: Double the Stakes, Double the Eliminations

[seacliffsal]

I wish the show had clarified earlier that the nurses were not providing the required information to the cabbies as it looked like a different issue for most of the episode.  But, what I couldn't figure out was if it was racism/sexism, why did the cabbies stop in the first place if they didn't want to pick them up?  So, it made sense at the end that the cabbies didn't know where the team wanted to go as they (the racers) gave them the wrong info sheet.  BUT, the show certainly let some of us (well, me) make a wrong assumption for most of the episode and I feel that is not fair to the cabbies of Hong Kong.

I loved the costumes for the fork in the road (both for the dance and sing options).  And I do understand that there was a huge time difference between those two options, but I was still sad that the fire fighters were eliminated.  The fire fighters were in the midst of the pack of racers the entire time and were just behind the other two teams at the mat.  The sisters were behind from the beginning.  While they seemed nice, pleasant, and willing to do the tasks, they were just too far behind to last long.

Didn't like Jonathon at the airport (running recklessly in the ticket counter area) but his attitude at the end sealed my dislike for him. 

[30 Helens]

If I ever separate from my husband, or if we have issues to work out, the first thing I will do is sign us up for The Amazing Race. Because when your relationship is under stress, the best thing to do is immerse yourselves in more stress. It’s a proven remedy! 

I’m very much getting “hump it, Teri” vibes from Jonathan. I also will not be surprised if at some point he starts yelling at an ox.

I’m glad the nurses survived. I also liked the sisters and appreciated their willingness to push themselves, but they were obvious sacrificial lambs from the start.

20 hours ago, Tango64 said:

I think people are reading too much into the "empowering" comment. It struck my ear funny at first too, but I see it as him trying to acknowledge that he's away, she has a lot of responsibility at home without him, and one of the ways they make it work is that it is understood that some decisions that normally would require a sign off by both parents are going to be made by her alone. 

I had the same reaction. I think “empower” was an unfortunate choice of word, but I think he was merely saying that he doesn’t expect her to check with him on every decision as many husbands (and wives!) would want their partner to do. It really seemed like he was trying to give her credit for successfully managing a big unruly household, largely on her own. This is a nice thing, so I’m not ready to write him off for one poor word choice.

Besides, my biggest takeaway from that interview was, why are all their sons lifting up their shirts in every photo? 

Edited Friday at 03:56 PM by 30 Helens

[TeeVeeWatcher]

21 minutes ago, 30 Helens said:

Besides, my biggest takeaway from that interview was, why are all their sons lifting up their shirts in every photo? 

I certainly wondered this as well! 

[iMonrey]

2 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

The camera work, editing, locations and voiceover are all spot on and better than most other versions. But the lack of tasks makes these longer episodes drag. It's kinda okay in the first episode, since we get to know the teams better and that takes up time, but as soon as the second episode, it's a problem.

Yeah, I've rewatched some of the earlier seasons on Paramount Plus (and finally got to see the infamous Flo), and in the beginning, the legs were really complicated. I was always under the impression that when they started to do two shows a year they had to streamline it, but it might also be the case that the network stepped in and told them to dumb it down because it was too hard to follow. Clues used to be clues, not instructions to "go here." And each leg was fairly exhausting in the amount of physical tasks. The challenges they face now are rather lame by comparison.

 

BTW - if you want a good laugh and have Paramount Plus, go back and watch the very first episode ever. Phil looks like such a baby!

Edited Friday at 04:20 PM by iMonrey

[PurpleTentacle]

Shower thought: Since they clearly didn't want to put more than one task into the fork in the road, it would have been nice to have at least 2 pitstops in completely different locations, not just two amazing bathmats right next to each other. With that you could have also compensated for both tasks taking considerably different amounts of time.

Obviously Phil can't be in two places at once, so maybe have him on a screen or as a hologram for both pitstops, or have local reality show hosts for both instead, for this one leg.

In any case, the fork needed more differentiation than the one task and that would have been a cheap way to do it.

On 3/6/2025 at 8:23 AM, aghst said:

Was it that the taxi drivers didn't want to drive way out of the way to a different location?  Because I think maybe it involved crossing Victoria Harbor, from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon or vice versa.  Or maybe the unpleasant possibility that because they were black, they had troubles getting a taxi.  I don't know if that's a phenomenon in Hong Kong but it's certainly a thing in some parts of the US.

I think they didn't give the drivers the piece of paper, with the chinese letters, spelling out the name of the location, on it. So the drivers were like: "Wtf is that english place you are talking about?! Park? What's that? Go find somebody else."

At least that's what the show showed us.

On 3/6/2025 at 10:43 AM, Fake Jan Brady said:

Jonathan comes across as a teensy bit controlling; I'd hoped we'd seen the last of the "let's test our relationship on TAR" couples. 

The worst part is, they don't even want to test their relationship. They seem to think they are solid now, after their "brief difficulties", which they obviously are not. I'd also like to give some advice to Ana: "Run, girl! Run!"

23 hours ago, Notabug said:

It's particularly galling because one of the challenges was clearly shorter and easier than the other.  When no one from the singing had even gotten to the pitstop before the first elimination, it showed how unfair and lopsided it was.  I understand that it is impossible to make both sides of a detour exactly equal but this wasn't even close.

Well, since both were pretty much different races at that point it wasn't a big problem for them to be uneven.

I'm wondering though, what about the start-times for the next leg? Will all the sing people be behind the dance people?

23 hours ago, jah1986 said:

Like others I got strong Frank and Margherita vibes from Jonathan (not another troublesome Jonathan). They were so disappointed, like have they never seen the show? There's no way you're going to be hours ahead of all the other teams. 

At least in modern TAR. It used to be a thing in the first ~10 season and I have to be honest, I quite liked it now and then.

But even now, half an hour lead could still be a thing, if you are really lucky. They just weren't.

22 hours ago, aghst said:

On the singing task, they must have had flash cards because I can't imagine they memorized those verses in Cantonese.  Plus they elongated certain words.

I mean it was like 4 lines of text and they took considerably longer than the other half of the fork. So I can believe they memorised it.

21 hours ago, Browncoat said:

It's fair if they're running two different races.  But everyone's all in the same race, so it isn't fair to be eliminated if you don't come in last.

But it was two different races at that point. Even had two amazing bath mats. That might not have been very clear, since they were right next to each other though. For my suggestion on how to fix that, see the beginning of this post.

21 hours ago, chaifan said:

The one thing I did notice was that in those pictures both the husband and the wife were much heavier in the pictures than on the show.  Especially the husband, he's lost a ton of weight.  I wondered if they did that to race?  Were they recruited and had advance time?  I'll be interested to see who makes the final call when they disagree on something in the race, and whether that comes back to bite them.

I also clocked that. But they don't have to have been recruited. Casting is 4 to 6 months before the race begins. If they were cast early, they would have had enough time to lose that weight. It's hard to lose weight that fast and in the case of the husband maybe a bit faster than would be advisable, but very doable.

13 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

but it might also be the case that the network stepped in and told them to dumb it down because it was too hard to follow.

I think it's mainly budget. The faster they are through the tasks, the fewer tasks they have, the faster they are through the leg, the more predictable the leg length is, the less it costs them.

17 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

BTW - if you want a good laugh and have Paramount Plus, go back and watch the very first episode ever. Phil looks like such a baby!

I "have" seasons 1 through 17. Let's leave it at that.

Phil does look increadibly young. Just looked it up. He was 34 at the time. Quite a bit younger than I am now. Getting old over here. I was 16 back then...

[lh25]

I agree with all those who were glad they provided the context for the cabbies not wanting to take the nurses as riders.  I admit, I was starting to wonder myself if it were a race/gender thing.  I will give credit to the cabbies not wanting to take them if they didn't know where they were going.  We've seen bad results when cab drivers think they know where to go but don't.  

And yes, if I've recently reconciled going on TAR makes great sense. 🙃 Not like it's stressful or anything.  Who was that one racer, I think she had been on BB or something, who was upset because TAR was supposed to be "fun" all the time?  I don't like the vibes I got from him, the constant patter while she was climbing would have gotten on my nerves.  And the poutiness at realizing they were all on the same ferry back and at their 2nd place finish on the first leg don't bode well.

4 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

I'm wondering though, what about the start-times for the next leg? Will all the sing people be behind the dance people?

We wondered about that as well.  Will be interesting to see.  Maybe pair them up, IE the first one for each side of the fork start at the same time?

[springbarb]

Yeah, I assume the next leg will start with maybe the two First Place teams, then maybe Second, Third, Fourth together, then Fifth and Sixth. Something like that.

I liked the nurses but was particularly impressed with how calm and cool they stayed through the taxi thing. Admittedly, I don't know how long it took, but once they got into the cab, they were just like, "We made a mistake, lesson learned" and didn't meltdown. And the strategy for picking which task to do made sense--and was clearly the right choice. I hope they make it a bit longer.

[meep.meep]

As a Federal employee, using the term Fork in the Road, is a little hateful.  I know this was produced long ago, but it's close to triggering for many of us.

But...my daughter walks into the room while I'm watching this and says "I know him!"  One of the blue guys from Las Vegas, the one who works for Cirque du Soleil, went to UC Irvine with her.  She also knows Bob the Drag Queen from Traitors so it's starting to become a thing.

[chaifan]

1 hour ago, springbarb said:

Yeah, I assume the next leg will start with maybe the two First Place teams, then maybe Second, Third, Fourth together, then Fifth and Sixth. Something like that.

That's really the only fair way to do it.  

I was really hoping this would be the season we got back to having people leave with the same time gaps as when they hit the mat.  No more of this bunching at the beginning of the leg.  The "fork in the road" messes with that a bit, so I guess I'll have to wait until Ep 3 to see if things are truly back to normal.

I wonder what would have happened if a "dance" team and a "sing" team were running to the mat at the same time.  Would Phil stand in the middle?  Because  otherwise, if you were just a few seconds off, you'd be standing at an empty mat and have to wait for Phil to greet you, and that would be just a bit of a bummer.  

23 minutes ago, meep.meep said:

As a Federal employee, using the term Fork in the Road, is a little hateful.  I know this was produced long ago, but it's close to triggering for many of us.

I was honestly wondering about that.  So sorry for what you're going through.

 

[Netfoot]

55 minutes ago, meep.meep said:

As a Federal employee, using the term Fork in the Road, is a little hateful.

Thank goodness - I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Skooma]

12 hours ago, SVNBob said:

I suspected this too at first.  I also thought sexism could be a factor.  So it wasn't just that they were black, but black women.
(We never saw if the last place team also had this issue...but they were dead in the water for so long it would have been a non-factor anyway.)

It could also be a combination of all three; racism, sexism, and clue comprehension failure.

And it sounded to me (as we never really saw them) like the cabbie that finally picked them up was female.  So that could also have been a factor in why they were finally able to catch a cab.

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. 

[HurricaneVal]

I haven't watched the episode yet, but I devoured all your posts, because the previews for this season of TAR looked amazing and I can't wait for Mr. HV to get home so we can pull this episode off the DVR.

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'm already primed to hate Jonathon now.  And the "empowering" dude.  I'll have to pay attention to the nuances when he makes that statement.

 

Edited to add:  I'm waiting for Mr. HV to come home to watch not because he hasn't empowered me to watch on my own, but because we enjoy watching the show together. 

Edited Friday at 10:38 PM by HurricaneVal
I empowered myself

[Ilovepie]

I hate saying it, but I really dislike the newer post-covid seasons. What is so "amazing" when they basically are just transporting these people en masse to different locations to do crazy tasks? It really takes the "race" aspect out of it. I'm probably even more salty since I rewatched the first few seasons, and holy cow! They basically get a clue that says "get to so and so" and they have to figure it all out on their own. I so miss them booking their own flights! That is the biggest disappointment from the recent seasons that has made this feel like a totally different show for me. I don't need a lecture on why - I am sure production costs, especially when they start with 14 teams! I would rather they go back to the old way and start with 8 teams with a couple NEL episodes. Sadly, I know that won't happen. I keep watching, but it's not the same for me anymore. The two pre-booked barely one-hour apart flights are such a bummer. Ok, rant over, moving on.....

I hated the fork in the road. It doesn't seem fair that someone who hits the mat in the middle of the pack gets eliminated before teams that come in after them. I really hope they go back to a regular detour. 

I like the army green guys, the lumberjacks, and the vegas guys. It was hatred at first sight for hot pink team after he said "I travel for work and I empower her to do what needs to be done at home". Ugh. GFTO my tv and go back to your eight boys.

Sadly, purple sisters were not going to get very far in this race, and if just walking down some stairs brings tears, it's probably for the best.

To finish on a high, the locales showcased were beautiful, and the tasks were fun. Pops was insane pulling himself up that cone with brute strength!

[Tango64]

Rewatching the episode and I do not like Ana yelling, “Emergency! Emergency!” at the ferry ticket clerk. Don’t abuse people’s good will with false claims like that. 

[Roccos Brother]

My late grandfather used to watch Chinese opera on TV all the time and as a child, I totally didn't get the appeal. This episode gave me a bit of nostalgia.

Sad to see Jackie and Lauren go, they seemed like a very endearing and sweet pair of sisters. I appreciated the emotion they displayed throughout the episode. They also did surprisingly well in the singing performance.

Edited Friday at 10:58 PM by Roccos Brother

[Tango64]

13 minutes ago, Ilovepie said:

It was hatred at first sight for hot pink team after he said "I travel for work and I empower her to do what needs to be done at home". Ugh. GFTO my tv and go back to your eight boys.

Sure, it would have been better for him to say that even when he’s away he insists she never make a decision without his input and approval. So much better. 

[chaifan]

36 minutes ago, Tango64 said:

Rewatching the episode and I do not like Ana yelling, “Emergency! Emergency!” at the ferry ticket clerk. Don’t abuse people’s good will with false claims like that. 

It was giving me flashbacks to the "Out of Towners" screech that one team had last season.  God, that was fingernails on a blackboard to me.  Claiming an "emergency" is worse in theory, but they weren't so annoying about it.

But just like "Out of Towners!", how many people at a ferry dock in China are going to understand someone shouting "Emergency!"?  So, totally useless in addition to being annoying.

[zapper]

we have a team of married nurses and a team of dating nurses. This is going to get confusing in comments if we don't distinguish them.

I'm going to call one team DN and one team MN. I'll decide which abbreviation for which team later, but I have an inkling where this will go.

FWIW - i thought yelling "emergency" when there was none was the most heinous thing on this episode. 

[PurpleTentacle]

2 hours ago, 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.

Production loves when teams switch tasks. It adds drama and makes sure both sides of the detour are seen. What they hate is if no team does one side of the detour. Because that makes for less interesting TV and means they wasted money on a task that nobody will ever do or see.

So if anything, both sides being mandatory was a deciding factor here.

2 hours ago, HurricaneVal said:

In the early days, I think the tasks were definitely not within easy switching walking distance, I think there was driving involved.

Your memory might be playing tricks on you there. The bald snark is a term coined in season 3 of TAR.

 

 

[shura]

2 hours ago, Tango64 said:

Sure, it would have been better for him to say that even when he’s away he insists she never make a decision without his input and approval. So much better. 

It would have been better for him not to bring it up at all, because what’s so remarkable about his wife making decisions?  And why is there the word ‘approval’ in that sentence anyway?  That said, I agree, it may totally be just a bad choice of words on his part, there is not enough evidence at this point that it’s more than that.  I wonder though, does production ever ask them to clarify what they mean.  Probably not, they probably just go “oooh, gotcha, that’s controversial, that’s making the cut.”

4 hours ago, Skooma said:

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.

For what it’s worth, the presumption of innocence only applies to criminal proceedings.  Outside of that, you and I are free to think whatever we want about anyone’s guilt or innocence and rush to judgement without any evidence.  It drives me crazy too sometimes.

[PurpleTentacle]

I found something interesting on Reddit from a poster from Hong Kong:

Quote

Several teams got told no by taxi drivers coming off the Cheung Chau ferry because they were asking at the wrong taxi stand. There are taxi stands for drivers who will cross the harbour and stands for drivers who want to stay on the same side. The teams needed a cross harbour taxi to drive through one of the tunnels from Hong Kong island to Kowloon but were at a non-crossing taxi stand. Several drivers tried to specifically point to where the cross harbour taxi stand was instead but teams didnt pay attention, especially Courtney and Jasmin. Rather than any language barrier, the drivers simply weren't gonna take that fare for where the teams wanted to go.

The taxi driver Courtney and Jasmin eventually caught looked like it was just passing by, not pulling up to the stands. Now, even the roaming drivers here are notoriously grumpy and will often refuse to cross the harbour if just not in the mood (thus why people use the stands to make sure). However, the extremely few lady taxi drivers we have are usually a lot nicer than the miserable old "uncles" and more willing to go where you want, so its quite lucky they caught her.

So it seems like them not showing the drivers the right piece of paper might not have been the problem after all, or at least not the main problem. That's reality TV for you. They'll always go with the more straight foreward or interesting story, rather than the one that is true.

The guy also has a few other interesting tidbits. You can read the full post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheAmazingRace/comments/1j4mvc5/the_amazing_race_season_37_episode_1_post_episode/mgc901n/

[dgpolo]

2 minutes ago, PurpleTentacle said:

Several drivers tried to specifically point to where the cross harbour taxi stand was instead but teams didnt pay attention,

I did see one of the drivers point to something across the street, I had a passing thought that they were on the wrong side of the road but couldn't figure out why that would make a difference. Now I get it.

[Quilt Fairy]

17 hours ago, tkc said:

Did the Amazing Yellow Line get an upgrade this season, or has it had that sparkle at the front for a while?

I noticed that, too, and I think it's new.  The AYL has not been seen very much the last few seasons.

Pre-booked flights are standard in the first episode, I'm interested in seeing what they do from here on out.  

I'm not proposing that I've seen too much TAR (no such thing!) but when they mentioned the Dance option I thought, "Hongkong, going to be a Lion Dance, yup, *yawn*." 

Edited Yest. at 02:22 AM by Quilt Fairy

[Artsda]

We've seen a lot of fears on this show. Water, heights, animals, but stairs? I think that first. 

[North of Eden]

Welcome back RACE!

It was a good premier...until it wasn't. My issue was the similarity of the tasks at the fork in the road. They should have been polar opposite...like one for the singing and another for hauling a load of bricks across town in a wheelbarrow. Plus having people we don't even know yet buried under makeup and huge costumes doesn't help to try and learn who they are. Literally in the last four minutes of the race to the pit stop there was a lost mother and daughter team and I was like....where did they come from?

Also because I am contractually obligated each season I must rag on confessionals from after the pitstop. Its the same complaint I have every year. The demeanor of Team Purple told me they were out and that was before they got so far behind with the "steps-phobia".

What's with not going all the way to the top of The Budda?

It was too bad for John and Anna for losing their huge lead but I've never seen a second place winner as glum as Johnathan.

Team Green Gamers I fear are going to be taxing because one of them is a "On 24/7 " personality and its a bit much.

Pops didn't say a darn word the whole episode but I love 'em. Hope he and  his son go along way....I'm in awe how fit he is for 64.

Sorry the sisters went so early. Mom didn't get to have adventures around the world and alas neither did her daughters.

And the aging firefighters I would have liked to have seen more of. I would have traded both teams first out to get rid of Octo-Mom or Brett and his man because I feel like they might dominate with their physicality. Spiderman couldn't' have scaled that tower faster.

Glad to have been wrong about one thing....as soon as I saw Holden an Han I was like "first out"

Ending on a positive note the Santa Monica mountains were an absolutely gorgeous backdrop to start the race with.
 

[Tango64]

1 hour ago, shura said:

It would have been better for him not to bring it up at all, because what’s so remarkable about his wife making decisions?  And why is there the word ‘approval’ in that sentence anyway?

I explained my take on it in a more meaningful way further up the thread. But it’s obvious some people want to just see it in a hateful way. So be it. I’m out. 

[QuantumMechanic]

5 hours ago, Tango64 said:

Rewatching the episode and I do not like Ana yelling, “Emergency! Emergency!” at the ferry ticket clerk. Don’t abuse people’s good will with false claims like that. 

If I were the God of TAR one of the rules I would put in would be a 1hr penalty each time a racer says “emergency!” like that.

[Skooma]

18 hours ago, Ilovepie said:

I hate saying it, but I really dislike the newer post-covid seasons. What is so "amazing" when they basically are just transporting these people en masse to different locations to do crazy tasks? It really takes the "race" aspect out of it. I'm probably even more salty since I rewatched the first few seasons, and holy cow! They basically get a clue that says "get to so and so" and they have to figure it all out on their own. I so miss them booking their own flights! That is the biggest disappointment from the recent seasons that has made this feel like a totally different show for me. I don't need a lecture on why - I am sure production costs, especially when they start with 14 teams! I would rather they go back to the old way and start with 8 teams with a couple NEL episodes.

Well like someone else mentioned, the pre-booked flights happened since Season 1 for the first leg.  Nobody wanted some team stranded back in the US in the first episode kind of destroying the "hook" you want to draw audiences in.  It was only in Leg 2 that we had teams booking their own flights.

And there never has been less than 11 teams starting the Race in the early years except the Family Edition (10 teams) that, except for the awesome Mama Paulo, was a complete disaster.  There were 12 teams on Season 3.

But I agree totally that the early seasons were the best.  Seasons 1, 2, 3 and 5 are my all time favorites.  Those were the awesome seasons.  Great casts, great locations, a number of long legs that sometimes could last up to 3 days and sometimes (gasp) clues that were actual clues even. 

For example the Hong Kong leg in Season 2's first clue upon arrival simply told the teams to find and go to the top of the tallest building in the entire city and look for the "green star" down below somewhere.

(PS:  Season 4 had a terrible cast where half of them were professional models or wannabe actors and the "normals" vs the model/actors became very toxic and endless fights and yelling and crap about places in line etc etc.  So I'd never re-watch that season again ever).

Edited 22 hours ago by Skooma

[Browncoat]

7 hours ago, Skooma said:

(PS:  Season 4 had a terrible cast where half of them were professional models or wannabe actors and the "normals" vs the model/actors became very toxic and endless fights and yelling and crap about places in line etc etc.  So I'd never re-watch that season again ever).

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.

[Netfoot]

11 hours ago, Artsda said:

We've seen a lot of fears on this show. Water, heights, animals, but stairs? I think that first. 

Wasn't there a guy who was trying to pick coffee beans on a hillside somewhere  (J'ca?) who was afraid of stairs?

[chaifan]

11 hours ago, North of Eden said:

What's with not going all the way to the top of The Budda?

I wondered about that, too, at first.  But then I realized, it is a religious site.  If they were in Rome, a clue box might be in the Square in front of St. Peter's, but it would never be in the Basilica itself.  

11 hours ago, North of Eden said:

Glad to have been wrong about one thing....as soon as I saw Holden an Han I was like "first out"

I'm curious as to why.  They're young & fit.  They really didn't stand out in any way to me for skills or lack of.  

 

[dgpolo]

1 hour ago, Netfoot said:

Wasn't there a guy who was trying to pick coffee beans on a hillside somewhere  (J'ca?) who was afraid of stairs?

I think he was just afraid of heights, or really whatever it is called when you're on the edge of something and afraid of falling, 'cause I don't think he was afraid of paragliding? or whatever they did that was like that, and I think he actually said that if there had been a railing there he wouldn't have been so afraid. So actually stairs would've helped him.

1 hour ago, chaifan said:

I wondered about that, too, at first.  But then I realized, it is a religious site.  If they were in Rome, a clue box might be in the Square in front of St. Peter's, but it would never be in the Basilica itself. 

My thoughts also, like when they've had clues on holy grounds (mosque's etc) heads covered (for the women), no running, no loud voices.

I did wonder though, did they shut down those stairs for filming? I didn't see anyone non-race going up or down, I think? Did they close because of the weather? I was telling my daughter that it's dangerous running up and down stairs in the rain. And I said it was -especially- dangerous to jump on the mat in the rain, there have been more than one team that slipped and fell at the mat because in was wet. In fact it was deemed so dangerous that I don't think they are supposed to do that anymore. You see them stop just before the mat with just their toes on it.

I don't know what they would've done if it was a race for first with more than two teams all heading full out at Phil and the wet mat in the rain?

[iMonrey]

The problem with tasks like "Dance" and "Sing" is that eventually everyone will complete them. Back in the day, there were tasks that people literally could not finish, and got eliminated because of that. I can't remember which season it was, a pair of gals kept switching back and forth between both Detour options and couldn't complete either one and Phil had to come out and eliminate them. 

I don't know, maybe the show got feedback that people hated that and started making the tasks easier things that anyone would be able to do, but I particularly don't care for these things where a judge decides whether you did it right or not. It calls into question the objectivity of the judging. I prefer tasks that you clearly either have done them or not.

[dgpolo]

4 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

I particularly don't care for these things where a judge decides whether you did it right or not. It calls into question the objectivity of the judging. I prefer tasks that you clearly either have done them or not.

As I mentioned to my daughter while we were watching, a few seasons ago, it was one of the 'bring back old teams ones' the 2nd one with Colin and Christie. Anyway, team 'Fun' did a dance challenge in Vietnam, I think, and nailed it on the first try. The judge told them to do it again, they did and got through but there was absolutely no reason not to have put them through on the first try. Later teams were much much worse and got through anyway. So yeah, judges are very subjective.

[PurpleTentacle]

21 minutes ago, dgpolo said:

As I mentioned to my daughter while we were watching, a few seasons ago, it was one of the 'bring back old teams ones' the 2nd one with Colin and Christie. Anyway, team 'Fun' did a dance challenge in Vietnam, I think, and nailed it on the first try. The judge told them to do it again, they did and got through but there was absolutely no reason not to have put them through on the first try. Later teams were much much worse and got through anyway. So yeah, judges are very subjective.

On these kind of tasks it's a producer behind the camera giving a sign to the judges on wether or not to let the contestants through and nobody gets through on the first try. It's just how the show is.

[North of Eden]

5 hours ago, chaifan said:

I

I'm curious as to why.  They're young & fit.  They really didn't stand out in any way to me for skills or lack of.  

 

I feel like in general brother/ sister teams don't make it too far. Was it last season or the season before such a team was first out?

[Brown44]

To people saying the sisters shouldn't have been picked and a team that could've competed better should've been picked, I get it but I'm sure the Amazing Race producers are thinking we need fodder teams, 2 or 3 teams we know gonna get eliminated early but at the same time some surprise even the producers and go further than they thought they would. Some even win the race, I guarantee the producers didn't think the icecream girls was gonna win the race, when they picked them I bet they picked them thinking they was gonna be a fodder team.

Edited 19 hours ago by Brown44

[chaifan]

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I can't remember which season it was, a pair of gals kept switching back and forth between both Detour options and couldn't complete either one and Phil had to come out and eliminate them. 

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.  I don't think the producers have purposely tried to make challenges people couldn't finish. I'd hope not at least.  I want to see a challenge, but not an impossibility.

 

4 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

On these kind of tasks it's a producer behind the camera giving a sign to the judges on wether or not to let the contestants through and nobody gets through on the first try.

I've heard this before.  Do we know if this has actually been verified by the show or past contestants?  Or is just a common sense guess?  

2 hours ago, Brown44 said:

I get it but I'm sure the Amazing Race producers are thinking we need fodder teams, 2 or 3 teams we know gonna get eliminated early but at the same time some surprise even the producers and go further than they thought they would.

I wrote that original post about the purple team, and I can't get on board with this "fodder" theory.  The example that you gave - the "ice cream girls" (they were food scientists) were both young and relatively fit.   And they were super smart.  There was no obvious impediment to put them in "fodder" territory.  I really can't even imagine why you would consider them "fodder".  Many people assume older teams (or a team with 1 older member) will fail early, but we've seen so many times that isn't true.  I don't consider those teams "fodder".  I think the purple team (sisters) is way different - as I stated earlier, the fear of stairs was a death knell.  It would hinder them on virtually every leg.  I really can't think of any team that has gone in with such a strong known disadvantage.

 

[Valmafra]

22 hours ago, North of Eden said:

What's with not going all the way to the top of The Budda (sic)?

The show can't afford it now: compare the unused Fast Forward from the original visit to Hong Kong a.k.a. Oswald/Danny at Starbucks plus the second season of the Canadian edition, where teams received Mahayana blessings from local monks before climbing the 268 steps to reach their next cluebox atop Lantau Island besides the Tian Tan statue of Siddhartha Gautama.  

6 hours ago, North of Eden said:

I feel like in general brother/ sister teams don't make it too far. Was it last season or the season before such a team was first out?

Both, yet those are exceptions to the rule:

• Spoiler

  • Blake/Paige finished 3rd on Season 2
  • Azaria/Hendekea finished 6th on Season 12
  • Nick/Starr won Season 13
  • Tammy/Victor won Season 14
  • Justin/Jennifer finished 7th on Season 19
  • Eswar/Aparna finished 5th on Season 32

   

Edited 14 hours ago by Valmafra

[Valmafra]

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

Back in the day, there were tasks that people literally could not finish, and got eliminated because of that. I can't remember which season it was, a pair of gals kept switching back and forth between both Detour options and couldn't complete either one and Phil had to come out and eliminate them. 

Poker players Maria/Tiffany from Season 15, coincidentally the only all-female team on their cast.

[dgpolo]

6 minutes ago, chaifan said:

5 hours ago, iMonrey said:

I can't remember which season it was, a pair of gals kept switching back and forth between both Detour options and couldn't complete either one and Phil had to come out and eliminate them. 

Was that the literal and figurative "needle in the haystack"?

Spoiler

No I think they were talking about the 'poker girls' who could neither do the 'hit the bell with a hammer (a bit added on before they even could get to the actual dance part of the challenge) nor 'farmer's golf' where they had to hit a ball through a goal in 8 strokes.

Not sure if I'm supposed to spoiler tag challenges from other races?

[Valmafra]

^

How come, if the past season aired over a decade-and-a-half ago?

[dgpolo]

8 minutes ago, Valmafra said:

How come, if the past season aired over a decade-and-a-half ago?

Because new people are discovering the show all the time and might not want to know the outcomes if they decide to 'catch up' by watching the old seasons on Paramount+. It used to be that different forums had different rules about spoilers and spoiling a different season was a no-no for some. But I don't know if the rules have changed and if this forum is one that wanted spoilers. I'll try to find out but sometimes I have trouble tracking down the rules. I do know there used to be a rule about spoiling another show -like Survivor- in TAR forums.

ETA: here is the last rule I stated, still looking for this forum specific rule:

No Cross-Show Spoilers: Avoid spoiling content related to specific shows, such as "True Detective," in forums dedicated to other series, like "Black Cake" or general discussion areas such as "Genre Talk."

Edited 15 hours ago by dgpolo
more info

[aghst]

Maybe they roped off one side of the steps to the Buddha so that they could be filmed but if they went to the top, there would be public visitors there and the venue didn't want to completely disrupt the visitors so they didn't permit them to go all the way up.

As it is, it was demanding for some of the teams to go up the distance that they did.

 

[Valmafra]

^

Like I already said up above:

the second season of the Canadian edition, where teams received Mahayana blessings from local monks before climbing the 268 steps to reach their next cluebox atop Lantau Island besides the Tian Tan statue of Siddhartha Gautama

[choclatechip45]

I thought it was a good episode. I really like this cast.

Rooting for the Nurses.

[Skooma]

11 hours ago, PurpleTentacle said:

On these kind of tasks it's a producer behind the camera giving a sign to the judges on wether or not to let the contestants through and nobody gets through on the first try. It's just how the show is.

There have been teams in the past that made it through these challenges the first try.  And TAR is known for not mucking around with producer interference.

3 hours ago, choclatechip45 said:

I thought it was a good episode. I really like this cast.

Rooting for the Nurses.

Which team of nurses?  Apparently there are two teams of them.

[PurpleTentacle]

13 hours ago, 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.  I don't think the producers have purposely tried to make challenges people couldn't finish. I'd hope not at least.  I want to see a challenge, but not an impossibility.

There was a that needle in a haystack one where Phil needed to come out, but that was a roadblock. I think @iMonrey was refering to a female team, who in their second season, physically couldn't do both sides of a detour, which was a bit of a bummer to go out on. I don't quite remember who they were though.

13 hours ago, Valmafra said:

Poker players Maria/Tiffany from Season 15, coincidentally the only all-female team on their cast.

Yep, those are the ones. Damn, I would not have guessed that that was this long ago. Somehow it seems more recent in my memory. Might be a season that I watched a lot later than the initial airing.

13 hours ago, chaifan said:

I've heard this before.  Do we know if this has actually been verified by the show or past contestants?  Or is just a common sense guess?  

In the early days of Rob has a podcast contestants and the podcasters spoke quite openly about it. I haven't heard it in a long time. I think as these podcasters and CBS got closer and the podcasters got access, it became a bit of a nono to talk about these behing the scenes things. It could of course also be that it is no longer the case, but I kinda doubt it.

7 hours ago, Skooma said:

There have been teams in the past that made it through these challenges the first try.  And TAR is known for not mucking around with producer interference.

I'll just have to believe you on that one. I personally can't remember a single time. At the first judgement the standards are impossibly high and basically nobody gets through. 

Also I wouldn't call it producer interference. As long as the producer remains fair in their judgement, it isn't a problem. It just means you have a consistent judge who knows by how much they have to lower their standards with every attempt, to get teams through there fast enough that the show still works.

That standards get lowered with every attempt should be evident from watching the show.

[zapper]

13 hours ago, choclatechip45 said:

I thought it was a good episode. I really like this cast.

Rooting for the Nurses.

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