I love The Amazing Race, I really do, but they really need to do something to make the challenges more … challenging and institute some new rules about teams helping each other.
Case in point, as teams arrived in Liechtenstein, the Road Block had one team member hop on a motorized bike, a Solex, and measure the length of the country with only a map to guide them. It didn’t seem like a particularly difficult challenge but it became more and more difficult as several team members got lost along the way (Jen even lost her map). The ride was only 22 km (13.67 miles) but if at the end of the line the answer given wasn’t correct, they had to ride all the way back to the beginning and do it again. After an equalizing train ride from Salzberg — and the time difference between Zev and Justin starting the leg and Gary and Mallory being the last to start was about an hour and twenty minutes — this task was an opportunity to really shake things up.
Jet, Flight Time, Jen and Vyxsin all started the task before Justin and they all had problems. Justin caught up to Jen who really needed help because of losing her map and they finished the task first and second. Gary caught up with Jet and offered to help him but Jet, who was already way off track, just took off and left Gary in the dust. The joke was on Jet though, because Gary finished with the right answer. Then everyone started sharing the answer with everyone else … except Jet who had to go back to the start and do it again. So, in the end, the teams screwed up what could have been a really great, position-shifting challenge had they not all given each other the answer.
What’s the point in having a task that requires a little skill and concentration if all anyone has to do is finish it and basically stand at the finish and hand out the answer to everyone except the one team you want in last place? That really takes the fun out of it for the viewers and I think the producers really should institute a policy that penalizes and teams who share an answer with another team. Teams could help each other with directions, but not with answers. Had Justin led Jen to the end point, she would have had the wrong answer but as it stood, the two teams got a major head start on the other four teams at that point and it was no surprise that Zev & Justin finished first — for the fourth time — and Kisha & Jen finished second, even if the editing for the Detour made it seem like teams were much closer together. I remember when the show first started, teams couldn’t even tell people they were in a race so it’s time to make some changes before all of the fun, excitement and challenge is taken out of the game.
The Detour, at least, did not provide an opportunity to share information as the teams were all running around a ski resort frantically trying to deliver twenty pieces of luggage to five different hotels. Zev & Justin decided to do the other side of the Detour – eat a very large pot of fondue. Justin didn’t think this was a great idea after the last eating challenge (and, seriously producers, two eating challenges in a row?) but Zev insisted and he pushed Justin to finish. Kisha & Jen had also started the challenge but when they saw how big the pot was, they opted for the luggage task and in one amusing moment, Justin saw the girls pass by as he was taking a puke break.
I have to say I’m really disappointed with Flight Time & Big Easy. They and the cowboys were the last two teams trying to complete the luggage task — and in real time the cowboys had arrived at the task about 45-minutes after Zev & Justin started eating fondue (and they basically finished just as Jet & Cord started delivering luggage) — and even though they had a lead over the cowboys, they lost a little bit of time when they had lost two of the twenty luggage tags they were supposed to present to get the clue. They had to deliver two more pieces of luggage but they knew they were still ahead of the Jet & Cord but for some reason they opted to use the Double U-Turn, forcing the last place team to go back and do the fondue task. The Globetrotters knew everyone else was ahead of them and that the cowboys were behind them, so that was just a dirty move, in my opinion. I’m not a fan of the cowboys, but they were marked for elimination at that point and it really wasn’t necessary for the Globetrotters to be the only team to use the Double U-Turn. That move put them at the bottom of my list of who I want to win this season.
“Liechtenstein. Almost sounds like a fake country.” – Justin
“I feel like Dumb & Dumber” – Jet while riding through Liechtenstein on his motorbike
“We’re just in it for the fondue of it.” – Zev doing more word play with Phil
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Apr 25, 2011 @ 14:13 EST5EDT
