TAR 14: Siberia
Mar. 23rd, 2009 10:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsThe race heads off on a 2-leg Siberian swing. Brr!
Ep 4:
1. First things first: This week, the opening has been slightly edited to show random shots of the teams doing race things. Anyways, we're heading to Krasnoyarsk in Russia. The usual shots of contestants fumbling over the pronouncation of the placename includes Mark/Michael (stuntmen brothers) even stumbling on the easier to pronounce Siberia. Yes, we're headed to Siberia, to go find a dam. Jaime/Cara (redhead cheerleaders) randomly comment that strong beavers must have made that dam :-)
2. The stuntmen have borrowed their cabbie's cellphone to make their travel arrangements. Apparently, they've learned their lesson from leg 2, where they finished well behind the teams that got a little cabbie help. Anyways, they somehow manage to get another cabbie on the other end, and not only that, it's the redhead cheerleaders' cabbie, allowing them to play a nice game of travel agent with the stuntmen.
3. The teams have split up on 4 different flights to Moscow, to connect to a single flight to Krasnoyarsk. It's clear that the race planners were trying to equalize them, but it turns out only three teams made the first flight to Siberia, and other five will have to wait for the next one.
4. The first three teams are the stuntmen, Christie/Jodi (flight attendants), and Kisha/Jen (athletic sisters). After waiting for the dam office to open, their next stop is the Church of Saint Innokenty for the Detour.
5. Choice is to stack wood into a big wall or build and install wood shutters. Stuntmen (along with the other two teams) opt for the wood stacking, but soon find how hard it is, especially when they knock over part of the wall that's being used as a model and they're told that they have to rebuild that wall too. Ouch. For the fourth ep in a row, there are drunken locals watching the racers do the tasks, and there's even one saying "I love you, America!"
6. Not that the stuntmen have any more luck with the shutters, either: They decide to look for the house where they'll be installing the shutters first, and they can't seem to find it anywhere. Yeesh.
7. The sisters are done with the wood, so time to head to the next route marker and introduce a new twist to the U-Turn. It's now a "Blind" U-Turn, which means that racers don't have to identify themselves while U-Turning another team. We'll see it in action later, but first, the sisters are heading to a log-themed amusement park.
8. Log-themed park, and a Roadblock: "Who's ready to speed read?" The object is to take a ride on a bobsled, spot a bunch of letters, and then arrange them into the name of a Russian playwright. The answer turns out to be Chekhov, and I'm pretty sure that many will think of that guy who was looking for "nuclear wessels" :-)
9. Back to the Detour, where the other five teams have arrived to stack wood. We get a montage of a couple wood walls falling, and two of the teams involved (Mike White/dad, Amanda/Kris) switch to the shutters. The stuntmen have searched for the house they're been looking for for so long, they end up running into those two teams while at the shutter workshop. Hilarity ensues as the "caravan of idiots" (that's what Mike's dad said) try to find the house to install the shutters. Meanwhile, Margie/Luke (mother and deaf kid) decide to Blind U-Turn A/K to give the cheerleaders (their wall fell, but they've elected not to switch) a bit more time. Nice strategy there, kiddo. Really.
10. Back to the Roadblock. The flight attendants get all the letters first, but end up struggling so long to figure out the answer that the sisters overtake them to get their pitstop clue to head to a theater. But at the theater, the flight attendants manage to find the main entrance first, and take 1st place for this leg, along with a pair of motorbikes.
11. Lawyer brother Victor asks, "Who doesn't know who Chekhov is?" Answer: Luke, who takes 5 tries, and pen and paper, to figure out the answer. (And also Cara, who happens to get lucky on her first guess.) Meanwhile, we get a hilarious scene of the "caravan of idiots" wandering just down the street from the house needing repairs before Mike's dad finally spots the sign.
12. After the repairs, A/K finally see they've been U-Turned, and after finishing their wall they speculate it must have been either the sisters or the flight attendants, and think that M/L must have felt terrible. Insert ironic cut here :-) The stuntmen's short stature means that Michael shaves about 30 seconds off the 4 minutes everyone else took, but ends up riding twice to get all the letters. And they get into a little bit of trouble with their cabbie at the theater. It's been speculated that the cabbie was trying to rip them off, considering that no one else had any monetary issues with their cabbie. They still finish ahead of A/K, and we say goodbye to the random couple.
Ep 5:
1. Next stop, Novosibirsk. C/J: "A place with that many consonants isn't warm." Caution: more hard to pronounce placenames ahead. This week's bunch-up is more successful than last week, as everyone gets on the same train, and in fact, we only get to see the departure times of the flight attendants and the sisters. Mike White quotes the Bible, that thing about how the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Dad sarcastically calls Mike's quote a miracle. Remember that quote for later.
2. Train. We get racers commenting on their slightly cramped bunks and Mike's dad reading by headlight. Morning, and Mike finds out that M/L U-Turned A/K and speculates that they might be making a new archetype: the sinister deaf kid.
3. Novosibirsk, and it's everyone for themselves as they go grab taxis in the middle of traffic (!) to head to "Punkt Tehnicheskogo Osmotra", where there are a bunch of cars waiting for them. Yep, it's a self-drive leg, and they'll be using Ladas with manual transmissions (your average racer's nightmare!) to navigate to one of two Detour choices: an apartment building to pick up a bride and take her to a church, or a football stadium to do snowplowing. Mind you, this isn't your average snowplow they're using. They've got things that scoop up the snow and put it on a conveyor belt to presumably feed a hopper or something.
4. At the stadium, the cheerleaders and M/L have a hard time simply finding and getting on a snowplow (seriously), so the lawyer sibs get to go first. Basically, they each have navigate a simple course, while the other flags them along the way. Meanwhile, the stuntmen quip about how it's easier to handle snowplows than brides. They have no idea, as the sisters and the flight attendants go pick up their brides, with C/J saying "If we really came to your wedding we would look nicer." Heh.
5. This leg is so totally worth it for the lawyer sibs trying to pronounce the name of the library they're heading to next (Gosu-Tarsvenyana Notchnaya Tehnicheskaya Bibliotekah). And that's not even the highlight of the eppy... That would be host Phil Keoghan standing in his skivvies in front of the library to introduce the Roadblock: "Who has stamina and no shame?" Basically, run 1.4 miles in skivvies to the 2nd theater pitstop in as many legs. In -3C (27F) weather, I might add. Luke gets to run in his skivvies, and mom quips that they would have had to forfeit the race otherwise :-) There's also a supposedly-clever edit showing a police car sounding its siren when they pass. Meanwhile in the bride delivery Detour, K/J's engine stalls while they're transporting their woman and C/J stop by the wrong church. Somehow, I don't think that's what the stuntmen had in mind...
6. M/L take the leg, and get a trip to St. Lucia, and Tammy overtakes Cara to take 2nd for the lawyer sibs. The stuntmen apparently assume that the mat's on the stage like last leg (it's way back in the cheap seats instead), and end up going past Phil, who ends up whistling to them to check in, presumably after seeing that there's no one else about to bump them down a spot. Heh.
7. Remember Mike's comment about how the first shall be last and stuff? Well, after their Detour misadventures, the two leading teams from the last leg are now the last two to reach the Roadblock. Jen and Christie get blurred at least once during their respective runs, especially Christie because she's running in a thong (!) while Jen actually has to put on some undies for her run because she wasn't wearing any (!!) Meanwhile Jodi has to get her finger wrapped up because it's been squished in the car door. Ouch. The sisters finish ahead of the flight attendants, but C/J will get to start the next leg in last, with the Speed Bump to come into play.
Ep 4:
1. First things first: This week, the opening has been slightly edited to show random shots of the teams doing race things. Anyways, we're heading to Krasnoyarsk in Russia. The usual shots of contestants fumbling over the pronouncation of the placename includes Mark/Michael (stuntmen brothers) even stumbling on the easier to pronounce Siberia. Yes, we're headed to Siberia, to go find a dam. Jaime/Cara (redhead cheerleaders) randomly comment that strong beavers must have made that dam :-)
2. The stuntmen have borrowed their cabbie's cellphone to make their travel arrangements. Apparently, they've learned their lesson from leg 2, where they finished well behind the teams that got a little cabbie help. Anyways, they somehow manage to get another cabbie on the other end, and not only that, it's the redhead cheerleaders' cabbie, allowing them to play a nice game of travel agent with the stuntmen.
3. The teams have split up on 4 different flights to Moscow, to connect to a single flight to Krasnoyarsk. It's clear that the race planners were trying to equalize them, but it turns out only three teams made the first flight to Siberia, and other five will have to wait for the next one.
4. The first three teams are the stuntmen, Christie/Jodi (flight attendants), and Kisha/Jen (athletic sisters). After waiting for the dam office to open, their next stop is the Church of Saint Innokenty for the Detour.
5. Choice is to stack wood into a big wall or build and install wood shutters. Stuntmen (along with the other two teams) opt for the wood stacking, but soon find how hard it is, especially when they knock over part of the wall that's being used as a model and they're told that they have to rebuild that wall too. Ouch. For the fourth ep in a row, there are drunken locals watching the racers do the tasks, and there's even one saying "I love you, America!"
6. Not that the stuntmen have any more luck with the shutters, either: They decide to look for the house where they'll be installing the shutters first, and they can't seem to find it anywhere. Yeesh.
7. The sisters are done with the wood, so time to head to the next route marker and introduce a new twist to the U-Turn. It's now a "Blind" U-Turn, which means that racers don't have to identify themselves while U-Turning another team. We'll see it in action later, but first, the sisters are heading to a log-themed amusement park.
8. Log-themed park, and a Roadblock: "Who's ready to speed read?" The object is to take a ride on a bobsled, spot a bunch of letters, and then arrange them into the name of a Russian playwright. The answer turns out to be Chekhov, and I'm pretty sure that many will think of that guy who was looking for "nuclear wessels" :-)
9. Back to the Detour, where the other five teams have arrived to stack wood. We get a montage of a couple wood walls falling, and two of the teams involved (Mike White/dad, Amanda/Kris) switch to the shutters. The stuntmen have searched for the house they're been looking for for so long, they end up running into those two teams while at the shutter workshop. Hilarity ensues as the "caravan of idiots" (that's what Mike's dad said) try to find the house to install the shutters. Meanwhile, Margie/Luke (mother and deaf kid) decide to Blind U-Turn A/K to give the cheerleaders (their wall fell, but they've elected not to switch) a bit more time. Nice strategy there, kiddo. Really.
10. Back to the Roadblock. The flight attendants get all the letters first, but end up struggling so long to figure out the answer that the sisters overtake them to get their pitstop clue to head to a theater. But at the theater, the flight attendants manage to find the main entrance first, and take 1st place for this leg, along with a pair of motorbikes.
11. Lawyer brother Victor asks, "Who doesn't know who Chekhov is?" Answer: Luke, who takes 5 tries, and pen and paper, to figure out the answer. (And also Cara, who happens to get lucky on her first guess.) Meanwhile, we get a hilarious scene of the "caravan of idiots" wandering just down the street from the house needing repairs before Mike's dad finally spots the sign.
12. After the repairs, A/K finally see they've been U-Turned, and after finishing their wall they speculate it must have been either the sisters or the flight attendants, and think that M/L must have felt terrible. Insert ironic cut here :-) The stuntmen's short stature means that Michael shaves about 30 seconds off the 4 minutes everyone else took, but ends up riding twice to get all the letters. And they get into a little bit of trouble with their cabbie at the theater. It's been speculated that the cabbie was trying to rip them off, considering that no one else had any monetary issues with their cabbie. They still finish ahead of A/K, and we say goodbye to the random couple.
Ep 5:
1. Next stop, Novosibirsk. C/J: "A place with that many consonants isn't warm." Caution: more hard to pronounce placenames ahead. This week's bunch-up is more successful than last week, as everyone gets on the same train, and in fact, we only get to see the departure times of the flight attendants and the sisters. Mike White quotes the Bible, that thing about how the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Dad sarcastically calls Mike's quote a miracle. Remember that quote for later.
2. Train. We get racers commenting on their slightly cramped bunks and Mike's dad reading by headlight. Morning, and Mike finds out that M/L U-Turned A/K and speculates that they might be making a new archetype: the sinister deaf kid.
3. Novosibirsk, and it's everyone for themselves as they go grab taxis in the middle of traffic (!) to head to "Punkt Tehnicheskogo Osmotra", where there are a bunch of cars waiting for them. Yep, it's a self-drive leg, and they'll be using Ladas with manual transmissions (your average racer's nightmare!) to navigate to one of two Detour choices: an apartment building to pick up a bride and take her to a church, or a football stadium to do snowplowing. Mind you, this isn't your average snowplow they're using. They've got things that scoop up the snow and put it on a conveyor belt to presumably feed a hopper or something.
4. At the stadium, the cheerleaders and M/L have a hard time simply finding and getting on a snowplow (seriously), so the lawyer sibs get to go first. Basically, they each have navigate a simple course, while the other flags them along the way. Meanwhile, the stuntmen quip about how it's easier to handle snowplows than brides. They have no idea, as the sisters and the flight attendants go pick up their brides, with C/J saying "If we really came to your wedding we would look nicer." Heh.
5. This leg is so totally worth it for the lawyer sibs trying to pronounce the name of the library they're heading to next (Gosu-Tarsvenyana Notchnaya Tehnicheskaya Bibliotekah). And that's not even the highlight of the eppy... That would be host Phil Keoghan standing in his skivvies in front of the library to introduce the Roadblock: "Who has stamina and no shame?" Basically, run 1.4 miles in skivvies to the 2nd theater pitstop in as many legs. In -3C (27F) weather, I might add. Luke gets to run in his skivvies, and mom quips that they would have had to forfeit the race otherwise :-) There's also a supposedly-clever edit showing a police car sounding its siren when they pass. Meanwhile in the bride delivery Detour, K/J's engine stalls while they're transporting their woman and C/J stop by the wrong church. Somehow, I don't think that's what the stuntmen had in mind...
6. M/L take the leg, and get a trip to St. Lucia, and Tammy overtakes Cara to take 2nd for the lawyer sibs. The stuntmen apparently assume that the mat's on the stage like last leg (it's way back in the cheap seats instead), and end up going past Phil, who ends up whistling to them to check in, presumably after seeing that there's no one else about to bump them down a spot. Heh.
7. Remember Mike's comment about how the first shall be last and stuff? Well, after their Detour misadventures, the two leading teams from the last leg are now the last two to reach the Roadblock. Jen and Christie get blurred at least once during their respective runs, especially Christie because she's running in a thong (!) while Jen actually has to put on some undies for her run because she wasn't wearing any (!!) Meanwhile Jodi has to get her finger wrapped up because it's been squished in the car door. Ouch. The sisters finish ahead of the flight attendants, but C/J will get to start the next leg in last, with the Speed Bump to come into play.
