TAR US and Asia: Eps 5 and 6
Nov. 21st, 2010 07:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsAsia:
Ep 7
1. My mom thought this week's tasks were a bit demanding of the racers. We start off with a skiing task, which is a "simple" slalom through two pairs of flags. I put "simple" in quote marks because many of the racers fall over during their practicing, and it's presented as being funny... even though (according to mom) there's the danger of breaking a leg.
2. Next stop, a Detour between filling a barrel with wine or putting marked sheep in a pen. The barrel-filling isn't too scary, except maybe for the part where teams drag their empty barrel up a hill, but the sheep part, well, they're using full-grown sheep for this, so they can't exactly lift them and put them in the pen. And getting run over by one wouldn't exactly be painless, either...
3. We get a sort of product-placed task, in which the teams have all recorded a "letter" home on a Sony camera during the pit stop. We're shown everyone's videos as they're posting theirs out of Arrowtown. After that, they're off to Sydney to find a guy with an umbrella and their next clue at Circular Quay. The Richards get a flight via Auckland landing at 5:30pm and they're told it's the only flight available today. However, Jess/Lani get a flight via Christchurch landing at 5:15pm, and the others get a direct flight landing at 7:15pm... that is, if the weather doesn't get them delayed until next morning since Queenstown Airport doesn't have runway lights (!)
4. Thankfully, they don't get that big of a delay (although they do get a bit of turbulence on takeoff). In Sydney, it proves hard to find the guy at Circular Quay since everyone happens to have an umbrella. We see that Ethan/Khairie are taxing a cab to the Quay, because they've been told that it's faster than the train. Turns out to be right.
5. Next task is another product-placed task at the local Hilton, in which teams do a bed. They're given 4 attempts to do it in 3 minutes before a 10 minute penzlty, and there'll be a prize at the next pit stop for the team with the best time. My mom said that even the Hilton workers themselves probably couldn't do it in such a short time. We see Ethan/Khairie time in at 2:30 but then get dinged, and ultimately, everyone ends up getting the penalty (with the best time coming out to around 3:20).
6. Next stop is Sydney Olympic Park, where we have a trapeze Roadblock. As if this leg wasn't already demanding enough... We see everyone finish it in due time, except for Hussein, who ends up getting a cramp and taking a 4 hour penalty at about 11:30pm. One short ad for Marina Bay Sands later, we see Jess/Lani pull up at Hyde Park. They gloat about coming in first until Allan says, "For being the first to meet me, you win... your next clue." D'OH!
Ep 8
1. Everyone gets clues to fly to Brisbane and get vans (provided by Wicked Campers) to a pistol shooting club, and it turns out that the next flight to Brisbane isn't until 6:05am in the morning, which means that some of the teams have to stay in a hotel for the night, and even Natasha/Hussein (checking in with Allan at around 4am) catch up.
2. Pistol club, and of course the task is to shoot at a red target. We see Hussein being surprised that they don't come with silencers :-) Moving on, the next task is to ride the Giant Drop at the Dreamworld amusement park, and spot and photograph a koala mascot waving a red and yellow flag with (what else?) a Sony CyberShot, and show it on (what else?) a Sony Bravia TV. Most get it done in one, while Claire and Michelle need 3 goes.
3. Next stop, some beach, where everyone is to use tiny sandbox shovels to dig for their next clue in a marked-off area. Allan (and at least one of the other racers) refers to it as a "needle in the haystack" task. In other words, a luck-based task. My mom thought that it seemed unfair to use a luck-based task, and I agree. I'm sure Lena/Kristy would agree too.
4. This is where things head south for Sunaina/Dimple, as somehow, they get so far off track, Hussein/Natasha (who've been in last for the whole of this leg) get to the beach before them, and by the time Sunaina/Dimple get there, the tide has risen quite a bit, to the point that some of the waves wash right into the clue digging area.
5. Next is a bush-inspired Detour: throw boomerangs or throw spears at haybales (not the Lena/Kristy kind though :-)) Oh, and have one racer eat a grubworm (a la Survivor). Most pick the spears but end up switching to boomerangs. A few teams gross out at the thought of eating a worm, but others just take the worm and put in their mouths without a second thought :-)
6. Pit stop it back in the city at Kangaroo Point (with, for some reason, a barbecue), where Jess/Lani finally get their win (plus a trip to some Hilton hotel in Japan), while Ethan/Khairie get the prize from the bed-making task: a free upgrade to an executive suite for their next Hilton stay (bleh). Sunaina/Dimple are eliminated after being summoned from the Detour, though they do get a nice departure speech.
America:
Ep 7
1. As with last week, we're not shown most of the teams leaving the pit stop. We do see that KevJumba/dad apparently finished 10 minutes behind Jill/Thomas, which means they spent at least that long searching the cathedal. Anyways, everyone heads off to the circus. No, really. Where after an "Hours of Operation" bunching, everyone gets a Detour to either spin plates or learn the accordion. Nat/Kat and Gary/Mallory both use a finger numbering system to get it done, while Chad/Steph compare it to Guitar Hero, and Jill/Thomas are a bit horrified that they have to do three pages of folk songs. We also see Nick(/Vicki) confess that he's afraid of clowns (<sarcasm>like I haven't heard that before</sarcasm>) because he slept in a clown room when he was a kid (well, that's new...)
2. This leg, we have the teams getting cryptic clues. First, the teams head for a bridge guarded by winged creatures, before heading to some tower. They're not allowed to use a taxi to lead them to the tower, and we see KevJumba/dad doing exactly that (keep that in mind for later). And of course, we see Team Melon adding to their little kiss count ;-)
3. At the tower, everyone apparently assumes that the next clue will be a red-yellow flag hanging out of their next destination. It turns out to be a small miniature of some nearby church (Nick calls it a 3rd grader mistake, but pretty much everyone makes it). Again, they're required to walk to it, but we see KevJumba/dad (and later, Chad/Steph) take a cab there. Team Melon also take a cab, but realize their error on the cab and backtrack to the tower and walk to the church.
4. Next is another riddle: Find where Peter the Great was buried. Turns out to be some fort, where a gorodki Roadblock awaits. As part of the demo, we see Phil stand on a board supported by gorodki pins getting knocked over :-) The actual Roadblock is not like that, though: it only calls for them to knock over 3 different formations of pins. We see KevJumba's dad struggle mightily with it, while we see Vicki let Nick do this one to let out his aggression :-), Team Melon bragging about having a "crowd" of 3 people cheering them on, Steph knocking over the camera with one of her attempts, and the other parent left on the race, Gary, doing MUCH better than KevJumba's dad.
5. Pit stop also happens to be at the fort, where Nat/Kat win $5000 each. A few teams have left their cabbies in front of the fort, and have problems paying them (KevJumba/dad's cabbie asks for 10,000 rubles, which is like $320). Chad/Steph are actually turned back at the mat to go pay their cabbie first. They and KevJumba/dad are both penalized for their cab ride to the church, but the latter gets an extra penalty for being led by a cab to the tower. We see dad laugh at KevJumba's inability to read the clues properly, as it gets them eliminated a la Heather/Eve. And through it all, I never noticed that Nick/Vicki never had a Speed Bump to deal with.
Ep 8
1. Next destination, Oman, where everyone's supposed to go to some temple place and get ingots telling them when they'll be starting the next morning. Everyone gets flights to via Amsterdam landing at 8:55pm and 10:25pm... except for Chad/Stephanie, who, a la the "Gutsy Grannies" in season 2, oversleep their scheduled departure time. They're supposed to leave at like 2:50am, and only get going at 4:45am. And in spite of such a late start, they still get tix for a 10:35pm landing... and they land early, allowing them to easily get back into the race, even before the enforced bunching.
2. The next norming, and the show then suddenly turns into The Bachelor (BLEH!) for about 5 minutes as we watch Chad go on about how he's planned to propose to Steph on the race. This wouldn't be the first time someone's done just that, but still... we see Chad proposing to Steph, with his late mom's ring to boot, and my mom was all, "Wait, is he proposing to her?" The editors then get cute by changing the caption underneath their names from "Newly Dating" to "Engaged" :-)
3. Back to the race, and the next destination is the tallest mountain in Oman, with a rappeling plus searching Roadblock, in which racers rappel down a cliff, and look for a ring in a bunch of lamps. Things go south for Nat/Kat and Gary/Mallory, as they get lost on their way to the mountain (we later find that Gary/Mallory have been driving around for 9 hours [!]) Meanwhile, at the mountain we see a goat trying to eat Nick/Vicki's clue :-D Vicki calling herself "Spiderwoman", and then Nick/Vicki springing a leak on their tires.
4. The next clue is on a statue of a pile of books, which then leads to the Detour, between making a traditional wedding soup and pumping a truck full of water and delivering it to a given household. The soup Detour comes with a warning that it might take long to cook, so naturally everyone does the water detour. Jill/Thomas manage to get directions from the cousin of the guy they're delivering to :-)
5. Next route marker, go to some market, take frankincense and deliver to Ali Baba in the souq, which Nick/Vicki mis-interpret as "in a suit" :-D This doesn't affect the team in question, though, as much as Thomas deciding to get a cab to lead him and Jill to the pitstop. They get a 30 minute penalty, allowing the freshly engaged Chad/Steph to sneak in for the win and a Belize vacation. Meanwhile, Nat/Kat and Gary/Mallory got so lost looking for the mountain that their search for Ali Baba is much easier in a mostly closed market, before we see Nat/Kat backtracking out of a one-way street, and avoiding elimination at Gary/Mallory's expense. So, we get two parent/child eliminations in two legs, and we see Gary brag about Mallory being the son he never had (even though earlier in the leg, Mallory said she had 3 brothers, which might say something about what he thinks of his real sons ;)) and Mallory saying that she competed in this race because of the things daddy has taught her (how cute).
Ep 7
1. My mom thought this week's tasks were a bit demanding of the racers. We start off with a skiing task, which is a "simple" slalom through two pairs of flags. I put "simple" in quote marks because many of the racers fall over during their practicing, and it's presented as being funny... even though (according to mom) there's the danger of breaking a leg.
2. Next stop, a Detour between filling a barrel with wine or putting marked sheep in a pen. The barrel-filling isn't too scary, except maybe for the part where teams drag their empty barrel up a hill, but the sheep part, well, they're using full-grown sheep for this, so they can't exactly lift them and put them in the pen. And getting run over by one wouldn't exactly be painless, either...
3. We get a sort of product-placed task, in which the teams have all recorded a "letter" home on a Sony camera during the pit stop. We're shown everyone's videos as they're posting theirs out of Arrowtown. After that, they're off to Sydney to find a guy with an umbrella and their next clue at Circular Quay. The Richards get a flight via Auckland landing at 5:30pm and they're told it's the only flight available today. However, Jess/Lani get a flight via Christchurch landing at 5:15pm, and the others get a direct flight landing at 7:15pm... that is, if the weather doesn't get them delayed until next morning since Queenstown Airport doesn't have runway lights (!)
4. Thankfully, they don't get that big of a delay (although they do get a bit of turbulence on takeoff). In Sydney, it proves hard to find the guy at Circular Quay since everyone happens to have an umbrella. We see that Ethan/Khairie are taxing a cab to the Quay, because they've been told that it's faster than the train. Turns out to be right.
5. Next task is another product-placed task at the local Hilton, in which teams do a bed. They're given 4 attempts to do it in 3 minutes before a 10 minute penzlty, and there'll be a prize at the next pit stop for the team with the best time. My mom said that even the Hilton workers themselves probably couldn't do it in such a short time. We see Ethan/Khairie time in at 2:30 but then get dinged, and ultimately, everyone ends up getting the penalty (with the best time coming out to around 3:20).
6. Next stop is Sydney Olympic Park, where we have a trapeze Roadblock. As if this leg wasn't already demanding enough... We see everyone finish it in due time, except for Hussein, who ends up getting a cramp and taking a 4 hour penalty at about 11:30pm. One short ad for Marina Bay Sands later, we see Jess/Lani pull up at Hyde Park. They gloat about coming in first until Allan says, "For being the first to meet me, you win... your next clue." D'OH!
Ep 8
1. Everyone gets clues to fly to Brisbane and get vans (provided by Wicked Campers) to a pistol shooting club, and it turns out that the next flight to Brisbane isn't until 6:05am in the morning, which means that some of the teams have to stay in a hotel for the night, and even Natasha/Hussein (checking in with Allan at around 4am) catch up.
2. Pistol club, and of course the task is to shoot at a red target. We see Hussein being surprised that they don't come with silencers :-) Moving on, the next task is to ride the Giant Drop at the Dreamworld amusement park, and spot and photograph a koala mascot waving a red and yellow flag with (what else?) a Sony CyberShot, and show it on (what else?) a Sony Bravia TV. Most get it done in one, while Claire and Michelle need 3 goes.
3. Next stop, some beach, where everyone is to use tiny sandbox shovels to dig for their next clue in a marked-off area. Allan (and at least one of the other racers) refers to it as a "needle in the haystack" task. In other words, a luck-based task. My mom thought that it seemed unfair to use a luck-based task, and I agree. I'm sure Lena/Kristy would agree too.
4. This is where things head south for Sunaina/Dimple, as somehow, they get so far off track, Hussein/Natasha (who've been in last for the whole of this leg) get to the beach before them, and by the time Sunaina/Dimple get there, the tide has risen quite a bit, to the point that some of the waves wash right into the clue digging area.
5. Next is a bush-inspired Detour: throw boomerangs or throw spears at haybales (not the Lena/Kristy kind though :-)) Oh, and have one racer eat a grubworm (a la Survivor). Most pick the spears but end up switching to boomerangs. A few teams gross out at the thought of eating a worm, but others just take the worm and put in their mouths without a second thought :-)
6. Pit stop it back in the city at Kangaroo Point (with, for some reason, a barbecue), where Jess/Lani finally get their win (plus a trip to some Hilton hotel in Japan), while Ethan/Khairie get the prize from the bed-making task: a free upgrade to an executive suite for their next Hilton stay (bleh). Sunaina/Dimple are eliminated after being summoned from the Detour, though they do get a nice departure speech.
America:
Ep 7
1. As with last week, we're not shown most of the teams leaving the pit stop. We do see that KevJumba/dad apparently finished 10 minutes behind Jill/Thomas, which means they spent at least that long searching the cathedal. Anyways, everyone heads off to the circus. No, really. Where after an "Hours of Operation" bunching, everyone gets a Detour to either spin plates or learn the accordion. Nat/Kat and Gary/Mallory both use a finger numbering system to get it done, while Chad/Steph compare it to Guitar Hero, and Jill/Thomas are a bit horrified that they have to do three pages of folk songs. We also see Nick(/Vicki) confess that he's afraid of clowns (<sarcasm>like I haven't heard that before</sarcasm>) because he slept in a clown room when he was a kid (well, that's new...)
2. This leg, we have the teams getting cryptic clues. First, the teams head for a bridge guarded by winged creatures, before heading to some tower. They're not allowed to use a taxi to lead them to the tower, and we see KevJumba/dad doing exactly that (keep that in mind for later). And of course, we see Team Melon adding to their little kiss count ;-)
3. At the tower, everyone apparently assumes that the next clue will be a red-yellow flag hanging out of their next destination. It turns out to be a small miniature of some nearby church (Nick calls it a 3rd grader mistake, but pretty much everyone makes it). Again, they're required to walk to it, but we see KevJumba/dad (and later, Chad/Steph) take a cab there. Team Melon also take a cab, but realize their error on the cab and backtrack to the tower and walk to the church.
4. Next is another riddle: Find where Peter the Great was buried. Turns out to be some fort, where a gorodki Roadblock awaits. As part of the demo, we see Phil stand on a board supported by gorodki pins getting knocked over :-) The actual Roadblock is not like that, though: it only calls for them to knock over 3 different formations of pins. We see KevJumba's dad struggle mightily with it, while we see Vicki let Nick do this one to let out his aggression :-), Team Melon bragging about having a "crowd" of 3 people cheering them on, Steph knocking over the camera with one of her attempts, and the other parent left on the race, Gary, doing MUCH better than KevJumba's dad.
5. Pit stop also happens to be at the fort, where Nat/Kat win $5000 each. A few teams have left their cabbies in front of the fort, and have problems paying them (KevJumba/dad's cabbie asks for 10,000 rubles, which is like $320). Chad/Steph are actually turned back at the mat to go pay their cabbie first. They and KevJumba/dad are both penalized for their cab ride to the church, but the latter gets an extra penalty for being led by a cab to the tower. We see dad laugh at KevJumba's inability to read the clues properly, as it gets them eliminated a la Heather/Eve. And through it all, I never noticed that Nick/Vicki never had a Speed Bump to deal with.
Ep 8
1. Next destination, Oman, where everyone's supposed to go to some temple place and get ingots telling them when they'll be starting the next morning. Everyone gets flights to via Amsterdam landing at 8:55pm and 10:25pm... except for Chad/Stephanie, who, a la the "Gutsy Grannies" in season 2, oversleep their scheduled departure time. They're supposed to leave at like 2:50am, and only get going at 4:45am. And in spite of such a late start, they still get tix for a 10:35pm landing... and they land early, allowing them to easily get back into the race, even before the enforced bunching.
2. The next norming, and the show then suddenly turns into The Bachelor (BLEH!) for about 5 minutes as we watch Chad go on about how he's planned to propose to Steph on the race. This wouldn't be the first time someone's done just that, but still... we see Chad proposing to Steph, with his late mom's ring to boot, and my mom was all, "Wait, is he proposing to her?" The editors then get cute by changing the caption underneath their names from "Newly Dating" to "Engaged" :-)
3. Back to the race, and the next destination is the tallest mountain in Oman, with a rappeling plus searching Roadblock, in which racers rappel down a cliff, and look for a ring in a bunch of lamps. Things go south for Nat/Kat and Gary/Mallory, as they get lost on their way to the mountain (we later find that Gary/Mallory have been driving around for 9 hours [!]) Meanwhile, at the mountain we see a goat trying to eat Nick/Vicki's clue :-D Vicki calling herself "Spiderwoman", and then Nick/Vicki springing a leak on their tires.
4. The next clue is on a statue of a pile of books, which then leads to the Detour, between making a traditional wedding soup and pumping a truck full of water and delivering it to a given household. The soup Detour comes with a warning that it might take long to cook, so naturally everyone does the water detour. Jill/Thomas manage to get directions from the cousin of the guy they're delivering to :-)
5. Next route marker, go to some market, take frankincense and deliver to Ali Baba in the souq, which Nick/Vicki mis-interpret as "in a suit" :-D This doesn't affect the team in question, though, as much as Thomas deciding to get a cab to lead him and Jill to the pitstop. They get a 30 minute penalty, allowing the freshly engaged Chad/Steph to sneak in for the win and a Belize vacation. Meanwhile, Nat/Kat and Gary/Mallory got so lost looking for the mountain that their search for Ali Baba is much easier in a mostly closed market, before we see Nat/Kat backtracking out of a one-way street, and avoiding elimination at Gary/Mallory's expense. So, we get two parent/child eliminations in two legs, and we see Gary brag about Mallory being the son he never had (even though earlier in the leg, Mallory said she had 3 brothers, which might say something about what he thinks of his real sons ;)) and Mallory saying that she competed in this race because of the things daddy has taught her (how cute).
