TAR: Unfinished Business, eps 1-3
Mar. 18th, 2011 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsWe're back again, this time with 11 returning teams getting a second run at the million. Let's get going...
Ep 1:
1. So we have 11 non-winning teams from previous seasons, and unlike the All-Stars edition, no "hybrid" teams. Teams I'm hoping to see do well are Jet/Cord (2nd, S16), Zev/Justin (9th, S15), andKyntKent/Vyxsin (5th, S12). J/C because they seem so nice, Z/J because of how they got eliminated the first time (missing passport in Cambodia), and K/V simply because they look fabulous :-) HUH, the Globetrotters (4th, S15) look a bit different... oh wait, that's just Zev/Justin in Globetrotters shirts ;-) Incidentally, for North American viewers, TAR is now in HD, but for those of us in Asia, it looks more or less the same as before, with AXN not even bothering with letterboxing unlike on other dramas they show. Hmm...
2. We start off at a windfarm, where a la S15, we have a starting line challenge, albeit with only a penalty instead of elimination, where everyone looks for a big "paper airplane" saying "Queensland and Northern Territories Aerial Services", or in short, Qantas. First 8 get tix on a flight to Sydney (but of course :-) ) scheduled to 90 minutes earlier than the other 3 teams, and last place gets an automatic U-Turn on their first Detour. After the usual montage of wrong answers (we see Ron/Christina [2nd, S12] apparently handing Phil a plane saying "Pan Am") and right, that "honor" goes to Kris/Amanda (8th, S14), who were also eliminated by U-Turn their first go-round, and they make light of being U-Turn magnets :-D
3. Well, what do you know? The first flight ends up getting diverted to Honolulu to offload a heart attack victim and lands in Sydney 30 minutes after the 2nd flight. After we're introduced to Sydney by some random guy in old-fashioned navy clothes (who I've since found out was the greeter on TAR's first Sydney visit), the cowboys (on the "first" flight) manage to miss an Airport Express train AND a ferry (accompanied with stock steam-whistle sound) in quick succession, putting them last arriving at Manly Oceanworld (on the ferry, we see Vyxsin quip that Kent will fit in in Manly :-D), which I remember appeared in an Asian edition once (a quick Google reveals it to be from the very first season... that long, huh?) Anyways, they're here to get tanked for a Roadblock, swimming amongst sharks (just like in the TARA task) to look for dinner plate sized "compasses", which function as a decoder for a bunch of flags. Not only do they spell out their next destination (Manly 16ft Skiff Sailing Club), they also include a passphrase, "I am between the devil and the deep blue sea", which contestants are to tell to the commodore guy at the club. Mom noted that it seems quite hard. Indeed, quite a few teams manage to mooch the passphrase off of other teams rather than solving it on their own. We also find out thatKyntKent recently lost his dad and that he and Vyxsin (who's taking a lot of time struggling with the swimming portion of the Roadblock) are running the race in his memory. Turns out it's also the reason he's being billed as Kent this go-round.
4. Everyone sails a skiff to retrieve their next clue from a buoy. At one point, we see Jen/Kisha (4th, S14) comment "Thank god" on seeing that they're not allowed to swim to retrieve their next clue :-D Anyways, clue sends them to Shelly Beach for the pitstop. Gary/Mallory (6th, S17, who interestingly were shown in their S17 finale interview saying, "Can we do it again?" :-D), who had started on the 2nd-turned-1st flight, get 1st and an Express Pass... along with their next clue. It's a superleg, although in this case, we see the rest of teams (except the Cowboys, who've doubled back to the aquarium after forgetting to decode the passphrase, and then again after getting it very wrong the first time) pick up their next clue, and with K/V immediately above them in 10th position after their Roadblock struggle (slapping their greeter's butt on their way from the mat :-)), things aren't looking too good for 2 of the teams I'm hoping to see do well.
Ep 2:
1. Starting with this episode, AXN decided to move the Monday airing of TAR back an hour, and using promos saying "Because you wanted more" as a reason. Which is kind of ironic to me, since instead of being able to watch the race over dinner as before, I'm likely to miss a good chunk at the start by my routine. Anyways, the schedule change was actually supposed to take effect on the first of the month, and the episode was still on the 28th, so it caught me by surprise to see TAR already in the earlier timeslot. This wouldn't be so bad if the usual Tuesday rerun was still there... but there isn't a Tuesday rerun. In fact, they only rerun the show on late Saturday night and Sunday morning (which is when I caught this ep). One suspects the multiple airings of "So You Think You Can Dance" is the culprit...
2. Incidentally, AXN also appeared to have problems downconverting the HD to SD this week. Besides the lack of letterbox, it didn't even have that fluid video look anymore, making TAR look a bit low budget... like the Asian version ;-) (It was back to normal the next week though.)
3. Okay, now on with the episode. While Cord is still busy trying to crack the code (and we see that there are two letters per flag on the decoding compass, so that might explain the difficulty), and then having difficulty with the sailing (admitting that the ocean's not exactly their element), everyone else is busy trying to look for "To Sail To Stop". It turns out to be an inscription on an anchor in front of Town Hall. Remarkably, Kisha/Jen and Zev/Justin get there first despite being dropped at the National Maritime Museum, as they Google their required information (Z/J quip about how "Googling" sounds dirty :-D) before heading there on foot. Everyone signs up for one of two flights the next morning. Most of the teams sign up in plain daylight, while the Cowboys are so far behind, they only sign up in the early evening, so they're thankful they're on the same flight with others. Mel (/Mike, S14, 5th) got himself cramped up while looking for the anchor, so they could use some rest as well.
4. Next morning, and everyone's flying to Broken Hill (an outback mining town), where everyone then drives to the Living Desert. Gary/Mallory note that they have maps so they know where they're going. Unlike the last time they said something like that, they don't get lost :-) Z/J quip, "We're in the outback... There aren't a lof of steakhouses" :-D We also see R/C driving on the wrong side of the road :-o
5. Aboriginal-themed Detour between making a traditional stone mosaic and dancing on top of it, and making a traditional spray mark by spitting traditional clay pigment. Everyone picks the mosaic (Justin, of Zev: "He's artistic" Zev: "And autistic" :-)), with Amanda/Kris only doing the spitting later because of the U-Turn, so it's mayhem with everyone carrying stones with their shirts and pants :-) Kent/Vyxsin finish their mosaic first, but have a bit of confusion on how (read: where) to dance, even insisting they need children to help :-D, dropping them to 4th. We also see Ron/Christina speaking Chinese to each other (about his hat :-)), and later, we see Christina noticing that Ron has plenty of stuff in his jacket: "You have a market here" :-D
6. Next stop, the "Home of the Magpies", a local football ground back in Broken Hill. Z/J are expecting something sporty. Instead, everyone has to put on kangaroo outfits, replete with spring boots, and then find their next clue based on a periodical table with Hg and Bi marked out. Most teams need help (in one case, a nice lady on her smartphone) to deduce that it's the intersection of Mercury and Bismuth Streets, where the next clue is waiting at this local motel. Interestingly, Kent recognizes the elements right off the bat, as he got an A in chemistry :-)
7. The kangaroo jumping makes for amusing scene sof several teams jumping past an Animal Control truck :-D, Margie (/Luke, 3rd, S14) losing her ankle cover and having to go back and get it :-), and Zev accidentally slamming a car door on his tail :-D
8. Clue leads to the pitstop at a local mine, where Z/J get first, for real this time :-) winning a trip to Cancun. Phil: "You look ridiculous" :-D He even has a local miner making comments on the kangaroo outfits, even pointing out Justin is the female because of the pouch :-D The Cowboys manage to come back all the way to 3rd :-), while Amanda/Kris manage to get themselves eliminated by a U-Turn. Again.
Ep 3:
1. After a train ride back to Sydney, next stop is Tokyo. We find out that Christina is engaged to Azaria(/Hendekea from S12) and see Kent wearing a cowboy hat a la Jet/Cord. There's a scramble for two flights, one getting in 15 minutes sooner than the other by schedule, but with a connection through HK. As with the first leg, the earlier flight ends up getting delayed, this time with engine trouble at the connection.
2. Tokyo, and everyone gets a car from a ferris wheel contraption before driving to some temple. The Globetrotters find their car a bit small, and another team compares them to Fred Flintstone :-D We have plenty of teams getting lost, plus cheerleaders Jamie/Cara (S14, 2nd) waste a bit more time dealing with a guy whose side mirror they've accidentally clipped. (Amusingly, Zev foreshadows this at the ferris wheel by worrying that they might clip a mirror :-)) Temple has a Roadblock at the dojo, that involves dancing, holding up a bow and arrow... and shooting an arrow at a piece of wood from a mechanical horse (Cord naturally likes this part :-)). Gary says of the clue saying "Who wants to go back a thousand years?": "I was born a thousand years ago" :-D
3. Next stop, a train station. Z/J (in 2nd after the dojo, despite the flight delay [!]) randomly comment on how small it might be by comparing it to certain Asian anatomy :-D Train station has a cluebox for a Detour between spiritual cleansing at a temple (involving a really cold waterfall direct from Mt. Fuji snow) or looking for (fake) frogs in mud (with locals throwing mud at them :-D) At the waterfall, the Globetrotters take Ron/Christina's fanny packs and put them in the changing room, thus wasting a bit of Ron's time looking for it.
4. Everyone else does the mud, with K/J commenting that they're getting mud in places it shouldn't get in :-D, and Mallory being reminded of her days as a beauty pageant contestant :-) Jet/Cord go about the task as if they were chasing real frogs :-D and many teams hug the guy giving them the next clue, mud and all :-D This Detour goes on well into the night for Mel/Mike, who end up resting in an ambulance while the cheerleaders (who arrive well after sunset) show up to look for their frog.
5. Pit stop it at some memorial for Commodore Perry's expeditions to Japan. After asking for directions in their undies and making comments about it :-D, Z/J manage yet another leg win (and a trip to Costa Rica). R/C finish 4th, but mention the fanny pack business, thus giving the 'Trotters a (ADR'd in) penalty that pushes R/C up to 3rd. (Much discussion has been made whether they had malicious intent with it, but since it did delay R/C, seems like the penalty was reasonable...) Cheerleaders are quite surprised to still be in the race, while Mel/Mike are eliminated... and it appears that they don't care too much. Eh, me neither.
This week they're in China, but I'm saving that for the next set of recaps.
Ep 1:
1. So we have 11 non-winning teams from previous seasons, and unlike the All-Stars edition, no "hybrid" teams. Teams I'm hoping to see do well are Jet/Cord (2nd, S16), Zev/Justin (9th, S15), and
2. We start off at a windfarm, where a la S15, we have a starting line challenge, albeit with only a penalty instead of elimination, where everyone looks for a big "paper airplane" saying "Queensland and Northern Territories Aerial Services", or in short, Qantas. First 8 get tix on a flight to Sydney (but of course :-) ) scheduled to 90 minutes earlier than the other 3 teams, and last place gets an automatic U-Turn on their first Detour. After the usual montage of wrong answers (we see Ron/Christina [2nd, S12] apparently handing Phil a plane saying "Pan Am") and right, that "honor" goes to Kris/Amanda (8th, S14), who were also eliminated by U-Turn their first go-round, and they make light of being U-Turn magnets :-D
3. Well, what do you know? The first flight ends up getting diverted to Honolulu to offload a heart attack victim and lands in Sydney 30 minutes after the 2nd flight. After we're introduced to Sydney by some random guy in old-fashioned navy clothes (who I've since found out was the greeter on TAR's first Sydney visit), the cowboys (on the "first" flight) manage to miss an Airport Express train AND a ferry (accompanied with stock steam-whistle sound) in quick succession, putting them last arriving at Manly Oceanworld (on the ferry, we see Vyxsin quip that Kent will fit in in Manly :-D), which I remember appeared in an Asian edition once (a quick Google reveals it to be from the very first season... that long, huh?) Anyways, they're here to get tanked for a Roadblock, swimming amongst sharks (just like in the TARA task) to look for dinner plate sized "compasses", which function as a decoder for a bunch of flags. Not only do they spell out their next destination (Manly 16ft Skiff Sailing Club), they also include a passphrase, "I am between the devil and the deep blue sea", which contestants are to tell to the commodore guy at the club. Mom noted that it seems quite hard. Indeed, quite a few teams manage to mooch the passphrase off of other teams rather than solving it on their own. We also find out that
4. Everyone sails a skiff to retrieve their next clue from a buoy. At one point, we see Jen/Kisha (4th, S14) comment "Thank god" on seeing that they're not allowed to swim to retrieve their next clue :-D Anyways, clue sends them to Shelly Beach for the pitstop. Gary/Mallory (6th, S17, who interestingly were shown in their S17 finale interview saying, "Can we do it again?" :-D), who had started on the 2nd-turned-1st flight, get 1st and an Express Pass... along with their next clue. It's a superleg, although in this case, we see the rest of teams (except the Cowboys, who've doubled back to the aquarium after forgetting to decode the passphrase, and then again after getting it very wrong the first time) pick up their next clue, and with K/V immediately above them in 10th position after their Roadblock struggle (slapping their greeter's butt on their way from the mat :-)), things aren't looking too good for 2 of the teams I'm hoping to see do well.
Ep 2:
1. Starting with this episode, AXN decided to move the Monday airing of TAR back an hour, and using promos saying "Because you wanted more" as a reason. Which is kind of ironic to me, since instead of being able to watch the race over dinner as before, I'm likely to miss a good chunk at the start by my routine. Anyways, the schedule change was actually supposed to take effect on the first of the month, and the episode was still on the 28th, so it caught me by surprise to see TAR already in the earlier timeslot. This wouldn't be so bad if the usual Tuesday rerun was still there... but there isn't a Tuesday rerun. In fact, they only rerun the show on late Saturday night and Sunday morning (which is when I caught this ep). One suspects the multiple airings of "So You Think You Can Dance" is the culprit...
2. Incidentally, AXN also appeared to have problems downconverting the HD to SD this week. Besides the lack of letterbox, it didn't even have that fluid video look anymore, making TAR look a bit low budget... like the Asian version ;-) (It was back to normal the next week though.)
3. Okay, now on with the episode. While Cord is still busy trying to crack the code (and we see that there are two letters per flag on the decoding compass, so that might explain the difficulty), and then having difficulty with the sailing (admitting that the ocean's not exactly their element), everyone else is busy trying to look for "To Sail To Stop". It turns out to be an inscription on an anchor in front of Town Hall. Remarkably, Kisha/Jen and Zev/Justin get there first despite being dropped at the National Maritime Museum, as they Google their required information (Z/J quip about how "Googling" sounds dirty :-D) before heading there on foot. Everyone signs up for one of two flights the next morning. Most of the teams sign up in plain daylight, while the Cowboys are so far behind, they only sign up in the early evening, so they're thankful they're on the same flight with others. Mel (/Mike, S14, 5th) got himself cramped up while looking for the anchor, so they could use some rest as well.
4. Next morning, and everyone's flying to Broken Hill (an outback mining town), where everyone then drives to the Living Desert. Gary/Mallory note that they have maps so they know where they're going. Unlike the last time they said something like that, they don't get lost :-) Z/J quip, "We're in the outback... There aren't a lof of steakhouses" :-D We also see R/C driving on the wrong side of the road :-o
5. Aboriginal-themed Detour between making a traditional stone mosaic and dancing on top of it, and making a traditional spray mark by spitting traditional clay pigment. Everyone picks the mosaic (Justin, of Zev: "He's artistic" Zev: "And autistic" :-)), with Amanda/Kris only doing the spitting later because of the U-Turn, so it's mayhem with everyone carrying stones with their shirts and pants :-) Kent/Vyxsin finish their mosaic first, but have a bit of confusion on how (read: where) to dance, even insisting they need children to help :-D, dropping them to 4th. We also see Ron/Christina speaking Chinese to each other (about his hat :-)), and later, we see Christina noticing that Ron has plenty of stuff in his jacket: "You have a market here" :-D
6. Next stop, the "Home of the Magpies", a local football ground back in Broken Hill. Z/J are expecting something sporty. Instead, everyone has to put on kangaroo outfits, replete with spring boots, and then find their next clue based on a periodical table with Hg and Bi marked out. Most teams need help (in one case, a nice lady on her smartphone) to deduce that it's the intersection of Mercury and Bismuth Streets, where the next clue is waiting at this local motel. Interestingly, Kent recognizes the elements right off the bat, as he got an A in chemistry :-)
7. The kangaroo jumping makes for amusing scene sof several teams jumping past an Animal Control truck :-D, Margie (/Luke, 3rd, S14) losing her ankle cover and having to go back and get it :-), and Zev accidentally slamming a car door on his tail :-D
8. Clue leads to the pitstop at a local mine, where Z/J get first, for real this time :-) winning a trip to Cancun. Phil: "You look ridiculous" :-D He even has a local miner making comments on the kangaroo outfits, even pointing out Justin is the female because of the pouch :-D The Cowboys manage to come back all the way to 3rd :-), while Amanda/Kris manage to get themselves eliminated by a U-Turn. Again.
Ep 3:
1. After a train ride back to Sydney, next stop is Tokyo. We find out that Christina is engaged to Azaria(/Hendekea from S12) and see Kent wearing a cowboy hat a la Jet/Cord. There's a scramble for two flights, one getting in 15 minutes sooner than the other by schedule, but with a connection through HK. As with the first leg, the earlier flight ends up getting delayed, this time with engine trouble at the connection.
2. Tokyo, and everyone gets a car from a ferris wheel contraption before driving to some temple. The Globetrotters find their car a bit small, and another team compares them to Fred Flintstone :-D We have plenty of teams getting lost, plus cheerleaders Jamie/Cara (S14, 2nd) waste a bit more time dealing with a guy whose side mirror they've accidentally clipped. (Amusingly, Zev foreshadows this at the ferris wheel by worrying that they might clip a mirror :-)) Temple has a Roadblock at the dojo, that involves dancing, holding up a bow and arrow... and shooting an arrow at a piece of wood from a mechanical horse (Cord naturally likes this part :-)). Gary says of the clue saying "Who wants to go back a thousand years?": "I was born a thousand years ago" :-D
3. Next stop, a train station. Z/J (in 2nd after the dojo, despite the flight delay [!]) randomly comment on how small it might be by comparing it to certain Asian anatomy :-D Train station has a cluebox for a Detour between spiritual cleansing at a temple (involving a really cold waterfall direct from Mt. Fuji snow) or looking for (fake) frogs in mud (with locals throwing mud at them :-D) At the waterfall, the Globetrotters take Ron/Christina's fanny packs and put them in the changing room, thus wasting a bit of Ron's time looking for it.
4. Everyone else does the mud, with K/J commenting that they're getting mud in places it shouldn't get in :-D, and Mallory being reminded of her days as a beauty pageant contestant :-) Jet/Cord go about the task as if they were chasing real frogs :-D and many teams hug the guy giving them the next clue, mud and all :-D This Detour goes on well into the night for Mel/Mike, who end up resting in an ambulance while the cheerleaders (who arrive well after sunset) show up to look for their frog.
5. Pit stop it at some memorial for Commodore Perry's expeditions to Japan. After asking for directions in their undies and making comments about it :-D, Z/J manage yet another leg win (and a trip to Costa Rica). R/C finish 4th, but mention the fanny pack business, thus giving the 'Trotters a (ADR'd in) penalty that pushes R/C up to 3rd. (Much discussion has been made whether they had malicious intent with it, but since it did delay R/C, seems like the penalty was reasonable...) Cheerleaders are quite surprised to still be in the race, while Mel/Mike are eliminated... and it appears that they don't care too much. Eh, me neither.
This week they're in China, but I'm saving that for the next set of recaps.
