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spiderbraidsSo, a new season of The Amazing Race started a couple weeks ago, and I will admit that this was announced on much less notice than previous seasons. Anyways, we got a whole lot of interesting teams, including a team that proudly declares itself a Goth couple. This oughta be interesting (especially since one of my online friends is a self-professed Goth :-) )
But first, we have some unfinished business to attend to.
At this link you can read about why I didn't get to watch the All-Stars finale in first-run broadcasts. Well, just before TAR12 began, All-Stars was rerun in its entirety, and I got to watch the finale. So:
1. So we're in Guam, and I get to see Eric being all bitter about losing to the hippies. Interestingly, in TAR12 there's a couple (TK/Rachel) that people are calling the hippies.
2. Anyways, flying to Hawaii, by way of Japan. If there's anything Charla/Mirna are good at, it's getting better flights that other teams. We even get to see Charla roll on her miniskates. This little maneuver gave them a 40 minute lead heading into Hawaii.
3. Hawaii. Next is a detour, and one of the choices was TOTALLY built for Charla and her midget-sized physique: stand on top of a surfboard, and use an oar paddle to get to the next clue. Mirna had a little trouble with it with her height and all. Charla: "Low to the ground, that's my technique :-)" Wonder what ddrfan might have to say about that?
4. The other detour was to dive into a cave and retrieve a clue. This was for Eric/Danielle and Dustin/Kandice. Yes, it's dangerous as it sounds.
5. Next is the unimaginatively-named Shipwreck Beach. We get to see Mirna yelling at Charla for letting her opponents pass her. Um, maybe that has a little to do with Charla's physique... Anyways, the task was to row out to some buoy right in front of the shipwreck. And if you've ever rowed against the tide, you'd know how difficult it was. It was so difficult, a good amount of air time was devoted to Dustin/Kandice (out of all the teams) getting frustrated in the car on their way back to the airport.
6. Final city is San Francisco, but (I've been told) production made them fly in to Oakland. Final task was at the State Mint in SF. The task: match your friend's answers to questions. No, seriously. D/K didn't make things any easier for themselves when Dustin changed one of her answers, making the task that much more difficult for Kandice to complete, since she had TWO wrong on the first go instead of one. E/D completed the task, while the other teams timed out at 10 minutes.
7. Seriously, what kind of final task was that??? E/D finished 1st and got a phone call to Eric's previous partner Jeremy. Awkward much?
And now, let's get the bad taste of this season out of our mouths.
1. LA. Yeah, so we're introducing the teams by driving them to Playboy Mansion (I mean, seriously???) on vintage roadsters. There are some bickering couples and lots of LA teams (gee, what a surprise [/sarcasm]), but the most interesting team this go-round is Kynt and Vyxsin (Television Without Pity, a site for entertaining TAR recaps, just calls them Kent and Vixen) from Louisville, KY. This team had much pre-hate going against them, but whatever. First city: Shannon, Ireland.
2. Wow, some really old guy just cussed. So this Donald guy watched TAR on TV and thought, "[Heck,] I could do that." Should be interesting...
3. So the first task is to get on ferries to some island... and sign up for ferries to get off the island the next day. TWoP thinks that there was a task missing here, and in fact says that many tasks have been edited out of broadcasts for time. I wouldn't be surprised. When TAR season 1 was put out on DVD, they included a Roadblock which was not part of the original premiere episode. In fact, you usually don't have Roadblocks in season premieres...
4. But this time around there is. It involves biking on a high wire rope. Roadblocker bikes, other player hangs from a boom underneath the bike. I am not making this up. Before we get there though, more conventional biking on tandems. The highlight: Kynt/Vyxsin having to shove their bike after breaking their chains. And they did it with such class, with nary the kind of freak-out that the TAR editors think makes for good television.
5. The editors would get their freak-outs later in the leg when a couple teams ended up having trouble getting their donkeys to move. The fans say animal tasks always make for good television. Ever since a contestant famously freaked out over a "broken" water buffalo in the Phillipines way back in TAR5, that's very true.
6. Azaria/Hendekea actually had trouble keeping up with their donkey, and overtook a team on their way to the Pitstop to finish first, right ahead of the Goths.
7. Meanwhile, one of the two teams that had trouble with their donkey were eliminated. Ari/Staella will not be missed. (Yes, the extra "a" is there, so it's pronounced like "stale". I guess, even more rotten than Stella? ;-) )
8. Leg 2, and we're moving on to Amsterdam. Hey, my sister goes to uni in Rotterdam... While heading to the airport, the Goths said that they dwell in the dark. Wow. How... stereotypical. Meanwhile, Kate/Pat (ministers) said that God isn't interested in who wins TAR. Interesting, considering how much the last religious TAR team sucked (not performance wise, but personality wise).
9. TAR editors think fighting makes for good television, and so we're subject to Donald and Ronald getting verbal against each other at Dublin airport while waiting for standby tickets. Blah, blah, blah. First clue is at some bridge in Amsterdam, and today we're doing a detour between lifting things with rope and finding a bike in a bike park. Vyxsin did the lifting detour because she learned macrame, and compared it with Bugs Bunny cartoons of all things. TK/Rachel showed how hard this detour could be without the proper knot-tying technique, while blondes Shana/Jennifer (what, more blondes on the race?) had a different kind of trouble: that the furniture was lifting them :-) (There are two Jennifers on this race. Might get confusing.)
10. At the bike finding, Ronald was being mean to Christina. I'm reminded a lot of my own dad being all whiny-whiny.
11. Next part of the race is in some field in the countryside, with the Roadblock: pole vault across a mud stream. Apparently, the Dutch do this to get around muddy fields. Some of the contestants got it the first time. The Goths continued to be entertaining when they thought that the task might have had something to do with the sheep in the field.
12. Meanwhile, Donald struggled with the pole vault, leading to the creepy image of grandpa in his undies. EW! And Ronald kept schooling Christina on it. Nag, nag, nag... Whatever.
13. After the Roadblock, a ride to the Pitstop in "Bakfiets" bikes. Lorena/Jason (one of the dating couples... blech!) were first, while the ministers were eliminated. In between, Ronald compared himself to Archie Bunker, and we found out that Donald actually performed this Roadblock naked at one point. EWW!
14. Next week (actually, later tonight), camel milking. The preview showed Lorena freaking out, and the fans are already picking on it.
But first, we have some unfinished business to attend to.
At this link you can read about why I didn't get to watch the All-Stars finale in first-run broadcasts. Well, just before TAR12 began, All-Stars was rerun in its entirety, and I got to watch the finale. So:
1. So we're in Guam, and I get to see Eric being all bitter about losing to the hippies. Interestingly, in TAR12 there's a couple (TK/Rachel) that people are calling the hippies.
2. Anyways, flying to Hawaii, by way of Japan. If there's anything Charla/Mirna are good at, it's getting better flights that other teams. We even get to see Charla roll on her miniskates. This little maneuver gave them a 40 minute lead heading into Hawaii.
3. Hawaii. Next is a detour, and one of the choices was TOTALLY built for Charla and her midget-sized physique: stand on top of a surfboard, and use an oar paddle to get to the next clue. Mirna had a little trouble with it with her height and all. Charla: "Low to the ground, that's my technique :-)" Wonder what ddrfan might have to say about that?
4. The other detour was to dive into a cave and retrieve a clue. This was for Eric/Danielle and Dustin/Kandice. Yes, it's dangerous as it sounds.
5. Next is the unimaginatively-named Shipwreck Beach. We get to see Mirna yelling at Charla for letting her opponents pass her. Um, maybe that has a little to do with Charla's physique... Anyways, the task was to row out to some buoy right in front of the shipwreck. And if you've ever rowed against the tide, you'd know how difficult it was. It was so difficult, a good amount of air time was devoted to Dustin/Kandice (out of all the teams) getting frustrated in the car on their way back to the airport.
6. Final city is San Francisco, but (I've been told) production made them fly in to Oakland. Final task was at the State Mint in SF. The task: match your friend's answers to questions. No, seriously. D/K didn't make things any easier for themselves when Dustin changed one of her answers, making the task that much more difficult for Kandice to complete, since she had TWO wrong on the first go instead of one. E/D completed the task, while the other teams timed out at 10 minutes.
7. Seriously, what kind of final task was that??? E/D finished 1st and got a phone call to Eric's previous partner Jeremy. Awkward much?
And now, let's get the bad taste of this season out of our mouths.
1. LA. Yeah, so we're introducing the teams by driving them to Playboy Mansion (I mean, seriously???) on vintage roadsters. There are some bickering couples and lots of LA teams (gee, what a surprise [/sarcasm]), but the most interesting team this go-round is Kynt and Vyxsin (Television Without Pity, a site for entertaining TAR recaps, just calls them Kent and Vixen) from Louisville, KY. This team had much pre-hate going against them, but whatever. First city: Shannon, Ireland.
2. Wow, some really old guy just cussed. So this Donald guy watched TAR on TV and thought, "[Heck,] I could do that." Should be interesting...
3. So the first task is to get on ferries to some island... and sign up for ferries to get off the island the next day. TWoP thinks that there was a task missing here, and in fact says that many tasks have been edited out of broadcasts for time. I wouldn't be surprised. When TAR season 1 was put out on DVD, they included a Roadblock which was not part of the original premiere episode. In fact, you usually don't have Roadblocks in season premieres...
4. But this time around there is. It involves biking on a high wire rope. Roadblocker bikes, other player hangs from a boom underneath the bike. I am not making this up. Before we get there though, more conventional biking on tandems. The highlight: Kynt/Vyxsin having to shove their bike after breaking their chains. And they did it with such class, with nary the kind of freak-out that the TAR editors think makes for good television.
5. The editors would get their freak-outs later in the leg when a couple teams ended up having trouble getting their donkeys to move. The fans say animal tasks always make for good television. Ever since a contestant famously freaked out over a "broken" water buffalo in the Phillipines way back in TAR5, that's very true.
6. Azaria/Hendekea actually had trouble keeping up with their donkey, and overtook a team on their way to the Pitstop to finish first, right ahead of the Goths.
7. Meanwhile, one of the two teams that had trouble with their donkey were eliminated. Ari/Staella will not be missed. (Yes, the extra "a" is there, so it's pronounced like "stale". I guess, even more rotten than Stella? ;-) )
8. Leg 2, and we're moving on to Amsterdam. Hey, my sister goes to uni in Rotterdam... While heading to the airport, the Goths said that they dwell in the dark. Wow. How... stereotypical. Meanwhile, Kate/Pat (ministers) said that God isn't interested in who wins TAR. Interesting, considering how much the last religious TAR team sucked (not performance wise, but personality wise).
9. TAR editors think fighting makes for good television, and so we're subject to Donald and Ronald getting verbal against each other at Dublin airport while waiting for standby tickets. Blah, blah, blah. First clue is at some bridge in Amsterdam, and today we're doing a detour between lifting things with rope and finding a bike in a bike park. Vyxsin did the lifting detour because she learned macrame, and compared it with Bugs Bunny cartoons of all things. TK/Rachel showed how hard this detour could be without the proper knot-tying technique, while blondes Shana/Jennifer (what, more blondes on the race?) had a different kind of trouble: that the furniture was lifting them :-) (There are two Jennifers on this race. Might get confusing.)
10. At the bike finding, Ronald was being mean to Christina. I'm reminded a lot of my own dad being all whiny-whiny.
11. Next part of the race is in some field in the countryside, with the Roadblock: pole vault across a mud stream. Apparently, the Dutch do this to get around muddy fields. Some of the contestants got it the first time. The Goths continued to be entertaining when they thought that the task might have had something to do with the sheep in the field.
12. Meanwhile, Donald struggled with the pole vault, leading to the creepy image of grandpa in his undies. EW! And Ronald kept schooling Christina on it. Nag, nag, nag... Whatever.
13. After the Roadblock, a ride to the Pitstop in "Bakfiets" bikes. Lorena/Jason (one of the dating couples... blech!) were first, while the ministers were eliminated. In between, Ronald compared himself to Archie Bunker, and we found out that Donald actually performed this Roadblock naked at one point. EWW!
14. Next week (actually, later tonight), camel milking. The preview showed Lorena freaking out, and the fans are already picking on it.
