This season on amazing race shows teams that have an important resource they haven't in the past. The ability to speak languages other than english. You can get around the world speaking just english, but you will go faster with some spanish, or french or something to help you get by.
I miss when the "clues" actually were clues rather than just instructions. In the first couple of seasons teams had to figure out on their own how to get from point A to point B and sometimes even have to solve a puzzle to figure out where point B was - gave more opportunities to showcase the different skills of the teams. Now they just need to know how to read - though even that seems to be a little taxing for some of them.
That'd be nice. It would also be nice if they didn't level the playing field quite so often. Let a team or two get a substantial lead for an episode or two. It's annoying to see that everyone will be on the same flight, or within ten minutes of one another, ten minutes into every episode. It's coming down to a game of "who can get the fastest taxi driver".
yeah, the bunching is annoying, esp. since it's clearly by design (tourist attractions are not normally closed on Saturday afternoons). Probably to correct from early seasons when teams got spread out over a couple of days, but I think they've gone overboard. Hopefully it will be toned down from last season, the last episode was promising in that regard. :-)
Have you noticed that they've even started pre-booking a lot of the air travel? I think between those two older ladies who ended up a day behind everyone else in 2 (or was it 3?) and Chip and Kim ending up 7 hours behind Colin and Christie (they were saved by being so much later that they missed out on a weather-delay bunchup), they've decided better safe than sorry, if the only options will leave teams with vastly disparate departure times.
There are two purposes to the bunching, though: not only does it keep one team or another from accumulating a ginormous lead over what might be a relatively minor mistake, but it mostly lets the crew get ahead of the contestants.
I've been impressed with this season of Survivor because they have finally just let a dominant team steamroll over their weaker counterparts, rather than contriving some boosh way for evening out the numbers. Of course, they might pull something out of their arse this week, but I'm hoping they won't be another "let's bring people back into the game" stunt. I'm still waiting for them to split the tribes into 3 groups.
yeah, I could see were they'd want a little bit of bunching for logistical reasons, but last season it got crazy. It seemed like they didn't want to let anyone get more than an hour behind and that just makes for boring TV because they aren't really racing anymore, they're just travelling in a pack from one checkpoint to the next and it's almost random who gets eliminated.
There is actually a rather large list of specific items participants are verboten from bringing on the Race; I would imagine that this would be one of them.
That having been said, I saw the local gals reading what appeared to be 'World's Most Dangerous Places' on the plane a couple of eps ago, so who knows?
I've seen contestants have guide books in the past, but this thing goes well beyond the information in a typical guide book so I wouldn't be surprised if it was on the verboten list.
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Date: 15 Mar 2005 14:44 (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 Mar 2005 14:51 (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 Mar 2005 15:03 (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 Mar 2005 15:09 (UTC)btw, if you need to catch up on a missed episode, or want to re-live the earlier seasons, check out http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/show.cgi?show=76
no subject
Date: 15 Mar 2005 20:10 (UTC)There are two purposes to the bunching, though: not only does it keep one team or another from accumulating a ginormous lead over what might be a relatively minor mistake, but it mostly lets the crew get ahead of the contestants.
I've been impressed with this season of Survivor because they have finally just let a dominant team steamroll over their weaker counterparts, rather than contriving some boosh way for evening out the numbers. Of course, they might pull something out of their arse this week, but I'm hoping they won't be another "let's bring people back into the game" stunt. I'm still waiting for them to split the tribes into 3 groups.
no subject
Date: 15 Mar 2005 20:20 (UTC)no subject
Date: 15 Mar 2005 19:02 (UTC)That having been said, I saw the local gals reading what appeared to be 'World's Most Dangerous Places' on the plane a couple of eps ago, so who knows?
no subject
Date: 15 Mar 2005 19:04 (UTC)