All Stars Fade Away

... Spoiler Alert! ... Spoiler Alert! ...


If you haven't yet seen (and you intend to see) episode 13 of The Amazing Race Series 11 – All Stars Edition (TARAS), do not read any further!


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The last TARAS episode we saw here in Australia ended with Eric & Danielle being the last team to reach the Pit Stop but the third team to be saved from elimination on the All Stars edition of the show. The Pit Stop was located at Umatac (Fort Nuestra Señora de la Soledad) in Guam, an organised unincorporated territory of the USA. The Finish Line was located inside the San Francisco Botanical Gardens, back on the mainland.

In the Detour for this leg of the race, teams had to choose between ‘Under’ or ‘Over’. In ‘Under’, teams had to swim underwater to gain access to a cave where their next clue was anchored to the cave’s floor. In ‘Over’, teams had to use a paddle board to reach a buoy to which their next clue was fastened.

Photos on the official CBS website suggest that the unaired Roadblock involved jumping off a cliff into the water below (because Mirna and Danielle were shown doing this task in the photos). The location of the Roadblock was most likely in Hawaii near the Detour, though the exact location is unknown.

At the San Francisco Mint (in the Race's final task), one team member had to answer four questions relating to their opinion of other teams on the Race. Their answers corresponded to a four-digit code. The other team member then had ten minutes to guess the answers and enter the code into a safe containing the last clue. Success meant that the lucky team could get a head start on the other teams, but if they failed, teams were still allowed to proceed once the ten minutes had passed.

For the record, this was the order in which the teams reached Phil on the mat last episode, and the order in which they started this leg of the Race:

1. Dustin & Kandice
2. Eric & Danielle
3. Charla & Mirna
4. Oswald & Danny


Note: As always, I’ll provide my thoughts on each team in this episode, listing them in the order in which they arrived at the Finish Line (hence the 'Spoiler Alert!').



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1. Eric & Danielle: WINNERS!


Last week: 2
This week: Up one place

Well, well, well! Look who’s a happy boy, then! (Me, not Eric – when it’s all said and done, who cares about Eric?!) I hoped from the start that he’d win, and was almost surprised (yet very, very glad) that he did! Especially considering the dead weight he had to drag around with him (no offence, Dummielle). I’m not going to gloat (much) about Eric & Danielle’s win, although I will repeat what Wifey said last night as we watched it … they were definitely the underdogs this season. They got Yielded twice, were pulled off a flight, got stranded at an airport twenty-seven hours behind the lead team, arrived in last place twice (once at a non-elimination leg and once when Joe & Bill were right in front of them but had a half-hour time penalty, spearing E+D at the last second, argued, were ganged-up against by the other teams, hadn’t had the benefit of working together as a team before, and so on. So I thought it was the most satisfying outcome that they overcame all this and won. Between that, and Eric’s highly amusing (and often inappropriate) wit, I enjoyed them the best out of all eleven teams. Interestingly, the Race was filmed in November / December 2006 (last night’s final episode aired in the US in May 2007), and Eric & Danielle have since stated that they’re no longer a couple (due to the geographical distance between their homes), but apparently they’re great friends. I’d wonder if the intellectual distance also played a part in their break-up, but that’d just be me being spiteful again. But when looking at the events of this final episode, I was interested to see how Eric & Danielle and Dustin & Kandice were walking the aisles of their first flight out of Tokyo, looking for Charla & Mirna. What, you guys are friends, now??! Ain’t it funny to see how fickle the concepts of betrayal and friendship really are. Just last week these two teams couldn’t bear to speak to each other, but now they’re so concerned with not being at the back of the pack that they’re confiding in each other about the whereabouts of the third team. I was actually quite surprised at how well Eric & Danielle were doing, up until their flights to San Francisco. They were going from strength to strength, and overtook the other teams on the beach and in the kayaks. When they got to the final task, using the safe at the San Francisco Old Mint, I was humoured by Eric’s comment that Danielle likes gossip, so they should be okay. In truth, Danielle was the only person to break their partner’s code and retrieve the clue – unfortunately for them this only gave them a two-minute head start on the others, who were given their clue when the ten-minutes had run out. Personally, and I’d say this regardless of which team had succeeded at the task (or if none had succeeded at all), I thought this sucked that they were simply given the clue when the time ran out. I understood the resulting tension and drama at having all three teams close together, but no teams is aware of any other team’s placement once they’ve left each other’s company (for all the other teams knew, E+D could have gotten lost after leaving the Old Mint, D+K could have left the Old Mint just moments after E+D, C+M could have taken a faster route to the Botanical Gardens and beaten both other teams, etc), so just handing over the clue rather than making the two team members swap roles at the safe cracking task seemed weak and unfair (and almost cheated us out of extra tension and enjoyment). But that being said, Eric & Danielle were fortunate enough to reach host Phil Keoghan at the Finish Line first, winning $US1 million. Eric then phoned his former teammate Jeremy, who seemed to think that he was now rich (interesting theory), and promised to give Eric some ‘spankings’ when he returned home. (Clearly Eric’s the sub.)




2. Dustin & Kandice: ELIMINATED! (2nd Place)


Last week: 1
This week: Down one place

Although I was happy to see Eric & Danielle win the Race, if I was being fair (and in my mind’s eye, at least, I was being fair), Dustin & Kandice would have been the most deserving team to win. When you consider how well they continually played this game and how frequently they were either in first place or at least the top half of the pack, you’ve got to give them their dues: They did very well throughout the season and played the smartest game all up. However, the winner isn’t about the team who won the most prizes throughout the Race or whoever was the most ‘clever’ in legs past … they had to be the first ones to reach the Finish Line, and they weren’t. Non-elimination legs, Yields, Fast Forwards, Intersections … these things are all elements to the Race as much as the Roadblocks and Detours are, so there’s no use complaining about them or saying they’re not ‘fair’. Every teams begins the first leg of the Race equal to every other team, and whatever happens from there is up to how well they do from leg to leg. Seeing that Dustin & Kandice had been so ‘tight’ throughout the Race and never seemed to argue at all, it was sweet justice to see them have such a major meltdown on the kayak and in the car afterwards. Although they made up and became “besties” again, it became a pretty bitter disagreement between them and Kandice was particularly hurtful to Dustin out of frustration and embarrassment. However, it must be acknowledged that she had a point – Dustin had made some stupid decisions while they were in the kayak, like getting out and walking it (it’s so incredibly difficult to get back into a kayak once you’re out in the water). When the heat truly was on, these girls turned nasty (both towards each other, and towards other teams – although they’d been doing the latter all along). When they arrived at the airport to buy tickets to San Francisco, one of them asked the gold-plated question: “I wonder if there’s a place to buy tickets?” Yes darling, that would be called a ticket counter. I realise it must be a bad feeling to finish the Race in second place (Eric stated it was the hardest disappointment he’s had to deal with in his whole life, further cementing the guy’s shallowness), but you can’t feel too bad for these beauty queens turned reality TV show contestants. They walked away with a swagful of freebies, including their own catamarans. (“What’s a catamaran?”)




3. Charla & Mirna: ELIMINATED! (3rd Place)


Last week: 3
This week: No change

Imagine the uproar these two would have made about dwarfs being able to achieve the same things as normal-heighted people if they’d won! They preached enough about it just for coming in third place. As far as I’m concerned, Charla & Mirna were only ever comic relief on this Race, so it’s a good thing they didn’t fluke it in the final leg and win the big bucks. They were too hypocritical about the integrity shown by other teams to gain any credibility at all, for mine. They made an exceptionally smart move by checking the United flight out of Tokyo, which ended up getting them to Hawaii almost an hour before the other teams (after landing twenty minutes earlier than expected). But it was all for naught when the other two teams had a couple of hours to catch up to them. When they asked C+M what flight they were on, their answer that they were sitting right behind them was quite funny. Choosing the ‘Over’ Detour task meant having to paddle on a surfboard, and they seemed to struggle a little with this challenge (although they still finished it before the other teams completed the ‘Under’ task – in fact, they’d left the area before D+K even arrived!). Charla’s instruction to Mirna to “just stay low” was easy enough for her to say! On the home stretch, the weird thing to note about Mirna was her insistance on calling the Botanical Gardens “the Botarrnical Gardens”. What a strange pair.



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Last week's tips:

First Team: Dustin & Kandice. . (Wrong)
Last Team: Charla & Mirna. Correct!
Yield? No. Correct!
Fast Forward? No. Correct!
Elimination Week? No – one team will win, and the other two will not. (Big prediction, I know!) Correct!
Biggest Argument: Eric & Danielle. (Wrong) – surprisingly, it was Dustin & Kandice!
Smartest Team: Dustin & Kandice. . (Wrong) I guess this was Eric & Danielle.


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My Predictions For TARAS:

Correct: 41
Wrong: 43
That’s pretty average (certainly the worst I’ve done since I started making predictions two seasons ago). This is the first time I’ve gotten more Wrong than Correct. But oh well – they’re all complete stabs in the dark, anyway. :)



If you haven’t already done so, check out the review of this same episode that Javatari posted on his blog (once it’s up).


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Where's The Fire, Ya Giant Flirt?

I certainly wasn't surprised when fireman Andrew and wannabe ladies man Thomas were evicted last night - they were the obvious choice for a romance-hungry crowd that wants Billy to stay in the House for Aleisha's benefit, and loves Joel so much that they want to have his babies (I hear there's a waiting list being drawn up by Harry M Miller, which will have Joel busy for a good few years to come).

I've said everything I want to say about the "boys only" nomination fiasco here, so I'll just glide over that issue straight away and look at the results of the night:

Andrew and Thomas. Neither irked me (although I cringed quite a bit at - or should that be for? - Thomas misreading the girls around him and getting too excited about Susannah for his own good), but at the same time, I certainly wasn't crazy about either of them. I found their departures to be neither sad nor a relief. They were just 'blah'.


Handy Andy was Alpha Boring.

I'm sure Andrew would have been happy to see Hayley again (I have no doubt that they're crazy about each other), but I don't believe that he was REALLY as blasé about being evicted as he kept making out that he was. That was false disinterest so he didn't look or feel humiliated by what he probably expected would be his final week in the House (and he was right).

As far as him ruling the roost, it's true that he did - but then, pretty much SOMEONE'S gotta do it. That's human nature.


Oh no, that's right ... THAT'S Human Nature.

Thomas, meanwhile, was having a high-ol' time (once TJ was gone) but missing Susannah in a way that made him come across as a bit of a (lovable?) tool. He did no wrong, really, and getting the role of Leader in the "Big Brother is AWOL" task gave him his best Daily Show footage yet ... but also resulted in him falling victim to the 'tall poppy syndrome' (as opposed to the 'tall toolhead syndrome').

It was ridiculous how much he admired himself in the mirror, but this fact was made all-the-more unbearable by his membrane-thin attempts to garner praise and admiration out of other Housemates with his lame-arse questions about whether his arms are "too big".

Thomas: My arms aren't that big, are they?
Susannah: Yeah! Absolutely, they're huge!
Thomas: Really? OMG, LOL!!!1! I never knew!*

* paraphrased


Thomas loved his OWN body too much to be
serious in his flirting with any of the girls.

So now we're down two hunks and have only three or four more to get rid of. Then we'll have an interesting - and yet not maddening - House with people who are worth watching.

Actually, one thing I DID think was a bit harsh about last night's show was how long they made Billy wait in the 'Exit Room' before being told to return to the House. I hope he wasn't busting for the loo!


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Naval Gazing

... Spoiler Alert! ... Spoiler Alert! ...


If you haven't yet seen (and you intend to see) episode 12 of The Amazing Race Series 11 – All Stars Edition (TARAS), do not read any further!


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The last TARAS episode we saw here in Australia ended with Eric & Danielle being the last team to reach the Pit Stop but the third team to be saved from elimination on the All Stars edition of the show. The Pit Stop was located at Trilho da Taipa Pequena 2000 Park in Taipa, Macau, China.

In the Detour for this leg of the Race, teams had to choose between ‘Care Package’ or ‘Engine Care’. In ‘Care Package’, teams had to fill a 500-pound package with various humanitarian aid items for a neighbouring island. Once that was completed, the teams then had to board a transport plane and participate in an ‘air drop’ training exercise. Though the easier of the two Detour tasks, the mission took at least half an hour to complete. In ‘Engine Care’, teams had to clean an engine pod and associated flap section on the wing of a B-52 bomber until one of the base's sergeants felt the portion of the plane was clean enough.

In the Roadblock, teams had to perform a search-and-rescue mission. Using a GPS receiver, team members had to locate a pilot in the Guam forest, receive new GPS coordinates from him, locate the landing zone, and signal for a helicopter to pick them up and take them back to the naval base.

For the record, this was the order in which the teams reached Phil on the mat last episode, and the order in which they started this leg of the Race:

1. Dustin & Kandice
2. Charla & Mirna
3. Eric & Danielle
4. Oswald & Danny


Note: If you're already ahead of this point in the series, please refrain from giving any spoilers in your comments. Thank you.

As always, I’ll provide my thoughts on each team in this episode, listing them in the order in which they arrived at the Pit Stop (hence the 'Spoiler Alert!').



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1. Dustin & Kandice


Last week: 1
This week: No change

The ‘beauty queens’ (I put the term in inverted commas because I think there are very few teams with uglier and more deceptive personalities on this Race) started off the leg by giving Eric an ego boost as a way (I can only presume) of clearing the air in case he’d learnt the truth about Oswald & Danny’s Yield from the previous episode: “You look very buff today, Eric … in your white shirt”. Unfortunately, Eric seemed a bit startled by this praise, and Danielle found it amusing (she even wanted to have a look), so the girls’ ploy seemed to have paid off. Later, we heard Eric remark on how much they now hated Oswald & Danny, indicating that they mustn’t have learned the truth about the story behind the Yield until they saw the episode on television back home months later. When using the GPS receiver to search for the naval pilot, Dustin likened it to looking for your ‘Easter basket’, which either highlights her stupidity, or casts aspersions on the kind of surprises her parents use to hide at the bottom of the garden in lieu of chocolate bunnies. There wasn’t much these girls did wrong on this leg (once again), so they took out the first place honours with relative ease (once again). Smart money has them for taking out the entire Race next week. Smart, emotionless money, that is.




2. Eric & Danielle


Last week: 3
This week: Up one place

You gotta hand it to ‘em; just when you think these guys are out, they manage to keep climbing back to the near-top of the pack. Eric may have looked buff today in his white shirt, but Danielle had taken her regular dose of dumb pills in the morning, resulting in her getting lost on the Roadblock at the naval base. She didn’t know how to use a compass, but apparently Eric had already used up his entire Roadblock allotment for the Race (this was the first official indication that each team member had only a certain number of Roadblocks they could perform for the duration of the Race … and means Danielle has to do whatever they’re faced with in the big season finale next week!). I don’t know what it is about these two, but they’re my sentimental favourites to win. I don’t think they’re the most deserving team (that’d be the robotic ‘beauty queens’), nor the viewer favourites (that’d be the recently-departed Oswald & Danny), nor are they the comic relief (that’d DEFINITELY be Charla & Mirna), but they’re the team my heart was rushing for the most when I feared they could come reach host Phil Keoghan on the mat in fourth place last night. I’m not sure what Danielle was doing, continually crying in the bush, but if my GPS receiver kept saying, “GPS ERROR”, I’d probably show the pilot who was tailing me and ask if it was working properly. She waited too long before discovering she’d bumped a button she shouldn’t have. But she managed to complete the Roadblock before either Charla or Oswald, so (to be honest) she did very well with the challenge.




3. Charla & Mirna


Last week: 2
This week: Down one place

I scoffed aloud when Charla said she and Mirna chose to complete the humanitarian Detour task “… because I like to help people that are in need”. Sure, darlin’ – that’d be why you’re selflessly trying to win $1 million, right?! Truth be told, they fell behind on this one when they picked the wrong Detour task – although Charla probably wouldn’t have been able to scrub or wash the plane very effectively, either. So maybe they chose wisely after all. After the pilot of the plane from which they were conducting the care package drop performed the aerial stunt, Mirna’s comment, “I was like flying” seemed incredibly dumb. But her insistence that she tell the personnel on the plane with her that they had to hurry up and land the thing because they’re on a race was the icing on the cake. They know full-well what’s going on, you silly woman – and there’s no use trying to hurry them up! However, the most ridiculous thing from these girls on this leg of the Race, was when Charla just WOULD NOT STOP TOUCHING THE FRICKIN’ GPS SCREEN! I hope they don’t win next week. As much as they’re amusing to watch (particularly when they fall down), I don’t really want them to win the money.




4. Oswald & Danny: ELIMINATED!


Last week: 4
This week: No change

Oh boy – another less-than-perfect leg for these two. Karma still had it in for them this week, and they certainly didn’t help their own cause by continually falling behind and getting lost on the road (although, to be fair, every team seemed to have to turn around at least once in this episode). Oswald & Danny first flirted with fate when they missed the first flight out of China and risked everything to make a 45-minute connection in Tokyo to board the same flight as the other teams heading in to Guam. Thankfully for them, they made it (just), and they were studiously ignored by Eric & Danielle. When they were washing the plane, Oswald made me laugh by muttering, “I know you’re gonna yell at me,” in reference to the no-nonsense sergeant overseeing their work. The amount of water being wasted during this task made me want to cry. It could have kept Melbourne wet for three winters! But after arriving at the roadblock task dead last, and then Oswald not looking up from his GPS to find the pilot standing five metres away from him, there was no way they were gonna catch up to the other teams (much less beat them by more than half an hour because they were ‘marked for elimination’). The most perplexing thing about these guys was that they said they’d prefer Charla & Mirna to win the Race because they’re “a class act”. Huh??!!? Maybe if it’s a Special Ed class! I don’t get that observation at all. Of course, each team only knows what they see and hear, so nobody has the whole picture except for us, the viewers. It was a return to the amusing twosome when they were being reflective with Phil on the mat (after being eliminated), when Danny told Phil he had “no regrets, darling”, and then later said that Oswald would be wheeling him into the gay old people’s home he plans to open, and Oswald added that hopefully by then Danny wouldn’t be interrupting him all the time. They were funny guys, but there’s no use complaining over spilt Cubans. (Oh, and Oswald's "Teletubbies go to war" line was very funny, too.)



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Last week's tips:

First Team: Dustin & Kandice. Correct!
Last Team: Eric & Danielle. (Wrong)
Yield? No. Correct!
Fast Forward? No. Correct!
Elimination Week? Yes. Correct!
Biggest Argument: Oswald & Danny. (Wrong) – the ‘biggest argument’ was Danielle telling herself she was “so stupid” and making herself cry.
Smartest Team: Dustin & Kandice. Correct!


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Next week's tips:

First Team: Dustin & Kandice.
Last Team: Charla & Mirna.
Yield? No.
Fast Forward? No.
Elimination Week? No – one team will win, and the other two will not. (Big prediction, I know!)
Biggest Argument: Eric & Danielle.
Smartest Team: Dustin & Kandice.



If you haven’t already done so, check out the review of this same episode that Javatari posted on his blog (once it’s up).


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What A Rush!

Wow! Another season of 24 ended last night – and what a great show it is!

Sure, it’s entirely unbelievable in many respects, but it’s all about drama and intrigue and heroism and stretching oneself beyond all reasonable capabilities … and the people who put this show together do a GREAT job with suspense.

It was great to see some old friends returning this season (Milo, Wayne, Curtis, Aaron, Martha, … and the all-to-briefly introduced Morris at the end of Day 5), and the continuation of characters we knew very well (Chloe, Bill, Karen, James, Audrey and of course Jack). We also met many new characters, some of whom we initially couldn’t trust but generally came to like (Mike, Nadia, Tom, Sandra, Walid, Hamri, Marilyn, Josh and even Noah, to a point).

And – most importantly – we saw the ‘bad’ characters get just what they deserved (Lisa, Reed, Dmitri, Graem, Abu, Phillip, Cheng and especially Charles).


The cast of 24, 'Day 6'. Left to right: Dead, alive,
alive, forced to retire, pregnant, utterly exhausted,
forced to retire, alive, alive and unknown.

Unfortunately not everyone who worked on the side of ‘good’ managed to survive the Day (some survived in the literal sense, but took heavy damage to their body, psyche or career), but there had to be some casualties, in order to keep the viewers on the edge of their seats.

The thing about 24 is, we never know (while we watch) just who’s going to survive the Day. Apart from Jack (who may die one Day but not before Day 8 because I know he’s contracted that far ahead), very few characters are still alive who appeared in Day 1. In fact, I could count them on Captain Hook’s bad hand.

Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration, but in reality it’s only four. Jack Bauer, Kim Bauer, Mike Novick and Aaron Pierce. Everyone else is dead or unaccounted for. So them’s some pretty bad odds.

I certainly wouldn’t want to be working in CTU during one of these crisis Days, but I guess if my name was Jack I’d feel somewhat assured that I’d live through the tumultuous events that were going on around me.

I’d just be feeling pretty broken by the end credits. And I’m fairly sure I’d be ready for a nap.


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Tragedy You Can See A Mile Off

Does anyone else think it's BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS that the 'trauma' in Frazer's life is actually the fact that (as a three year-old kid) HE was to blame for his infant brother Paul's death?




I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I'm sure that would add a new dimension to his understanding of what's wrong with his family and why his parents have always been so 'cold' - they were protecting HIM from the guilt of whatever it is he did that lead to the baby's death.

Anyway, it's just a theory ...


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Loopy, Lying Laura Losing It & Lucks Out

It's getting pretty tiring watching so many chicks take a bullet this season, but if that's the way the voting public wants it to be, that's the way the producers of the show should honour it.

I know Big Brother has the right to change the rules at any time, but that doesn't mean he's right to exercise that right. As far as the the voters are concerned, they apparently WANT the girls out who've been voted out. You may disagree with the decision, but you can't fault the argument that that's BEEN the decision. Those who have a beef with the evicted Housemates need to vote (or vote more often).

So to turn it on its head like this makes a farce out of the whole voting system in the first place, and invalidates the idea that the surviving Housemates are the ones the viewers want to stay in the House.

Don't get me wrong; I think it's crazy how many female Housemates have been shown the sliding door, but by making the nominations an all-boy event, the producers have removed any semblance of the public having the power over the Housemates.

Not to mention that they then allowed the female housemates to nominate without being nominated. The LEAST the producers could have done would have been to have the boys nominate each other and leave it at that. Bringing the girls in as well only served to further inbalance the nomination process. That's why the Intruders don't nominate until they can BE nominated!

I think BB's made a dog's breakfast of the whole situation, and then pretended it's a sexual inequality thing to try to cover their knee-jerk reaction.

If the House is going to be too boring with all males living in it, let the public discover that to their own peril! Don't steer their hand involuntarily to suit your own purposes! More maybe the producers should learn that the public isn't interested in a pack of girls who'll bitch and moan all the time - clearly that's what the voters have been saying in recent weeks.

Put some women in the House who bring something other than the ability to gossip and have a meltdown. If the producers think they aren't out there, they're not doing a very good job of canvassing their auditionees.

I don't particularly care for Andrew, Billy, Zoran, Zach or Thomas, but Jamie, Joel and Travis are good value (IMHO) - and I don't like that the general make-up of the House has been tainted in this pathetic attempt to 'redress the sexual inequality issue'. Dude, you just crossed that same line yourself by holding an all-male nominations night. You massive, ridiculous tool.

But whatever. I'm annoyed at BB's decision but I know I'll just sound like a whinging guy when I say that. But I'm not stnaind up for my gender - I'm standing up for the whole idea of the public spending their money on saving the Housemates they want to save. The male Housemates were right last night when they said it should have been all male Housemates up at once, or no change at all. And I'd add to that, that the female Housemates shouldn't have nominated if they couldn't BE nominated.

Because there were males nominated every time a female got evicted, this change to the nomination process is an effective slap in the face of all those voters who've paid 55 cents per vote to evict or save who they wanted to evict or save.

Sure, I would have preferred some of the girls who've been evicted NOT to have gone, but we've always had to accept the results as they've come in -- why can't the BB producers accept them as well?!

Moving on to Sunday night's eviction: Laura.


Laura's Lies Belied The Truth.

I can't say that I particularly care she's been evicted.

So I won't.


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Integrity On Sale: Just $45!

... Spoiler Alert! ... Spoiler Alert! ...


If you haven't yet seen (and you intend to see) episode 11 of The Amazing Race Series 11 – All Stars Edition (TARAS), do not read any further!


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The last TARAS episode we saw here in Australia ended with Eric & Danielle being the last team to reach the Pit Stop but the third team to be saved from elimination on the All Stars edition of the show. The Pit Stop was located at Hong Kong Jockey Club, Happy Valley Racecourse on Hong Kong Island, China.

In the Roadblock for this leg of the Race, teams had to perform the world's tallest Skyjump, walking around the outer rim of the observation deck of Macau Tower, and then take a tethered jump off the deck to the ground below.

The Detour was ‘Noodle’ or ‘Dragon’. In ‘Noodle’, teams had to make two bundles of traditional Chinese noodles. In ‘Dragon’, teams had to carry a dragon head and drum and carry it 3/4 of a mile to Nan Van Lake to find the one dragon boat the dragon's head matched.

After the Detour, teams had to locate a marked Mini Moke and drive themselves to the Pit Stop.

For the record, this was the order in which the teams reached Phil on the mat last episode, and the order in which they started this leg of the Race:

1. Oswald & Danny
2. Dustin & Kandice
3. Charla & Mirna
4. Eric & Danielle


Note: If you're already ahead of this point in the series, please refrain from giving any spoilers in your comments. Thank you.

As always, I’ll provide my thoughts on each team in this episode, listing them in the order in which they arrived at the Pit Stop (hence the 'Spoiler Alert!').



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1. Dustin & Kandice


Last week: 2
This week: Up one place

The smartest thing these girls have done in a while is take a punt on Oswald & Danny’s willingness to trade in their integrity and honour for $45. It showed how desperate the boys were and how readily they were happy to lie down and become someone’s bitch for the right price. And not even for a particularly high price. For some reason, the girls thought Eric & Danielle were a stronger team than Charla & Mirna, despite the results of this season saying quite the opposite. Personally, I’d have Yielded the team I knew was closest behind me, which would have given me a greater lead on ALL the teams, but these girls obviously has a reason for wanting to get rid of Eric & Danielle (they’re probably thinking of Eric’s prowess on the Race last time when he was partnered with Jeremy – but the key difference this time is that he’s now partnered with Duh-nielle). Still, the whole ploy ended up working for them, because they were able to break free from the other teams and arrive in first place … again. A truly telling moment for Dustin & Kandice was when Charla was talking to Oswald and saying how she’d have gladly given the boys some money without attaching any strings to the deal – and I believe her, because her priority is to see Dustin & Kandice eliminated before they get to the final three teams – but while watching this exchange, Dustin & Kandice suspected Oswald of double-crossing them and making a deal with Charla & Mirna instead. Talk about projecting your own evils onto another person! It’s clear that their distrust of the boys highlighted their own personal downfalls (it takes one to know one, etc). Their true colours were again on display when they reached the Pit Stop and lied to Eric & Danielle’s faces about what they’d told Oswald & Danny to do with their Yield ‘power’. Instead of being honest and saying they’d specifically instructed the boys to Yield Eric & Danielle, they flat-out deceived them by saying they’d only told the boys to Yield “someone else other than us”. Their story isn’t going to hold up to scrutiny when Oswald & Danny have a chance to talk to Eric & Danielle during the twelve-hour rest period – unless the latter refuse to speak to the boys (in which case their ire will be misdirected during the penultimate leg next week – at least in MY opinion it will be).




2. Charla & Mirna


Last week: 3
This week: Up one place

When Mirna likened Oswald & Danny’s deal with Dustin & Kandice to making a deal with the devil, I both snorted at her hypocrisy … and silently agreed with the sentiment. I’m not sure making a deal with herself and Charla would have been any better (each team wants to win, after all – and they’d already made a pack to work together and keep the beauty queens out of the top three teams if they could), but it was clear that Dustin & Kandice were ready to hang the boys out to dry (which is exactly what they did when they deflected the blame of the Yield back onto them as they were lying to Eric & Danielle about what they instructed Oswald & Danny to do at the Yield). When Charla & Mirna were doing the ‘Noodle’ Detour, it was surprising and irritating just how much Mirna went on and on about Charla having told her to cut the pasta thicker – when it should have been very thin. She kept on and on about it as they were completing the task, she kept on and on about it when they were in the car driving away, and she kept on and on about it when they were being interviewed about the leg during their twelve-hour rest period. Ridiculous. Does she not care about how she’s making her cousin look and feel in front of an international audience? Instead of being gracious about it, she clearly only has her own image at heart – she’s cruelly putting Charla down to make herself look better. Not an attractive quality at all. But I guess she felt that she needed a confidence boost after her truly abysmal attempts at driving! I don’t know why she didn’t learn how to drive manual (“stick”) when she applied for the All-Stars version of the Race … particularly after she’d had such similar trouble the first time they were on the Race! You’d think some simple driving lessons in a manual car would have been a smart investment before setting out! But oh well. It made it hysterical to watch, and helped give Eric & Danielle the jump on them (which was a necessary psychological scare for the girls, even though it didn’t amount to much because Eric & Danielle were ‘Marked For Elimination’). But what was with that oh-so-helpful bus driver continually beeping his horn at Mirna when her car wasn’t moving? He could have jumped out to help, or at least waited quietly – clearly if the car’s broken down and the woman’s in trouble, beeping your horn repeatedly isn’t actually going to HELP, moron!




3. Eric & Danielle - ”Marked For Elimination” (but SAFE!)


Last week: 4
This week: Up one place

I was glad to see these guys arrive at the Pit Stop in second place – they did well, considering they started off in last place and were also Yielded. It was also good for them that Oswald & Danny had such a terrible leg (not their first such leg in this Race, incidentally), and also that Mirna’s so shocking behind the wheel, because these factors all helped them leap from last to second place … even though their half-hour penalty pushed them back into third place. Earlier in the episode, when Eric & Danielle were running through the gardens in the rain, Danielle took a fall and Eric didn’t appear to show much (if any) sympathy. But his initial response could have been edited out, because he was immediately heard to tell her she was alright – when there’s no way he could have known this without checking first if she’d hit her head or broken a leg or something. Also, they were both laughing about it – so she clearly wasn’t injured. I think they removed his initial response for the sake of brevity. I thought the ‘Dragon’ detour looked like the swifter of the two options, but Eric & Danielle proved that doing the ‘Noodle’ one properly was the better decision – and they were able to overtake both Charla & Mirna and Oswald & Danny at this point. I still think these guys are likely to be eliminated before we get to the final three teams, but my man-crush on Eric means part of me is still hopeful they’ll make the cut.




4. Oswald & Danny - SAFE!


Last week: 1
This week: Down three places

Well, didn’t these guys have a terrible leg! I knew they’d be in financial trouble of some sort when such a big deal was made out of them only receiving $73 for this leg of the Race – we don’t usually hear this information (or at least no drama is made out of it) unless it’s gonna be important. And important it was! It was the reason they felt desperate as they stood waiting to enter Macau Tower – and their justification behind making ‘a deal with the devil’ in Dustin & Kandice. They sold out. They traded their integrity for a measly $45. (So that’s what thirty pieces of silver will get you nowadays?) Frankly I thought the power to Yield another team for thirty minutes would be worth more than $45. But anyway, they made the deal (against their better judgement, I might add – but they still made the deal), and almost immediately regretted it. It didn’t help that Mirna told them she’d have given them money for nothing (and – presumably – their chicks for free), but by then Oswald & Danny were wracked with guilt regardless. And then the Yield Karma Fairy followed them on the rest of the leg, swatting at them with a big plank of Karma wood and causing them to royally stuff up at almost every turn. First they caught a Karma Taxi, which took them all over the place but never to the right place. Oswald’s prayer in the back of the taxi was very amusing: “God, grant me the patience to accept the things I cannot change … and the intelligence to bury this taxi driver’s body when I kill him.” Their non-English-speaking taxi driver (here’s an idea – find one who CAN speak English!) got them worked up into quite a state, and so began their unravelling decline. They were the only team to choose the ‘Dragon’ Detour (which I actually thought would have been quicker than the ‘Noodle’ Detour – if they had good directions), and made an absolute dog’s breakfast of it. They got lost on the streets and “took the long way around”. It didn’t help their cause later when they were so patronising to their poor, long-suffering taxi driver: “This is going to be very easy for you!” The fact that they were also saved from elimination was a little odd (having two such legs in a row is uncommon at best), but made sense when I thought about it: With two legs remaining and only the final leg containing three teams, having the non-elimination leg now was the only way they were going to stretch the Race out into the right amount of episodes. I just wasn’t sure what would have happened if Eric & Danielle arrived in last place this time: They were told by host Phil Keoghan in the last episode that if they were last this time they would be eliminated. Strange, but at least all four teams are now in another episode – these guys make for some good drama! I’ll be interested to see what Javatari thinks of all this, because he hates non-elimination rounds but wants Oswald & Danny to win. I wonder if he’s changed his mind on either of those two points after seeing this episode. Who’ll be the final three teams, racing to the Finish Line for the $1 million? There’s only one way to find out …



--------------------


Last week's tips:

First Team: Oswald & Danny. (Wrong)
Last Team: Eric & Danielle. (Wrong)
Yield? Yes. Correct!
Fast Forward? No. Correct!
Elimination Week? Yes. (Wrong)
Biggest Argument: Eric & Danielle. (Wrong) – It was Charla & Mirna.
Smartest Team: Dustin & Kandice. Correct!


--------------------


Next week's tips:

First Team: Dustin & Kandice.
Last Team: Eric & Danielle.
Yield? No.
Fast Forward? No.
Elimination Week? Yes.
Biggest Argument: Oswald & Danny.
Smartest Team: Dustin & Kandice.



If you haven’t already done so, check out the review of this same episode that Javatari posted on his blog (once it’s up).


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The Ice Queen Melts As It's Game Over

When Emma’s name was read out last night for the first eviction, Wifey and I both cheered, “Yes!” and punched the air with our fists. Okay, maybe not literally with the air-punching, but our relief at seeing the back of Emma was genuinely expressed through the syncronised “Yes!” that each of us blurted out in unison.

I know she was considered ‘entertaining’ to watch and made the show ‘interesting’, but there’s a point when someone’s bitchy behaviour is just too much to bear. Emma had backstabbed (and then put on her innocent face) far too many times for my liking, and it was beginning to spell the end for me watching any more of the show this season – I honestly had that much of a problem with her. She caused too much friction and sapped all the fun out of watching the House.


"Ding-dong, the b!tch is dead ..."

The fact that she simply doesn’t (or perhaps now she does, but at the time she was in the House, she didn’t) acknowledge that she was actually the worst behaved Housemate I can ever recall on the show just infuriated me further. Her repeated, “I don’t bitch about her behind her back, but”, and “I’m not trying to be a bitch, but” and “Ordinarily I haven’t got a bad thing to say about her, but” and “It’s not in my nature to be nasty and mean to someone, but” and “I’m just not that kind of person, but” drove me up the wall.

I don’t condone violence against women, but …

Ahem. Anyway, I honestly expected Daniela to be the second evictee last night – not because she necessarily deserved it, but because I figured the voting audience wouldn’t care about her as much, due to her Intruder status. (Frankly, it was a surprise Laura wasn’t nominated last week, or that Billy chose to put Rebecca in Aleisha’s place, rather than Laura.)

But I guess enough of the public have been hating Rebecca, just as Wifey and I have been hating the antics a la Emma. Personally, I haven’t minded Rebecca too much. Sure, she was a weirdo – but who isn’t? (Certainly not me, but please excuse the double negative. It wasn’t not unintentional.) Sure, she was religious – but so what? So are Osama Bin Laden and George W Bush, but you never hear a bad word said about them! Sure, she was annoying, but have you people seen the kinds of comments I leave on Ms Fits’ Friday Q+A posts?

Something that bugged me about Rebecca was her insistance on using the term ‘irregardless’ when making statements she wanted to be taken seriously. ‘Irregardless’??! I think she meant either ‘regardless’ or ‘irrespective’ … or maybe a mix of the two. But ‘irregardless’ is definitely not a (real) word. I yelled at the TV every time she said it, which was quite regularly (if only it had been more irreregularly).

Note: the word is so controversial that it actually has its own Wikipedia page, documenting its origins, its gradual acceptance by (largely) North Americans (and residents of Boston in particular), and the ideology (with which I wholeheartedly agree) that it’s a redundant word because it’s a double negative.

It was also slightly bothersome that she cried so much. I could understand Emma and crew making fun of her for her tears (although at the time I thought Emma was particularly hurtful and harsh in the way she chose to do this), and if I’d been in the House I would have been quite annoyed (and probably snapped at her) for her continual hugs goodnight, etc. And her incessant attempts to get the Housemates to play youth group-style games.

Hmm, maybe there was plenty to dislike about Rebecca …


Irregardless Irrebecca: No More Games For You.

No, I stand by my original belief: I don’t think she was all that bad. Her friendship with Jamie (who I quite like, most of the time) was the exact thing he needed at the time, and her ability to think well of everyone and try to get along with each person in there – even if they showed nothing but contempt for her – was a refreshing change from the norm.

She certainly played the most games while she was in the House, but not the sort of games the Housemates usually get accused of playing. That one scene of her dancing around the bedroom inside her doona cover while everyone around her ignored her and had their own conversation (although she thought she was the star of the moment, unaware that no one was paying her any attention) was especially embarrassing to watch. But at least she amused herself.

But it appears the Australian public weren’t amused as well. I think this sends out an interesting challenge to the House: If there’s a fellow Housemate you really don’t get along with, WATCH OUT! Chances are you’ll be evicted alongside them, and you’ll have to spend the next few months doing the interview-and-appearance circuit with them by your side! It happened with TJ and Bodie, it (kinda almost maybe) happened with Demet and Hayley, and now it’s happened again with Emma and Rebecca.

I’d love it to keep happening with the likes of Laura and Daniela, or Zach and Travis …


.

Airport Shmairport

... Spoiler Alert! ... Spoiler Alert! ...


If you haven't yet seen (and you intend to see) episode 10 of The Amazing Race Series 11 – All Stars Edition (TARAS), do not read any further!


--------------------


The last TARAS episode we saw here in Australia ended with Uchenna & Joyce being the last team to reach the Pit Stop and the sixth team to be eliminated from the All Stars edition of the show. The Pit Stop was located inside the grounds of Carcosa Seri Negara, a luxury hotel located near Perdana Lake Gardens in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

In the second and final Fast Forward on this Race, teams had to travel five miles to a film set located at the former Kai Tak Airport where a high-speed stunt was being filmed for an action movie. When they arrived, they had to get in a car with a professional stunt driver and complete a stunt course, which involved sharp turns and ended with the car flipping over.

This leg's Detour was ‘Kung Fu Fighting’ or ‘Lost in Translation’. In ‘Kung Fu Fighting’, teams had to travel five miles to Tonkin Street and find a nearby building (the former Cheung Sha Wan Police Quarters). Once there, they had to climb up an 11-story bamboo scaffold while avoiding an ongoing battle between stunt kung fu experts to reach the top and retrieve their next clue. In ‘Lost in Translation’, teams needed to make their way four miles to Kowloon City and find Nga Tsin Wai Road. Once there, they had to search among hundreds of similar-looking Chinese signs for the specific sign shown in a photo in their clue. When they matched the photo with the correct store sign, the owner would hand them their next clue.

In the Roadblock, one teammate had to kick down stunt doors in an abandoned building and search through the rooms for their clue.

Teams also had to pull a model boat carrying a Travelocity gnome from one end of a pond to the other without having the gnome fall into the water.

For the record, this was the order in which the teams reached Phil on the mat last episode, and the order in which they started this leg of the Race:

1. Dustin & Kandice
2. Charla & Mirna
3. Eric & Danielle
4. Oswald & Danny
5. Uchenna & Joyce


Note: If you're already ahead of this point in the series, please refrain from giving any spoilers in your comments. Thank you.

As always, I’ll provide my thoughts on each team in this episode, listing them in the order in which they arrived at the Pit Stop (hence the 'Spoiler Alert!').



--------------------


1. Oswald & Danny


Last week: 4
This week: Up three places

These guys got lucky (in a sense) but also played a smart leg by hunting down the Malaysia Air office and getting a priority stand-by ticket number (BC-4). They managed to get the first flight (by a long shot), which in turn enabled them to go for the Fast Forward once they landed in China and stay well ahead of the other teams. One thing that confused me was how they were able to pay for their second taxi if they’d spent all their money on their first. I’d say they weren’t being honest about having no more money when they made that claim to their first taxi driver. What an amazing car stunt that was! Interesting that the producers didn’t tell them what the stunt was going to be beforehand – showing their fear would have made it more exciting (and perhaps made them pull out of it), but I guess no one might have completed the Fast Forward if they were told they were going to drive the car up a ramp and crash it on its side. It wasn’t too surprising that these guys again went from worst to first. The challenge now will be for them to hold on to their position for another three episodes.




2. Dustin & Kandice


Last week: 1
This week: Down one place

After Yielded Eric & Danielle in the previous leg, it was amusing to see Dustin & Kandice board an elevator at the airport with Eric & Danielle … and then travel on the thing in deathly silence. What a frosty elevator ride that was! I can only imagine how uncomfortable that would have been. It was terribly obvious (as it was a few episodes ago, when Eric & Danielle were pulled off a flight after the airline staff had overbooked it) that the airline employee serving Dustin & Kandice at the information desk had her voice dubbed over later by an American actress! Both all-girl teams were involved in a fair amount of airport nastiness in this episode. When all four girls were arguing over the order of their names at the China Air counter, it got a bit annoying. They were all trying to out-bully and –intimidate each other in how they treated the airline’s employees. Yelling at the clerks and telling them that their names were ahead of someone else’s won’t make it so – the employee’s the one who can tell you what the order of names is. How do they know who’s names are on the list first? Just shut up and let the people behind the desk tell you what’s what! (I understand their frustration and attempts to get on the flight ahead of the other teams, but being so stupid about it isn’t going to help.) I’m not sure exactly what Dustin & Kandice were proposing when they said they could “make a beauty queen sandwich” out of Mirna, but it certainly sounds interesting and I’d like to know where you get tickets to the show, please.




3. Charla & Mirna


Last week: 2
This week: Down one place

I seem to alternate between laughing at these two and getting annoyed at their hypocrisy. We started out this leg listening to how Mirna claimed they were going to run this Race without resorting to ‘dirty tricks’ (her way of describing how Dustin & Kandice had Yielded Eric & Danielle in the previous leg), but just a few hours later she and Charla were employing their own nasty tactics at the airport to get ahead of the beauty queens. When Mirna told the ticket salesman in a near sing-song voice, “Desmond, kick some people off” with her eyes widely fixed on him and a pleasantness that belied its treachery, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Desmond went home early and hid under the bed. But then the girls flip-flopped again and became happy jokesters. Mirna pushed Charla through the airport on a luggage trolley (why they don’t always use this idea in airports, I don’t know), and then later began to pull Charla along, the wheels in the diminutive one’s sneakers enabling her to literally glide through the crowd. I wondered for a moment if these two were going to finish in last place, but that moment was quite fleeting because it was obvious all along how much further behind Eric & Danielle were. Even though Charla & Mirna were driven to their destination port (rather than their departure port) and originally caught the ferry that took them in the opposite direction, it was pretty clear that this didn’t really put them far enough behind to be overtaken by Eric & Danielle.




4. Eric & Danielle - SAFE!


Last week: 4
This week: Down one place

Eric & Danielle were keeping up with the two all-girl teams at the airport until they made the inexplicable decision to go and exchange their money instead of securing standby tickets on the next available flight. This decision pushed them off the China Air flight and way back into the mists of time. Although they seemed to rocket through the tasks once they reached China, it was probably favourable editing to keep the show moving rather than an accurate reflection of how much more quickly they were completing all the challenges, compared to the teams who’d gone before them. When Eric’s stubbornness raised its ugly head again and he refused to listen to Danielle when she suggested they ask a taxi driver for directions to the Pit Stop, I knew he’d pay for his irrational behaviour. Sure enough, although not eliminated, their interviews afterwards were done separately – and you’ve gotta wonder if there’s trouble in plastic paradise.




--------------------


Last week's tips:

First Team: Dustin & Kandice. (Wrong)
Last Team: Charla & Mirna. (Wrong)
Yield? No. Correct!
Fast Forward? No. (Wrong)
Elimination Week? No. Correct!
Biggest Argument: Charla & Mirna. (Wrong) – teams didn’t really argue between them very much, but Charla & Mirna and Dustin & Kandice had the biggest run-in with each other.
Smartest Team: Eric & Danielle. (Wrong) – Going to the money exchange at the airport resulted in them falling into last place.


--------------------


Next week's tips:

First Team: Oswald & Danny.
Last Team: Eric & Danielle.
Yield? Yes.
Fast Forward? No.
Elimination Week? Yes.
Biggest Argument: Eric & Danielle.
Smartest Team: Dustin & Kandice.



If you haven’t already done so, check out the review of this same episode that Javatari posted on his blog.


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Susannah Sandwiches: SOLD OUT

I must be honest: For a blonde, Susannah’s quite attractive. To me. Someone who’s usually attracted to brunettes. But she’s only somewhat attractive in a purely superficial way. I don’t think there’s terribly much to like about her as a person.

It pains me to say this, but if I was in the Big Brother House with Susannah and she was doing as little as she was seen to be doing for the past six weeks, I’d have been angry with her ‘princess’ tag and want to nominate her for eviction as well.

I don’t like siding with the likes of Emma and co, but on this point I’m in full agreement with them. Susannah could have done SOMETHING around the place, instead of lazing about and expecting the others to do everything for her.

Apart from that, the only thing of note about Susannah is the fact that at least two of the boys in the House (Thomas and Zoran) were highly attracted to her. Despite her having a boyfriend on the ‘outside’. Of course, her mouth said one thing about being taken, and her actions and flirtation said another thing entirely. So I’m not too surprised that Thomas in particular found the line a bit blurred and confusing. I’m not suggesting his sleazy attempts to elicit a declaration of love for him out of her were okay and not embarrassing for everyone, but she certainly didn’t help matters by the continual hugging and touching and flirting.

That being said, it’s interesting to note how well Zoran and Thomas got along (and continue to get along – they shared a literally three-minute hug, with one or both of them absolutely sobbing – after Susannah’s eviction last night). When you consider that in effect they were vying for Susannah’s affections and time – and frequently saw each other as a threat to becoming her best bud in the House – they both speak quite highly of each other. I’d have expected them to be mortal enemies, perpetually trying to out-champion each other to win Susannah’s admiration like it’s some schoolyard competition.

Maybe Thomas and Zoran are secretly attracted to each other as well? Perhaps they were actually hoping to start something between the three of them!


Poor Little Princess: Without Thomas and Zoran to cuddle
up to, Susannah will have to settle for her boyfriend again.

Whatever their motive, I’m glad we’re not (and haven’t so far been) subjected to boring old “angry guy versus angry guy” dramas where the two blokes try to out-do each other to win the girl. That would have been plain unbearable.

It's interesting to recall her 'selling point' upon being voted into the House on Opening Night. She was the 'fun thirty year-old', remember? Well, it quickly became redundant once she was in there, and she easily fitted into the twenty-something attitude and lifestyle of her fellow Housemates. She was 7% plastic and 93% slacker.

So Susannah’s out of the House now, and she’s been reunited with her boyfriend, Anthony (who she only started dating six weeks before entering the House). I hope she’s happy with him – and I hope he’s happy with her.

I wonder if the show has opened his eyes as to how little she’s willing to do around the house?


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That's The Way The Cookie Crumbles

... Spoiler Alert! ... Spoiler Alert! ...


If you haven't yet seen (and you intend to see) episode 9 of The Amazing Race Series 11 – All Stars Edition (TARAS), do not read any further!


--------------------


The last TARAS episode we saw here in Australia ended with Joe & Bill being the last team to reach the Pit Stop and the fifth team to be eliminated from the All Stars edition of the show. The Pit Stop was located inside the grounds of Pieskowa Skala Castle in Krakow, Poland.

The first of two Yields on the Race was located on the elevated walkway near the Kampung Baru Mosque.

The Detour for this leg was a choice between ‘Artistic Expression’ or ‘Cookie Confection’. In ‘Artistic Expression’, teams had to travel one third of a mile on foot to Dewan Lama. Once there, they had to use an ancient technique known as batik to exactly duplicate one of three patterns onto and then dye a 45 square-foot piece of cloth. In ‘Cookie Confection’, teams made their way on foot half a mile to Chow Kit Bomba and had to search through 600 boxes of traditional Malaysian festive cookies, by biting into them, and find the one cookie that had a black liquorice centre.

The Roadblock on this leg was a nod to Malaysia's eco-friendly practice of recycling. Team members had to choose a bicycle with a side cart attached and then scour the nearby Taman Sri Hartamas neighbourhood for residents willing to give them their used newspapers. Once they had collected enough newspapers to make a stack eight hands high, they would receive their next clue.

For the record, this was the order in which the teams reached Phil on the mat last episode, and the order in which they started this leg of the Race:

1. Oswald & Danny / Uchenna & Joyce
2. N/A
3. Dustin & Kandice
4. Charla & Mirna
5. Eric & Danielle
6. Joe & Bill


Note: If you're already ahead of this point in the series, please refrain from giving any spoilers in your comments. Thank you.

As always, I’ll provide my thoughts on each team in this episode, listing them in the order in which they arrived at the Pit Stop (hence the 'Spoiler Alert!').



--------------------


1. Dustin & Kandice


Last week: 3
This week: Up two places

The first comment I’ve written down in my notes on last night’s episode for Dustin & Kandice is: “That monkey’s crazy!”. I wrote that line down because the girls were almost hysterical about how crazy the monkey was behaving, although we only saw it sitting on the handrail at the mega-steps and maybe running up a few steps alongside them. THAT’S crazy?? The idea that one of them then told the other one to push the monkey off the handrail as they made their way back down the stairs. What kind of cruel people ARE these chicks?! Still, they were probably the smartest team when it came to choosing the Detour task – there’s no WAY I’d ever have chosen the cookie task over the dyeing task (but perhaps it sounded better in print when you hadn’t seen images of both tasks, like we did). I don’t know what it is about these two that prevents me from liking them. I think it may be that they’re so purrrrdy (although they’re really not my type at all). Is it perhaps that they think they look great and call themselves the ‘beauty queens’ that gets me off-side? Maybe I’m just prejudiced against two blondes running around daring each other to push poor defenceless monkeys off handrails. Whatever it is, I know they’re often the smartest team in the pack, and they rarely do anything to get my blood boiling, but I just can’t bring myself to cheer them on. I must have lingering and unconscious ‘issues' with the popular girls from my high school days or something.




2. Charla & Mirna


Last week: 4
This week: Up two places

It took me a while – after the episode had finished airing last night and I thought back to the promo ads Channel Seven had run all week for it – to realise that the ‘dirty trick’ they’d supposedly played on Eric & Danielle that was meant to have cost one of them their position in the Race (or so the ad implied) was actually their minor run-in at the start, when Charla & Mirna were using the hotel computers and wouldn’t let Eric & Danielle use one of them. What an anti-climax (although at least they can’t be blamed for making it too obvious – as I certainly thought it was – that one of those two teams was going to be eliminated). These two are still hilarious to watch – even when they catch the best flight (by three or more hours) and stuff it up by choosing the cookie task to no avail. The images of Charla in particular biting into six cookies all piled on top of each other and spitting the crumbly mess out onto the ground was quite amusing. Not to mention the shot of them chasing down the bus as it turned a corner. Charla & Mirna were the first ones to give up on the cookie task (but not the last), and the newspaper Roadblock proved that Mirna can neither drive a car NOR ride a bike! Exactly how useless IS this girl?! It was all fun and games until Mirna’s “local fame” went to her head and she started advising the nearby children to “stay in school” and “don’t do drugs”, because they were apparently the next Charlas and Mirnas of the world. Blech! What self-indulgent rubbish. I think it’s about time they were eliminated, now. They’ve served their purpose, but they shouldn’t be in the top three teams, methinks.




3. Eric & Danielle


Last week: 5
This week: Up two places

When I saw Eric’s reaction at being Yielded in this episode, I haven’t laughed so hard since the good ol’ days of watching Charla trying to eat two feet of Polish sausage and falling on her face in a mini suit of armour! Eric’s outrageously inappropriate comment (”Those dirty, dirty hookers. Those dirty pirate hookers.”) was so unexpected and ludicrous that I broke up in laughter. I know I shouldn’t have – it certainly wasn’t a fair label to give the girls – but my surprise at hearing him say that was huge. And to be honest, I also thought it was kinda funny. Danielle was equally pissed off (in fact, I reckon she was ore upset about it than Eric was), and I look forward to seeing how this will affect their relationship with Dustin & Kandice next week. Eric tore up the beauty queens’ photo and then mimicked their voices with each half of the photo, but Danielle was angry about it all the way up to the Pit Stop when she spoke to host Phil Keoghan about the memories it brought back of she and her partner Dani being Yielded the first time they were on the Race, and how it ended up resulting in their elimination. I wondered if Eric & Danielle were going to be awarded a time penalty for catching a taxi to the cookies (when the clue clearly stated they must proceed on foot), but this seems to have been overlooked by the producers of the show. Eric was still in good spirits when they reached the Roadblock, laughing at how he always chose the ‘easy’ tasks and Danielle always chose the more difficult ones (remember, they have to choose who’ll complete the task before they know what it is – they base their decision on the very unhelpful ‘riddle’ they get asked in their clue – then once they’ve determined who’ll do the task, they open the second envelope and only THEN do they find out what it involves), and even Danielle seemed happier than when they’d been Yielded. I’m sure catching up to Charla & Mirna – and even beating Oswald & Danny to the Roadblock – must have helped make them feel better about their lot. When Danielle broke her bike on the gutter and then asked why her bike was so hard to ride, I yelled at the TV: “Because you broke it, dumbass!” I was quite suspicious about the amount of newspapers the residents of (what appeared to be) one small street had stacked up in their houses. I’d put money on the fact that the show’s producers had lined this up with the residents in question, and even provided them with the newspapers that they could bring out to the Racers when they heard them calling from their bicycles. The amount of papers that each of them collected from just a few houses each was ridiculous! What a fire hazard, having them stacked up in their houses like that! Mark ‘Jacko’ Jackson would be very unimpressed.




4. Oswald & Danny


Last week: Equal 1st
This week: Down three places

I guess it had to happen, but I can’t believe how badly these guys went this week. It was a total wash-out for them, and if not for the bigger mistake made by Uchenna & Joyce when booking their flights, I think it’s fair to say that Oswald & Danny would have been given their marching orders last night. Thankfully for them, they decided to go with the safer flight option to Malaysia (which only landed about 40 minutes after Uchenna & Joyce’s connecting flight was scheduled to land), but thereafter, almost every decision they made was a poor one. They roamed the streets looking for the cluebox on the elevated walkway for what seemed like a pretty long time (Dustin & Kandice passed them, found the cluebox, Yielded Eric & Danielle, read their Detour options out loud, made their decision of which one to go with, and hot-footed it out of there before the boys even returned and found the cluebox for themselves). For some bizarre (to me) reason, Oswald & Danny also decided to go with the cookie task, but soon gave up after arguing over whether they had to bite into every cookie in each box (for the record, they DID have to do that, and Oswald was right – Danny could easily have cost them hours and hours by doing the task incorrectly and possibly missing the one liquorice-centred cookie they were searching for). While walking to the dyeing task, they continued to argue, then decided to return to the cookie task. They tried it again for a little while (still incorrectly), gave up on it for the second time, walked to the dyeing task, and proceeded to stuff up their first attempt by miscounting the number of times they had to apply the floral pattern print before dyeing the sheet. It really wasn’t their day. But it wasn’t over yet. When they reached the Roadblock (moments after the Yielded Eric & Danielle got there – and bear in mind the boys had collected their clue from the elevated walkway before Eric & Danielle had arrived and turned over their hourglass – and Eric & Danielle did the cookie task successfully!), Oswald told Danny he’s prefer not to do this task because he’s afraid of bicycles (no, really). This meant the already grumpy and exhausted Danny was forced to jump on one of those bikes and pedal around, calling for old newspapers. Because Mirna, Danielle and Dustin or Kandice (whichever one of the beauty queens it was – I still have trouble working out which of them does what, if the shot of their faces is too quick) had each collected so many more newspapers than necessary, Danny appeared to run out of newspapers, so he resorted to buying them from a petrol station (should this have resulted in another time penalty?). He got a drink from a resident first, and seemed to walk away with their glass. Then he used all his money to buy roughly seven times the amount of newspapers he required to complete the task (and a bottle of lemonade, apparently), leaving them with almost no money with which to pay their taxi driver for their trip to the Pit Stop. Or that’s what we were expecting to see. Who knows if it was edited out for time, or if Oswald had some extra money on him as well. His singing chant to Oswald while he was riding away on the bike was amusing but telling of his current state of mind: “Hating you … hating you …” Let’s hope his fury will have subsided by next week’s episode, because these guys are Wifey’s and my favourite to win (alongside Eric & Danielle).




5. Uchenna & Joyce: ELIMINATED!


Last week: Equal 1st
This week: Down four places

These guys took a massive gamble in risking a one-hour window in Frankfurt to catch their connecting flight to Malaysia. As expected (from all the conversations we were shown regarding how big a chance they were taking), they didn’t make their second flight and had to wait until the next day. Tey then promptly disappeared from our screens until the very end of the episode, when they finally landed in Malaysia and retrieved a clue that simply told them to proceed to the Pit Stop (they must have known they were out at this point, due to not having to complete any tasks on the entire leg). Was this their comeuppance for accepting the first place prize from Oswald & Danny in the last episode without first knocking it back? Who knows. The point is, Uchenna & Joyce have already won this Race once before, whereas none of the others in this season have been so fortunate. I think their positive outlook at the end – coupled with their honesty and integrity all throughout the Race – really showed them for the lovely people they are.



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Last week's tips:

First Team: Oswald & Danny. (Wrong)
Last Team: Eric & Danielle. (Wrong)
Yield? Yes. Correct!
Fast Forward? No. Correct!
Elimination Week? Yes. Correct!
Biggest Argument: Charla & Mirna. (Wrong) – Who woulda thought it’d be Oswald & Danny!?!
Smartest Team: Oswald & Danny. (Wrong) – Certainly not! Unfortunately it was either of the female teams. I’m leaning towards Dustin & Kandice for better decisions once they were in Malaysia (over Charla & Mirna’s better choice of flight to Malaysia)


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Next week's tips:

First Team: Dustin & Kandice.
Last Team: Charla & Mirna.
Yield? No.
Fast Forward? No.
Elimination Week? No.
Biggest Argument: Charla & Mirna.
Smartest Team: Eric & Danielle.



If you haven’t already done so, check out the review of this same episode that Javatari posted on his blog.


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