S24.E01: Back in the Saddle

[Rhondinella]

Discuss herein.

[David T. Cole]

First time watching in YEARS. Phil is still delightful but everything is still... bunchy. You can't really fake a race when teams are no where close to each other. They try but it rarely works.

The tower challenge was great in that it was obviously designed to be an exercise in frustration but on the other hand, being lucky isn't great race accomplishment material.

[Veruca Assault]

Very thankful the Twinnies are gone, couldn't handle another long season of them yelling at each other.

[David T. Cole]

Yeah, they seemed delightful.

[Tara Ariano]

The whining! They were terrible.

Like Dave, I hadn't watched in years, and had forgotten how exhausting the early episodes can be, with so many teams to service.

[David T. Cole]

We are talking about this on today's EHG and I'm very proud about my TAR-related intro title.

[Jael]

The Amazing Bunch of Obnoxious Jerks I Didn't Much Like the First Time Around.

Casting makes or breaks the Race every season for me, and this was a major disappointment. I'm happy to see Dave and Connor back, as I have a major weakness for parent-child teams and their first time around was obviously compromised, but I could've done without, well, nearly everybody else.

(Still, I am a superfan and/or sucker, and will watch.)

[Veruca Assault]

I'm really sad not to see Zev and Justin back. I would have taken them over anyone in this season.

My thought on Mallory being there, don't they have a back up team or two there ready to step in just in case? Did they just luck out with having a team from Kentuckybe one of the back up teams? Am I giving "chance" too much credit?

[Megan in Seattle]

Oh, yeah: Zev and Justin were a great team. But then they might as well just re-run the "unfinished business" season, which also had the Globetrotters, Margie & Luke, Mallory & her dad, and the Cowboys. I agree that they must have had Gary & Mallory on tap as an alternate team.

[Veruca Assault]

I agree. I don't really get why they are doing an all stars so close to unfinished business and with so many repeat teams. It feels like Boston Rob on Survivor-let's keep having him until he wins. If this is the case, us there a team "they" want to win?

[ApathyMonger]

I agree. I don't really get why they are doing an all stars so close to unfinished business and with so many repeat teams. It feels like Boston Rob on Survivor-let's keep having him until he wins. If this is the case, us there a team "they" want to win?

It's been three years since Unfinished Business. The previous all-stars season was four years before that, so it's not a huge difference in time.

The three-timers are Margie & Luke, Globetrotters, and Jet & Cord. Globetrotters are the only ones I actually like.

[Roccos Brother]

I watched this season when it first aired, prior to seeing many of the seasons that came before it, so a lot of the teams were completely new to me. Having more context now on my second viewing, I must say some of these selections are quite awful. Three times for the cowboys and harlem globetrotters, feels extremely redundant. The whole “lone ranger” asocial shtick is boring AF to watch. There was nothing special about the youtubers, country singers, or team that didn't use their express pass. Joey is looking good with his new haircut though.

Here for the afghanimals, twinnies, kentucky, and to a lesser degree, Margie and Luke.

Edited January 1, 2018 by Roccos Brother

[displayname]

32 minutes ago, Roccos Brother said:

Here for the afghanimals, twinnies, kentucky, and to a lesser degree, Margie and Luke.

Ermm, well I'm glad you've watched this season before, then. 

[Roccos Brother]

23 minutes ago, fan94 said:

Ermm, well I'm glad you've watched this season before, then. 

Yea, maybe I should sit through this entire second viewing with a black veil on.

[dgpolo]

On my re-watch I thought it was the next season that started to have individual episode threads so I waited 'til I was done to do another summary type post. Oops! Now I'll have to remember each episode individually.

I like the Globetrotters but I think their should be a 2 time limit on teams. Give some others a chance.

I think the awkwardness and communication issues between Mark and Mallory were probably what motivated the producers to do the -stranger- season to see what kind of conflict they could stir up. I don't think it was fair to Mark to saddle him with a girl to race with when he was used to a man to carry his own weight, I don't think it was fair to Mallory to race with a strange man, I mean I wouldn't even want to race with my own sons-in-law, they're nice guys and everything but a race is something very stressful already. I think they should have gotten David (from David and Mary s10) to come race with Mark. I would've like to have seen what David could do away from Mary and having 2 guys would be more like what Mark was used to, and he is the one that was -supposed- to race, he wasn't a replacement. (and I know that would be a 3fer for David too, oh well)

Glad the Twinnies went out, they are just too loud for me and it seemed like the yelling at each other increased this time.

Didn't remember that Caroline and Jennifer came back.

I like Joey and Meghan but there are so many teams that deserved to be here more than they.