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The Amazing Race - season 15

post #1 of 92
9/27/09 at 8:06am
Thread Starter 
The Amazing Race won yet another Emmy last Sunday and returns for its 15th season tonight on CBS with a 2-hour premiere at 8 p.m. EDT (but there is a possibility of overrun due to sports programming, so pad those DVRs, just in case).

The cast and other goodies from the CBS site:

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/amazing_race/
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Gear mentioned in this thread:

The Amazing Race - The Seventh Season
The Amazing Race: The First Season
post #2 of 92
9/27/09 at 9:18am
I'll be watching, as always.  Regarding the chance of overrun due to football, I've stopped recording on any of our three American CBS feeds, because sometimes it's as much as 45 minutes over (this happened TWICE last year).  Instead, I simply record on CTV--normally I don't do this, as our HD CTV feeds suck (I swear they are simulcasted with like 20 other feeds, because the picture quality is so poor), however, since TAR isn't in HD, I don't really care.
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post #3 of 92
9/27/09 at 9:56am
Thread Starter 
Since it's a 2-hour premiere, I'll have to record Cold Case on one of my 3 old school ReplayTVs to catch overruns since I have 2 shows recording in the 10 p.m. timeslot tonight.  It shouldn't be a problem with the 1-hour TAR episodes later since I only have 1 show being recording at 9 p.m. on my HD DVR on Sundays.
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post #4 of 92
9/27/09 at 7:20pm
Fun premiere, that royaly sucks large for that team that never even got to start the race lol.

Should be a fun season and...Mika. That is one fine lookin' woman right there.
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post #5 of 92
9/27/09 at 9:33pm
Thread Starter 
Anyone else remember Mika from her 2-episode appearance on "Nashville", some weird lame reality show on Fox a few years ago?
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post #6 of 92
9/29/09 at 9:12pm
I don't know what it is about this show now, but I don't seem to enjoy it nearly as much as I used to. The past couple seasons I've almost felt like it's a chore to watch which was never an issue in earlier seasons. From what I saw in the first two hours the teams they selected for this season seem very boring. Maybe it will pick up, but I'm not nearly as excited to watch as I have been in the past.
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post #7 of 92
9/29/09 at 9:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Josh Dial View Post

 however, since TAR isn't in HD...

With each passing season, this fact is becoming more and more ridiculous. 
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post #8 of 92
9/29/09 at 10:05pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Frezon View Post




With each passing season, this fact is becoming more and more ridiculous. 

Yes it is.
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post #9 of 92
9/30/09 at 3:24am
My understanding that this is HD, just not widescreen HD. It looks to me like HD, it's just not widescreen. I know when I watch what I know is SD stuff, I can tell. I can't with TAR. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought I read that somewhere.
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post #10 of 92
9/30/09 at 4:55am
I might be wrong but I think that TAR is merely upconverted and not HD, It certainly isn't HD, I can say that for sure.
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post #11 of 92
9/30/09 at 6:24am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Frezon View Post
With each passing season, this fact is becoming more and more ridiculous. 
 

I think it's a portability issue. It's a fast paced and unpredictable show; is there any other show like it that's in HD? What's the battery life like? There are hikes that can go on for hours. Remember when Tammy and Victor got lost last year in Transylvania? I think the cameraman was running low on batteries, but they got finished in time. HD doesn't seem to be a high priority for CBS anyways; Survivor just got it last year, and The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson just got it last month.

This is what Phil Koeghan has to say about it:


Quote:
Given that fresh look, why hasn't "The Amazing Race" followed the industry trend and moved into high definition?

"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."
 

http://www.hitfix.com/articles/2009-3-28-phil-keoghan-discussing-biking-across-america
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post #12 of 92
9/30/09 at 6:25am
I've been railing about this the past few seasons.  It's the most confounding decision by a program that just won it's seventh consecutive Emmy.

I noticed with interest this week that Fox news is now letterboxed on 4:3 screens...giving them the ability to spready out their bottom-third graphics on their 16:9 picture without losing them on 4:3 sets.  That got me wondering about saturation levels of HD sets and HD service into U.S. homes.  And here is an extremely popular program (on the "Tiffany" network) still shooting in SD...when most cable networks (like TLC for gosh sake) have been shooting their shows on HD for years. 

And professional HD cameras are just as durable and portable as any SD cam on the market. 
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post #13 of 92
9/30/09 at 9:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark_B View Post

My understanding that this is HD, just not widescreen HD. It looks to me like HD, it's just not widescreen. I know when I watch what I know is SD stuff, I can tell. I can't with TAR. Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought I read that somewhere.

It's definitely not in HD, for the reasons stated in the article Thomas quoted and linked above.  There are a lot of complications that go along with shooting a show like TAR, and I fully understand that.  I'm just hoping that we'll see in in HD in the next few seasons.
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post #14 of 92
9/30/09 at 9:17am
We can put a man on the moon for goodness' sake...and get video and audio back to Earth. 

(I'd post a "big grin" smiley right here...but that function is not working for me this morning for some odd reason.)

Get the Serbians HD-cams!
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post #15 of 92
9/30/09 at 6:08pm
We just got an HDTV this summer...and what never really mattered to me before was now running through my head the entire episode. That said, I think the premiere was excellent, especially the second hour. I enjoyed the last season a lot but most of the tasks seemed incredibly simple, so it was reassuring to see that the challenge creators haven't completely gone soft.
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post #16 of 92
9/30/09 at 7:48pm
Now that you've got an HDTV, Anthony...don't stand too close to Phil's eyebrow.  You'll think he'll scratch you with it when he arches the darn thing!  That thing could be dangerous! 

:o)
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post #17 of 92
10/23/09 at 1:53am
What?  No comments on the season yet?

The interracial couple is starting to annoy us with their referencing about their being interracial (picking the zebra, the yin/yang hat, etc).  Fact is I didn't even notice until they started mentioning it during every interview.

Glad to see Lance and Keri gone. They were incredibly annoying.

I heard a rumor that after being eliminated Ron dumped Marcy.

And I wish CBS would schedule football for 3.5hrs rather than just 3 hrs. Every season each episode is never aired on-time.  You know the game's going to be on longer than 3hrs so just schedule it so.  You can't fill in an extra 20m with commentary and commercials if it ends reasonably?  I have TAR scheduled to record for 2hrs and I STILL missed the last 15m last week!
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post #18 of 92
10/23/09 at 2:37am
I'm just glad that Team Caveman is gone, (that's Lance and Keri to everyone who isn't me hehe). His constant need to show off his manly strength by ripping apart VCR's with his bare hands and asking if he could kick over a snowman he just built began to grate my nerves big time.

Team Tammy Fay (Mika and Cynaan sp) is becoming increasingly shrill, they could go however i'll miss Mika a little.
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post #19 of 92
10/23/09 at 8:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul D G View Post



And I wish CBS would schedule football for 3.5hrs rather than just 3 hrs. Every season each episode is never aired on-time.  You know the game's going to be on longer than 3hrs so just schedule it so.  You can't fill in an extra 20m with commentary and commercials if it ends reasonably?  I have TAR scheduled to record for 2hrs and I STILL missed the last 15m last week!
 

I agree. Fox finally did it. They don't start first run programming until 8:00. If the games end on time they show reruns until 8:00. They just need to eliminate 1 show from the Sunday lineup and start everything at 8:00. Have gameday wrap up if anything ends on time. I remember when the games started at 4:00 and they never finished on the 3 hours and then the nfl moved the start time to 4:15. I have my dvr set to record TAR, then the show after it which I don't watch and then Cold Case, which we do. Cold Case is set to run 3 hrs PAST the ending. This way I am sure to get it altho this week they pre-empted Cold Case and went to the news after that doctor show. Was that everywhere or just my local?
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post #20 of 92
10/23/09 at 4:08pm
Of course, if you look at the ratings when there is a football overrun, the Race seems to do quite a bit better than when things end on time.
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post #21 of 92
10/24/09 at 6:43pm
Now that the meathead is gone, I really don't have a problem with any of the other contestants right now.  The Poker players I hated(just Tiffany) but now I don't mind them, I am sure I will start to dislike someone though.

Was Ron and Marcey the on again off again couple?
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post #22 of 92
10/24/09 at 10:51pm
I liked Lance and Keri...he reminded me of Coach in his constant state of oddness but he was ultimately harmless. Of course, the line "he reminded me of Coach" has a completely different impact on most people since I was about the only Coach fan at HTF. And by HTF, I mean on the planet.
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post #23 of 92
10/25/09 at 6:12pm
Blah blah blah

blah blah blah spoiler protection

Well, at least we got to see Mika in a swimsuit before her exit lol.

Some screen grabs would be sweet.
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post #24 of 92
10/25/09 at 7:09pm
Based on the amount of time we've spent with Miss America makes me wonder how her husband can stand spending the rest of his life with her.   

I'm just kidding here, people! 
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post #25 of 92
10/25/09 at 7:25pm
Thread Starter 
It's sad to see that grown people can't do long division anymore without a calculator.
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post #26 of 92
10/26/09 at 4:09am
If the price really is changing every 60 seconds, it would be tough to do five-by-five-digit long division in that time. (Depending on how much the price fluctuates, you might be able to shortcut it after several tries.) Two minutes is much more doable.

What they need is a something that requires trigonometry, to debunk that old "I'll never use it in real life" saying. Of course, on a HTF board -- "will this 60-inch diagonal 16:9 screen fit here" -- that's not true either
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post #27 of 92
10/26/09 at 6:16am
I was wondering that last night while watching the show.  Even if the price of the gold was changing a couple dollars, that meant that the number of ounces was going up/down by, at most, 2-3.  So basically to get it exact you could put say 530 ounces on the table, the second the price changed quickly do the math and then add or remove 1-2 ounces.  However, I tried to do the math, even doing a shortcut method it still takes about a minute on paper.

I can understand being scared of bungey jumping, sky diving, if you are afraid of hieghts.  There is an inherent risk there.  But going down a slide?  Give me a break.  He was right, he should of pushed her down it, I would never of done it but i was cheering for him to do it.
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post #28 of 92
10/26/09 at 6:25am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve_Tk View Post

I can understand being scared of bungey jumping, sky diving, if you are afraid of hieghts.  There is an inherent risk there.  But going down a slide?  Give me a break.  He was right, he should of pushed her down it, I would never of done it but i was cheering for him to do it.

Take it from someone who has a lot of experience in dealing with someone with anxiety issues...THAT was an extremely tough situation for BOTH of them to be in. 

You could just see his frustration and her fear spiral out-of-control while feeding off each other.  No excuses for his name-calling "moron, etc"...but until you've walked in someone's shoes...

My takeaway is simply that people with such severe limitations should not become contestants on such programs.  Simple as that. 

And I will tell you that my familiarity with the issue really has now turned me against the Glove Trotter team.  Their baiting of Mika trying to convince her not to do it and to walk down with them--playing against Canaan's imploring--was incredibly bad form and really transcended game-playing to a level of potential psychological damage.  Which all goes back to my major takeaway:  that someone with those issues shouldn't be playing such a game. 
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post #29 of 92
10/26/09 at 6:38am

Like I said, easy for me to say push her when i'm not in that situation.  If it was my significant other I would of never tried to physically force her down it, however i would of been very frustrated. 

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post #30 of 92
10/26/09 at 8:16am
That's why I was really feeling for the guy (and the gal).  It goes so much deeper than "frustration." 

There's nothing she would have loved to do more than go down the slide.  And there's nothing more he would have loved than for her to go down that slide.  But, when an uncontrollable force prevents someone you care about from being able to accomplish that goal (or just makes it very difficult to do) it's beyond frustrating.
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Gear mentioned in this thread:

The Amazing Race - The Seventh Season
The Amazing Race: The First Season
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