S11: Talk

[Whimsy]

Since some older seasons are available to view on different platforms, we are starting all episodes threads for each season.

[ApprenticeFan]

The first-All-Stars race, traveling through six inhabited continents within over 28 days. Rob & Amber dominated in the first 3 legs and trailed at the back of the pack midway in leg 4 that eventually lead them on their elimination. Oswald & Danny, Dustin & Kandice and Charla & Mirna are the most lovable teams for the season, and sometimes they usually dislike/hate Eric & Danielle.

 

Uchenna & Joyce screwed when they missed on their connecting flight to Malaysia as they got stranded in Frankfurt Airport, that cost them on their elimination.

 

Well, this was the last American Race to be featured the Yield, as well the MFE penalty, plus the intermediate destination during the final leg.

Edited January 13, 2016 by ApprenticeFan

[Supay]

At least one of the Chilean legs should've been replaced with, say, a round in Palau between Macau and Guam; more urgently, this season needed a win from any other team in the F7 in order to rise above that very Castaway crossover and her husband on the one hand plus Dr. Will's henchman on the other.

[TheRabbi]

This season isn't too bad if you ignore the finale. The cast was a pretty good representation of all-stars except for the coal miners and "that" team. The route was diverse and had some brutal legs (especially in Chile), and there were a number of great moments.

Plus I love Teri and Ian. "Isn't it nice how we all come with nicknames?" "I hope ours is the big kahunas".

[Supay]

Um, Kentucky was always going to be casted coming off the heels of the previous season, whereas IIRC John Vito and Jill were alternates.

[scowl]

I'm skipping this season because I've had enough Boston Rob and spacey Amber on my television screen. I assume they started planning this All-Star season as soon as he lost. 

[Pomptonqueen]

I'm skipping this season because I loathe the little person and her obnoxious cousin.  They go out in third and I cannot listen to them for the entire season.  Their voices make my ears bleed.

[beeblebrox]

I generally enjoyed this season. There were some memorable tasks they did. I could put up with Rob & Amber just fine. I couldn't stand Uchenna. He came off as so patronizing and condescending that season. His shtick worked well in the season they won, but this season he sounded like a jerk each time he talked. I loved Charla and Mirna. They're just fun to watch in general. They seemed nice when they said that they would have given Danny and Oswald the money when D&O yielded the eventual winners. Yeah, it was a good season to watch.

[Michel]

On ‎3‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 10:26 AM, Supay said:

IIRC John Vito and Jill were alternates.

They were.  They were called because TAR4's Kelly & Jon had to pull out at the last minute.  I often wonder how this season might've gone had they been on instead?

[Kanaloa]

On 9/14/2016 at 0:51 PM, beeblebrox said:

I couldn't stand Uchenna. He came off as so patronizing and condescending that season. His shtick worked well in the season they won, but this season he sounded like a jerk each time he talked.

Buh? He and Joyce at their worst > Eric and Danielle at their best. 

[ApprenticeFan]

On Saturday, February 25, 2017 at 11:40 AM, Michel said:

They were.  They were called because TAR4's Kelly & Jon had to pull out at the last minute.  I often wonder how this season might've gone had they been on instead?

Colin & Christie were selected for All-Stars but they declined due to Christie's pregnancy at that time. As well as Flo and Drew, raced with their former partners Zach (Flo's friend) and Derek (Drew's twin brother).

[Roccos Brother]

WORST WINNERS EVER.

I can't even right now.

Moving onto season 12 now...

Edited November 25, 2017 by Roccos Brother

[Star Aristille]

3 hours ago, Roccos Brother said:

WORST WINNERS EVER.

I can't even right now.

They went on to be sore winners in post-show press interviews, too.  To this day, one of them still does act like a sore winner.

3 hours ago, Roccos Brother said:

Moving onto season 12 now...

Believe me.  You're heading into a nice palate cleanser after this dreck of a season.

[Roccos Brother]

2 hours ago, Star Aristille said:

They went on to be sore winners in post-show press interviews, too.  To this day, one of them still does act like a sore winner.

Believe me.  You're heading into a nice palate cleanser after this dreck of a season.

Oh, please do tell. I binged with my family over Thanksgiving weekend and we are all disappointed. 

[Star Aristille]

1 minute ago, Roccos Brother said:

Oh, please do tell. I binged with my family over Thanksgiving weekend and we are all disappointed. 

Eric, to put it bluntly, took being a hated winner so badly, he outright said that he was glad that he ruined most fans' season in interviews.  Danielle agreed with his sentiments in those same interviews.  Now, they're greatly hated winners for a number of reasons -- their overall behavior toward each other, their behavior toward other teams, their behavior toward locals, on occasion, and dashing the two-in-three shot the audience had at having the first winning women's team at the time.  But Eric assumed that they were only hated for the latter reason and was completely blind and oblivious to the fact that they were hated for the other ones, too.  Basically, they took the already low opinion of them even lower with how they conducted themselves in interviews.  They didn't even apologize for their bad behavior or anything.  Didn't own it.  Didn't take responsibility.  They were just plain terrible in the media.

In the years since, Danielle's calmed down and taken more responsibility now.  But Eric is still as much of a terror as ever.  He posts under the name loopymilkshake over on Survivor Sucks and is still a sore winner, still unrepentant, and still nasty.

You said, "do tell."  So I've told.

[Roccos Brother]

9 minutes ago, Star Aristille said:

You said, "do tell."  So I've told.

Thanks for the info! This only validates our already low opinions of them.

[Roccos Brother]

Random thoughts -

- Thought it was funny how some teams received hatemail.

- Was totally surprised by Rob and Amber's undoing, partially as a result of them misspelling "Philippines"!

- TeamChaCha will always be my favorite. Period. Sad they couldn't employ some of their same tactics of behaving like the fabulously fancy gays they are, like in Season 2.

- Charla and Mira were hilarious during the ninja and noodle-making challenges.

- Was not particularly saddened by Uchenna and Joyce's loss, knowing that they had previously won already, but was saddened by the way they had lost. I.e. taking a gamble that backfired terribly.

- Out of all the teams, Dan and Eric were my least favorite from the start. I've since read rumors of Eric being either gay or a homophobe - or most likely, both.

Oh TeamChaCha, why couldn't you return for every season? I continue to mourn your absence from my TV screen.

[Hera]

I like this season because it involved Uchenna (probably my favorite racer ever) and Joyce beating Rob and Amber again, forcing the latter two to admit that Uchenna and Joyce were the better team. This should have been obvious from their win over Rob and Amber in Season 7, but somehow was not. I imagine Rob's alright in person (or at least that he can be) but I've always found his (and others') high opinion of himself both on The Amazing Race and on Survivor to be baffling and unjustified. He really struggles to tell the difference between visible play and good play.

[green]

2 hours ago, Hera said:

I like this season because it involved Uchenna (probably my favorite racer ever) and Joyce beating Rob and Amber again, forcing the latter two to admit that Uchenna and Joyce were the better team. This should have been obvious from their win over Rob and Amber in Season 7, but somehow was not. I imagine Rob's alright in person (or at least that he can be) but I've always found his (and others') high opinion of himself both on The Amazing Race and on Survivor to be baffling and unjustified. He really struggles to tell the difference between visible play and good play.

And I liked it because it was Mirna of all people that knocked Rob out, heh heh.

Yeah I liked Uchenna & Joyce too but Mirna bringing about his demise on this season was just so much fun.

Edited February 16, 2018 by green

[dgpolo]

I did hate that Eric and Danielle won and I really hated that the producers put this team in to begin with. They were really working with blinders on if they wanted a team made up of a couple that had met on the race (like Rob and Amber met on Survivor) Eric was simply not the kind of person that would bond well with any female in the context of this Race. To think we could have had a race with 2 all female teams plus Danny and Oswald. ☹️

While I like Uchenna and Joyce I don't feel any actual winners should be able to come back, give some others a chance. I also don't think Kentucky should have been asked back, Phil described this as 'the best of the best' not the most popular.

Most everyone seemed to have much smaller backpacks this race, and did Rob and Amber only have 1?

Loved Oswald going into a Tim Gunn impressions 'Where's Andre?' Danny seemed to have hit the Killer Fatigue early.

The guy Uchenna and Joyce talked to in the Conservatory they went to by mistake when looking for Chopin looked just like Harry Potter!

The presence of the made up team really brought this season down, I do wish they hadn't been there or had gone out early but this is what we got instead. And the producers -still- didn't learn their lesson and instead planned a whole season with made up/blind date teams.

Spoiler

Just started my rewatch of 12, if the producers had just waited one more season they would have had Christina and Azaria to race as a couple who met on the race and actually married.

Edited July 21, 2019 by dgpolo
to add

[limecoke]

Rewatching season 11. Heinous winners but mostly enjoyable, Rob & Amber notwithstanding.  Besides I’m endlessly entertained by Mirna & Charla and their ridiculous accents.

[jette]

I haven't finished episode 2, but had to stop and say that I truly can't handle the mean spiritedness of both Charla and Mirna.

Because the blondes had the audacity to be behind them, refuse to split an exorbitant taxi fee and instead drove themselves to the pitstop, suddenly Charla has the nerve to say she and Mirna have pure hearts and good morals...while the blondes are only beautiful due to having had plastic surgery?

What season does TAR stop allowing taxi following? It can't come soon enough.

Also, Boston Rob still makes me laugh, so he and Ambuh are probably not going to make it far.

 

[kaygeeret]

Wow, I had forgotten that this season was labeled "the strongest racers in TAR history"......

Almost spit my water onto the computer.  Seriously - very unlikeable season with some strong teams and some not at all strong.

If one more wall had to be either climbed or rappelled I was going to take a nap......really not very interesting challenges for this group.

Airport drama?  I began to do chores during the EXTENDED sessions.  I really hated the challenges .... until Maui - great challenges.

I do really like Kentucky and love the way they appreciate the different countries they are in and appreciate the opportunity, but strong racers?  No.

Love the Danny/Oswald, Uchenna/wife and the Guidos - enough said

Dislike Ian and his wife, Rob/Amber, Eric/Danni

I actually really liked Charla this time around, she is one tough cookie, much tougher than Mirna.  I also really disliked Mirna's incessant talk re: Mirna's challenges - I'm watching, I get it, stop talking about it.  Mirna also seemed to talk down to Charla in a misguided effort to 'protect' her.  To be fair, my guess is that is a life long thing with them.

The blonds just remain vacuous, programmed and phony.  To be fair, they were a strong team.

Did anyone else get struck by Eric's snottiness to the Guidos and Danny/Oswald?  It felt very homophobic to me, especially at the end.  I had not noticed this the first time around.

[SVNBob]

Started a re-watch of this season a little bit ago.

Looking at the Racers in this season, and the short-list of other teams they considered, I think they had a slightly different theme in mind.  Not just All Stars, but All Star Rivals.  Look at the teams from the same season: Kevin and Drew and Team Guido from TAR1, the Beauty Queens and Kentucky from TAR10, Uchenna and Joyce and Romber from TAR7 ...all rivalries.  Colin and Christie were on the short-list, but I believe declined because Christie was pregnant with their first child.  If they'd been there, they would have had their rivals in Charla and Mirna.  The only season exception was TAR3, because I don't really think of Teri and Ian as rivals to JVJ.  Flo and Drew of TAR3 were also up for consideration, and I imagine that Eric and Danielle might have been their "rivals", if not one of the actual TAR3 teams.

We're through episode 3, but I want to talk about episode 2 more.  Mainly Kevin and Drew.  This was not their season.  More for Drew than Kevin, what with injuring himself in the first leg with that big tumble and never really recuperating, and being the only one we're told that needed additional oxygen in Ecuador.  You could see in his face throughout Leg 2 that he was over this TAR experience.  We opined that the only reason that he even tried was because of Kevin.  And it's a shame to lose them so early, since we know how good they can be, and how funny they are.  They even got in a new variation of their famous "That's Namibia, jackass" line in Leg 1 with this bit:

Quote

Drew: "Peru is nice. It's beautiful out."

Kevin:  "I'm sure it's nice in Peru.  We're in Ecuador.

Even if they planned it, Snerk.

On top of that, there's the Roadblock in episode 2.  This is the one where they had to find individual letters hidden throughout a board room meeting, and put them together to spell their next destination.  Mary was submitting her answer and said it out loud, right in front of Kevin.  He then put his hand on her shoulder and congratulated her for completing the task.  She was in shock because she apparently didn't realize anyone was behind her.  But the next moment is what I want really want to talk about.  Kevin, even though he just heard the correct answer, and knew it was correct since Mary got the clue, submitted an incorrect answer. 

Now, there may have been a rule about not changing your answer after leaving the board room, but I choose to believe that even if there wasn't, Kevin would have submitted the same answer that he did that time.  Because it was the fair thing to do.   TAR1 was partially about what would be "fair play" for the Race, and Kevin (and Drew, and Momily, and Rob and Brennan) was firmly on one side of that line (and the Guidos were on the other.  Hence, rivals).  And I think he was still on the same side of the line here.  He didn't come out of the room with the correct answer (or he had it misspelled), so it wouldn't have been "right" to take advantage of just happening to be behind the one Racer that would say her answer out loud for others to hear and profit off her misjudgement.  One more reason to love Kevin and Drew...they are honorable men.

 

On 2/15/2018 at 7:27 PM, Hera said:

I imagine Rob's alright in person (or at least that he can be) but I've always found his (and others') high opinion of himself both on The Amazing Race and on Survivor to be baffling and unjustified.

Then again, with three 1st place leg finishes in a row on this Race, 4.5 1st place leg finishes on their previous Race (the half is them coming in first at the Keep On Racing point of a Superleg), and 2nd place overall in TAR7, one could easily argue that he does have a point when it comes to TAR.

In surprising news, Ian is well-behaved.  In unsurprising news, Eric is still a fratty douche (but somewhat less so than when partnered with Jeremy) but the Chas are still lovely and charming.

[SVNBob]

In the middle of the 2-hour double-leg episode #7 at this point, and something occurred to me on this watch that I don't think I thought of during the original airing.  But first, we need to go back a little to episode/leg 6.

Leg 6 is the one from Maputo, Mozambique to Tanzania and Zanzibar.  The majority of the first half of the episode is spent at the Maputo airport trying to get to Dar Es Salaam.  There's a direct flight at 8:30 on one airline, but it's the middle of the night and the ticket counter won't open until 5:30.  At 5:30, all the teams are present when they learn that that flight is full and standby only.  Charla and Mirna take a risk and go to Johannesburg without any further flights booked, while the rest of the teams wait (or are unable to get on the flight Charla and Mirna do.)  The pack is eventually told that the flight is full-full and to try a different airline that will open at 9:45.  Meanwhile, the risk pays off for Mirna and Schmirna, as they manage to get on a flight in Jo-burg.

At the 2nd airline, the younger teams head up to the airline office while Terri, Ian, and Team Guido wait at the counter for it to open.  The flight all the teams are looking at goes to Dar Es Salaam via a connection in Jo-burg, but the connecting flight is full.  The teams in the office all get on the standby list, as do the other two teams after the counter opens.  After the flight gets to Johannesburg, only the teams that went up to the office and got on the standby list early were able to get on the flight.   Except for Eric and Danielle, who are pulled off the plane because the airline made a mistake.  (Slight diversion from the main story here: Eric handled this surprisingly well, given who we saw him to be on TAR9.  He didn't argue with the airline personnel and just started getting their bags out of storage.  He did offered $50 for someone else to leave the plane instead, but when no one took his offer, he calmly exited and tried to soothe the understandably upset Danielle.  Again, surprising given his fratty nature, but still well handled.)  The guy who pulled them from the plane says that he will put them on "priority standby" for a flight leaving the next morning, and he also puts TerrIan and the Guidos on regular standby on the same flight.  When that flight starts boarding the next day, Eric and Danielle are the only team of the 3 to get on (presumably because of the kerfuffle of the previous day and the "priority standby".)  The last two teams are told about a flight on another airline at noon, and they get on that.

Meanwhile, in Tanzania, the teams have had to get to a ferry terminal to draw numbers for a series of dhow (boat) rides to Zanzibar.  The boats are scheduled to leave 3 hours apart, and the first 2 of the 3* can only carry 2 teams each. (* The board with the pull numbers has only 3 sets of tags.  But Phil's VO at the opening of the first clue said that there were 4 dhows available.  Retrospect puts this as the first clue of the fuckery to come in this leg.) 

Long story short (too late), this is an anti-Bunching leg.  Other than a little scramble between The Cha, the Beauty Queens, and Uchenna and Joyce when they get to the ferry terminal (which The Cha win and get the second spot on dhow #1), the end-of-leg order barely deviates from the order in which teams got flights out of Johannesburg.  Terri and Ian get Philiminated and the Guidos are 14+ hours behind the first-place Charla and Mirna. (With Eric and Danielle just ahead of them at only 11 hours behind.)

Onto Leg 7 (finally).  Teams are headed to Warsaw, Poland.  They are all provided with tickets on flights that will get them to Warsaw at 11:25 am the next day, but they are free to look for something that will arrive sooner.  The four teams in front do manage to find earlier flights (but not without having to wait 7 hours in a travel agency plus more time outside waiting for it to open, giving Eric and Danielle time to show up at the agency), but Eric and Danielle cannot find anything better that isn't full, and The Guidos don't have the time to even try.  Those last two teams take the provided flight to Warsaw via Kilimanjaro.   In Kilimanjaro, the teams are picking up their tickets to Warsaw, when they're told they can't make it as the plane is about to leave.  They haul ass to the gate and the plane is still there, but starting to taxi away.  At this point, Joe (the shorter Guido) runs outside and tries to flag the plane down like it's a cab.  That is unsuccessful, so both teams now have to wait for a flight at 6 am the next day.  This flight lands in Warsaw at around the time the first-place Beauty Queens are starting the next leg by heading to Auschwitz.

Which finally gets me to my original point.  This set of two legs has been thoroughly killer for three teams, but I don't think it affected any of them as much psychologically as it did The Guidos.  They had to have been having flashbacks to shivering at a cluebox in Alaska and opening a clue to read that the Race was officially over without them even seeing the Finish Line.  While in Johannesburg, they must have started thinking, "Oh my God, it's happening again!  We're falling a day behind!"  And when the provided flight started to leave without them, Joe was definitely in the clutches of a flashback-induced panic attack aided by KF. 

I don't think any of us thought of that at the time.  But it seems clear to me now.

[kstar821]

On 9/11/2019 at 10:16 PM, limecoke said:

Rewatching season 11. Heinous winners but mostly enjoyable, Rob & Amber notwithstanding.  Besides I’m endlessly entertained by Mirna & Charla and their ridiculous accents.

omg - yes!  This is the reason I love them so much.  When in a foreign country, adopt a fake foreign accent!  😂

Also, Mirna dragging the mannequin around Poland and all the Polish people ignoring her was tv gold. 

[SVNBob]

I just learned this and had to share it here.

 

Most, if not all, of us know that some time after TAR4 Reichen and Chip split up, and Reichen started dating Lance Bass of N'Sync for a while.  Well, apparently, that time corresponded with the casting window for this season.  Since TPTB (not including Phil) were desperately searching for a "mixed" team for the season, Reichen and Lance were under consideration.  And apparently Lance was up for it!

Luckily for us, Reichen had the same opinion as Flo.  He also didn't want to run the Race again without his winning partner, so he declined.  That meant that the "mixed" team slot fell to their third choice; Eric and Danielle.

But this does mean that we almost had an All-Star Race featuring someone who had never been on TAR before!

[Jtrain]

Charla and mirna are the team I hated the most in the entire series up to 11, them or the African American women from last season. They were being the obnoxious, rude and made me fast forward from them. I was so glad they lost. Classless, trashy people. 

[ApprenticeFan]

Leg 7 was split around when leading teams (Charla & Mirna, Uchenna & Joyce, Dustin & Kandice and Oswald & Danny) and trailing teams (Eric & Danielle and Joe & Bill) were 12-15 hours behind them as flights between Tanzania and Poland were lacked of connecting flights due to African muslims travelled to Mecca for Hajj pilgrimage. Trailing teams missed the flight to Poland that was about to board and the ticket counter did not accept last minute passengers.

Leg 6 was originally to be a midpoint with a planned leg back to mainland as I already mentioned you about: pilgrims sending to Mecca.

Edited June 19, 2022 by ApprenticeFan