The teams left Africa and headed north on The Amazing Race this week — far north to the Arctic Circle, to be exact. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I do believe this is the first time the show has gone to the Arctic Circle. The teams headed to Kiruna, Sweden (or Swedish Lapland) to cool the teams down but some of the challenges still caused some tempers to flare. This week I was really rooting for Michael and Kevin after they barely survived the last leg of the race. Coming in last on a non-elimination leg forced them to deal with a Speed Bump this week, a task that only they had to do.
Okay, the Speed Bump has had its ups and downs since it was first introduced. There have been some tasks that really required a lot of time and other tasks that were just ridiculous, like the one where the team had to go into a sauna bus for a few minutes. This Speed Bump fell into the “Oh Come On!” category as Michael and Kevin had to … wait for it … sit on blocks of ice for ten minutes. The worst part of that was the chance of frost bite on their bums, but at least it wasn’t something that caused Michael to need medical attention again. They already had an advantage by finding an earlier flight than the one the teams had received tickets for, so they were in good shape this leg and came in fourth.
The Road Block this week really challenged the teams as they either had to ride what were called sleds, but were some motorized ski bike thingy, or build a bed (actually pitch a tent and build a bed). I did worry when Michael and Kevin chose the bed since it was obviously going to take longer but I don’t think Michael would have survived on the sled. A few teams did conquer the sleds but many more did not. I know I should not have laughed, but it was pretty funny seeing some of the teams absolutely lose control of their sleds. Poor Stephanie totally lost it and Chad turned on his usual charm by yelling at her, but when they got to the tents and saw two other teams following close behind, things got a little brighter for them.
Unfortunately, Jonathan and Connor lost their fight with the sleds and got to the tents just a little too late to save themselves from elimination, but at least they went out on a joyful note even though they were missing their gradution on the same day. However, my favorite moment of the show came when Nick asked his cab driver in Ghana to drive them to the Artic Circle. Even Vicki, who thinks London is a country, knew that was wrong!
This episode really demonstrated why The Amazing Race needs to be shot in HD. The beauty of the landscape they were in this week was just breathtaking, but I don’t think the production did it much justice. I don’t know why the producers refuse to upgrade, because if they can shoot Survivor in HD, there is absolutely no reason The Amazing Race can’t be in HD too. Another quibble I’ve had of late is just the lameness of the tasks. Earlier seasons have had one awesome task after another but they seem to have really dumbed them down lately. I don’t know if it is costs involved, laziness or that they’re just running out of ideas. They did juice things up with the sleds this week, but there really hasn’t been anything too challenging yet. They really need to step things up before the fans start to get bored. Next week’s preview looked promising though, so I hope that as the teams get whittled down the tasks will get more challenging.
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Oct 17, 2010 @ 22:43 EST5EDT
I totally agree about the need for HD. It was great when Survivor converted. But Phil addressed this complaint last year. Probably when more foreign crews have HD capability they can make the switch. From https://www.hitfix.com/articles/phil-keoghan-discussing-biking-across-america
“I think it should be in hi-def,” Keoghan agrees. “The complication, or one of the challenges that we have is that we do utilize a lot of foreign crews when we’re traveling. It’s very difficult to just turn up in Siberia and say, ‘Oh, let’s call the local guy with the HD camera and he can come down and supplement our shooting.’ It’s a little bit more complicated than, say, facilitating an HD shoot on ‘Survivor,’ where you can fly all of the equipment into one spot and you’ve got all your technical support there, you’ve got a guy who can sit down every night and look after the equipment. We’re moving at breakneck speed, 28 days, flying hundreds-of-thousands of miles, or at least anywhere from 75,000 miles in a given race, so we just don’t have the same luxury of being an ‘Idol’ or ‘Survivor,’ where everything is brought to one place, it’s 69 degrees, where the air-conditioning is perfect. We’re out sweating in Botswana or anywhere else and that’s been a huge part of the challenge. But, I absolutely agree with you. I’d love to see the show in HD. I don’t think there’s a show on TV that lends itself more to HD.”
I always just think of it as being the teams and their camera people and forget about the rest of the production that goes on around them. Well, more and more production houses are going HD, so maybe at some point it will be something we’ll see.
It’s just been announced (Nov. 2) that The Amazing Race is FINALLY going high def according to CBS Entertainment president Nina Tassler! She vaguely said it will happen next year, which could mean either the spring of 2011 if there is a spring edition or fall of 2011. Either way, that is great news!
Because you mentioned it in your introduction, I’m going to ask the question. Does anyone else cringe when Claire and Brooke offer to kiss the locals, or is it just me?
Yes! That’s why I had to mention it in the intro, to see if anyone else was creeped out by that. Glad I’m not the only one!