S30.E06: The Claws Are Out!

[meep.meep]

2 hours ago, ProfCrash said:

To make matters worse, Kafka was in the title of the task. It was embarrassing that no one figured out the number of letters, the last name Kafka and just went straight to Franz. Or when they got the F on the phone, just got to Franz. And the Globetrotters were so out of it that they took a penalty rather then write out each possible permutation, figure out the ones that made the most sense and guessed those back to back to back.

I don't know if it was a factor, but someone who is dyslexic will never be able to do that because nothing will look right to him.

I would rather watch Head-to-Heads in every single episode than watch another U-Turn.  I prefer racing to conniving.

[lexington11]

12 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

Wasn't the original telephone roadblock that you heard letters on the phone and you had to unscramble them to say "Franz Kafka"?

Close. You just had to unscramble them to spell "Franz."

[watch2much]

1 hour ago, iMonrey said:

don't really hate anyone else but at this point, I just don't care anymore. Even if the show is renewed, I might be done with it. I think it's run its course, so to speak. The two-hour blocks really made me realize it's almost a chore to sit though now.

I felt the same way last night.  I started watching and it's just not as interesting anymore.  I miss the the different pairings of years past.  I hate that a good team like well-strung had no chance last night after getting U-turned.  The head to heads take the "race" out of it.  

I'll keep watching but it is getting to be more of a chore.

That said, I'm very impressed with Team Extreme and found myself cheering for the firefighters last night.  I'd be happy with either team winning.  The firefighters are like the turtle racing the hare.  They don't get stressed, they just plow on.  They chose to stay  and do the lecture while the lifeguards were running around.  I was happy to see them do well.

I also am ok with what Jessica did.  She's very smart and thinks well on her feet.  However, they are so getting U-turned if there's another one.

Edited February 1, 2018 by watch2much
addition

[piequinn35]

I am impressed on the intelligence of the Violinists, there's nothing wrong of BB using the U-Turn, I wished there was no cooperation on the telephone or Brittany was not included in that and Violinist catched up to her and Ocean Rescue would be eliminated.

[Sara2009]

18 hours ago, Lady Calypso said:

If I remember this correctly, Brittany knows that Jessica gave them the right word...but her issue was that she dared to lie in the first place. I was flipping between channels at the time, but I don't think we were shown Jessica lying to them as they were picking up the phones. Or they did show it; either way, Brittany dared to be pissy that Jessica didn't tell them the right word before they went to check in with the guy.

I was really confused by this. The way Brittany talked  it sounded like Jessica gave them more wrong information than just the one word, but we weren’t shown that.

[ichbin]

30 minutes ago, piequinn35 said:

I am impressed on the intelligence of the Violinists, there's nothing wrong of BB using the U-Turn, I wished there was no cooperation on the telephone or Brittany was not included in that and Violinist catched up to her and Ocean Rescue would be eliminated.

I would have liked to see the Violinists and Skiers as the final two.  Both teams kept it calm, used their heads, and are good competitors.  I was sorry to see the guys eliminated.  

From the previews it looks like Brittany is going to fester on what Jessica did despite it not harming her in the long run considering she arrived at the mat earlier.  Can't say that I blame Jessica for holding  back (and costing Ocean Rescue a whole minute).   That was a smart tactical move considering they could not know if they were the final two teams to arrive at the mat that leg.    

[Charlesman]

9 hours ago, mwell345 said:

(This is the first TAR season that Phil has been getting on my nerves.  Big Time.)

 

Although this episode we got a Phil two-fer... he had to say the word Prague ("Praag") and the beer drinkers in the spa ("spaah") 

[eel2178]

20 hours ago, PoultryDancer said:

It's so stupid to put the u-turn before the dang detour.

Agreed. I also don't think they should have used in when they teams were divided onto two flights. It should have come at time after they had already leveled the playing field.

[Charlesman]

2 hours ago, piequinn35 said:

I am impressed on the intelligence of the Violinists, there's nothing wrong of BB using the U-Turn, I wished there was no cooperation on the telephone or Brittany was not included in that and Violinist catched up to her and Ocean Rescue would be eliminated.

 

I was impressed the violinists did so well on the first pass through the Copernicus test. They did great retaining a lot of info despite fatigue. I wish they'd pulled it out, they were great racers.

[chaifan]

I don't mind the U-turn, but I prefer it to be used where there is at least some chance of the u-turned team catching up.  It shouldn't be used to practically ensure elimination from that point forward.  So in this episode, they should have forbidden the teams from cooperating on the Kafka task.  Otherwise you get what happened here - one team doing each task really well but still running behind everyone with pretty much no chance at catching up.  That just makes for a boring episode in my opinion.  Sorry to see the violinists go. 

[eel2178]

20 hours ago, vousviou said:

I'm pretty sure they covered them all. Off the top of my head I can remember seven -- What was the year Copernicus's theory was published, what is the law regarding the disappearance of a distant object, how far did Cop say the Sun was, what did he say was the second farthest planet, how far away can you see a lighthouse, something something, and is the Earth round or flat?

Also: "What was the name of the second lecturer?"

[notcreative enough]

The past few episodes the indy drive seems to have been talking alot of crap about his partner when he is off doing challenges. You know the guy that he is mooching off of by sleeping on his couch. If Alex??? was actually doing something wrong sure fine but he seemed to be doing ok.

Looks like Evan let the monster out. Not sure what Henry did wrong with pouring a perfect beer and I'm not sure who he was supposed to ask. Her? Is she bartending to pay for Yale? How is her knowledge better then his. She could take a wrong turn and walk them off a cliff because he would be to afraid to tell her she made a mistake. 

I would give anything to hear from the lifeguards after they seen two teams from the second flight finish the beer task right after them. Don't know how long they sat in the lecture but it looked like Lucas was ready to fall asleep. I want them to go home so bad. If I have to hear about how they were together for 9 years again. But did he say he wanted other marry her after year 1. Why wait an additional 8 years. 

Jessica did nothing wrong keeping the answer to herself and maybe after time pasted Brittany realized that or not she stayed with a guy for 9 years. And its their own fault for not realizing the quote made no sense with the words they had. Not sure why Jessica couldn't give her answer first and avoid all this.

[zibnchy]

10 hours ago, Kelda Feegle said:

Team Yale - the nose ring may in fact be a septum piercing which means it can be flipped up inside the nose and be almost invisible which would explain why it wasn't seen in the first few episodes. I don't care enough to pause and search to confirm.

Apropos of nothing, I have a cyst on my nasal septum that, a couple of times a year, becomes inflamed and it HURTS LIKE  HELL for about a week. So when I see a piercing like this it just makes me a little queasy.

Obligatory AR content - I really like the skiers but all the teams just seem so extra bland this year. I suppose it's the lack of diversity. There's a team, maybe the Indys or maybe not, that every time I see them I wonder who they are. And I don't know anyone's name.

[piequinn35]

whoops

 

[eel2178]

5 hours ago, green said:

  Of course we never know these days because they rarely declare how much money they get for each and every leg let alone have teams discuss if they are running low or not.  So much of the strategy from classic TAR is gone or edited out these days so we have no idea if the skiers had been penny pinching so they had a nice reserve to use or if the other teams were just plain dumb.

I'd also like to know if the pit stops are still 12 hours, or if they keep teams sequestered longer due to the flight schedules or opening times of the exhibits.

[Kelda Feegle]

7 hours ago, Gummo said:

Maybe someone can help me out here --

Does anyone know how long Lucas & Brittany have been together??

 

[ducks & runs]

About 8 and a half years too long I think

[yellowfred]

2 hours ago, chaifan said:

I don't mind the U-turn, but I prefer it to be used where there is at least some chance of the u-turned team catching up.  It shouldn't be used to practically ensure elimination from that point forward.

Yeah, I think that's the reason they've started doing the double U-turn, instead of the regular one like they used to.  Theoretically, it should mean that two teams are in a bit of a head-to-head thing.  The problem is that, if only one team uses it, and it's on a team that's already in last, there's not a whole lot that team can do.

I agree that the whole u-turn thing worked a lot better when you had to finish the detour to use it.  It put a lot more pressure on all the teams during the detour tasks, plus it made for some uncertainty, since teams didn't usually know, for sure, whether other teams had finished or not.  As it went in this episode, there just wasn't much tension from the U-turn forward, because the violinists were pretty much definitely going home from the moment they got u-turned.

I also agree that, with a road block like this, there should be some rule about not working together.  Like, it's one thing if each person has to build or find something, so working together means that two (or more) of you have to then build or find two (or more) of whatever the thing was.  When it's just a code word or phrase that you have to figure out, there's no real reason not to group up, even if someone shows up when you're already halfway done and doesn't seem to contribute all that much.  Like, maybe I missed the contributions of the other two or it was an editing thing, but it kind of seemed like Jessica did almost the whole road block by herself, and then gave the other two the answer (which makes it that much more obnoxious that they were both acting like she'd done something horrible to them).

[etagloh]

Obviously, that U-Turn setup was bullshit and TPTB ought to be ashamed of themselves for putting it at the very beginning of the leg, making it dependent mostly on taxi luck and spotting the clue box. Perhaps if two teams had used it there would have been a proper contest, but the flight-splitting (semi-spoonfed or luck, doesn't really matter) set things up for second-last to put the hammer down on the last team. And Phil can shut up about Big Brother tactics to the Big Brother stuntcasts.

Otherwise, it was okay. Beer task was fun, lecture task was meh and weird because geocentrism vs heliocentrism isn't flat-earth vs round, you muppets, and nice to have the phones back. And for once we saw a team take public transit -- Henry and Evan en route to the Detour -- and not suffer terribly as a result.

Oh, Extreme or firefighters for the win now, please. Competent, good-spirited, aware of their surroundings and self-aware. They'll probably both be gone soon because we can't have nice things.

Edited February 2, 2018 by etagloh

[J-Man]

Quote

My first thought was whether that quote was enough well-known, and if the Yalies might get it with just a key word or two.

Actually, the firefighter did a much better job on it than Evan -- he was the one who figured out that "wife" should've been "life" and put the whole quote together. I was very impressed with him -- and equally unimpressed with Evan.

[Fake Jan Brady]

25 minutes ago, J-Man said:

Actually, the firefighter did a much better job on it than Evan -- he was the one who figured out that "wife" should've been "life" and put the whole quote together. I was very impressed with him -- and equally unimpressed with Evan.

Trevor the violinist guessed as well, figuring Kafka was "pretty dark".

 

9 hours ago, iMonrey said:

 . . . aaaaaaaaand I'm done with the season. I just don't give a hang about any of the remaining teams and couldn't care less who wins at this point. I knew the violinists were goners since they've been getting the also-rans edit all season long, but I didn't realize how little I cared about the other teams until they were eliminated.

Same here. Totally meh on all the other teams. I'll be going with The Amazing Race Canada when that returns, though.

[AfterwardsTV]

C students? Too generous of a label. Bet they felt so cool skipping and look down on professions not related to Ocean Rescue.

Yay a room of phones where I can't hear myself think.

Why couldn't we lose Twins before Violinists?

Doesn't even matter if Jody were able to get 6th without the U-Turn, common sense. I'm not seeing them as season villains. I think Brittany will continue to show her real colors.

Edited February 2, 2018 by AfterwardsTV

[SVNBob]

It's usually around the midpoint of the Race that Killer Fatigue stars setting in, and it definitely kicked in in this leg for a couple teams.

Ocean Rescue's gimmick is expired, so they can leave any time now.  And since they were one of the teams that got a good dose of KF on top of their existing dysfunction, it's going to happen sooner than later.  (But not soon enough.)

Big Brother reminded me of another Race Maxim: Cab Karma.  I mentioned during their post-Roadblock cab hunt that there has been a thread running throughout Race history of cab drivers being unknowing agents of karmic forces, smacking down Racers when least expected, or boosting others also unexpectedly.  (And that came up again later when we started watching TAR2 afterwards.)

[ProfCrash]

17 hours ago, meep.meep said:

I don't know if it was a factor, but someone who is dyslexic will never be able to do that because nothing will look right to him.

I would rather watch Head-to-Heads in every single episode than watch another U-Turn.  I prefer racing to conniving.

Fellow dyslexic here. I think you would have been fine. Honestly, I think that if you approach it as a logic puzzle to find a name you would be fine. Or you would do what a lot of other folks have suggested and simply write out the various permutations methodically. All of that would have taken far less then the four hour penalty that the Globetrotters took. You knew you were looking for a name. You had the last name (Kafka) in the clue. If the name Kafka didn't trigger anything for you, then you had five letters and another racer told you were one of those five letters was placed. I have seen some people remember that he was given the placement of the F or the A. The A would make it supper easy, you are left with FRNZ, FR naturally combine,  Z makes sense at the end, how many names have a z in the middle.

I never understood taking that penalty.

[snarts]

I understand the U-turn, now double u-turn, has been part of the race for years.  Still, I can't help but wonder how much more interesting this leg would've been without it.  Call me a race purist, but I loved the original premise and rules and I haven't liked any of the new additions purposely added (IMHO) to cause conflict.  

Oh, and I still miss the fast forward.  

[Special K]

15 hours ago, notcreative enough said:

 But did he say he wanted other marry her after year 1. Why wait an additional 8 years.

Year 1:  Wants to marry her.

Years 2 to 8-1/2:  Doesn't really want to marry her.

Year 9:  Eh, what the hell?  Maybe it'll get us on The Amazing Race.

[snarktini]

On 1/31/2018 at 9:23 PM, green said:

Team Yale missed the easiest detour of the race for them because it was a mystery this or that one.  I was impressed but not surprised by the firefighters doing really well at it and the violin team making mincemeat of it was pretty impressive.  

Yeah, I figured Yale would be unhappy when they found out what else they could have done.

I was so impressed by the violinists! While they seemed intelligent, that kind of memorization is special -- the very first answer, one recalled a 7 digit number correctly. I'm very good at this kind of task and still would have taking a few tries I think, given the volume of details they had to sift and recall. They did almost the whole thing in 1 shot.

On 2/1/2018 at 6:21 AM, backformore said:

I think the editors made a huge mistake in focusing so much on other teams that we never got to know the violinists. Every moment they were on, they seemed delightful. Funny, smart, appreciative of the adventure, enjoying the culture.  I was hoping for a task at some point where there musical talents would be an advantage.

They were always a bit of a non-entity, but they were gracious and delightful. Still chuckling over "earnest words of encouragement". Would have loved to see more of them and am very sorry to see them go.

On 2/1/2018 at 4:30 AM, ProfCrash said:

I was really impressed with the Firefighters. First of all, you have to be smart as hell and dedicated to be a fire fighter

I am disappointed in Henry and Evan. Talking about hen pecked. I understand that you want to make decisions as a team but how to pour beer is more then a bit micro managing. And it kept happening. With everything that they did, Evan micro managed. Every little thing. A part of me understands, they had discussed using mass transit over taxis and Henry wanted to divert from that so Evan. I have no problem with risk calculus, I use that term but I did not graduate from Yale. It probably is a sign of their education but I totally missed that they used the term because, well, it is not unusual for my husband and I to use that term.

The firefighters took *9* tries -- more than the number of questions! -- but they handled it competently and calmly. And clearly it didn't take them that long. They're growing on me.

I'll start paying more attention to Evan and Henry -- I heard some nag undercurrents in this episode, but not as much as others perceived. (I often don't listen closely to the interpersonal stuff bc I don't care much.)  I would defend her for calling him out for diverging from whatever agreement they had made -- in a race, communicating clearly and being aligned matters. It's not unreasonable to say if you want to change an agreement, you have to verbalize it.  

"Risk calculus" is something I would say :)

[ProfCrash]

1 minute ago, snarktini said:

The firefighters took *9* tries -- more than the number of questions! -- but they handled it competently and calmly. And clearly it didn't take them that long. They're growing on me.

They did take nine tries but they figured out that the best way to handle it, for them, was to get the info needed to answer the question they got wrong and go take the exam again. They did not sit in the lecture nine times, they got up at the info that they needed to answer the question. They found a strategy that worked for them and used it to their advantage. They didn't know what type of questions they would be asked the first time through, once they did, they tackled it in a way that worked for them. They might not be able memorize the info in one or two complete sittings but they recognized that and adapted. That shows intelligence and competence.

Henry did not seem upset with Evan when she questioned what he was doing so there is that. There was also Henry's comment that he is used to Evan arguing with him and her winning which implies that their relationship is not well balanced. I like how the two interact and I am hoping that I am wrong. I would have like to see Henry pushback a bit and have Evan show some respect for what Henry is saying. In the end, they have been very supportive of each other and are good racers. Their relationship is their relationship and they are the only ones who have to be comfortable with how they communicate.

[blackwing]

The thing that bugged me about Evan is her incessant need to be correct.  She seems particularly passive aggressive.  She wants her way but she does so calmly so Henry feels almost ashamed that he disagreed with her.  When he wanted to get a cab she says "we had talked about this.  We are going to take public transportation".   And then they did.

I guess I would need more context to understand exactly where they were and how far they were going, but there would definitely be times in a city where public transportation might not be the best choice, if the destination isn't that near a stop or if the trains are infrequent.  But she was absolute in that they were going to do it.  Money no longer seems to be a concern on TAR so I think it was a risky move considering their unfamiliarity with the system and the fact that no one else did it.

With each passing week, her nickname of "Hen" seems so appropriate for him.  He's henpecked and he doesn't seem to care.  

I thought Evan was attractive in the first few episodes but this episode, when she wasn't wearing a hat... her stringy straw blonde hair and unfortunate nose made her look more and more like a witch.

[snarktini]

3 minutes ago, ProfCrash said:

They did take nine tries but they figured out that the best way to handle it, for them, was to get the info needed to answer the question they got wrong and go take the exam again. They did not sit in the lecture nine times, they got up at the info that they needed to answer the question. They found a strategy that worked for them and used it to their advantage.

Yes it was a good strategy. Still, I was surprised it didn't take longer. (Hard to be sure. I wish TAR showed clock timers but obviously I get why they don't.) The lectures appeared to be on a loop, so whenever a team entered the room they simply started at that point. Each time through, the firefighters would have re-entered at a random point and simply have had to wait til their next answer rolled around. That might take a few seconds or a whole loop, depending on luck. The lectures must have been pretty short, just a few minutes each?, for them to do this 9 times without falling behind.

[backformore]

20 minutes ago, snarktini said:

They were always a bit of a non-entity, but they were gracious and delightful. Still chuckling over "earnest words of encouragement". Would have loved to see more of them and am very sorry to see them go.

(the violinists)  They were only a "non-entity" because the editors felt that the other teams were more interesting.  It would have been a better show, in  my opinion, if there was more focus on them because they were witty and fun.  

[ProfCrash]

11 minutes ago, snarktini said:

Yes it was a good strategy. Still, I was surprised it didn't take longer. (Hard to be sure. I wish TAR showed clock timers but obviously I get why they don't.) The lectures appeared to be on a loop, so whenever a team entered the room they simply started at that point. Each time through, the firefighters would have re-entered at a random point and simply have had to wait til their next answer rolled around. That might take a few seconds or a whole loop, depending on luck. The lectures must have been pretty short, just a few minutes each?, for them to do this 9 times without falling behind.

I think I read or heard that the entire lecture was 16 minutes. No idea where I saw/heard that, probably on Rob Has a Podcast or somewhere on this board. The quiz it self was pretty short. It looked like a good number of the teams got lost trying to bring the keg to the boat, most of them did not seem to get that the name on the directions was the name of a boat or that they were looking for a river. There is an additional scene that shows Cody and Jessica driving to the beer task and they see Brittney and Lucas trying to get to the boat. Brittney and Lucas are clearly lost. We know that Brittney and Lucas were on the first flight and that Cody and Jessica went to the lecture first, the fact that they saw Brittney and Lucas delivering the keg tells us how badly lost they got.

[Pallas]

On 2/1/2018 at 9:21 AM, backformore said:

I think the editors made a huge mistake in focusing so much on other teams that we never got to know the violinists.

This was the last episode before the show competes against the Olympics. My guess is that the producers didn't want to set us up to turn away from the show when a big favorite was eliminated after leg 6. And that this week, the upcoming head-to-head of Race vs. Olympics explains Phil's rather breathless mat-chats to hype the rest of the season. 

[snarktini]

13 minutes ago, Winston9-DT3 said:

I think a chyron said Britney/Lucas were lost for over an hour?  

 

yes

[chaifan]

I liked the overhead map showing where teams were in relation to the boat they were aiming for.  I think this would have been great in the Gnome zipline episode, to show where they were in the souk and how much running around took place. 

Is it too late to petition the moderators to add a forum where people can list links to post-episode interviews, podcasts, volgs, blogs, etc. from the racers?  I know someone has posted a link to post-episode blogs by Kristi/Jen, but that's about all I've seen here. 

[lexington11]

23 hours ago, Sara2009 said:

I was really confused by this. The way Brittany talked  it sounded like Jessica gave them more wrong information than just the one word, but we weren’t shown that.

Brittany's been known to exaggerate the facts. This is the same person who thought that Jessica intentionally planned to steal her gnome, never mind the fact that all Jessica did was put it on the ground when she saw that Brittany had run off without it.

[lexington11]

10 hours ago, SVNBob said:

 

Big Brother reminded me of another Race Maxim: Cab Karma.  I mentioned during their post-Roadblock cab hunt that there has been a thread running throughout Race history of cab drivers being unknowing agents of karmic forces, smacking down Racers when least expected, or boosting others also unexpectedly.  (And that came up again later when we started watching TAR2 afterwards.)

Best example of that cab karma was displayed in the S6 double leg, when the cab driver flat out kicked Jonathan out of his cab because he couldn't stand to listen to more yelling. Big time karma for shoving Victoria at the mat on the previous pit stop all over a second place finish.

[jhlipton]

On ‎1‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 6:11 PM, Lady Calypso said:

Not that I think Daniel and Evan were wrong in teaming up. I know there are certain situations where teaming up is actually a good idea, and this was one of them.

They knew Jen and Kristi were well ahead of them, so they were unlikely to get 1st place.  Anything between first and last is relatively meaningless, so it definitely made sense to team up.

On ‎1‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 7:09 PM, backformore said:

Doesn't it seem like some tasks are too easy this season? Maybe it's me, but it seems the local judges are no longer just saying No, without explanation. One example is the beer task. At least one team was told that the beer required a two finger foam head, after doing it wrong the first time. It seems to me that this is a change this season. I wonder if all teams are given the extra help.

To be fair, the pouring was only a third of the task (and probably the easiest part).  Even with the brewmeister's help, the task took longer than the lecture.

 

On ‎1‎/‎31‎/‎2018 at 8:59 PM, Corgi-ears said:

Underrated joke of the week: violinist, when one of the spa men pulls out a clue from underwater, "Where did that clue come from?!"

You mean 'from underbeer"!

[Pallas]

2 hours ago, chaifan said:

Is it too late to petition the moderators to add a forum where people can list links to post-episode interviews, podcasts, volgs, blogs, etc. from the racers? 

Existing thread: TAR in the Media. Scroll on down!

[Miles]

The moment the violinists took the subway I knew they were done for. It's one of the most important rules of the amazing race, right after "Read your clue!" that states "The subway is always slower, no matter how often locals tell you that it's faster."

[ProfCrash]

Evan and Henry took the metro this episode. I think there are good reasons for using the metro. It saves money and might be faster due to traffic and/or bad drivers.

[etagloh]

I was glad that Evan and Henry seemed to do okay from their metro trip at Evan's insistence (which probably involved one change) because of the TAR unwritten rule about public transit working against you when the cab option is available. That said, the leg winners were the ones that kept the same cab from start to finish and paid for the privilege. If TPTB were careful enough with money that committing to a single-cab leg cost you later on, I'd be fine with that, though it'd probably be inexplicable television. 

[chaifan]

5 hours ago, Pallas said:

Existing thread: TAR in the Media. Scroll on down!

Yes, that's where they should be, but there are no links there to any post race interviews, blogs, etc. from this season.  That's why there should be a separate thread.

[PreBabylonia]

1 hour ago, chaifan said:

Yes, that's where they should be, but there are no links there to any post race interviews, blogs, etc. from this season.  That's why there should be a separate thread.

I just added a link. But you're right, there aren't any other exit interviews posted, so it may need to go elsewhere, depending on the mods decision.

[jhlipton]

6 hours ago, Miles said:

The moment the violinists took the subway I knew they were done for. It's one of the most important rules of the amazing race, right after "Read your clue!" that states "The subway is always slower, no matter how often locals tell you that it's faster."

Here in Los Angeles, the train can be faster than the roads, especially if there's any kind of tangle on the 5.  It's about 45 minutes from where I live in southeast LA County to Downtown by train, and 30 minutes minimum by car.

[Miles]

6 hours ago, ProfCrash said:

Evan and Henry took the metro this episode. I think there are good reasons for using the metro. It saves money and might be faster due to traffic and/or bad drivers.

And they fell behind quite a bit. They did make up time later, since they are good racers otherwise, but had they taken a Taxi, they might have made number one. It has never paid off to take public transport in the entire history of TAR. And sure, you save a bit of money, but money hasn't been tight in 15 seasons, as production didn't like the racers starving and dehydrating themselves for fear of running out of money. Also some teams begging in poor countries didn't look that great either.

 

5 hours ago, etagloh said:

If TPTB were careful enough with money that committing to a single-cab leg cost you later on, I'd be fine with that, though it'd probably be inexplicable television. 

Sadly not going to happen, because of afformentioned reasons.

I'm not even sure if racers are still alowed to keep money through multiple legs. I think that was changed a while ago.

 

1 hour ago, jhlipton said:

Here in Los Angeles, the train can be faster than the roads, especially if there's any kind of tangle on the 5.  It's about 45 minutes from where I live in southeast LA County to Downtown by train, and 30 minutes minimum by car.

Yes, all locals say that. And it might even be true in rush hour traffic, but it has never been true on TAR. People who took puclic transport when they could have taken a Taxi always fell massively behind.

Edited February 3, 2018 by Miles

[green]

19 hours ago, Miles said:

And they fell behind quite a bit. They did make up time later, since they are good racers otherwise, but had they taken a Taxi, they might have made number one. It has never paid off to take public transport in the entire history of TAR.

Yes it has.  I can't cite chapter and verse but I remember times where teams that took subways or commuter trains beat out teams in cabs to different detours and roadblocks in the race.  To say it usually is better; that I would agree with.  But never?  Nay.

[Miles]

2 minutes ago, green said:

Yes it has.  I can't cite chapter and verse but I remember times where teams that took subways or commuter trains beat out teams in cabs to different detours and roadblocks in the race.  To say it usually is better; that I would agree with.  But never?  Nay.

I have seen all seasons and I don't remember one instance. So I'd actually like a citation there. If you can think of one let me know. Till then I'll stand by my "never".

[green]

1 hour ago, Miles said:

I have seen all seasons and I don't remember one instance. So I'd actually like a citation there. If you can think of one let me know. Till then I'll stand by my "never".

And I've seen all season too.  But citing something this minor isn't within my abilities.  I just know I absolutely have seen it work.  Like I remember a few times commuter rail from an airport was faster than taking a taxi.  Where and when these occurred I can't say but it happen more than once for sure.  So we will agree to disagree.

[Lakebum]

On 2/1/2018 at 12:59 PM, Gummo said:

Maybe someone can help me out here --

Does anyone know how long Lucas & Brittany have been together??

 

[ducks & runs]

Six episodes... :-)

[amazingracefan]

On 2/1/2018 at 5:40 PM, ProfCrash said:

There was an entire conference of flat earthers, complete with flat earth maps for sale, recently. At least one numbnut is trying to prove the earth is flat by launching himself off in a rocket but has been halted due to lack of the appropriate permits. The sad truth is that there are some people who believe in a flat earth. I kind of wanted Cody to end up at that task just so that we could see his reaction to the debate. I am hopeful that it is a small percentage of people but who knows.

With the internet now all kinds of small cults could get more notice, but it really hasn't been anything like received wisdom from some time back in antiquity.  The only reason to put it in the program with the Copernicus stuff was for humour.

 

On 2/1/2018 at 6:25 PM, green said:

It is to an extent.  But the limited money factor prevents everyone from doing that I'd guess.  The fact that the Yale team took public transportation to either save money to use for cab fares later or because they were running low was interesting to me.  Of course we never know these days because they rarely declare how much money they get for each and every leg let alone have teams discuss if they are running low or not.  So much of the strategy from classic TAR is gone or edited out these days so we have no idea if the skiers had been penny pinching so they had a nice reserve to use or if the other teams were just plain dumb.

They couldn't write anything down inside the telephone room.  They had to right it all down inside the room where the "inspector" was.  Or do you mean some others were writing in the telephone room?  If so I missed that.

Actually I am the opposite.  I love when teams work together.  It shows which teams are semi-allies and when working together makes sense or not etc etc.  It provides more strategic decisions too as to when helping others helps you as well. 

And if say you think helping a weaker team to stay in helps you it can also have an unexpected effect like the almost family-like bonding that occurred in Season 1 between The Frats and Momily.  Which lead to that classic roadblock in Tunisia where Drew and Emily teamed up at the Roman coliseum there at El Gem.  It was such a sweet moment with Kevin and Emily on top shouting encouragements to them.  Then Kevin works the train connections for them all and another team in Italy. I remember those moments clearly and have now for 17 years.  So yeah they were memorable to me.

But then I don't give a damn about the "race" part and never have.  That isn't why I watch this show.  Just the "amazing" part which seems less and less each season with all the reality show cheap artificial crap thrown in.  To me it is still "an adventure of a lifetime" shared by those on that magical quest.  Unfortunately people must fall by the wayside but I love when the teams are trying to help one another for as long as they possibly can without getting eliminated themselves.  Those are the teams I always root for.

I watch lots of baseball and football for heavy, competitive stuff.  And races of all kinds are a dime a dozen.  But the "amazing' bit is a whole other thing.  And allows for a whole other level to what a "race" can be.

I watch this show because "it is a race like no other in history" (second quote here from Phil's voiceover of the titles that first season).  Which means you can race and still stop and smell the roses.  Or shop in Hong Kong and casually stroll to a travel agency and end up with a free complimentary ride to the airport in a Benz was it because you are sweet guys and calm and polite and end up finishing first over the hard core maniacs fighting each other at the airport counter on that legendary leg. 

That is why this "race" is so magically.  It isn't just another cut throat win at all costs competition because you can still win or place high by cooperating at times as well as taking time to be polite to the locals and stopping to admire a view.  It is this unique nature of the "race" that has made it so special to me over the years.

Well from my background I like the competitive US shows, I see enough team shows from other places (like UK).

And I really don't think there is another actual race show out there.  The Amazing Race feels unique in that respect.  There were some attempts at race shows back when more ideas were being tried out in reality tv (most over 10 years ago), but none of that from what I've either seen or just read (it's hard to see older reality shows) lasted much more than a season.