S28.E11: That's Money, Honey

[Guest]

On 5/8/2016 at 2:32 PM, needschocolate said:

I find it fascinating that people have such opposite feelings about the teams - especially T/K who seem to have an even split between the "love 'em" an the "hate 'em" posts.  Everyone seem to be able to substantiate their feelings, so it doesn't seem to be based on any sort of prejudice.  It makes me wonder how many people find me really annoying (note: this is not a request for opinions) or can't stand the sound of my laugh - Not that I think I am just like Tyler, but it makes me wonder if I have characteristics/habits - how I chew my food, the way I pronounce certain words, the way I state my opinions, etc - that drive others up a wall (once again, not soliciting opinions on this matter). 

I have a feeling that if you are a young, outgoing gay man, this forum would overwhelmingly find you excrutiatingly annoying.   Or a college boy who is outgoing.  Or a person who is outgoing.  Or who mentions god, or loses their temper, or doesn't know geography.  Or doesn't drive a stick or swim.   Or cries.  Or mispronounces foreign words.  

It seems we pretty much hate anyone the editors either aren't loving enough or are loving too much, on any given week.  

[scrb]

The Tyler hate isn't because of the way he laughs.

He played the game with the U-Turn but ran away so he wouldn't have to face the Frisbee guys.  And there is still the suspicion that he colluded with Burnie and Ashley and then on the next leg, helped Matt and Dana, who probably wouldn't have beaten Burnie and Ashley on their own.

[truthaboutluv]

10 hours ago, scrb said:

The Tyler hate isn't because of the way he laughs.

He played the game with the U-Turn but ran away so he wouldn't have to face the Frisbee guys.  And there is still the suspicion that he colluded with Burnie and Ashley and then on the next leg, helped Matt and Dana, who probably wouldn't have beaten Burnie and Ashley on their own.

 

 

Does the criticism of "running away" extend to Burnie and Ashley too? Because they also mentioned not wanting to see the Frisbee guys when they showed up, knowing that they solidified the guys not being able to recover by U-Turning Tyler and Korey.  And they were all gone from the mat when the guys showed up. Of course, I always thought it was obvious the racers were all joking and they were gone off the mat by the time Brodie/Kurt showed up because they were well behind. 

I also find it interesting how many ignore or forget that Brodie and Kurt made it clear that they were most surprised/hurt by Burnie and Ashley's move because they believed they were close to them. They said they were not surprised Tyler and Korey U-Turned them and sort of expected it but Burnie/Ashley's move was what hurt.

As for the colluding with Burnie and Ashley. Again, so what if they did? Getting rid of Brodie and Kurt benefitted Burnie and Ashley as much as it did Tyler and Korey and so they got their own benefits out of that move and did it for their own personal gain. So I fail to see why working together on that move, if they did, suddenly meant Tyler and Korey were beholden forever to Burnie and Ashley and not allowed to work with another team ever again. 

As for Matt and Dana never beating Burnie and Ashley on their own, well again that's debatable since the task Dana and Tyler worked on together, Burnie surpassed and beat them both on his own. Burnie and Ashley were done in by a poor detour decision, then having to switch, not being able to find the place and then getting lost at the pit stop. Yes, they were a stronger team overall than Matt and Dana but TAR has always been about a lot of luck and sometimes, a consistently strong team just has one bad leg/day and it costs them. We've seen that many times over many seasons and that's what happened with Burnie and Ashley. It was just a bad day.

Edited May 10, 2016 by truthaboutluv

[Alapaki]

Quote

I call absolute and total bullshit on the judging for Sheri and Cole's Detour. I don't care if it's raining, I don't care if you want to go home -- the fact that they passed a team that fell off the scooter/unicycle/whatever multiple times, kicked the transportation down the road, walked multiple times down the street, got separated a number of times and still gave them the clue is mind-boggling to me. When they've failed teams who put their feet in the wrong place during a dance or the stiff criteria for judging during the outside flash mob dance several years ago, and the criteria for this Detour appeared to be "Get on the transportation, make an effort, get down the street and you'll pass."

Tasks which involve relatively subjecting "judging" in order to get the next Clue can often be troubling, especially when some teams try to be very detail-oriented while other teams half-ass it and get through quicker.

But something about that whole Task seemed off.

It's not uncommon for me to misconstrue Phil's description of a Task.  And I realize that the racers are given much more detailed information than we are told.  But I could've sworn that Phil at least strongly implied that the teams would be required to perform some of the stunts that we saw demonstrated there in that city square.  I didn't pick up anything about "get from point A to point B" from Phil's description.  

Burnie and Ashley seemed pretty Race-savvy, so I was surprised when they decided to Bald Snark that task (unless they were just panicked at that point and shitting the bed).  That suggests to me that they had a different impression of what would be required to complete the task than what we saw Sheri and Cole do.

Add to that the question of why, if traveling a few feet, falling off, and then just getting back on and rolling a few more feet, rinse, repeat was an acceptable way to complete the challenge, they kept the teams "practicing" for so long?  Both teams were fairly capable of failing their way through the task the way we saw Sheri and Cole do it from the moment they showed up, without any practice at all.

Did the rain play a role?  Would the slick surface have made it too difficult (if not impossible, or maybe even unsafe) to try the "stunts" and so they changed the Task on the fly?  I know that would be all kinds of sketchy, but I'm sure that it's within TPTB's rights under the rules as they've written them.

[Guest]

I didn't get the impression they had to do stunts.  I did feel like you must've had to 'pass' the basics from the trainers in order to give the course a try.  So even if you fell off 100 times on the course, before trying it you had to have shown the trainers you at least had the ability to make it a short stretch unassisted.  It seemed like Burnie and Ashley discussed that they didn't think they'd even get the basics down in under 30 minutes.  

[Netfoot]

2 hours ago, Alapaki said:

I could've sworn that Phil at least strongly implied that the teams would be required to perform some of the stunts that we saw demonstrated there in that city square.

They had to get from point A to point B carrying a briefcase and a coffee cup!

[iMonrey]

I do think there's a strong chance the race planners did not anticipate rain, and that in fact most people wouldn't be out riding those unicycles in the rain specifically because the ground is too slippery. So maybe some last-minute allowances were made once it started to pour.

Quote

The alternative to mugging, is to not mug, we've seen plenty of racers race without mugging.

I guess I'm not clear on what constitutes "mugging." If someone is "mugging" every time they look at the camera, or speak into the camera, are they "mugging," in your estimation? Because I can't think of any team that hasn't done this. And yes, the alternative seems to be "never look at the camera or speak to the camera/audience. Pretend there are no cameras on you." Which strikes me as unreasonably unrealistic on a reality show where you have a camera man and a sound man following you around to record every little thing you do.

I guess when I think of "mugging" the first people that come to mind are BJ and Tyler, of seasons yore. And by "mugging" I mean they used to clown around a lot just because they thought they were "entertaining" and their antics had no bearing on or relationship to the tasks at hand. They were clowning around just to clown around. They thought it was funny. 

I've never seen Tyler or Korey do that. Which is why I can't understand when people accuse them of "mugging."  I can understand if people don't like their personalities and find them annoying for some intangible reason, but accusing them of mugging for the cameras strikes me as a weak justification for simply not liking them, and is bound to arouse suspicion for the real reasons.

[Guest]

To me, it's mugging when it feels inauthentic and put-on for the camera.  I don't find Tyler inauthentic.

[blackwing]

27 minutes ago, iMonrey said:

I guess I'm not clear on what constitutes "mugging." If someone is "mugging" every time they look at the camera, or speak into the camera, are they "mugging," in your estimation? Because I can't think of any team that hasn't done this. And yes, the alternative seems to be "never look at the camera or speak to the camera/audience. Pretend there are no cameras on you." Which strikes me as unreasonably unrealistic on a reality show where you have a camera man and a sound man following you around to record every little thing you do.

I guess when I think of "mugging" the first people that come to mind are BJ and Tyler, of seasons yore. And by "mugging" I mean they used to clown around a lot just because they thought they were "entertaining" and their antics had no bearing on or relationship to the tasks at hand. They were clowning around just to clown around. They thought it was funny. 

I've never seen Tyler or Korey do that. Which is why I can't understand when people accuse them of "mugging."  I can understand if people don't like their personalities and find them annoying for some intangible reason, but accusing them of mugging for the cameras strikes me as a weak justification for simply not liking them, and is bound to arouse suspicion for the real reasons.

To me, mugging is when you are very aware that there is a camera on you and you are playing things up for the camera in order to try and be funny or to get more attention.  Justin from last season is a classic example of a mugger.  From this season, there was one of the four model twits that was doing the fish cleaning task and she turned her head in mid-task to look at the camera and started telling this story about how she is scared of fish because this one time at camp blah blah blah before her partner cut her off.  That's mugging.

I do find Tyler to be a mugger, because he always seems to be trying to come up with quotes and snippets for his "fans".  That whole stupid "bros being jocks being dudes" thing that he has repeated multiple times is mugging.  Also, any time he actually says the word "hashtag".   I also think Cole is a huge mugger... he's always narrating things and trying to be funny and makes those stupid faces.

I think there are plenty of people on this season who I would categorise as "non-muggers".  I mean, obviously they are aware cameras are on them, but they don't seem to pander to the cameras.   Matt, Dana, Sheri, Burnie, Ashley, Zach and Rachel, Blair's dad are some examples.

[Netfoot]

37 minutes ago, blackwing said:

I also think Cole is a huge mugger... he's always narrating things and trying to be funny and makes those stupid faces.

Absolutely.  "I never went to China before.  But I went to China Town!  I once ate Chinese food!  Yuk, yuk, yukkity yuk!"

Tyler never seems to speak a single word without first checking where the camera is, and turning so his best profile is presented.  

Both would qualify as mugging, I think.

[wineaux]

On May 8, 2016 at 8:28 AM, Gummo said:

I disagree, vehemently.  No team is under ANY obligation to help another team; why would they be?

And as for lying, to paraphrase the legendary Miss Alli from TWOP, do you object when people bluff in poker? 

It's a game.  There are rules.  If you don't break the rules, you're playing fair.  You have no other obligation than to play by the rules.

THIS ^^  The challenge for most of them begins when they hang out together at certain places, get to know each other AND form friendships.  THAT's how alliances began to surface wayyyyyy back in the day and, somehow, racers in the subsequent seasons seemed to think it was the 'thing' to do.  People would buddy up to take others out of the race or push them back further but then when it gets down to the final 3 or 4, it's really every team for themselves.  But, no doubt, once they get to that point, friends or no friends, there are no more alliances.  It's gotta be VERY tough, though, because if you don't want to be a part of an alliance (and you race well), you get targeted...damned if you do; damned if you don't.

I would personally prefer that there were rules against alliances and such, and that each team races on their own abilities and strengths.  But those days are gone now.  However, I do not hold it against any team that holds back information from another team.  As I quoted GUMMO: "It's a game.  There are rules.  You have no other obligation than to play by the rules."

Edited May 13, 2016 by wineaux
typo

[wineaux]

I don't understand about the mugging versus not mugging.  Why can't it be that Tyler is just being..., well, TYLER?  He's a YouTube and Podcast personality and he's almost always on camera...so, it's what he does.  

And, Cole?  Check out his and his Mom's FaceBook pages...and, yep, it's what he does, too.  There are several shots of him with friends and family just going crazy and being silly on camera.  To me, that's being Cole.

So, all of this talk about them 'mugging for the camera' doesn't make sense to me.  And, to be clear, I know that everyone has their own opinion....but mine is that neither of them are mugging.  

[NewDigs]

Re: mugging

I thought that was what all of these teams did. For a living. 

I thought that's why they were chosen for this go-round.

Imho, it's difficult to think they won't. Mug.

[Christina]

What is it they say about opinions? Mine is the only one that counts? No, wait, my mom insists that isn't true. Hmmpt

As someone who thinks both Dana and Tyler need to get thicker skin, let me expound a bit. Anyone who goes on television like this, in this day and age, must expect some negative opinions to be posted about them. People who post a photo to FB for their friends get negative comments from complete strangers, because some people are asses. Tyler's work revolves around social media, so his responses were quite surprising to me. Dana posts dance videos, but seems to primarily be a dance teacher who probably didn't get much negative attention before this, because you wouldn't really go looking for her on social media if you weren't already interested in her videos.

The models and Blair took some negative comments and issued one response then ignored the rest. Blair seemed to be blasted continuously with comments about her voice and her always yelling Daddy, and just laughed it off. Dana read comments, not specifically tagging her, but using the Amazing Race hashtag, about her being so negative, and blamed Matt and the editing. I don't think she sees herself like I do; she thinks CBS edits her to look bad. For a while, she stopped live-tweeting with the show, which I applaud. There is no reason to take what she perceived as abuse. There is also no reason to get so defensive that someone doesn't see you as all roses and light. When someone mentioned Matt was a better dancer, she berated that young man and said he couldn't come to their next workshop. She has acted that way more than once. It was not worded as a put down of her, but a compliment to Matt that she took as an insult, and her username wasn't even in the tweet. Hence, she needs thicker skin.

Tyler is a bit of a different story to me because he should be more media savvy. He posted a three or four tweet diatribe (in my opinion) about people not living on the east coast needing to learn to deal with spoilers. For those unfamiliar, Twitter only allows 140 characters per tweet, so it wasn't like he wrote a book, just a paragraph. The diatribe opinion is based on the context. He then tweeted that it wasn't toward anyone in particular in response to someone asking what it was about. So, I decided to see what it was about, and the only thing I could find was someone saying she missed a tweet of his because she had muted his tweets during the Amazing Race so she wasn't spoiled, and forgot to unmute him. She had not said one single negative thing toward him, like "Why are you spoiling the show for us on the west coast?" or something. He just felt the need to expound on the obvious. However, someone thanked him for tweeting the west coast airing too, and it was retweeted with a celebratory pat on the back to himself.

People kept pointing out the face he makes, and when it was showing on the previews with the snake around his neck, people tweeted him that the commercial was showing the face they were talking about. Now, at this point in the show, he has acknowledged negative posts to the point that I think people purposely tweet him to get a response, because negative people love getting negative attention. Last week, he tweeted something about not realizing how much he actually made that face, and joked a bit, deflating the sails of the windbags who contact him just to get a rile out of him. But, most of the people aren't tweeting directly to him or messaging him directly on Facebook, they are just discussing the show, and he doesn't like it. Hence, he needs to get thicker skin. 

There was a comment here about viewers not liking religious comments, or something. My browser isn't letting me quote, and I didn't re-look for it. I made a comment about finding Cole's religious tweets to be eye-rolling, but don't actually remember him saying anything religious on the show. It seems like he tries to insert something religious into his tweets, making them come across forced and inauthentic. Religion seems to be his online persona. I don't have a problem with religious tweets, or even religion being shown on the show, it just comes across as shtick. Cole is another one who gets negative comments and largely ignores them. He did tweet that he hoped someone would find the love of God, or something along those lines, when that person was clearly trying to get a rise out of him, and I think he recognized it as such.

As soon as the season is over, my Twitter List will be deleted and I'll never have to read any tweets from any of them again.

Final note about mugging and I'll shut up. When the producers point the camera at you and ask you a question, that isn't what I think anyone here is calling mugging. It's where they are doing the task, and look around to make sure the camera is pointed at them before doing something silly or making a comment that they think is a sound bite. An example about the model and the fish is one, and another is when Cole and Sheri were racing the camels and Cole looked at the camera, while riding, and kept yelling, "Go, Mama! Go, Mama!" while staring at the camera, to the side of him, instead of looking ahead and just completing the task. To me, it seemed that Tyler, Korey and Brodie were each trying to get the episode title, every minute of every episode. And loudly. The people on this season were sooooo loud.

[raven]

8 hours ago, Winston9-DT3 said:

I didn't get the impression they had to do stunts.

I didn't either - Phil says something about "the teams won't have trouble doing certain maneuvers" (cut to scene of guys in suits with one leg hooked, balancing on one leg, etc - I mean, no way) and I took that statement as tongue-in-cheek.  It was all very vague and we're not even told what, specifically, they have to do, like we were with the painting task (deliver painting, hang per specifications..)  I actually rewatched this part because I was curious.  So I don't know if something was left out or what, but maybe because China was a change up in destination, the unicycles were more open to interpretation by the judges.  I remember Sheri saying they had to stay together when they were cycling, but I don't know if that was per instructions or because she didn't want to cycle alone. 

I think if B/A had stuck with the cycles they would probably still be in it.  Maybe the cycles were closer to the pit stop, I think I read that B/A were only 5 minutes behind S/C.  I think switching tasks made them doubt themselves and if they were that close at the pit stop, then even so they still performed pretty well at the painting task.

I think mugging is in the eye of the beholder.  The examples people have given here are things I don't even remember, so those instances didn't make any impression on me.  I think of it more like someone shoving their way into a picture or video that wasn't pointed at them in the first place.  TAR WANTS you to talk into the camera, and the more you talk, the more camera you get, the more you're prompted...etc.  I don't remember their names, but there was one team a few years back, a guy and a gal "the nerds" and in interviews they mentioned that the camera guys always wanted them to talk about how this was all new to them, how overwhelmed they were - (my paraphrasing) and they wouldn't do it.  So they probably didn't help the story that the cameras wanted to tell, is my point and  most people that we get on the show now do want to do that, and of course viewers have different tolerances for that.

Edited May 11, 2016 by raven

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Christina said:

It's where they are doing the task, and look around to make sure the camera is pointed at them before doing something silly or making a comment that they think is a sound bite. 

I have never noticed any racer looking around like that but we all notice different things.  I imagine there are times when one racer in a group shot says or does something funny spontaneously and the cameraman asks them to repeat it so he can catch it better.  So in that case the racer might be in view for a moment making sure the camera man is trained on them before repeating their remark.  

I'm a little surprised about the comments about the racers being loud.  I don't notice that, either.  It seems like there were some repetitive yeller teams in prior races ("TWINNY!" and maybe Hayley?) but I don't even notice that stuff in this season.

Edited May 11, 2016 by Guest

[snarktini]

Before they hit the streets they showed Sheri saying they could fall off (don't remember the exact wording), but they had to stay near each other. It was presented as task rules, with the ability to fall known in advance and not simply lenient judging after the fact. (How often they could be off / for how long sounded undefined. Could the task be failed at that point? Dunno. Don't really care, either!)

[greyhorse]

Egads.  I'm not sure I want any of these teams to win.  I know it can't be Tyler and Korey, because Tyler for me is one of the most dislikable racers of all time.  Sheri and Cole are less objectionable, but I can't root for a team who had their butts saved twice by non-elims and generally not showing much competence throughout the race.  So I guess it's Matt and Dana.  If it could be Matt only, I'd like that.  Dana has her moments of civility, but I imagine in real life that she's a firecracker.

I thought the uni things was an unfair detour.  The instructions should have been explained better.  I would have liked to see a clause saying something like "if you fall off more than five times, you must start over."  Otherwise, what was to prevent a team from just falling off every 20 feet?  Seemed like Sheri and Cole fell off a lot.

Seemed like the pit stop was hard to find.  Burnie and Ashley sure looked like they got to the place first but just couldn't locate Phil.  A shame, I thought they deserved to win.

[Lamb18]

On ‎5‎/‎7‎/‎2016 at 5:58 AM, ElectricBoogaloo said:

What happened to Dana this week? She was totally civil while working with Tyler.

Tyler's not her boyfriend. I think she's one of those people who's nicer to strangers than her nearest and dearest.

[needschocolate]

7 hours ago, greyhorse said:

I thought the uni things was an unfair detour.  The instructions should have been explained better.  I would have liked to see a clause saying something like "if you fall off more than five times, you must start over."  Otherwise, what was to prevent a team from just falling off every 20 feet?  Seemed like Sheri and Cole fell off a lot.

I think the uni detour was fair as long as the same rules apply to everyone.  Since Sherry and Cole were the only ones to stay at that task long enough to actually ride down the road with a briefcase and a cup of coffee, we don't know whether all teams would have had the same rules.  However, given that I don't ever remember TAR having different rules for different teams, I would bet that if Burnie and Ashley fell every 20 feet they would still get the clue once they got to the end.  

Did the rules of the uni task seem more lenient that most tasks in the history of the show?  Yes.  There have been times that it seems the judging is more forgiving after a team has made many, many attempts - like the first few times through, every step has to be perfect, but a team would pass their 40th attempt, if it was "close enough."    But even that is fair, as long as every team would with a "close enough" performance, as long as it was also their 40th attempt.  It would not be fair if one team had to be perfect to pass on their 3rd attempt, but another team passes on their third attempt even though they made a lot of mistakes.

Did the uni task seem easier than the artwork task, where the judge literally checked the spacing with a ruler? Yes.  But detour choices are not always equal.  I would suspect that if the racers had known that they didn't have to ride to the finish without falling, more would have attempted that task.  

[fishcakes]

14 hours ago, Christina said:

Tyler is a bit of a different story to me because he should be more media savvy. He posted a three or four tweet diatribe (in my opinion) about people not living on the east coast needing to learn to deal with spoilers. ... the only thing I could find was someone saying she missed a tweet of his because she had muted his tweets during the Amazing Race so she wasn't spoiled, and forgot to unmute him. She had not said one single negative thing toward him, like "Why are you spoiling the show for us on the west coast?" or something. He just felt the need to expound on the obvious.

I like Tyler on the show, but that's ridiculous. Muting someone who spoils episodes before they've aired everywhere IS dealing with spoilers, so either he's saying that people not on the East Coast need to accept that they will be spoiled or that they're not allowed to use social media between 5:00 PM EDT and whenever the show finishes airing for them. But evidently they're not allowed to mute him even temporarily without him taking offense. I rarely follow reality show people on twitter, but when I do, if they spoil anything, I don't bother to mute, I just unfollow immediately. Nothing they're saying is all that worthwhile anyway.

[Jobiska]

In the shots we saw of them practicing, Burnie and Ashley never even got close enough to be as good as even Cole was halfway through practice (around when he was amazed at Sheri being so much better than him).  I've never been able to pogo-stick-jump for more than 2 bounces; I think I'd probably assess my chances the same way B&A did and feel that I'd never get the hang of it.  I suspect that B&A were nowhere near getting the thumbs up for "you're ready to go down this street with the props, even if you do fall off every 20 feet."

[kingshearte]

15 hours ago, raven said:

I didn't either - Phil says something about "the teams won't have trouble doing certain maneuvers" (cut to scene of guys in suits with one leg hooked, balancing on one leg, etc - I mean, no way) and I took that statement as tongue-in-cheek.

So did I; I just assumed that "won't have any trouble" was the tongue-in-cheek part. As in: "Teams will have to complete a few fancy maneuvers, and it's hard, so you'll get to laugh at them when they fall on their asses."

[RCharter]

On 5/10/2016 at 10:26 PM, Winston9-DT3 said:

I have a feeling that if you are a young, outgoing gay man, this forum would overwhelmingly find you excrutiatingly annoying.   Or a college boy who is outgoing.  Or a person who is outgoing.  Or who mentions god, or loses their temper, or doesn't know geography.  Or doesn't drive a stick or swim.   Or cries.  Or mispronounces foreign words.  

It seems we pretty much hate anyone the editors either aren't loving enough or are loving too much, on any given week.  

I think thats a little unfair.  People have given reasons why they don't like who they don't like and I haven't seen a single person in this forum even suggest that they dislike T/K because they are outgoing gay men.  For my part, I watch, and enjoy RuPauls Drag Race, which is full of outgoing gay men.  No one has said anything about disliking someone for being in college and outgoing.  Both of the Vine brothers were outgoing and in college, I didn't see any great amount of dislike for them in this forum.

I don't like people who belittle and tear down people who care for them, so no, I don't like Dana for that reason.  However, I think there is a difference in "losing your temper" and repeatedly behaving like a shrew towards someone you claim to love. 

I don't dislike people for not knowing geography, or how to drive stick, or  how to swim....though I think its a little stupid to go on a show like AR without having those skills in your pocket.  After 27 seasons, you should know that at some point you'll need to read a map, talk to a cab driver (maybe in another language) drive stick, swim, and deal with heights.  These are things you can prepare for to some degree, so its a little silly to have not prepared.

However, I see your point about how there can be an expectation of knowledge that is a little unfair because you can't prepare for it.I remember last season they had to get the words/slogan for the French Revolution.....and people were kinda like "even if they didn't see the clue, any dummy should know that" but I don't think there is any way you could know that you would need to know that before you left for AR.  I think there are a lot of very educated and really intelligent people on this forum who have been exposed to some of the knowledge and retain it well.  For my part, I took HS French, and all I remember is "le anais n'parle pas" -- which means "the pineapple can't talk!"

[greyhorse]

11 hours ago, Jobiska said:

In the shots we saw of them practicing, Burnie and Ashley never even got close enough to be as good as even Cole was halfway through practice (around when he was amazed at Sheri being so much better than him).  I've never been able to pogo-stick-jump for more than 2 bounces; I think I'd probably assess my chances the same way B&A did and feel that I'd never get the hang of it.  I suspect that B&A were nowhere near getting the thumbs up for "you're ready to go down this street with the props, even if you do fall off every 20 feet."

See that's where it is a bit confusing.  Did they have to get an "ok" from the uni rider/boss before they could embark on the suitcase part?  So they have to show a certain degree of proficiency before they're allowed to try?  I suppose it's similar to the dance routines where the racer has a coach, and after practicing for a while, they get to "test".  It's always been a little unclear if the teacher gives the ok or if the racer just says "I want to try."

One of the above posts said that Burnie said they wasted 40 minutes on the unis,  That's ridiculous.  I think after 5-10 minutes you should know if you're going to be able to do it.  I think the art task was way easier.  Seemed like everybody didn't understand about the spacing in the beginning, but how could they as there were no instructions.  Even with a language barrier, it was pretty obvious after the first judging and then it was very simple for them to correct.

[Netfoot]

3 hours ago, RCharter said:

I remember last season they had to get the words/slogan for the French Revolution.....and people were kinda like "even if they didn't see the clue, any dummy should know that" but I don't think there is any way you could know that you would need to know that before you left for AR.

From my own perspective, it isn't a matter of not having prepared for the race by memorizing the motto of the french revolution.  It is not recognizing it immediately, based upon your own general knowledge.  "General Knowledge" is something that used to be taught in school.

Once upon a time, If someone said, "To be, or not to be, ..." I would have expected everyone to know the next few words of the quotation.  Everyone in the world, not just Shakespearian scholars or TAR applicants/candidates/racers.  But were I now to discover that less than half the racers this season had ever heard that phrase, I wouldn't be terribly surprised.  Because it seems they don't teach much in school any more.

[Eolivet]

On 5/11/2016 at 10:03 AM, needschocolate said:

There have been times that it seems the judging is more forgiving after a team has made many, many attempts - like the first few times through, every step has to be perfect, but a team would pass their 40th attempt, if it was "close enough."  

I've seen judges pass teams at dancing for being "close enough," but if they generally kept upright and shuffled their feet around enough, it would qualify.

I didn't think the teams had to do fancy acrobatic moves, I expected they would have to get down the street on the unicycle carrying a briefcase and a cup of coffee, where the "and not fall off a zillion times or kick the unicycle halfway down the road" would pretty much be implied. I actually assumed they were so far behind that the judges simply passed them because production wanted to get out of the rain. The fact that another team that completed the task correctly was still racing, and they were allowed to fall off multiple times, kick the unicycle, and still pass the task...I've just never seen anything like it in the history of the show and I've been watching since the second season.

To me this was the equivalent of a team falling down during a dance or mouthing the words when it was a pronunciation task or faked chewing and then threw the food away when nobody was looking when it was a gross eating task. If the task is ride a unicycle down the road and the team does not accomplish that and can still pass, then where is the line drawn?

If it was something like "You must stay on the unicycle for a total of 5 minutes apiece total," then just say that. Otherwise, it looks like they just got an A for effort and that cost another team who actually accomplished their task the race, and I call bullshit on that.

[Netfoot]

1 hour ago, Eolivet said:

"and not [...] kick the unicycle halfway down the road"

I did see the unicycle run away with Sheri chasing it, but didn't she have to walk it back to the point where she fell off, before continuing?

[Eolivet]

I thought I saw Cole kick it under a car (not deliberately, but when he lost control of it) and then pick it up on the other side and not have to go back to before it fell. Or the camera cut there, giving that impression.

[blackwing]

I'm curious about Burnie's statement that he and Ashley were trying at the unicycles for 40 minutes.  Since the teams didn't overlap, does that mean that Sheri and Cole were over 40 minutes behind them?  That's a lot of time.  Whether Sheri and Cole were the beneficiaries of lenient judging on the "suitcase and coffee" portion of the task or not, I dunno.  But to me it seems obvious that if Burnie had stuck with it, they would have gotten the same lenient judging.  Or at least lenient enough to finish ahead of Sheri and Cole.  It's his own fault that he gave up so early.  He asked Ashley if she thought she would get better with practice, she said no, and so they gave up.

[RCharter]

54 minutes ago, blackwing said:

I'm curious about Burnie's statement that he and Ashley were trying at the unicycles for 40 minutes.  Since the teams didn't overlap, does that mean that Sheri and Cole were over 40 minutes behind them?  That's a lot of time.  Whether Sheri and Cole were the beneficiaries of lenient judging on the "suitcase and coffee" portion of the task or not, I dunno.  But to me it seems obvious that if Burnie had stuck with it, they would have gotten the same lenient judging.  Or at least lenient enough to finish ahead of Sheri and Cole.  It's his own fault that he gave up so early.  He asked Ashley if she thought she would get better with practice, she said no, and so they gave up.

I'm on the fence...like if he literally couldn't stay up more than 2 seconds, or if he could never get balanced they wouldn't have been able to get through that task......there is "some leeway" and then there is just "we changed the task to walking down the road in the general vicinity of the unicycle"  Even if Sherri and Cole fell, they still were on the unicycle for some amount of time.

But yeah, they would have gotten the same lenient judging, and I'm surprised that they didn't realize that (or maybe they did and they literally could not even stand on it).  Unless you sincerely just can't do it, the judges will generally get pretty lenient, especially the longer you are there.  The last time I remember that even being an issue was last year with the mother/son team that did the rap.....but I vaguely remember her not even trying at some points.

[Supay]

The nameless lion dancers remain without a discernible identity, much like their generic city:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=d7MdN_iAWJs