The Amazing Race 11: All-Stars (1 Viewer)

[MatthewLouwrens]

I really enjoyed the episode - a little bit annoyed by the air travel bunch-up halfway through the episode (when they go to the mine) that negated the performance in the boardroom task, but despite that, it was a really good episode. I thought the boardroom task was fun - just the challenge of finding all the letters (and some were pretty hard to spot), working out that the letters relate to the pictures, and that there were more letters than necessary, it would have definitely been a good challenge.

And then the final race to the finish was astonishing, with Kevin and Drew's sticking to the speed limit long after it applied, Charla and Mirna's complete breakdown (why exactly was she yelling at the taxi driver after the BQs left?), the confusion over which turning to take. A really great episode. I am definitely enjoying this season.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Rob and Amber !

This is getting ridiculous.

 

[Patrick Sun]

It was cute at the pitstop where Phil was nice enough to bring out another little person for Charla to hug.

 

[AnthonyC]

This is 99% potentially accurate so do not read if you don't want to know!
The "ending that will have everyone talking":
Rob/Amber are eliminated.

Another good episode this week, great season. Mary irritated me so many times tonight, not sad to see them go at all.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Anthony...you might want to edit your post to include in the lead-in to the spoiler that it might reveal the "ending that will have everyone talking"...and then include just the ending in the spoiler. It's hard to know whether you want to read the spoiler when you are not sure what's going to be in it.

==================================

What was so frustrating about Mary was that she never seemed to fully understand the concept or definition of the word "race".

Ya kinda knew they were short for this world when they did that brief flashback to the Chos. A weird sort of foreboding.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

 

[Jordan_E]

Dang, that seemed like a short trip for the Eternal Smile Team to go back, get their missed clue, and then return to the Pit Stop. I was SO upset they didn't get kicked for that.

 

[Tom Brennan]

I hope that rumor isn't true...

 

[Mike Frezon]

I was surprised they didn't get at least one of those half-hour penalties or something. It could have definitely affected the outcome of the leg of the race. What if they had decided to do the rock climb instead of the white-water rafting? That was a pretty odd thing for them to just stumble on the rafting like they did.

While I realize they wouldn't need to re-do the task since they had already done it...they also didn't really follow the rules of the game by going to the designated place (in sequence) and finding the clue. Oh well.

It's funny about Rob & Amber. It seems like it's a real love-hate relationship between them and the show's fans. I'm not rooting for them...but, by the same token, up against this group of mostly misfits they seem like the only team that has any real sense of what they're doing.

 

[AnthonyC]

Good thinking, Mike. I completely agree about Mary, especially since they made the exact same mistake last week with navigation (then it was "That sign has the most words!"; last night was "Just keep going!").

Makes me really wish Ken and Gerard, the best navigators in TAR history, were there.

In regards to the previous spoiler:
There has been a (so-far) accurate bootlist of the entire season on Survivor Sucks and other boards--and a lot of the later teams have been verified by picture evidence. Rob/Amber are next on the chopping block, and before the bootlist came up, word was that Romber were beaten by both Teri/Ian and Team Guido among others.

 

[Chris]

I must be alone in that I like Rob/Amber. I can't blame them for how they play the game.. and they play the game well.

 

[Ken Chan]

No, I thought Rob&Amber were robbed back in their original season.

Dustin&Kandice had the "penalty" of having to go back and get the clue. They passed Teri&Ian on the way back, but then Teri&Ian stopped for directions. Oswald&Danny left right behind Teri&Ian, but they went the wrong way. Dustin&Kandice could easily have come in sixth, behind those two.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

If you consider luck to be a strategy than your right. If that ticket clerk at the airport hadn't of been so helpful by holding the flight for them they would have been seriously hampered.

I see you've been a member since 1969, that's quite an achievment since there was no internet then lol.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I understand that, Ken. I just thought, for the reasons I stated before, that it seemed like they should have received an actual penalty for not getting the clue as directed in their prior clue and performing the task of white-river rafting...without having to decide between rafting and climbing.

Other teams have received time penalties for not following clues to the letter.

Just surprised is all.

 

[Chris Lockwood]

> Other teams have received time penalties for not following clues to the letter.

But this team did everything that was specified in the clue. They just didn't retrieve the clue itself. I don't remember that happening before.

I never knew before that they were supposed to turn in the clues to Phil. I thought they threw them away after reading them.

Even if they had been given a penalty, it wouldn't have mattered, since they beat several teams back to the pit stop anyway.

 

[Mike Frezon]

I kinda remember somebody dropping their clue once getting into a small car and making a big deal about picking it up...even though they had read it already. I guess that's why.

You say that Dustin & Kandace did everything that was specified in the clue...but that's not necessarily true. While it's true they did everything that was in the clue they "missed"...but they did not do everything in the prior clue they received at the fish tanks. That clue told them to get the next clue at "La Maquina." Instead, they rafted without having to make the choice between rafting & climbing.

It just seems to me their path kinda changed how they might otherwise have run that leg of the race--not altogether dissimilar when, in an earlier season, a team took a taxi from one location to the next rather than a bus. IIRC, they received a time penalty.

Like I said before, this is not earth-shattering stuff here. It just seemed surprising that they were allowed to run the leg out-of-order, potentially changing their order-of-finish and their time-of-finish, without consequence.

 

[Jason Seaver]

I'm pretty sure something like this has happened before - Uchenna and Joyce drove past a clue they had to pick up in a challenge, and were sent back for it sans penalty, a couple races ago.

I suspect that for many teams, this would have been a bigger deal - while we were watching it, my brother and I commented that Charla and Mirna would have gone into a shrieking panic mode and other teams might have wasted time blaming each other, but Dustin and Kandice have tended to finish high in large part because they work together well and shrug missteps off without a lot of hand-wringing.

 

[AnthonyC]

Yeah, there's no penalty for missing clues other than to go back and get them (and complete any missed tasks). The one exception I can think of is Dave and Margaretta from season 1, who were told the Pit Stop by another team and never officially did the Roadblock. They received a penalty at the start of the next leg (in season 1, Phil only stood at the mat for the last-place team, so there was no way to assign penalties at the moment).


I think you're referring to Nancy/Emily from season 1. They received a time penalty (and were eliminated because of it) for skipping the Detour.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Jason: I definitely agree that Dustin & Kandace are bright and extremely focused on the task-at-hand. They are indeed one of the few All Star teams I would describe as "together."

One of the things that really struck me about the whole incident is to think about the immense amount of planning that must go into each milestone of each leg of the Race so that such incidents (such as stumbling onto a task by accident) aren't more prevalent.


Just like when they realized that neither of them thought to bring along their car keys?!

 

[Robbie R]

No, you are not alone. Both my wife and I are cheering for Rob & Amber. We have enjoyed watching them since their first seasons of Survivor. I don't understand why people hate them so much??? They played Survivor extremely well (maybe even the best considering they won the all star edition) and they came in second place of "The Amazing Race" They must be doing something right