S25.E12: All Or Nothing

[jhlipton]

But I did see at the end that she was clapping for the scientists, while Robbie was could barely bring his two hands together.

She was clapping as they were doing their victory lap. She's the only one who didn't hold out her hand.

 

 

Robbie: "You'll never forget the wrestlers!!"

 

Me: "Yeah, and I'll never forget that time I had the chicken pox, either. What's your point?"

Me: Yes I will, after my last post to this forum

 

 

The sat nav may have been disabled - would have been nice to show someone trying. Maya and Amy had a map. They had a long wait for the flight and they knew where they were going. Why not get a map or guidebook?

Maps can help but not necessarily get you there the fastest, especially in LA.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Los+Angeles+International+Airport,+1+World+Way,+Los+Angeles,+CA+90045/Los+Angeles+City+Hall,+200+North+Spring+Street,+Los+Angeles,+CA+90012/@33.9931764,-118.3978614,12z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x80c2b0d213b24fb5:0x77a87b57698badf1!2m2!1d-118.40853!2d33.941589!1m5!1m1!1s0x80c2c64f3b01358f:0x5723556b26dfefac!2m2!1d-118.242653!2d34.053714?hl=en

The 105 to the 110 is the shortest, and usually the fastest (the 405 is called "The San Diego <s>Freeway</s> Parking Lot"). But if it was they were trying to get to Beverly Hills for example, the 105 to the 110 to the 101 might be faster than chugging up the 405.

 

I think the Wrestlers at least would disagree with you.

Yes, but the Wrestlers are idiots.

 

It's not easy to convey urgency in self-driving bits

They could do it like they did with the punting -- show a map of LA with the positions of the racers marked.

 

 

There's no lesser evil.   They all conspired, they all planned to reap the rewards.   Every one of them is equally petty/strategic (take your pick).

Intent matters. The Scientists wanted to U-Turn the Surfers and the Cyclists -- for them, the U-Turn is designed as an equalizer, something to help struggling teams. And they carried through, U-Turning the Surfers -- that portion turned out to be moot since the Surfers finished the Fast Forward. The Wrestlers wanted to U-Turn the Cyclists out of pique, and didn't U-Turn them because they're idiots (see above).

[Jac]

Brooke and Robbie's mid-leg elimination was the most satisfying elimination in the history of the show, even more than Romber's elimination in All Stars 1. Brooke is everything that is awful about TAR distilled into one person. 

 

I wanted a surfer win but I'll gladly take the scientists. Maya leaping into Phil's arms was adorable.  

[Netfoot]

Brooke and Robbie's mid-leg elimination was the most satisfying elimination in the history of the show, even more than Romber's elimination in All Stars 1. Brooke is everything that is awful about TAR distilled into one person. 

 

I wanted a surfer win but I'll gladly take the scientists. Maya leaping into Phil's arms was adorable.  

 

Well, as I did warn them:

 

...if the front-runners drop even a small clanger, the Candy Scientists will happily take the race.  But I hope they have EMT standing by with Vallium, because Maya will go off-scale!

 

 

Congrats to Phil for remaining on his feet!

[kingshearte]

Congrats to Phil for remaining on his feet!

Indeed. To successfully jump on someone like that without knocking them over, you usually want to ensure that you have more up momentum than forward, and I don't know that Maya was really considering the physics involved. But then, she is a scientist, so maybe it was just in there unconsciously somewhere.

[blackwing]

I thought it was more the fact that she weighs about 100 pounds.  Phil is a slight man, but he could handle her weight.

 

I always love how in recent races, the opening credits change midway through the race so the "action" clip of each team changes from a generic clip to a scene from the show.  It's always interesting to me how these clips are chosen.  The editors seem to hate some teams.  Isabelle sobbing on the sidewalk, the blonde bimbettes freaking out with jazz hands in the little boat, and the larger firefighter dropping his pancake.  On the last race, I also loved the clip of those firefighters overturning in their kayak.  Since TAR seems intent on casting firefighters, I hope the tradition continues of having the firefighter clip in the credits be of them screwing up.

[kingshearte]

I thought it was more the fact that she weighs about 100 pounds.  Phil is a slight man, but he could handle her weight.

It's not the weight that's the problem. I've jumped on and been caught by someone who weighs, if anything, less than I do. It's that forward momentum that takes you down. I seem to recall reading eons ago about some scene from the Beauty & the Beast TV show with Ron Perlman, where they were running at each other across a field, and they had to re-film it a bunch of times because she kept knocking him over. And that's with what I believe was a rather greater size differential than between Phil & Maya. Either way, it was awesome, and I'm sure we were all living vicariously through Maya at that moment.

[Netfoot]

I'm sure we were all living vicariously through Maya at that moment.

 

There have probably been a few Latch-on-and-Leech moments in previous finales, but I don't recall anyone going full airborne before.

[Lingo]

On final tasks: it's true that they're usually RBs (though not always), but even when they are, sometimes they allow the non-RB teammate help with the mental portion, and the teammate doing the RB just has to do the physical part.  Like in S9, when the RBer had to move all the flags around but the other teammate could help decide the order.  S8 as well. I'm not sure about more recent seasons, but maybe the one that ended in DC with the hockey players winning (S21? S22?) was similar, where the RBer had to jump in a big tank with a bunch of globes and pull out the ones matching the countries they went to (or something like that).

[blackwing]

Yes, I remember that one, when Bates and Anthony won.  I think Anthony was the one in the tank finding the globes, then they had to put them in order.

 

So I think the only season amongst the most recent seasons that had a final task done entirely by both team members was the totem pole task won by Jason and Amy.  The more recent seasons - last season with ugh Dave and Connor and the helicopter drop, Bates and Anthony and the globes, Beekman Boys and the Hello/Goodbye signs, and bowling in Hawaii with Rachel and Dave - had only one team member doing the final task.

 

So it's only fitting that the Dentists and the Surfers lost in part because the big macho men couldn't resist being stuntmen and breaking through a window.  Bethany seems like a nice girl, but to me she seems a bit dim, and she admitted she doesn't have a good memory.  Jim seems like he could have done better than Misti.  We might have had a different outcome if either Adam or Jim had done that task.

 

If it was mentioned in this thread, I missed it, but was there any report of how far behind the other two teams were?  The editing made it look like Misti and Jim left mere seconds after Amy did.

 

As for the task itself, I always hate the "give the correct answer" tasks because there are rarely any consequences for guessing wrong.  On most of them, they can just submit a new number right away.  One rare exception I think was Spanish steps where their postcard got taken away and they had to go get a new one.  On this container task, I think they should only have been able to submit a new guess every five minutes.  Otherwise you could just keep changing numbers and doing it by trial and error.

Edited December 23, 2014 by blackwing

[Camera One]

 

If it was mentioned in this thread, I missed it, but was there any report of how far behind the other two teams were?  The editing made it look like Misti and Jim left mere seconds after Amy did.

 

 

In the post-race interview, Amy said that Jim/Misti arrived at the pitstop around 20 min after them, and Jim in his interview estimated about 30 min.  Jim/Misti said that she took the second guess immediately after her first, so that didn't take much time for the correction.  And then Adam and Bethany arrived about 30 minutes after Jim/Misti, by Jim's estimates.  I can't find the interview, but I think Amy's estimate for Adam and Bethany arriving was later/longer.

 

Amy also said the task took her 1.5 hours.

[jjj]

That is a grueling task for one person at the end of a two-part leg and the entire Race -- 1.5 to 2 hours in the heat in a maze of containers and trying to keep numbers and city names straight.  I have a pretty good memory, and I would not have done well with that one.  It was the number element that made it so hard.  And the sun. 

[auntlada]

Indeed. To successfully jump on someone like that without knocking them over, you usually want to ensure that you have more up momentum than forward, and I don't know that Maya was really considering the physics involved. But then, she is a scientist, so maybe it was just in there unconsciously somewhere.

 

It's entirely possible that Maya has jumped on people like that before when she has been very excited about something. She seems as though she might have experience with that much excitement.

[curbcrusher]

I was travelling and watched late, and then wanted to read what everyone else had to say.

 

I enjoyed the entire season, and for the most part liked all the teams. The teams that annoyed me were gone before the end, and of the final four I was probably rooting for the dentist, primarily because it seems there was such a strong anti-dentite faction on these boards and I am a bit of a contrarian.

 

I understand the feeling that Amy and Maya's win should have an asterisk, and I completely understand the other teams reactions to seeing them at the airport. For as long as I've been watching there has been a Final 3. People talk at the mat about being in the Final 3 and it is something that for 24 seasons has been a checkpoint in the game. Right before heading back to the States, the final four teams run to a mat, Phil kicks one of them to the curb and the Final 3 finish the race. Sitting around the airport knowing you are in the Final 3 and having number four show up would suck. For a Christmas reference, it's like Clark Grisswold getting his letter from the office that he expects a bonus check in and finding out he got a Jelly of the Month Club subscription. I really don't think any of the broadcast reactions by the are unreasonable or out of line. 

 

As a viewer, I liked the Final Four and the mid leg elimination. I have found a lot of the finals to be somewhat disappointing parades of teams from location to location until they head to the mat. I think with four teams for the first half of the leg, it gave the editors more to work with. And having the wrestlers drive all over LA looking for the courthouse provided some entertaining moments.

 

Just a note about the wrestlers. I think it was appropriate to have them on the show. I have always felt when reading the forums that the Amazing Race is much like pro-wrestling. AR Fans pick their favorites and villains based on the same kind of  logic wrasslin fans do. People didn't like Jim because he "looked like" someone that would blow up and be abusive. People liked the Cyclist because they were "fun."  I remember my granddad picking his wrasslin good guys and villains the same way. So I thought it was fitting that we should finally get some wrasslers on the show.

[vousviou]

Late to the party, but better late than never, I guess.  I enjoyed this season a lot, and I think a big part was the higher level of likeability on the part of the contestants.  Jim and Misti left me cold at the beginning, but they seemed extremely solid in their support for each other.  Likewise, Adam and Bethany teetered on the edge of overly cutesy, but again they seemed very genuine in their commitment to each other.  The Wrestlers and Bikers were definitely less appealing, but only Brooke ever seemed to sink into Brenchel whiny self-pitying, or Mr. "Did I mention I blew out my Achilles Tendon?"'s unrelenting awfulness. 

 

Robbie was definitely a part of the later episode nastiness rather than an innocent bystander, but I think in general he was a reasonably likeable and aware guy, and I'm actually glad he wasn't at the shipping yard, because I think he might have won -- he did a decent job at the sandwich memorization in Copenhagen, which wasn't all that different.

 

As far as the Scientists, I'm glad they won.  They obviously benefitted from the final four wrinkle, but as they pointed out, they didn't make the rules, and this time I thought the surprise was great.  I'd hate to see it be a regular feature, though.  Amy gutting out the race despite the stress fractures was truly tough, and unlike the horrible dad in S24, she wasn't bringing it up all the time like he did with his age and his Achilles Tendon (did anyone know he tore it?  Because his Achilles Tendon -- he tore it because he was so old, being the oldest guy in the race).  Maya was sometimes on the verge of being hard to bear, but again I thought she was genuine and not playing a part.  And they seemed less invested in winning at any cost -- I remember Amy lending her shoes to Bethany, when it would have been easy to just claim that they weren't the same size, potentially hurting the chances of a very strong rival, and also risking having her own spare shoes ruined.

 

It also seems to me that they could have used the money the most of anyone in the final -- the Dentists obviously didn't, I get the sense that the Surfers and Wrestlers make decent livings as well, while the grad students probably were looking at taking a financial hit if they lost the race.  When the Hockey Brothers won, although I liked them I sort of felt like maybe they didn't need the money so much.  At any rate, I also don't get the sense that this was some kind of personal branding thing for the Scientists -- I'm fairly sick of the endless self-promotion that goes on with so many reality celebrities.

 

Having said that, I would have been just fine if the Dentists or Surfers had won instead -- they were solid and decent competitors and not bad people at all.

 

As far as the twists to the season, I join most people in thinking the save is a waste.  What might make it more interesting (and I think this is true for the Express Pass) is not letting the contestants know when it expires, so the longer they hold it, the bigger the risk they're taking that it won't help.  Like I said earlier, I think the final four is OK if it's a surprise and not overused in future seasons.  And I like the idea of hunting for the fast forward, although I thought it was too easy for the Surfers to find.  Overall the season seemed a little too gimicky, but not massively so.  Still, overall it was a much better season than the last couple.

[green]

 So I thought it was fitting that we should finally get some wrasslers on the show.

 

Minor trivia point.  They weren't the first wrestlers on the show.  That would be TAR6's Lori & Bolo.  We will always have Bolo unable to count correctly at Ikea in Stockholm in our memory banks.

[Mrs. P.]

Minor trivia point.  They weren't the first wrestlers on the show.  That would be TAR6's Lori & Bolo.  We will always have Bolo unable to count correctly at Ikea in Stockholm in our memory banks.

One of the great moments in Amazing Race history...along with Lori's comment when emerging into the cold from their tent in Alaska - "My implants are frozen!"

[giovannif7]

Minor trivia point.  They weren't the first wrestlers on the show.  That would be TAR6's Lori & Bolo.  We will always have Bolo unable to count correctly at Ikea in Stockholm in our memory banks.

And probably my all-time favorite moment from the editors - the Bolo/Monkey cut:

 

[Donny Ketchum]

One of the great moments in Amazing Race history...along with Lori's comment when emerging into the cold from their tent in Alaska - "My implants are frozen!"

That was in Iceland, not Alaska.

[Lingo]

As far as the twists to the season, I join most people in thinking the save is a waste.  What might make it more interesting (and I think this is true for the Express Pass) is not letting the contestants know when it expires, so the longer they hold it, the bigger the risk they're taking that it won't help. 

 

That's kind of an interesting idea for the Express Pass.  I think they'd need to print the number of the last leg it's valid for on the inside of the envelope, where the teams cannot see it until they decide to use it. Then the envelope would be opened so everyone can see when it expired (or would have expired).  Otherwise viewers would claim that the producers changed the expiration point to favor some teams.

 

It wouldn't change anything for the Save, though. Jim and Misti never used it because they never needed it. If a team with a Save ever came in last, they'd use it for sure, even if they changed the rules so that they'd lose it on an NEL.  It would be crazy not to.

Edited December 25, 2014 by Lingo

[kassygreene]

The Save shouldn't be a Save, it should be a Steal, to be used at any mat to steal the placement of the team that arrived just before.  So if you are last, you could make the team ahead of you last, if you are second you could be first, if you are first, you just wasted it.  Sort of a Secret Santa for leg-ending placement.  

 

I release all ownership of any sort of this idea.  Show, make of it what you will.

 

Please.

[Camera One]

The Bikers said in an interview that they were allowed to give the Save to another team, so other teams were careful to be nice to the Dentists.  

[needschocolate]

The Save shouldn't be a Save, it should be a Steal, to be used at any mat to steal the placement of the team that arrived just before.  So if you are last, you could make the team ahead of you last, if you are second you could be first, if you are first, you just wasted it.  Sort of a Secret Santa for leg-ending placement.  

 

Interesting idea.  I would add that it has to be used before leg 6.  Or maybe the last leg it would be used is the first leg with a U-turn in it?  The Steal would guarantee that the team wouldn't be u-turned. 

 

Or, in keeping with the travel related names, they have a Ride Share or a Carpool - it puts your team in the same place as another team.  Either it puts you in the same place as the tam ahead of you (sort of like the Steal, except the other team gets to stay in that place too) or it allows you to share the same place as any other team (so, if you came in last, you could start off the next leg with the first place team). Whenever it is used, that leg becomes an NEL. 

[wineaux]

Some good, original ideas.  :-)

 

I'm thinking that they (TPTB) will probably keep the Save, but tweak the rules for using it.  I would propose that instead of having the receiving team hang onto it for so long, they change the rule to have it expire after the 4th or 5th leg.  That's plenty long enough for a team to have such 'insurance'.  [This change would be similar to having Fast Forwards on every leg (many seasons ago) to 2 (or so) FF in a season.]

 

And the other teams won't have to suck up to the team with the Save….plus, it levels the playing field once again.

 

Having it through 8 or 9 legs (?) was unnecessarily long.

 

[Lingo]

You know, I should really just let this go, but if we want to get into semantics and technicalities, then something occurred to me as I was reading another interview with Amy and Maya today.  A few people were defending the lack of a final Speed Bump (and lack of a prize for the wrestlers) by saying that the final 2 episodes were actually a single leg.  But that's not how they were described on the show.  When they reached the mat in Manila, Phil did not tell them, "this leg is not over yet," as he has in some previous seasons. I just rewatched, and what he actually says to every team is, "The final leg starts now."  So even by the semantics of the show, these were separate legs that ended and began at that mat.

 

("But even so, there's never been a speed bump, yadda yadda yadda".... yeah I know. Still don't think it's fair.)

 

Anyway, Merry Christmas!  ;)

 

 

ETA:

Oh yeah, another completely unrelated thought: on the show the Racers were describing the final task in a particular way, saying that FIRST you needed to memorize all the cities and their numbers, and THEN at the end you had to reorder the numbers in your mind before writing them down. But I was thinking that it would actually be a lot easier to reorder the numbers as you gather them, while searching for the other numbers.  Like, once you have two numbers, you order those two and memorize them as a pair, and then when you had the third you inserted it at either end or in the middle and then memorize the triplet, and so on.... Sounds obvious, so I hope that's the racers were actually doing out there.  I'm sure Amy at least would have thought of doing it that way.

Edited December 25, 2014 by Lingo

[Camera One]

Like, once you have two numbers, you order those two and memorize them as a pair, and then when you had the third you inserted it at either end or in the middle and then memorize the triplet, and so on

 

That's probably what they did, but I can imagine getting all mixed up if I were to do it, if you find City #6, City #2 and then City #8.  With all the gaps in between, you also would need to associate each city with each number.  That's a lot of random numbers to keep in one's brain under that time stress.

Edited December 25, 2014 by Camera One

[Lingo]

Yeah, I know, you still have to associate the numbers with the cities in order to insert the other numbers properly. It's a really hard task for sure. I just thought that would make it a little easier.  Hell, I'm a scientist too (ex-chemist even) and I have no confidence that I'd be able to keep it all straight. Then again I'm older than Jim and Misti.

[jhlipton]

Interesting idea.  I would add that it has to be used before leg 6.  Or maybe the last leg it would be used is the first leg with a U-turn in it?  The Steal would guarantee that the team wouldn't be u-turned. 

 

Or, in keeping with the travel related names, they have a Ride Share or a Carpool - it puts your team in the same place as another team.  Either it puts you in the same place as the tam ahead of you (sort of like the Steal, except the other team gets to stay in that place too) or it allows you to share the same place as any other team (so, if you came in last, you could start off the next leg with the first place team). Whenever it is used, that leg becomes an NEL. 

 

If the Not-A-Save is used to move up from last, then the leg it's used on has to be a NEL.  "Mutt and Jeff, you are the seventh team to arrive.  I'm happy to tell you you're both still in the Race."  [later] "Mutt and Jeff, Popeye and Bluto have used the save to pass you.  now you have been eliminated."

 

Just. Won't. Work.

[vousviou]

That's kind of an interesting idea for the Express Pass.  I think they'd need to print the number of the last leg it's valid for on the inside of the envelope, where the teams cannot see it until they decide to use it. Then the envelope would be opened so everyone can see when it expired (or would have expired).  Otherwise viewers would claim that the producers changed the expiration point to favor some teams.

 

It wouldn't change anything for the Save, though. Jim and Misti never used it because they never needed it. If a team with a Save ever came in last, they'd use it for sure, even if they changed the rules so that they'd lose it on an NEL.  It would be crazy not to.

I agree you'd need to seal the expiration number somewhere.  Adding to that theme, I think the show could have saved itself a bit of viewer upset if they had announced at the beginning of show 1 that there would be a new way of running the final leg, sealing the rule in an envelope, and then opening it on the mat with Maya and Amy to let them know that the change was that 4 teams were going to LA. 

 

Maybe they could add the visual appeal by putting all the sealed envelopes in a briefcase handcuffed to Phil's wrist, although I can see how that wouldn't work at all for him....

 

As far as the Save, I see what you're saying.  I can see how a team might want to be strategic about using it -- say you're in 4th place, it's 98F, you're in the middle of a swamp shovelling ox manure, and you've got an incompetent cab driver waiting to get you lost to the next challenge -- you might decide to just take penalties for every challenge, use the Save, and rest up for the next day.  But that wasn't really a scenario that happened this time, and it may not happen much in the future.

 

Another idea that popped into my head is that the Save is a use it or lose it device -- you get it for one leg, and if you don't use it, you have to give it to a team that hasn't had it yet.  This potentially gets some tension in there when it comes down to choosing whether to hand it off to a team you hate or a team that is a strong rival.  Maybe that adds too much craziness into the mix, though.  Probably the best thing is just to ditch the whole concept.

[Netfoot]

Or, we don't have a Save at all, and we rely upon a different mechanism to avoid elimination:  Don't Come Last!

 

A novel concept wherein longevity in the race depends upon racing ability and not gimmickry.

[green]

Or, we don't have a Save at all, and we rely upon a different mechanism to avoid elimination:  Don't Come Last!

 

A novel concept wherein longevity in the race depends upon racing ability and not gimmickry.

 

Absolutely.  Get rid of the Save as well as the U Turns, the Speed Bump, the Express Pass and let them join the failed Yield in the graveyard of major mistakes that have taken so much class away from an otherwise elite, classy show.

 

Again, return to the FF on all legs except the end ones.  It worked extremely well in Seasons 1 through 4.  There was no need to add trash reality crap and subtract the one true strategic addition that could perhaps save a team (or not) as oppose to destroying other teams.  Let the Racers just race and let the world itself act as the true wildcard factor ... as it always has.

[kingshearte]

Oh yeah, another completely unrelated thought: on the show the Racers were describing the final task in a particular way, saying that FIRST you needed to memorize all the cities and their numbers, and THEN at the end you had to reorder the numbers in your mind before writing them down. But I was thinking that it would actually be a lot easier to reorder the numbers as you gather them, while searching for the other numbers.  Like, once you have two numbers, you order those two and memorize them as a pair, and then when you had the third you inserted it at either end or in the middle and then memorize the triplet, and so on.... Sounds obvious, so I hope that's the racers were actually doing out there.  I'm sure Amy at least would have thought of doing it that way.

I don't know. Seems to me you'd then have to be constantly re-memorizing your number combos in the correct orders and whatnot. I don't think that sounds easier at all. Probably depends on one's particular brain and learning style.

 

I agree that the Save should not come back, and that most of the other extra bits can go away as well. I don't mind the speed bump, although I kind of feel like there should maybe be some kind of time limit on it to equalize them. Some speed bump tasks have seemed so absurdly easy, while others looked genuinely challenging and time-consuming. I figure, design the task to be able to be done very quickly, but put a time limit on it that's the same for all speed bumps. If you finish before that, great. If not, at least you're not stuck on this extra thing forever. I certainly think the speed bump is a vast improvement over the take everything & give you nothing penalty that was in place for a while.

 

A fast forward every leg was fun, too, because it shook up the order more often, and prevented really dominant teams from sweeping too many legs, although I guess that hasn't actually happened all that often.

[Rusun]

Hooray for the Sweet Scientists not just making the F3 exactly a month after their UWisc classmate Meaghan Mikkelson-Reid (and fellow BigTen sister Natalie Spooner from OSU) accomplished the same feat at the time of filming, but for also keeping the "female team(s) dominating SoCal Finales" legacy 3-for-3 in the span of four years: that quartet of knowing grins belonged to none other than Nat Strand, Kat Chang-Worden, Brook Roberts, and Claire Champlin-Woolsey!

 

P.S. Honorable mentions to Jill Haney, Bethany Hamilton-Dirks, and Misti Raman ~

Edited December 26, 2014 by Rusun

[Donny Ketchum]

Hooray for the Sweet Scientists not just making the F3 exactly a month after their UWisc classmate Meaghan Mikkelson-Reid (and fellow BigTen sister Natalie Spooner from OSU) accomplished the same feat at the time of filming, but for also keeping the "female team(s) dominating SoCal Finales" legacy 3-for-3 in the span of four years: that quartet of knowing grins belonged to none other than Nat Strand, Kat Chang-Worden, Brook Roberts, and Claire Champlin-Woolsey!

 

P.S. Honorable mentions to Jill Haney, Bethany Hamilton-Dirks, and Misti Raman ~

Kat got married recently?  I had no idea!:)

[Netfoot]

Hooray for the Sweet Scientists not just making the F3 exactly a month after their UWisc classmate Meaghan Mikkelson-Reid (and fellow BigTen sister Natalie Spooner from OSU) accomplished the same feat at the time of filming, but for also keeping the "female team(s) dominating SoCal Finales" legacy 3-for-3 in the span of four years: that quartet of knowing grins belonged to none other than Nat Strand, Kat Chang-Worden, Brook Roberts, and Claire Champlin-Woolsey!

 

P.S. Honorable mentions to Jill Haney, Bethany Hamilton-Dirks, and Misti Raman ~

 

Different cultural landscapes:  Not one single word of this makes any sense to me.

 

And please -- don't bother trying to explain.

[jjj]

Different cultural landscapes:  Not one single word of this makes any sense to me.

 

And please -- don't bother trying to explain.

Seriously, I am with you, Netfoot!  That post was a lot of words with some names that mean nothing to me.  

 

In that final RB, you are all right that the constant re-ordering of numbers, as new cities and numbers were discovered, would have made the memorization quite difficult.  I would have tried to scratch out the names/numbers in the dirt, if that was allowed. 

[Quilt Fairy]

Was it ever mentioned on-air that the Save could be given to another team or is it just coming up in post-race interviews?

 

Also, I don't remember any pit-stop clues including the phrase 'You have X dollars for this leg of the race'. Did they just not show the teams reading the entire clue, or is money no longer a factor on the race?

[Archery]

 In that final RB, you are all right that the constant re-ordering of numbers, as new cities and numbers were discovered, would have made the memorization quite difficult.  I would have tried to scratch out the names/numbers in the dirt, if that was allowed.

You couldn't; the clue forbade taking notes.

[Camera One]

Was it ever mentioned on-air that the Save could be given to another team or is it just coming up in post-race interviews?

 

It was never mentioned in-show.  I read about it in the post-race interview with the Cyclists.

Edited December 27, 2014 by Camera One

[Tahitigirl]

 

Also, I don't remember any pit-stop clues including the phrase 'You have X dollars for this leg of the race'. Did they just not show the teams reading the entire clue, or is money no longer a factor on the race?

I faintly recall hearing Adam or Bethany say "one dollar" at the beginning of one of the last few legs. That's the only time I ever heard money referenced when opening the first clue.

[Fake Jan Brady]

Heh, I'll bet big money that, either in his office or home gym, Jim has one of those "second place is first loser" posters.

[bafleyanne]

I too wish we could go back to having a fast forward every leg. Or even every other leg! Those tasks are generally very creative and genuinely difficult, either physically or mentally (head shaving being the obvious example there) to accomplish. Plus it keeps the racers on their toes because being in first place and doing well isn't necessarily enough!

I've been trying to think of a penalty for coming in last in a NEL that could replace the Speed Bump. Those teams are sometimes already far behind the other teams time wise, and I can see scenarios where an additional time penalty would make it impossible to catch up. I guess an additional task is the fairest, but then the Speed Bump tasks need to take roughly the same amount of time to complete across the season. One team getting a speed bump that takes 20 minutes to finish and another team in a different leg getting a much more difficult one isn't especially fair.

[Camera One]

I never liked the Fast Forward.  I preferred to see the teams racing each other, doing the actual tasks.  It is usually such a bore when one team just skipped everything and got to the Pit Stop ahead of everyone else.  Even when there is drama (should we have chosen this?  I never wanted to do the FF but you did!  Will the wind die down?  do we want to shave our heads?), it's drama I didn't enjoy watching.

[silverpie]

Hmm... I think I would have taken a different approach to that final task. The first thing I would have done is locked into my mind the order of the cities, before even entering the maze. So (to take one of my stranger trips as an example) "Charlotte, Philly, Vegas, Spokane..." over and over. Then, when a city on the list appears, substitute that number into the sequence. "Charlotte, 4, Vegas, Spokane..."

[needschocolate]

I didn't watch the earliest seasons, so I don't know what it is like when they have a fast forward every leg.  I can imagine that it could make things interesting, and would add an element of strategy (I assume that you could only win a fast forward once).  On the other hand, I can see how it might not be so fun to know who wins the legs halfway through the show.  

 

Perhaps they should change the fast forward so that if you use it, you come in first, but you don't get the prize - the prize would go to the team that came in second (whose would be the first to finish after doing every task).  The "reward" for completing the fast forward would then be that you didn't lose and that you get to start off in front of the pack the next leg.  This way, teams that are near the front may skip the FF in hopes of getting the prize, and teams in the back of the pack would try the fast forward to keep from being last - but at the risk that everyone else may pass them up and they would be last anyway.  

[auntlada]

Hmm... I think I would have taken a different approach to that final task. The first thing I would have done is locked into my mind the order of the cities, before even entering the maze. So (to take one of my stranger trips as an example) "Charlotte, Philly, Vegas, Spokane..." over and over. Then, when a city on the list appears, substitute that number into the sequence. "Charlotte, 4, Vegas, Spokane..."

 

That sounds like it might work best. It's a good method, I think.

[Netfoot]

Perhaps they should change the fast forward so that if you use it, you come in first, but you don't get the prize - the prize would go to the team that came in second (whose would be the first to finish after doing every task). 

 

In the early days, only a few legs each race involved a prize for the winner of the leg.  And a prize when it was awarded, might be a years supply of Duracell batteries or something of equal value.

[shok]

I'm sure it would be too tough for production to have to set up a Fast Forward on every leg in addition to two Detours and a Roadblock plus an occasional Speed Bump. The whole production team is going at breakneck speed as it is to keep the race moving quickly and smoothly.

[green]

I'm sure it would be too tough for production to have to set up a Fast Forward on every leg in addition to two Detours and a Roadblock plus an occasional Speed Bump. The whole production team is going at breakneck speed as it is to keep the race moving quickly and smoothly.

 

Not really.  The FF could be simple.  Like eat a meat pie at a Sydney diner or get it out of a swimming pool at a hotel in Nambia or placing coins in dishes in a Buddhist temple in Bangkok (which was an intense race between two teams believe it or not).  Or get you fortune told at a small shop in a crazy underground shopping area in Hong Kong.  In all cases the Racers' two man team could cover the action and no extra camera set-up was needed.  In the latter going for the FF cost one team the Race that leg.

 

Also you didn't know if a team would come in first.  The FF could help but the editors had an extra "different" path to the pit stop for that team which made the edit of who came in first not a given.  Especially if the FF was some distance away from the other tasks and the team doing it got lost.

 

As for a first place prize it made it nicer that they were spread out so some underdog teams might get something just once in the Race.  Gave a more heart warming feel as a result.  But that would be now.  Like Netfoot said, a prize for winning a leg didn't start right away.  Season 1 had NO separate prizes for any leg.  Season 2 had one on Leg 1 as a total surprise then none again until the second half of the Race.  Season 3 was the first race to have a prize on each leg though some were pretty silly like the cheap new Kodak digital camera several times.  It was only if they could get a sponsor for those prizes.  And except for a cash prize or two, the same thing remains today.  It's basically just a promo for a company.  They just have companies lined up now as opposed to still trying to get companies involved back in the day.  From the beginning the cruise ship industry was their biggest promo gift giver.  Ford was way way off in the future.

 

Speaking of which Ford seems to have collared the "drive yourself there" spots on the Race now.  I liked the old, falling apart vehicles they sometimes had to use.  Pick-ups that seized up in Mexico, the car whose "radiator exploded" according to JVJ in Morocco and especially the famed "eastern block" car that broke down on half the teams in Hungary.  I hope the next Race they have yet to film goes to Cuba and we get to see them drive around in the 1950's cars there.  Or course given Ford's sponsorship now, they would all be old Fords.

[Netfoot]

Or course given Ford's sponsorship now, they would all be old Fords.

 

And they wouldn't be allowed to fall apart. 

[PaperTree]

Finally found time to watch the whole show and was very satisfied.

 

Maya's leap onto Phil was so cute!  Amy's toughness really impressed me.

 

It was fun watching the wrestlers crumble.  They may be remembered, just not how they would like to be remembered.

 

Did they film that on a Sunday?  The LA traffic looked pretty light.

 

Jim and Misti grew on me too.

 

I can give Bethany a pass on the firehouse thing.  I don't think her sweetness is an act.  Either she just had a thoughtless moment, being that close to the million bucks, or a "thank you" is on the cutting room floor so TPTB can stir up some buzz.  If she didn't before, I'm sure after seeing the episode she will make it right.

 

I agree the Save has to go.  A great season in spite of that.

 

Happy New Year all!