The Amazing Race, season 26: Legs 1 to 4
Mar. 29th, 2015 01:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spiderbraidsTime for another go-round... now with a gimmick :-)
Leg 1
1. This season, all of the teams are dating teams (!) There still manages to be a few M/M teams though, one of which has former member of New Kids on the Block Jonathan Knight (Huh.) In a first for the show, a few of the teams are actually paired up right at the starting line, which the show hopes will be interesting :-) Indeed the opening spiel calls it the most extreme blind date ever :-)
2. First order of business: A Survivor-style obstacle course at the starting line (!) to split teams on to two flights to Tokyo... Next is getting to LAX (older couple pilot/flight attendant Jeff/Lyda recite the typical flight attendant spiel while driving :-)), and since it's a 90 minute premiere, might as well use it on the blind date teams getting to know each other :-) as well teams getting to know other teams at the airport :-) (During a scene of the latter, some crew guy plainly walks by in the BG carrying a boom mike :-D) It should also be noted that the teams have been given a "selfie-cam" (especially in light of leg 2...)
3. First stop in Tokyo is some shrine, for what will turn out to be the only task of this leg (in a 90 minute premiere, go figure :-/): A Detour between memorizing and finding sake bottles to serve to samurai, and performing a dance by J-pop group World Order. Latter is pretty strenuous, I might add, with some teams still doing it into the night :-/
4. After a U-Turn, pit stop involves finding a specific parking space in the vicinity of a given building. Laura/Tyler (aka Team SoCal) miss that little nuance and search inside the really big parking garage in that building, while blind dating Jelani/Jenny (ex-lawyers) read the clue again :-) and astutely note the "vicinity" part (because... lawyers ;-)), before coming in first and getting themselves an Express Pass :-)
5. Trucker/engineer Mike/Rochelle U-Turn Jeff/Lyda, who end up taking near 4 hours (!) to complete the dancing, before managing to luck out with the sake (HUH.) and then deciding to U-Turn Jeff/Jackie (Team JJ), who turn out not to actually be behind them :-\ CJ/Libby (Team Tuskeegee, dating 10 years!) take a heck of a long time to find the U-Turn in the park, but (even after also forgetting the "vicinity" bit at the parking lot) still finish in 10th, leaving Jeff/Lyda to be eliminated, so no more plane travel quips from them :-/
Leg 2:
1. After a night at a net cafe, next stop is Nagano, and everyone's going there by bullet train. CJ/Libby, already starting the leg in last, end up falling even further behind thanks to this #SelfieFail: They're making a selfie vid of themselves with the train they've just gotten tix for when it suddenly leaves them behind :-/ + :-D And on top of that, we're told that the train they do take had to make an emergency stop :-/
2. First task involves opening a puzzle box a la Shanghai Knights (anyone else remember that film?) to obtain a password for a clue... and one random clue also contains a ticket for a hot springs date night, which ends up going to Jonathan/Harley (New Kid/BF) (HUH.)
3. Next up, a sort of blind Detour between feeding each other noodles in front of a big electric fan (hilarity ensues! :-D) and pushing a chair one lap each around the same ice track used at the 1998 Winter Olympics (!) And since Steve/Aly, aka Sochi Love, are Winter Olympic athletes, of course they go for the latter :-) with Aly revealing that her interest in winter sports started with Nagano :-) The latter task has a time limit of 3.55, and Sochi handily beats it by 20s :-) Quite a few teams cut it close with their times on their succesful attempts, while Hayley/Blair (medical profession blind date, aka RX for Love) take near 7 min in their first go (with "funny" music playing while Hayley's going really slow :-D) and Rochelle has to get a medic (and ultimately switch Detours) after taking a nasty fall (!)
4. Pitstop at some shrine, and not much to write about, as Jelani/Jenny get some prizes from FitBit, while #SelfieFail + Last place start = Elimination for CJ/Libby.
Leg 3
1. Been a while since their last Thailand visit, so next stop is Phuket, which teams make a point of pronouncing properly ;-) for one of those "grab a morning departure time" overnight bunching points in the form of a selfie stick vendor on the street, before partying the night away :-) Turns out that Jon/H aren't getting in until the morning, so they're spending the night at Singapore's airport (!) while everyone else is sleeping in slightly better accommodations... (even if those 8 teams do have to share 5 B&B rooms :-))
2. First stop is a clue pickup at an upside down house, where (for example) the toilet is installed upside down on the ceiling :-) And of course, the show offers upside down angles of contestants running on the "ceiling" :-D Meanwhile, Jon/H just arrived in Phuket, and their cabbie's getting gas...
3. Detour between zipline waiters and water boarding. No, not the torture, but it's probably not that much different for the teams trying it (which includes Sochi, I might add...) so everyone ends up doing the zipline :-/
4. After getting properly attired :-D Hayley/Blair just grab a single food item and drink each just because they saw the ex-lawyers do it... turns out that the posted menu of items is what every team has to carry, and so Hayley gets an earful :-/
5. Matt(/Ashley, hairstylists) manages to spill his wine into the noodles at the very last and first seconds of consecutive attempts, during the least difficult parts (read: the parts that don't involve the zipline :-/) Former's reminiscent of Bethany Hamilton and the glasses in last season's Malta leg, latter has Matt scooping up some of the mixed noodle broth back into his glass, and some of the recap sites I've seen seem to suggest that was allowed :-/
6. Last task before the pitstop is dancing in a ladyboy cabaret :-D, and since all the teams have at least one guy, that means we're treated to the surreal sight of the bearded Mike dressed all lady-like dancing to this luk thung hit :-D M/R get to do 8 straight attempts before still getting their clue in 1st... they were that far ahead :-) Oh, and there's also another date night ticket, this one going to Kurt/Bergen (M/M blind date team) Back at the zipline, Jon/H make a Jon Secada joke while listening to cicadas...
7. After leaving the cabaret for the pitstop at some local hotel, Matt/Ashley realize they've forgotten his fanny pack and go back to get it... and with good reason, as after arriving in 6th amidst a pile of other teams, he takes a ring out and proposes right in front of those other teams, how sweet :-) and they get Kurt/Bergen's date night as well too :-) M/R get themselves a trip to Prague, while Jon/H are last, but don't put away those NKOTB jokes just yet... it's a NEL :-)
Leg 4
1. Next up is Bangkok, and being a major metropolis, it's pretty crazy... After everyone else gets a flight a couple hours ahead of Jon/H, first stop is a temple for a Detour choice between Water and Wheel... with the twist that other than mode of transport, both choices also entail two extra tasks. But first, the medical team bickers away (insert shot of monk seemingly looking at this :-/) and wind up in the wrong building, allowing several teams to overtake them :-/
2. Water detour calls for riding longtail boats to a market to eat thousand-year egg (always good for some yucks :-)) and then participating in a ceremony at another temple, including getting a fortune ("conveniently", the fortunes they read relate to relationships) Other than the expected comments about the grossness of the eggs (some contestants describe the taste as rotten, while Mike bluntly calls it the worst thing he's ever eaten :-D), of note is Ashley eating the wrong kind of egg at the market and already having a problem with that relatively normal egg... One can only imagine how bad she found the actual thousand-year egg :-/ To be fair, quite a few locals (myself included) find these eggs disgusting too :-/
3. Since only 5 teams are allowed to do Water, others have to do the Wheel detour: ride a tuktuk to a snooker hall and sink a single red ball, then take a bottle of milk to a cat cafe. Not as eventful as Water, except for the inevitable conparison cuts between contestants stuck in traffic against those going quickly in the boats, and one team's tuktuk cabbie eyeing a contestant in another nearby team's tuktuk :-) Meanwhile, Jon/H's Speed Bump involves making a grasshopper from pandanus leaves (Huh.)
4. Roadblock at a part of town (near my old uni :-)) devoted to automotive parts: Who's feeling clutch? Take apart a transmission with some power tools and extract a screwdriver with their clue rolled up inside. Show makes it look much easier than it sounds, though to be fair, some of the contestants have had previous experience with engines from their families... Of note: Rochelle overtaking Jelani, even though she doesn't even know what a transmission is :-D Meanwhile, Jon/H joke about seeing Grumpy Cat at the cat cafe :-)
5. Pitstop is at the "Metal Castle", and Laura/Tyler are poised to win the leg to go along with their date night... until they get dropped off at the metro and ultimately drop to midpack :-/ Indeed, the whole finding out that the Metal Castle is in fact this local religious landmark is quite a task in itself... Plus, some drama with the ex-lawyers ditching the hairdressers as soon as they get themselves a tuktuk :-/
6. So anyways, your leg winners are Kurt/Bergen, who probably find their prize of a trip to Puerto Vallerta awkward (but do some cartwheels anyway :-)), while Jon/H finally get their rather inevitable elimination... as the show goes on a two week break (huh.)
Leg 1
1. This season, all of the teams are dating teams (!) There still manages to be a few M/M teams though, one of which has former member of New Kids on the Block Jonathan Knight (Huh.) In a first for the show, a few of the teams are actually paired up right at the starting line, which the show hopes will be interesting :-) Indeed the opening spiel calls it the most extreme blind date ever :-)
2. First order of business: A Survivor-style obstacle course at the starting line (!) to split teams on to two flights to Tokyo... Next is getting to LAX (older couple pilot/flight attendant Jeff/Lyda recite the typical flight attendant spiel while driving :-)), and since it's a 90 minute premiere, might as well use it on the blind date teams getting to know each other :-) as well teams getting to know other teams at the airport :-) (During a scene of the latter, some crew guy plainly walks by in the BG carrying a boom mike :-D) It should also be noted that the teams have been given a "selfie-cam" (especially in light of leg 2...)
3. First stop in Tokyo is some shrine, for what will turn out to be the only task of this leg (in a 90 minute premiere, go figure :-/): A Detour between memorizing and finding sake bottles to serve to samurai, and performing a dance by J-pop group World Order. Latter is pretty strenuous, I might add, with some teams still doing it into the night :-/
4. After a U-Turn, pit stop involves finding a specific parking space in the vicinity of a given building. Laura/Tyler (aka Team SoCal) miss that little nuance and search inside the really big parking garage in that building, while blind dating Jelani/Jenny (ex-lawyers) read the clue again :-) and astutely note the "vicinity" part (because... lawyers ;-)), before coming in first and getting themselves an Express Pass :-)
5. Trucker/engineer Mike/Rochelle U-Turn Jeff/Lyda, who end up taking near 4 hours (!) to complete the dancing, before managing to luck out with the sake (HUH.) and then deciding to U-Turn Jeff/Jackie (Team JJ), who turn out not to actually be behind them :-\ CJ/Libby (Team Tuskeegee, dating 10 years!) take a heck of a long time to find the U-Turn in the park, but (even after also forgetting the "vicinity" bit at the parking lot) still finish in 10th, leaving Jeff/Lyda to be eliminated, so no more plane travel quips from them :-/
Leg 2:
1. After a night at a net cafe, next stop is Nagano, and everyone's going there by bullet train. CJ/Libby, already starting the leg in last, end up falling even further behind thanks to this #SelfieFail: They're making a selfie vid of themselves with the train they've just gotten tix for when it suddenly leaves them behind :-/ + :-D And on top of that, we're told that the train they do take had to make an emergency stop :-/
2. First task involves opening a puzzle box a la Shanghai Knights (anyone else remember that film?) to obtain a password for a clue... and one random clue also contains a ticket for a hot springs date night, which ends up going to Jonathan/Harley (New Kid/BF) (HUH.)
3. Next up, a sort of blind Detour between feeding each other noodles in front of a big electric fan (hilarity ensues! :-D) and pushing a chair one lap each around the same ice track used at the 1998 Winter Olympics (!) And since Steve/Aly, aka Sochi Love, are Winter Olympic athletes, of course they go for the latter :-) with Aly revealing that her interest in winter sports started with Nagano :-) The latter task has a time limit of 3.55, and Sochi handily beats it by 20s :-) Quite a few teams cut it close with their times on their succesful attempts, while Hayley/Blair (medical profession blind date, aka RX for Love) take near 7 min in their first go (with "funny" music playing while Hayley's going really slow :-D) and Rochelle has to get a medic (and ultimately switch Detours) after taking a nasty fall (!)
4. Pitstop at some shrine, and not much to write about, as Jelani/Jenny get some prizes from FitBit, while #SelfieFail + Last place start = Elimination for CJ/Libby.
Leg 3
1. Been a while since their last Thailand visit, so next stop is Phuket, which teams make a point of pronouncing properly ;-) for one of those "grab a morning departure time" overnight bunching points in the form of a selfie stick vendor on the street, before partying the night away :-) Turns out that Jon/H aren't getting in until the morning, so they're spending the night at Singapore's airport (!) while everyone else is sleeping in slightly better accommodations... (even if those 8 teams do have to share 5 B&B rooms :-))
2. First stop is a clue pickup at an upside down house, where (for example) the toilet is installed upside down on the ceiling :-) And of course, the show offers upside down angles of contestants running on the "ceiling" :-D Meanwhile, Jon/H just arrived in Phuket, and their cabbie's getting gas...
3. Detour between zipline waiters and water boarding. No, not the torture, but it's probably not that much different for the teams trying it (which includes Sochi, I might add...) so everyone ends up doing the zipline :-/
4. After getting properly attired :-D Hayley/Blair just grab a single food item and drink each just because they saw the ex-lawyers do it... turns out that the posted menu of items is what every team has to carry, and so Hayley gets an earful :-/
5. Matt(/Ashley, hairstylists) manages to spill his wine into the noodles at the very last and first seconds of consecutive attempts, during the least difficult parts (read: the parts that don't involve the zipline :-/) Former's reminiscent of Bethany Hamilton and the glasses in last season's Malta leg, latter has Matt scooping up some of the mixed noodle broth back into his glass, and some of the recap sites I've seen seem to suggest that was allowed :-/
6. Last task before the pitstop is dancing in a ladyboy cabaret :-D, and since all the teams have at least one guy, that means we're treated to the surreal sight of the bearded Mike dressed all lady-like dancing to this luk thung hit :-D M/R get to do 8 straight attempts before still getting their clue in 1st... they were that far ahead :-) Oh, and there's also another date night ticket, this one going to Kurt/Bergen (M/M blind date team) Back at the zipline, Jon/H make a Jon Secada joke while listening to cicadas...
7. After leaving the cabaret for the pitstop at some local hotel, Matt/Ashley realize they've forgotten his fanny pack and go back to get it... and with good reason, as after arriving in 6th amidst a pile of other teams, he takes a ring out and proposes right in front of those other teams, how sweet :-) and they get Kurt/Bergen's date night as well too :-) M/R get themselves a trip to Prague, while Jon/H are last, but don't put away those NKOTB jokes just yet... it's a NEL :-)
Leg 4
1. Next up is Bangkok, and being a major metropolis, it's pretty crazy... After everyone else gets a flight a couple hours ahead of Jon/H, first stop is a temple for a Detour choice between Water and Wheel... with the twist that other than mode of transport, both choices also entail two extra tasks. But first, the medical team bickers away (insert shot of monk seemingly looking at this :-/) and wind up in the wrong building, allowing several teams to overtake them :-/
2. Water detour calls for riding longtail boats to a market to eat thousand-year egg (always good for some yucks :-)) and then participating in a ceremony at another temple, including getting a fortune ("conveniently", the fortunes they read relate to relationships) Other than the expected comments about the grossness of the eggs (some contestants describe the taste as rotten, while Mike bluntly calls it the worst thing he's ever eaten :-D), of note is Ashley eating the wrong kind of egg at the market and already having a problem with that relatively normal egg... One can only imagine how bad she found the actual thousand-year egg :-/ To be fair, quite a few locals (myself included) find these eggs disgusting too :-/
3. Since only 5 teams are allowed to do Water, others have to do the Wheel detour: ride a tuktuk to a snooker hall and sink a single red ball, then take a bottle of milk to a cat cafe. Not as eventful as Water, except for the inevitable conparison cuts between contestants stuck in traffic against those going quickly in the boats, and one team's tuktuk cabbie eyeing a contestant in another nearby team's tuktuk :-) Meanwhile, Jon/H's Speed Bump involves making a grasshopper from pandanus leaves (Huh.)
4. Roadblock at a part of town (near my old uni :-)) devoted to automotive parts: Who's feeling clutch? Take apart a transmission with some power tools and extract a screwdriver with their clue rolled up inside. Show makes it look much easier than it sounds, though to be fair, some of the contestants have had previous experience with engines from their families... Of note: Rochelle overtaking Jelani, even though she doesn't even know what a transmission is :-D Meanwhile, Jon/H joke about seeing Grumpy Cat at the cat cafe :-)
5. Pitstop is at the "Metal Castle", and Laura/Tyler are poised to win the leg to go along with their date night... until they get dropped off at the metro and ultimately drop to midpack :-/ Indeed, the whole finding out that the Metal Castle is in fact this local religious landmark is quite a task in itself... Plus, some drama with the ex-lawyers ditching the hairdressers as soon as they get themselves a tuktuk :-/
6. So anyways, your leg winners are Kurt/Bergen, who probably find their prize of a trip to Puerto Vallerta awkward (but do some cartwheels anyway :-)), while Jon/H finally get their rather inevitable elimination... as the show goes on a two week break (huh.)
