The Amazing Race 8: Episode 3
The Amazing Race's esteem has dropped in my eyes, and it's not because my team got eliminated this week, it's how my team got eliminated.
Traditionally on the race there are a series of challenges you must perform, and how you do in each of those challenges as well as getting from one challenge to another determines your standing. Do well, you can pull ahead of other teams. Get lost, you fall behind. Occasionally there are clusterfucks, attractions that don't open until a certain time or plane flights, which equalize the remaining teams to give everyone a fair shot. And usually a couple of times a season there are challenges where it is simply a matter of first come first served, just get the teams in a set order that you either have to hold onto or fight out of.
Generally, before a pit stop you've got your pretty standard challenges. The equalizers or things that put you in order happen early enough in the leg that you can recover. Not so tonight.
The leg started with an equalizer -- a plane flight. Although, with teams of four and a flight from Washington, D.C., to Charleston, SC, it actually spread the teams out a bit more than they started. The teams had a detour -- tonight's was really a damned if you do and damned if you don't decision -- and from there the next clue put you on one of two charter busses that were two hours apart. An equalizer. Then you ended up at Rocket Park in Hunstville, AL, where there was a sequencing event. Partners from each team rode on a centrifuge to 3.2 g's. Then you make your way a mile to another clue and on to the pit stop.
The thing is, the time it takes you to get strapped into a centrifuge, get up to 3.2 g's, then get out of the centrifuge is more than the amount of time it takes to travel a mile no matter who you are. In other words, the order in which you pulled the centrifuge task was the order you finished. The second half of the teams all arrived at the clue box at the same time. The Aiello's hesitated half a second in who would do the road block, so they lose. That's not a race in my eyes. It's dumb luck.
That said, there were a couple of entertaining moments this week. The first was pure teenage instinct. Boy Weaver and Boy Schroeder were hanging out at the airport talking to each other. They're two boys of about the same age, seems natural that they might bond a little bit. But Step-Mom Schroeder didn't want her son talking to anyone from another team. Because you KNOW when two teenage boys get together and there are about 500 gorgeous girls between the ages of 18-25 they're going to be talking strategy of the game. Boy Schroeder called his step-mom a bitch after that move. He's quiet, but when he speaks he really has something to say.
The other entertainment, I am sorry to say, came at the expense of someone's mental health. One of the Weaver daughters TOTALLY snapped. OFF THE DEEP END. She was talking and singing and dancing and just generally acting like a nut job. Mom just embraced it and rolled with it. Which is, I suppose, what you have to do, but it was still quite funny to watch. I think it's just a matter that life is starting to take it's toll. Dad died fairly recently, she's 19, so probably in her first or second year of college. And then you add the race on top of it. Yeah, that would be enough to make a girl go a little wacko. Next week will be worth watching, as the race will take the teams to a NASCAR track. Dad Weaver died at a NASCAR track. You do the math. For the sake of the race, I hope they pick the challenges of the race BEFORE they pick the teams, as that's sadism beyond belief if they chose the NASCAR challenge AFTER selecting this team who has already been through so much.
So we'll see how it goes next week. I hope The Amazing Race will rise to the occasion and earn back it's respect. But maybe it will continue to sink a little further down. The rules say I now must root for Sweetie's team, the aforementioned Schroeders, and bitch step-mom aside I really do think they may have what it takes to go the duration.
Traditionally on the race there are a series of challenges you must perform, and how you do in each of those challenges as well as getting from one challenge to another determines your standing. Do well, you can pull ahead of other teams. Get lost, you fall behind. Occasionally there are clusterfucks, attractions that don't open until a certain time or plane flights, which equalize the remaining teams to give everyone a fair shot. And usually a couple of times a season there are challenges where it is simply a matter of first come first served, just get the teams in a set order that you either have to hold onto or fight out of.
Generally, before a pit stop you've got your pretty standard challenges. The equalizers or things that put you in order happen early enough in the leg that you can recover. Not so tonight.
The leg started with an equalizer -- a plane flight. Although, with teams of four and a flight from Washington, D.C., to Charleston, SC, it actually spread the teams out a bit more than they started. The teams had a detour -- tonight's was really a damned if you do and damned if you don't decision -- and from there the next clue put you on one of two charter busses that were two hours apart. An equalizer. Then you ended up at Rocket Park in Hunstville, AL, where there was a sequencing event. Partners from each team rode on a centrifuge to 3.2 g's. Then you make your way a mile to another clue and on to the pit stop.
The thing is, the time it takes you to get strapped into a centrifuge, get up to 3.2 g's, then get out of the centrifuge is more than the amount of time it takes to travel a mile no matter who you are. In other words, the order in which you pulled the centrifuge task was the order you finished. The second half of the teams all arrived at the clue box at the same time. The Aiello's hesitated half a second in who would do the road block, so they lose. That's not a race in my eyes. It's dumb luck.
That said, there were a couple of entertaining moments this week. The first was pure teenage instinct. Boy Weaver and Boy Schroeder were hanging out at the airport talking to each other. They're two boys of about the same age, seems natural that they might bond a little bit. But Step-Mom Schroeder didn't want her son talking to anyone from another team. Because you KNOW when two teenage boys get together and there are about 500 gorgeous girls between the ages of 18-25 they're going to be talking strategy of the game. Boy Schroeder called his step-mom a bitch after that move. He's quiet, but when he speaks he really has something to say.
The other entertainment, I am sorry to say, came at the expense of someone's mental health. One of the Weaver daughters TOTALLY snapped. OFF THE DEEP END. She was talking and singing and dancing and just generally acting like a nut job. Mom just embraced it and rolled with it. Which is, I suppose, what you have to do, but it was still quite funny to watch. I think it's just a matter that life is starting to take it's toll. Dad died fairly recently, she's 19, so probably in her first or second year of college. And then you add the race on top of it. Yeah, that would be enough to make a girl go a little wacko. Next week will be worth watching, as the race will take the teams to a NASCAR track. Dad Weaver died at a NASCAR track. You do the math. For the sake of the race, I hope they pick the challenges of the race BEFORE they pick the teams, as that's sadism beyond belief if they chose the NASCAR challenge AFTER selecting this team who has already been through so much.
So we'll see how it goes next week. I hope The Amazing Race will rise to the occasion and earn back it's respect. But maybe it will continue to sink a little further down. The rules say I now must root for Sweetie's team, the aforementioned Schroeders, and bitch step-mom aside I really do think they may have what it takes to go the duration.
posted by Swankette at 10:17 PM
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