Amazing Race: All-Stars

[Spiderman]

I think the airport determining the results has largely been a fluke for this season; I mean, this is what, the 11th season and none of the past ones have been determined by this.

And it just seems flights are pretty much booked solid no matter what the time or place, due to a variety of reasons. So I'm inclined to just roll with it, as disappointing TV it might make right now

 

[EricBess]

Yeah, I think you are right. There is a lot more security and other issues with airports than they have had in the past. I just don't foresee the airport security issue changing, so I hope the producers adjust things a bit to compensate so that future seasons aren't repeats of this one.

It's very unfortunate that this happens during an All-Star edition.

 

[Spiderman]

Well, this one was better in that there were two catchup periods, one to get the Tower open and then one to wait for the Skyjump to open. So nominally there were three teams vying for the Yield.

Except of course Oswald and Danny made the money deal.

I can understand why they did it, thanks to Danny blowing all of their money way back on the recycle paper challenge. It's just unfortunate that Myrna and Charla didn't tell them earlier about them willing to give money with no strings attached.

But Eric and Danielle got some lucky breaks when O&D couldn't do all of their challenges in time. 30 minute penalty AND a Yield? Wow...

 

[EricBess]

Yes, but it took both of the catch-ups just to get Eric and Danielle even close, and then they get yeilded (effectively by the beauty queens)...But that's just recovery from past shows. Hopefully this episode is more of an indication of things to come in terms of what opportunities there are for people to get ahead.

I thought it was interesting that the beauty queens twisted the truth about what happened at the yield. They have to realize that eventually, Eric and Danielle will talk to Oswald and Danny and find out the truth.

I also thought it was interesting that there were two non-elimination rounds in a row. It sort of negates the 1/2 hour penalty from last week. I mean - if Oswald and Danny had snuck in 5-minutes before the penalty ran out, Phil would be, "Okay Eric and Danielle, you get to be marked again next week"...

Let's face it, a 1/2 hour penalty can be bad, but look at what they already overcame -Not only the 30 minute penalty and the yield, but I'd guess they were already 1/2 hour to 1 hour behind just arriving at the tower in the first place.

Although - the nature of the jump challenge spread the teams out quite a bit anyway and part of the waiting for the yield just kept them from having to wait for the team in front of them at the jump.

 

[Spiderman]

Yeah, I would have thought that the beauty queens "distortion" would have come out sometime, but either it wasn't shown or Eric & Danielle chose not to follow up on it since they were so mad.

Actually, I thought if E&D didn't make it, they would have been eliminated instead of marked for elimination again. But since the situation didn't come up, I guess we'll have to wait and see if there's a next time.

Saw last night's, and from the starting times, it looks like D&O were majorly lost and wasting time. I mean, there was like a 2 1/2 hr gap between E&D and D&O. So I guess it wasn't as close as they made it out to be

Thoughts on last night:

D&O were very lucky to make that connection, otherwise they would have pulled a "Uchenna/Joyce" But it didn't matter after all... everyone was pretty neck to neck after landing but D&O got lost yet again going to the Roadblock, so they lost time there that they could ill afford. The Detour was cool though; well, the Care Package was. The Cleaning... not so much.

The Roadblock was cool too though; it was funny that the guy Danny was supposed to "rescue" got up and moved closer out into the open

Of the top three, we think E&D are the ones with the least "strikes" against them, in our minds. We aren't really rooting for anyone, but they're the lesser of the three "evils"

 

[EricBess]

Probably on the flight. It's tough to tell since they didn't really have to worry about it. In previous seasons, missing a flight usually meant getting on the next flight and you were as much as 2 hours behind. The problem this season seems to have been that there have been several missed flights that ended up costing a day or more. Recovering from 2 hours happens all the time. Recovering from a day isn't so easy.

The flight wasn't very full from what I saw, so going standby on the next flight probably wouldn't have been a big deal, but there wasn't any indication of when the next flight would have been. There was a catch-up point, so even if they had to wait for the next morning, it probably wouldn't have been as bad as some this season have been.

I would have thought that even with the 1/2 hour to deliver the care package, it would have been faster, but apparently it wasn't since all of the teams that did the cleaning were ahead of Charla and Myrna. I think Charla and Myrna still made the best choice for them, though. Charla's lack of height would have really hurt them trying to clean the flap. The other teams looked like they kept switching who was scrubbing, so I'm guessing that was very tiring.

I noticed the same thing about Danny in the roadblock. The guy was always visible, but right before Danny found him, it seemed like he stood out more. The sun might have shifted, but... I think the tag-along guy was starting to really get impatient with Charla. Although, I also wonder if there was specific "rules" as to when they had a tag-along. Danielle had the same problem as Charla, but once she had someone point out to her what she was doing wrong, she was fine. Charla, on the other hand, was told at least 5 times to not touch the buttons and/or screen.

There are a few of the teams that have already gone home that I would have liked to have seen win over Eric and Danielle, but of the three final teams (or 4, for that matter), they are the only ones that I feel are deserving in terms of personality. The beauty queens have really been hitting the challenges hard recently, so I think they have the best chance of winning. I just can't stand how arrogant they always seem.

 

[Spiderman]

Yeah, I don't think a lot of people go to Guam, but on the flip side, that might mean that not a lot of flights go there period and a team missing the flight would have to wait longer. But I guess we'll never know (unless it happens in the future )

My wife saw the guy move out so the sun didn't shift And yeah, that was funny how Charla kept hitting the screen or buttons and was repeatedly told not to.

 

[Spiderman]

Well, the finale was a bit of a downer. I guess a lack of any real desire to see any of them win contributed to it. The last challenge was kind of goofy in that the other two teams didn't even have to "finish it" really, they got the final clue after the ten minutes was up. They should have stayed until they got it right - maybe go to Mastermind-type clues to help them solve it after ten minutes, but they should have had to solve it.

 

[EricBess]

I missed the first half-hour, so I don't know what happened up until the final flight. However, all teams made it to the final flight, so they were neck-in-neck going into the final challenge.

I completely agree with the final challenge. There were only 4 questions. All they had to do was write down to 2-3 people that their teammate could have possibly chosen for each question. If you narrow each question down to 3 teams, then you only have 81 combinations to try. Each combination takes less than 5 seconds to punch in and "verify" at worst. So, a systematic approach will get you through the combinations in 7-8 minutes.

The teams were so focused on "getting it right" that they spent more time trying to figure out who their teammate would have put than trying combinations. But there was absolutely no reason to give them a 10-minute bail-out period. I don't ever remember a final challenge with that before.

I actually liked the way they did the final challenge - how well do you and your teammate think alike? or how well did you communicate about other teams? But that bail-out period was stupid. If two teams managed to finish pretty close and then one maybe passes the other on the way to the pitstop, that suspenseful and cool. But if either of the other two had managed to pass Eric and Danielle, who were the only team to actually complete the final challenge, then it would have been pretty lame.

I always think their endings are a bit lack-luster anyway. The "reunion show" for Survivor or even The Apprentice adds a bit of closure that The Amazing Race has never had.

In the end, of the three teams left, I was glad Eric and Danielle won. Their biggest weakness throughout was that they weren't as agressive at the airports and frequently ended up getting stuck with bad flights. Some of those they probably couldn't have done anything about anyway.

 

[Spiderman]

I don't even remember the first half hour, it was so uneventful. I looked around the Net a bit and saw that a Roadblock was edited out when they were in Hawaii. I don't even remember the Detour.

Yeah, I like the idea of questions for the challenge, it didn't even have to be the final one, but giving it to them after 10 minutes was bull.

And yeah, E&D were the best out of the three to win, but I wasn't jumping for joy about it