The Amazing Race: Families

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EricBess

Guest
Usually Spiderman starts these threads, but I figure there is a good chance he has last night's episode recorded somewhere...

Again, it would be good to know who all is watching.

So far, not too many opinions other than the obvious. The one family that keeps arguing needs to send their younger boy to a military school or something. That kid has absolutely no respect. Mom doesn't help the situation much, but that's no excuse and that kid has seriously got some issues.

The family with the young boy and girl is great. Hope they do well. Loved seeing them out there helping everyone with their tents. I guess if they continue with the tents and stuff (thought there is the chance they only needed them that one time), then those earlier teams will have a lot more experience setting things up...

A bit sad to see the other family with kids lose right off, but my wife was commenting that realistically, they were going to be struggling the whole way anyway, so they might as well lose early. I think the older boy handled it okay, but the other boy might have been a bit too young to be involved with something like this. He appeared to be pretty mad, and I'm not really sure he understood it was just a game and people lose. After all, a lot of what his mom was saying basically implied that all it would take was for him to do his best, "and God". Now, you have to wonder if the poor child is mad at God, or feel's he was inadequate, or is mad at Phil for "cheating him"... I hope he ends up handling it okay.

As for the Detour, it always seems they skew the descriptions, "a strong team can finish quickly"... Sorry, but a mile and a half is a very long distance just by itself. It takes time to build stuff, but most of it seemed to be already laid out and it was just a case of assembly more than building...
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Hey, finally got to see it.

Pretty much agree with everything except one (get to that later).

The arguing family definitely needs to rein in the younger kid (Paolo family?). It might be due to the stress of the competition and all, but still, you don't see the other families arguing THAT much.

Kinda like the family with the little girl (Gaghan family?) although my wife is still ambivalent about them. I thought "everyone" was helping with the tents, which was a good thing overall I guess, but I have to wonder also if it kinda cripples a team later on who will have to do it by themselves. But it also looked like they didn't strike (unless they just didn't show it) and it was a one-time thing.

Now the difference - it didn't look like the younger kid in the eliminated family was mad, it just looked like he was trying to fight back tears and avoid crying on national TV. But yeah, it would have been nice to see them go a bit farther. I always wonder why there's only one minority (or one of each sex) on these shows... they could have made it at least 1/3, if not half or something.

Yeah, I didn't realize how long a mile and a half was. I initially voted to do the Buggy but if we actually doing it, we probably would have fallen to the back half. Building seemed a lot easier and quicker.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Arggg! Saw Stomp! last night (which was an awesome show, see it if you have the chance) and forgot to tape Amazing Race. So someone's gonna have to fill me in on what happened... :(
 
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EricBess

Guest
Let's see...

The first leg involved going to some shoe house in Pennsylvania and there the got a clue telling them to go to to Washington D.C. (as an aside, it looks like this particular edition of the Amazing Race will be primarily driving rather than flying anywhere...They kept their vehicle throughout and while they didn't use the camping gear, they showed that they still had it) and finding the clue box at the reflecting pool in front of the Capital Building.

Over half the teams went to the better known reflecting pool in front of the Jefferson Memorial and got stuck. The Gaghans, in particular, who were the first at the shoe, spent a couple of hours at the the Jefferson Memorial.

Meanwhile, the Roger's family went the wrong way on the freeway to get to Washington, putting them a couple hours behind as well. They got to the Lincoln Memorial and both teams realized their mistake. By the time they got to the right pool, there were three teams way behind (I don't remember the other).

The roadblock was to exchange a breifcase with a "spy". There were 50 people with briefcases, but only 10 were spies, so they had to give a special phrase and get the correct response to know to switch. Nothing exciting happened with the roadblock.

They finally went to a Welbourne Manor, where the do a civil war reinactment. The Poalo family, in their constant bickering, waited until the last minute to refuel their car and ended up wasting a lot of time having to back track to find a gas station.

There was a traffic jam and several teams (including the third team that had been one of the last three) saved tons of time by finding an alternate route.

The two detour items seemed to be reasonably even as far as time to do them. One was to go to the reinactment and carry 5 "wounded" on stretchers. The other was to roll a cask of oil, fill 20 lamps, carry the lamps to a table, and light them.

Most teams did the carrying, but the lamps appeared to be a bit faster (but not much) and the Weavers came in first place. The second place Linz sibling were right on their tail and could be seen in the background approaching as Phil talked to the Weavers (who won a trip).

The Paolo's had a head-start on the Roger's as the last two teams. IMO, if you arrive last and you're pretty sure you are last, you should not do the same task the other team is doing unless you know you can do it faster than them. The Paolo's were moving wounded and the Roger's started doing the same, only to have to switch when it was clear they weren't gaining ground and the mom was having a tough time.

It's always hard to tell how close it is because they play things out of order, but you get the impression that if the Roger's hadn't lost time moving one wounded before switching tasks, they might have beat out the Paolo's. As it was, the Rogers ended up getting eliminated.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Thanks!

About the roadblock since it was the first: is the whole team involved or just one person still?
 
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EricBess

Guest
Still just one person. I don't remember if they said anything about limiting the number a single person could do.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Saw Tuesday's episode (didn't have to wait for the weekend!)

It seemed like once they got on the buses, it was pretty linear for the teams... whoever got to the Roadblock first got to the computer and then got to the Pitstop. Unless you got lost on the way... which seemed to be the case with the second bus and the last three teams, but it probably wasn't that close as they made it out to be.

That's about it... so the Weavers are cracking and the Paolo's are still arguing.

Oh wait, and the stubbornness of the Aiello in trying to finish the mud race after 16 attempts. It didn't say how long that took, but you figure a while.
 
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EricBess

Guest
Yeah, I thought the same thing... grabbing the little tag to order the Road Block pretty was pretty much the end of the race. I wasn't too impressed with that.

I do think that the prize they got for winning was probably the most out there and most valuable prize I've ever seen them give.

I actually received a survey call yesterday where they asked if I had seen the episode and if I could recall any product brands that I had seen or heard about in the episode. It was a survey concerning oil and gasolene anyway, so I think they were trying to see how effective giving that prize was in brand awareness.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Oh yeah, the prize was HUGE! Free gas for life? My wife and I were wondering if there was restrictions, like once a week/month or something but still... that's much better than a cruise or trip.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Managed to see last night's episode as it aired... :)

Can't believe the Paolo family got second although they got some good breaks... like getting the last 7:40 time slot despite being one of the last to arrive at the mobile home site. And then just powering their way through the logs...

I think it would have been fun to see all the teams do the Crazy Bike thing at the same time :)

Not sure why the 4-sister family thought that the BP "couldn't be 916". It was a good thing they saw the team behind them pull in AND they turned around, otherwise they might have given the Shroeder family a run for their money in the "getting lost" department.

Slightly ironic that the leg ended in New Orleans, the Shroeder family's home yet they came in last and were eliminated.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Saw last week's last night...

Not much to say. The Paolo family seems to be pulling it together - the mom stood up for herself and they bonded after the bungee jumping. The Gaghan family keeps making it, pulling into 5th even after they had to backtrack after the Paolo family got the Fast Forward (interesting that there's only one on the race). But overall, pretty bland episode.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Saw last night's episode as it aired :eek:

All of that manuvering in the beginning, like the plane and bus ride, really came to naught as everyone had to wait for the volcano park to open. Then it was up to the Detours and the Gagahn family paid the price for taking so long to find the red coffee bean. It was just bad luck. My wife was really disappointed - now she has to find another team to root for.
 
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EricBess

Guest
Yeah, that's exactly what my wife said. This episode wasn't as bad as some where this happens, but it still disappoints me when they have a lot of stuff that separates the players based on skill, only the sync them all up and then throw a luck-based challenge right before the pitstop.

This wasn't as luck-based as the tipping of hay bales which didn't all include a clue, though. I got the impression that the Gagahn mom finally found the bean when she got down on her hands and knees to sift through things. Before that, she was hoping to spot it while standing and sifting, which clearly wasn't working. So while there was a lot of luck involved in it, I can't help but think didn't do a lot to try to improve their luck. But we'll still miss them.

I don't know who we will root for, but we have a few more teams to root against. At first, rooting against the Paolo's was the way to be, but they've seemed to pull it together. My wife and I were commenting, however, that it will be interesting to see if they still pull together in episodes where they don't do so well, or if they are just a fair-weather family. So, I would like to see them fall to second-to-last (or last in a non-elimiation) before I decide whether to root for them.

As far as who to root against, I agree with a lot of teams about the Weaver family. We're christian in our family, but the way they "pray" bothers me..."please help us beat all of these lesser teams" is how it comes across to me, and then they tag on "if it be thy will" as an afterthought, the same way you would just say "amen" without even really thinking what it means. I'm not totally against them, but I wouldn't be upset to see them leave, either.

And the cat fights on the Godlewski team are getting old, too.

The Branson's are okay, but I don't think they really respect their father much and some of what they do is pretty vulgar.

Overall, I think that the Linz family is probably who we will root for, but more by default. If the Paolos can keep it together and repsect each other when they aren't doing so well as well, we'll probably keep rooting for them as well.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I agree. I'm not sure about the elder Paolo always yelling at his mom (and at his younger brother when he was getting directions), but maybe that's just the stress of the game. Not great, but that's how it is.

The Weavers definitely don't do as they say. Despite the mom's admonition that they should stay above everyone else, there's a lot of talk against the other teams.

The Linz family is probably the default.
 
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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Still need to watch the two hour episode from 11/8 but couldn't find last night's episode because of the Country Music Awards. Was that why it was two hours on 11/8 or is it supposed to air at another time this week?
 
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EricBess

Guest
Yes, it was 2-hours last week to make up for the fact that it wasn't on this week.
 
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