The Amazing Race

Me, too Shalamar. I'm so tired of how they're always bragging on how they're so strong and capable, but are CONSTANTLY getting through tasks only because they get help from other teams.

Truth! I'd almost rather that they went back to the tiresome "we're going to flirt our way to success, tee-hee!" because at least then they'd be doing something. Right now it seems like whenever they can't get help from another team (like following them on the highway or outright getting the answer to a clue), they're completely out of their depth.

That's why I was so happy when I realized that they were going to be completely on their own for the milk-carrying challenge. I was convinced they were out, and about damned time, too. *sigh*

Totally! And it's not like they're bad racers because it's physical, they're bad at everything they don't get help with. EVERY. SINGLE. THING. that they have to do themselves they come out of it last. Hotel room (totally non-physical?) Dead last except for Brenchel, who got there way after them and left with them. Mustang math? Dead last, even with help from both D&C (artifact) and the Afghanimals, excepting again Brenchel who were the only ones that had to figure out the artifact.

I understand why the other teams want to keep them around for the finale because they seem easy to beat but it if the final 3 is D&C, the Afghans and the girls, it would serve those jerks right if the girls beat them for the million. The only team left that I even tolerate is the Afghanimals but I would also respect a Cowboys win because they race hard. So over D&C's moral righteousness and meanness. Dickbags.

I am so irritated with the blondes, mostly because I know so many people in the viewing audience are not batting a goddamn eye at two women only making it through with massive amounts of help because they're, you know, women, pat pat pat. JESUS. I think Brendan and Rachel are annoying too, but I have had it with the blondes setting back the female cause a zillion years.

I loved the enforced Swiss precision in the hotel task.

I was really amused that Dave clearly would have been happier to win the classic Mustang than the 2015 model.

And I really hate it when brutal legs with lots of jockeying for position turn out to be nonelimination. Have a payoff, fuckers!

If you had told me at the beginning of the season I'd be rooting even the littlest bit for Brenchel, I would have thought you were crazy. I can't stand Rachel, but the behaviour of the other teams is just ugly. Dave and Connor benefited from going out early last time, because everyone saw them as the scrappy, persistent team persevering as long as they could despite a serious injury. By coming back for a second round and not having the injury to overcome they've revealed themselves to be sanctimonious, arrogant, hypocritical gits. Helping the team you just u-turned doesn't make you good people who are somehow above using one of the legitimate aspects of the game. If you don't feel using the u-turn is the right thing to do the how about, I dunno, not using it? I hate the u-turn because I hate the drama and I'd rather just see people race, but it is part of the game and it is not cheating or unfair to use it. I particularly hate people who whine about being u-turned WHILE they are u-turning someone else. It's a race, assholes. Someone trying to beat you to the finish line doesn't make them a bad person.

And I can't even with the blondes, standing around and waiting to be helped at every task. Dave and Connor do it, too -- ask people where the clue box is or what the answer is, and then get pissy if the answer isn't immediately forthcoming.

At this point I really hope the cowboys win. They keep their heads down, run their own race, work well together, and are generally competent at most tasks.

Dave and Connor do it, too -- ask people where the clue box is or what the answer is, and then get pissy if the answer isn't immediately forthcoming.

This. It's okay to ask, because maybe the other team doesn't mind telling you, but if they DO mind? Let it go and don't act like it's a personal insult. It's a RACE, dude.

Rachel said something along the lines of "Women shouldn't expect help with every little thing; they should do stuff themselves", and I was all "AMEN, SISTER." And then I thought "... did I really just 'amen' Rachel? Wow."

Well thank goodness Rachel didn't win. At least I don't have to hear about her BAAAAAABY again.

The final parachuting task was disappointing, because there was no chance for any change in positions for the teams, like there is when they do some memory task related to the race. I was fine with the winners (for who was left), but the major excitement was who could screw lightbulbs in the fastest. :/

Did anybody watch Amazing Race Canada Season 2? I think they're doing a great job with that version, and yay that they went outside of Canada! Most of the racers seemed like good people and drama was relatively low. I'd've been fine with any of the final three teams winning. The final challenge with putting the pictures in order was a good one.

And now we're up to season 25 for the US version! I loved the flashback to first season Phil!

But this season appears to have more than a few irritating teams. Yikes.

I loved the compass challenge, and how you needed to do it so carefully. I also liked that they showed us how close the teams were to their buried chests when they gave up.

But this season appears to have more than a few irritating teams. Yikes.

Fortunately, one such team got eliminated on the first leg. Not sorry to see them go, at all.

Gallifrey Girl wrote:Did anybody watch Amazing Race Canada Season 2?  I think they're doing a great job with that version, and yay that they went outside of Canada! Most of the racers seemed like good people and drama was relatively low. I'd've been fine with any of the final three teams winning. The final challenge with putting the pictures in order was a good one.

I watched that one, and really enjoyed it. I also liked the fact the racers seemed to be nice people and there wasn't much drama.

Don't know if anyone's been watching this season, but I just watched the finale and

Spoiler:

And now we can look forward to next season, which is -- ALL DATING COUPLES?!? Including several who MEET FOR THE FIRST TIME AT THE BEGINNING OF THE RACE??!?!!?! Dude, come on. It's like, take everything I DON'T like about TAR casting and DO ALL OF IT AT ONCE. I hope there are several with anger management problems. EYEROLL. Oh well.

Instant Monkeys, I COMPLETELY agree with you about the casting for next season. Yuck.

I was happy about the winners, too! Especially since, as you say, all the others were athletes and some of them had been sneering about the scientist team. But they were able to do the final memory challenge the first time, and that was the win. Brooke turned vile several episodes ago, and I wasn't sad to see that team eliminated early.

Kind of trying to give this season the benefit of the doubt, but man the blind date stuff is SO FORCED. Now kiss! level forced. Also, I want to know if there was any science to the pairing of the blind daters because "hey these two guys are gay" is not sufficient matchmaking, and I feel really icked out when everyone has to show up at the mat and Phil is looking at them all expectantly and asking if love is in the air. I feel reeeeeally sorry for the ER doctor guy, who basically looks like he wants to disappear at all times.

I was expecting a lot more casual homophobia with the ladyboy challenge, but there was enough of it.

Anyone else watching or did you listen to your better judgment and tune out of this season?

I'm watching, and I'm actually enjoying the season more than I thought, but I agree that the "blind date" idea was horrendous. I'm hoping that it goes the way of the Family Teams and never raises its head again.

I was amused when Bergen & Kurt said firmly "We are NOT at all attracted to each other - we both like big burly dudes." So there, Race.

I'm watching. The theme is silly, but I kinda think it's funny that the blind date people are on their best behaviour, rather than the couples who will sling insults knowing they'll be over it in a few minutes.

But I had enough of the nurse saying over and over and over and over that she was right about the zipline challenge and that he needs to listen to her. Which he does! But tell him once, maybe twice, not continually.

The engagement stunt was meh, but I thought it was sweet that the guys gave their date night to them.

I'm watching and it's pretty obvious to me that the concept failed, as expected.  If you have two goals, one is a date and one is a million dollars, guess which one people are going to focus on more?  Except for the showgirl (Jackie?) she seems to want to multi-task.  It's going to be interesting when the "dating couples" take off the gloves.

I feel reeeeeally sorry for the ER doctor guy, who basically looks like he wants to disappear at all times.

I don't feel sorry for him at all.  I think he's the bigger problem on their team.  He doesn't do well in hiding the fact she doesn't like her very much.  Twice we've been shown when she questions things he just dismisses her and plows ahead until he's proven wrong and that has to frustrate her.  ITA she did go on way too long at the zipline but I think she would have dropped it earlier if he had responded.  From what we saw he just ignored her.  I'd go on and on too if I felt like I was ignored when I was right and then got absolutely no kind of acknowledgement.

Too bad though.  To me he's the hottest guy on the race but his attitude is horrible.

I'm not watching. I'm not boycotting it or anything, but whoever at TAR HQ fills in the boxes or whatever it is for DVR encoding does it so the show has a different title every season, like The Amazing Race 21 or whatever. So since I basically let the DVR run free and will watch whatever it delivers to me, I almost always forget to record the new TAR season and miss the first episode. Then I have to go catch up on the CBS site or Hulu or whoever has it, which involves tracking it down, and CBS's video player used to be really really terrible, and it's a whole thing, but I'm excited so I don't really mind. This season I realized it was on when a couple of episodes had passed, and I never got around to catching up because it sounds so dumb that I'm not excited. So I'm probably going to let it go by and catch the next season. I hope this is a one-time thing. I really don't feel like the audiences for The Amazing Race and the "dating" quadrant of reality shows overlap that much, but what do I know.

Interesting, I have never changed my settings for TAR and my season pass has always recorded each season.

I am actually not as annoyed with this season as I thought I would be mainly because the romance angle really isn't having that much of an impact on the race and it's fairly low-key (most of the teams that were set-up clearly are more concerned about the race and not really going in for the romance/sex angle). The most annoying thing about this season is the damn selfie-cam and #bullshit.

Harley and Jonathan are a delight.

And this episode proved why I can't with Hayley. She might have been right two times and Blair didn't want to listen but she didn't want to take any responsibility both of the other instances she could have stopped and not gone along with him but instead she just followed behind him rather than forcing this issue.

This episode she stated that they could have negotiated a better fare last time (no one was stopping her from stepping into the negotiations) and than he immediately said he would follow her lead and listen to what she wanted to do and she immediately turned around and demand he make a decision for what they should do and than immediately started arguing with him about that decision. When he asked quickly for directions she immediately yelled at him and told him to stop wasting time and than complained and freaked when they couldn't find someone to get directions from. She will always complain and nag even if she is in complete control. She doesn't want to be the one responsible for making decisions she just wants to be able to complain when things go wrong. I am willing to bet that there might have been one or two times that Blair was correct and she disagreed but because they went with what Blair wanted and was right she didn't bitch about it so there was no need to talk about it.

he immediately said he would follow her lead and listen to what she wanted to do and she immediately turned around and demand he make a decision for what they should do and than immediately started arguing with him about that decision.

Yeah. There's no defending that. I definitely owe Blair a mea culpa on my entire last post. While I still don't know if I like him (can't figure out if he's arrogant and I don't like him or a dry-wit that I'll come around to), she is the problem, not him. I was totally wrong about that. And Jenny really showed her ass too. Jelani was right, fucking over the purple team was a stupid, stupid thing to do knowing that neither one of them were going to be last. She burned a bridge they might need later for a five minute lead with no threat of elimination. Dumb.

What's really stuck out to me on every leg this year is how much placement movement there's been between the last task and pit stop. Teams are up/down 4 places between getting the pit stop clue and arriving there. Either these people are all shit at navigation or so far everywhere they've gone has been really confusing, which could be since they're in Asia and the language barrier in every country has been profound.

And Jenny really showed her ass too.

Seriously, Blair and Jelani should go to the producers and say this blind date thing worked out because they have fallen in love and could they switch teams or at least share a room and any date night the either wins just so they would have a break from their partners.

I did also like that one if not the only one who completely rocked the transmission challenge was the female part of the truckstop couple.

Also, from certain angles Tyler totally looks like Chris Evans and than from other angles he doesn't and I start doubting myself! Actually, now that Harley and Jonathan have left Tyler and Jelani are my favorite guys on the race. Even though truckstop woman (sorry they are just so there I forget her name) smoked his ass on the car challenge he responded with such enthusiasm, including a high five, when Phil complimented her and called Jackie on her stroking the taxi driver not out of jealousy, just pointing out that a random stranger might not like her petting him like a dog. And Jelani just logically talked to Jenny when she was being a condescending ball of stress and also was calm when people passed him on the roadblock even though he probably knew that he was going to hear Jenny's complaints that he didn't finish it fast enough.

I haven't watched in a couple of seasons - there were a couple of winning teams in a row that I hated - but because of all the discussion here, I decided to watch last night. I'm so sorry I didn't come in sooner. For the awkwardness, of course, but also because Jonathan Knight! I was the perfect age for NKOTB, and I always loved Jonathan. He was my 2nd favourite after Joey. And he was so sweet, at least in last night's episode. Loved it.

But man, oh man. I'm not sure I can watch Hayley too much longer. She was something. Something not good. And Jenny may have been worse. Like, what a nightmare to be put into a stressful situation with either of those two when you don't even know them. And that couple that came in second last - what were they even doing that whole time trying to find the Metal Castle? Like, I don't understand why it took them so long.

I did forget, though, how much I love challenges like taking apart a transmission. Especially when the one girl who did it, came in, breezed past the guys that were already there, and just went on her way. And I did like how it was almost anyone's game to the finish line because none of them could find it.

Raised by wolves wrote:I definitely owe Blair a mea culpa on my entire last post.  While I still don't know if I like him (can't figure out if he's arrogant and I don't like him or a dry-wit that I'll come around to), she is the problem, not him.

I see Blair right now as someone who's overwhelmed by the sheer idiocy of what he's gotten himself into and his coping mechanism is to basically check out. I'm an introvert who's uncomfortable with accusatory people, so I really over-identify with him there. There was at least one moment where we paused the TiVo to sympathize with the hunted look in his eyes.

I was really bummed to see Harley and Jonathan go -- they seemed like really genuine people who enjoy life and each other, but there was no bunching this leg so they were doomed.

Blair should get a bonus for not strangling Haley, she might annoy me as much as Flo. Even other contestants are commenting on how awful she is to him.

Laura and Tyler might be my favorite team, they were so calm and logical about losing the fannypack and she didn't get mad at him and I liked how when they got it back he went to high five her she hit him a little harder than necessary and said it felt good to hit him.

Who goes on Amazing Race and doesn't learn manual shifting first? They use manual cars in every series, it's not a surprise. I just don't get that.