TAR: US 12x09, Asia 2x08
Jan. 14th, 2008 02:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsRecaps for both TAR US and TAR Asia coming right up.
Two weeks ago on TAR US, the last two remaining teams who had not won a leg yet duked it out in India to avoid elimination. In the end, Jen carried propane tanks better than the Goths to book their place in the final 4. Let's move on.
1. The next destination was Osaka, Japan, which kind of dismayed some supporters of the Goths (I will admit right here that I was pulling for the Goths until they got elimmed, though I was meh about them not getting to race in Japan), since apparently there's a good amount of Goth culture over there.
Anyways, we got to see Ron and Chris get worked up in the morning over their cabbie dropping them off at the wrong airport door, and Chris saying "Please leave me alone" in Chinese. Chris went to Japan for 6 months to learn Japanese.
2. TK and Rachel got a flight from a hotel travel agent that left at 6:55pm, while the rest got a flight that left about 90 minutes later. Buuut TK and Rachel had two stops against the others' one stop, so they ended up in Japan 4 hours behind. Whoops. We'll catch up with them later.
3. Back in Japan, Jen was in 1st. Don was totally expecting Chris to do well in Japan because she "went to one of those faultin' colleges". After a little hustling around some castle's grounds to get to the next clue box, they went to some train station to pick up their next clue from some guy with a squeegee. While heading to the train station in a cab, Chris noted it was too confusing and she was glad she didn't have to drive.
4. Next clue was a Roadblock and it asked for the back-seat driver. You were expecting a navigation task, you say? Erm, not really. It was a self-driving task in which the Roadblocker was to dress up as a taxi chaffeur, take a piece of paper from a couple with their destination written in Japanese, and drive there and back, all without inviting a Fern on board or getting help from the couple. Naturally, this meant lots of getting off the cab to ask for directions. While others had to ask people on the street just to tell them what was written on the card, Chris the Japanese student understood the destination immediately (it was a post office), but it took her quite some time to just get the engine started. Did we mention that she doesn't drive? While the others were driving, the show padded its run time by showing a nice scene of Ron and Don eating some snacks. Heh.
5. Jen was still in 1st when they got their clue to a temple. And at the temple, another clue box, this time with the Detour. Touch called for racers to use cell phones to manipulate robots into scoring a goal. To paraphrase Dave Barry, I am not making this up. And I am also not making this up when I say that Nick and Don (as in GRANDPA Don) picked this one. Smell had racers going to some flower shop to find a real flower amongst thousands of fake flowers. Needle in a haystack, much? Yet everyone else did this.
6. Triv: Nick and Don are related to singer Robbie Fulks. Again, not making this up. As you probably expected, Nick had to teach Don the basics of robo-cell-phone soccer. On the soccer pitch, everyone kept falling over. I mean, the robots kept falling over and over like crazy. Some fans complained that the defenders weren't even really trying, and that wouldn't even be the first time that's happened. I can imagine that it was already hard enough just to master the controls. Nice random moment: the soccer referee yelling PLAY when Nick and Don thought they were going to get some lessons first. Right up there with the flag throwing judge in Italy having his decisions preceded with a dramatic drumroll.
7. Back at the flowershop, Jen was still in 1st after finding their flower and giving it to a florist with a green wig (making some Goth supporters RELALY miss Vyxsin... I mean, imagine them actually meeting). Chris' Japanese skills, however, allowed them to get a cab first. Pit stop: Tempozan, the lowest mountain in Japan. It's about 12 feet above sea level. The first thing I thought of was that film with Hugh Grant dumping dirt on top of a hill to make it a mountain.
8. And in first place: Ron and Chris, and they'll get a golf-cart. Well, they didn't actually say that on air, but fans are speculating that the vaguely-described "electric vehicle" they got was a golf-cart. Meanwhile, here's a gem from 2nd placed Nate: "The best team's going to come in last" (Record scratch) Heh. But fans are fearing that this is a "They don't win until the last leg" edit they're getting.
9. Back with the Hippies. We got a quick montage of them going through their tasks. According to insider reports, Rachel (a florist, conveniently enough) found the flower in a flower shop in about 5 minutes. Since elimination legs usually mean they wouldn't be doing these tasks, naturally it was an NEL, and they'll get a Speed Bump this week.
Over in Asia, the Marc and Rovilson tour continued as Henry and Terry were mugged for coming in last on an NEL in Seoul. Now, let's head on to a whole continent.
1. The previous season and much of this one had been spent in the Asia-Pacific area. Fans justified this as Caltex (one of the show's main sponsors) being a regional brand. But this week, everyone got a clue to head to Frankfurt. As in Germany. This surprised the remaining teams, but whatever. Everyone made their own arrangements, and we even got to see Terri and Henry, spared last week, trying to get on a military flight, on the excuse they were retired officers. Meanwhile, at least one team was trying to get to Frankfurt quickly on an excuse of a sick aunt. Dude. This is totally "I need a doctor-o" here.
2. Frankfurt. Clue box. Take a train to... Prague? As in the Czech Republic? Eh? Well, that was quick. But since the train wouldn't leave until night-time (hello, bunching!), Marc and Rovilson decided to raise some cash by doing some pole dancing. Once again, not making this up.
3. Perils of thick accents and part time captioners: While two racers were singing in the train about the importance of the "yellow envelope", the captioning thought they were saying "Yellow and balut", and since they'd eaten balut earlier in the race...
4. Prague! Clue told them to head to some bridge to find a "holey" statue where the clues were hidden. Quite a few teams had a problem with this little pun, including (interestingly enough) Henry the native English speaker.
5. Okay, after the holey statue, they were headed to a puppet shop, and more bunching, since the store wasn't open until 11. One racer suggested (most likely in jest) breaking the glass windows, while the teams that were there (including M/R) were forming an alliance. How effective are alliances on reality shows, anyway? Next task was a Roadblock: Dress up as a knight and get the next clue from some woman standing on a balcony. No Charla-style pratfalls to be seen here, however.
6. Next clue called for racers to head to Beroun via train and head to the town square to find a guy with a Nokia cell (yes, more product placement!) with a picture of the racers on the screen. There were lots of screens that said "Try Again" just to throw the racers off a bit. Eventually, they got a video message from home. Yep, it's the letter from home task. Interestingly, almost every one of those messages were in English, except for one in Tagalog. (Some of the racers got long messages, and they knew that they were going to get a long one.) I should note that something similar happened during the Italy leg of TAR US, with a Blackberry text instead of a video.
7. Okay, Detour. Shoot an arrow on to a small target or cut a pattern on the bottom of a glass. Almost everyone took the arrows, with the lone exception being the Thai team. Apparently, those glass people were a bit picky about how thick the lines have to be in the pattern.
8. Pitstop was some castle. Shades of the TAR6 finale when Adrian and Collin found themselves stuck at a train crossing, while M/R got first place AGAIN, this time with a $5000 credit card attached to it. (The only other racers to have won a leg were Pam and Vanessa, WAY back in the first leg, and they're still in the race.)
9. A la TK and Rachel, viewers only saw Terri and Henry sporadically during the leg, and despite the repeated bunching, they were in dead freakin' last (they were that far behind). And they're STILL in the race, with a marked-for-elimination penalty coming up next week.
Two weeks ago on TAR US, the last two remaining teams who had not won a leg yet duked it out in India to avoid elimination. In the end, Jen carried propane tanks better than the Goths to book their place in the final 4. Let's move on.
1. The next destination was Osaka, Japan, which kind of dismayed some supporters of the Goths (I will admit right here that I was pulling for the Goths until they got elimmed, though I was meh about them not getting to race in Japan), since apparently there's a good amount of Goth culture over there.
Anyways, we got to see Ron and Chris get worked up in the morning over their cabbie dropping them off at the wrong airport door, and Chris saying "Please leave me alone" in Chinese. Chris went to Japan for 6 months to learn Japanese.
2. TK and Rachel got a flight from a hotel travel agent that left at 6:55pm, while the rest got a flight that left about 90 minutes later. Buuut TK and Rachel had two stops against the others' one stop, so they ended up in Japan 4 hours behind. Whoops. We'll catch up with them later.
3. Back in Japan, Jen was in 1st. Don was totally expecting Chris to do well in Japan because she "went to one of those faultin' colleges". After a little hustling around some castle's grounds to get to the next clue box, they went to some train station to pick up their next clue from some guy with a squeegee. While heading to the train station in a cab, Chris noted it was too confusing and she was glad she didn't have to drive.
4. Next clue was a Roadblock and it asked for the back-seat driver. You were expecting a navigation task, you say? Erm, not really. It was a self-driving task in which the Roadblocker was to dress up as a taxi chaffeur, take a piece of paper from a couple with their destination written in Japanese, and drive there and back, all without inviting a Fern on board or getting help from the couple. Naturally, this meant lots of getting off the cab to ask for directions. While others had to ask people on the street just to tell them what was written on the card, Chris the Japanese student understood the destination immediately (it was a post office), but it took her quite some time to just get the engine started. Did we mention that she doesn't drive? While the others were driving, the show padded its run time by showing a nice scene of Ron and Don eating some snacks. Heh.
5. Jen was still in 1st when they got their clue to a temple. And at the temple, another clue box, this time with the Detour. Touch called for racers to use cell phones to manipulate robots into scoring a goal. To paraphrase Dave Barry, I am not making this up. And I am also not making this up when I say that Nick and Don (as in GRANDPA Don) picked this one. Smell had racers going to some flower shop to find a real flower amongst thousands of fake flowers. Needle in a haystack, much? Yet everyone else did this.
6. Triv: Nick and Don are related to singer Robbie Fulks. Again, not making this up. As you probably expected, Nick had to teach Don the basics of robo-cell-phone soccer. On the soccer pitch, everyone kept falling over. I mean, the robots kept falling over and over like crazy. Some fans complained that the defenders weren't even really trying, and that wouldn't even be the first time that's happened. I can imagine that it was already hard enough just to master the controls. Nice random moment: the soccer referee yelling PLAY when Nick and Don thought they were going to get some lessons first. Right up there with the flag throwing judge in Italy having his decisions preceded with a dramatic drumroll.
7. Back at the flowershop, Jen was still in 1st after finding their flower and giving it to a florist with a green wig (making some Goth supporters RELALY miss Vyxsin... I mean, imagine them actually meeting). Chris' Japanese skills, however, allowed them to get a cab first. Pit stop: Tempozan, the lowest mountain in Japan. It's about 12 feet above sea level. The first thing I thought of was that film with Hugh Grant dumping dirt on top of a hill to make it a mountain.
8. And in first place: Ron and Chris, and they'll get a golf-cart. Well, they didn't actually say that on air, but fans are speculating that the vaguely-described "electric vehicle" they got was a golf-cart. Meanwhile, here's a gem from 2nd placed Nate: "The best team's going to come in last" (Record scratch) Heh. But fans are fearing that this is a "They don't win until the last leg" edit they're getting.
9. Back with the Hippies. We got a quick montage of them going through their tasks. According to insider reports, Rachel (a florist, conveniently enough) found the flower in a flower shop in about 5 minutes. Since elimination legs usually mean they wouldn't be doing these tasks, naturally it was an NEL, and they'll get a Speed Bump this week.
Over in Asia, the Marc and Rovilson tour continued as Henry and Terry were mugged for coming in last on an NEL in Seoul. Now, let's head on to a whole continent.
1. The previous season and much of this one had been spent in the Asia-Pacific area. Fans justified this as Caltex (one of the show's main sponsors) being a regional brand. But this week, everyone got a clue to head to Frankfurt. As in Germany. This surprised the remaining teams, but whatever. Everyone made their own arrangements, and we even got to see Terri and Henry, spared last week, trying to get on a military flight, on the excuse they were retired officers. Meanwhile, at least one team was trying to get to Frankfurt quickly on an excuse of a sick aunt. Dude. This is totally "I need a doctor-o" here.
2. Frankfurt. Clue box. Take a train to... Prague? As in the Czech Republic? Eh? Well, that was quick. But since the train wouldn't leave until night-time (hello, bunching!), Marc and Rovilson decided to raise some cash by doing some pole dancing. Once again, not making this up.
3. Perils of thick accents and part time captioners: While two racers were singing in the train about the importance of the "yellow envelope", the captioning thought they were saying "Yellow and balut", and since they'd eaten balut earlier in the race...
4. Prague! Clue told them to head to some bridge to find a "holey" statue where the clues were hidden. Quite a few teams had a problem with this little pun, including (interestingly enough) Henry the native English speaker.
5. Okay, after the holey statue, they were headed to a puppet shop, and more bunching, since the store wasn't open until 11. One racer suggested (most likely in jest) breaking the glass windows, while the teams that were there (including M/R) were forming an alliance. How effective are alliances on reality shows, anyway? Next task was a Roadblock: Dress up as a knight and get the next clue from some woman standing on a balcony. No Charla-style pratfalls to be seen here, however.
6. Next clue called for racers to head to Beroun via train and head to the town square to find a guy with a Nokia cell (yes, more product placement!) with a picture of the racers on the screen. There were lots of screens that said "Try Again" just to throw the racers off a bit. Eventually, they got a video message from home. Yep, it's the letter from home task. Interestingly, almost every one of those messages were in English, except for one in Tagalog. (Some of the racers got long messages, and they knew that they were going to get a long one.) I should note that something similar happened during the Italy leg of TAR US, with a Blackberry text instead of a video.
7. Okay, Detour. Shoot an arrow on to a small target or cut a pattern on the bottom of a glass. Almost everyone took the arrows, with the lone exception being the Thai team. Apparently, those glass people were a bit picky about how thick the lines have to be in the pattern.
8. Pitstop was some castle. Shades of the TAR6 finale when Adrian and Collin found themselves stuck at a train crossing, while M/R got first place AGAIN, this time with a $5000 credit card attached to it. (The only other racers to have won a leg were Pam and Vanessa, WAY back in the first leg, and they're still in the race.)
9. A la TK and Rachel, viewers only saw Terri and Henry sporadically during the leg, and despite the repeated bunching, they were in dead freakin' last (they were that far behind). And they're STILL in the race, with a marked-for-elimination penalty coming up next week.
