Bucky's back with a rundown on last night's muddy episode of The Amazing Race.  

This week’s leg of The Amazing Race begins with the Globetrotters, who finished first last week, departing at 2:23 a.m. to catch a ferry for a 16-hour ride across the Baltic Sea to Estonia.  They get to the ferry terminal and find that the next ferry leaves at 5:45 p.m.  This means, I calculate in my head, that they will arrive in Estonia almost a day and a half after they left the previous pit stop, even though it’s not all that far from Sweden to Estonia.  Why do the producers do that?

We learn that Sam and Dan have made up and agreed that bickering is no way to compete, which means that more bickering is on the way, I think.  We also learn that Matt has worn his black bandana, a signal to the other teams that he and his father mean business and are in the race to win it. 

Continue reading "'The Amazing race' recap: Mud, more mud and vocabulary troubles" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
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Bucky's back with this week's recap of The Amazing Race. Take it away, Bucky ...

The teams leave the Amsterdam pit stop for their next destination, Sweden, in the usual staggered fashion—12 hours after they checked in—and head for the airport.  Sam and Dan are the first team to depart and determine that the next flight to Stockholm is in about 10 hours.  This, of course, means that all the teams will get to the airport, wait and end up on the same flight.

Nuh-uh.

It turns out that the first flight to Stockholm has only six seats available.  Brian & Ericka and Gary & Matt will have to take a later flight, so Sam & Dan, Meghan & Cheyne and the Globetrotters gain a two-and-a-half hour advantage from the get-go.

Continue reading "'The Amazing Race' recap: Needle in a haystack (redux)" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)
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Longtime Reality Check reader Bucky has graciously volunteered to guest blog about The Amazing Race, and I'm so glad because my typing muscles are more tired than the Poker Girls' hammer-swinging muscles. Take it away, Bucky ... 

Last Sunday’s leg began with everyone racing madly to the airport, where they found the next flight (to Amsterdam) wouldn’t depart until midnight. I hate it when that happens. So, they all hung out and got to know each other a little better, including the Globetrotters recapping the water tower drama and Sam and Dan coming out to the group.

Everyone arrives in Amsterdam where they face a task of counting all the bells in a landmark bell tower. (Wouldn’t you have loved to see Mika climbing to the top of the bell tower and disclosing that, in addition to heights and water, she has a fear of things that ring?) All the competitors, save Ericka, count the bells quickly and in just one try…there are 62…and hand a little slip of paper with the answer to the bell ringer guy who gives them their next envelope of instructions. Ericka counts 46. When she hands the slip of paper to the bell ringer guy he laughs, right out loud and says, "What the heck?"

Ha Ha Ha. OK … no, he didn’t do that. That’s what I did, sitting on my sofa, cracking up.

Continue reading "'The Amazing Race' recap: The bell tolls for thee" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
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Last night's Amazing Race had the closest finish I have ever seen, and we've witnessed all-out sprints to the end. Has anyone ever quit a task because of fear like that before? Not that I can remember, and certainly not a WATER SLIDE.

Anyway, back to the beginning. The teams were in Dubai, and for the first challenge, they had to get to a yacht club, where one person would row a small boat out to another craft, where they would be given a watch. Their task was to figure out that the time on the watch was the code for opening a briefcase that they'd been given at the beginning of the leg. Most of the teams figured the code out no problem, but the Globetrotters got fixated on what numbers the hands were pointed to instead of the time and were in last place by the time they got done.

The next task was a choice: either assemble a bunch of hookahs (intricate pipes) or figure out the weight of $50,000 worth of gold, with the catch that the exchange rate was constantly changing -- oh, and that apparently math is hard. Brian and Ericka, in particular, actually went to the gold challenge, couldn't do the math, and left for the hookah challenge instead. Embarrassing!

Continue reading "'The Amazing Race': Done in Dubai" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)
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Sarah's on vacation and missed last night's "Amazing Race." Unleashed blogger Jill Rosen has graciously donated her time and talents to this mini-recap of Sunday's episode. Enjoy!

This week's Amazing Race in a nutshell: The teams were in Dubai. They stopped in at the top of the world's tallest building. Mika (at left with partner Canaan) cried because she's scared of heights. Meghan and Cheyne ended up with fast-forward, allowing them to do a race-car event and then go straight to the pit stop. Meghan cried at the race car event, too. Inexplicably. She might have even cried at the pit stop.

The rest of the teams went from the tall building into the desert, where one team member had to search about in the sand for a clay pot with water, fill a bag with water, and then bring it back to a camel. Much sweating and swearing ensued. From the 100-degree temperatures of the desert, the teams then went to Ski Dubai -- what is essentially a snow-covered indoor mountain built in the middle of the city. With that much absurd decadence, Americans should not be getting such a bad rap in the world for waste.

Continue reading "The Amazing Race: Recap in a nutshell" »

Posted by Carla Correa at 2:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
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Sorry I'm so late in posting about last night's Amazing Race. Can I claim I was still recovering from the half-marathon?

Once I realized it was Zev and Justin who were in trouble with the passport-loss issue, I got worried.

Pretty quickly, it became clear that they were going to be disqualified, and then I realized that they had been emerging as my favorite team this season. So. Bummed.

It's never good to see a team out for such a frustrating reason, but when it's an overall nice team -- and in the leg in which they'd pulled themselves from last into first -- it hurts. Of course, it was their own carelessness that cost them, so it's not like the time the team was searching through haystacks for hours and hours and never found a clue. But still ... I was not a happy viewer.

The other big stunner for me was how few people could identify Jackie Kennedy! Maybe I've spent more hours than average in the Smithsonian American History Museum, but I still couldn't believe how many people were like, "Oh, it's some queen or something ... ?"

The poker players said it best when they mentioned that if they had luck like this in poker games, they'd be rich. I can't believe they and karate-kicking Lance are still in. Bleh.

What did you think about the episode?

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 3:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
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Oh, Marcy, Marcy, Marcy. I admire your resolve to take in your surroundings in all the locales you were visiting on The Amazing Race. But it's too bad you forgot about that last word, "race."

Seriously, sometimes last night it felt like Marcy and Ron had a loose itinerary to stick to ("Oooh, after this, we have to rearrange some letters to spell out a local word. Then, maybe we should check out Reunification Palace. What do you think about that? Perhaps a spot of dinner first?"). So I wasn't that surprised when they got eliminated.

But also showing some less than stellar racing skills were Lance and Keri. Ugh. How many mistakes did they make last night? First, Keri thought they were still in Ho Chi Minh City even though they had moved overnight during the pit stop. Then, once they were given their clue at the water-dragon challenge, they totally failed to understand that the clue was inside the bullet they were given upon completing the challenge. They ran around yelling at people for clues (thanks for playing the Ugly American role so well, guys!) and then finally put it together. Then, at the end of the giant-concrete-animal-and-balloon challenge, Keri couldn't figure out who to give the balloons to, and Lance rampaged around for a while until they finally put it all together. It was difficult to watch. (That's not even taking the crazy-smeared eye makeup into account!) I'm looking forward to them getting kicked out.

The rest of the episode still seemed a little slow somehow -- maybe because there are just still so many teams?

What did you think?

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 5:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)
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What a doozy of a season premiere of The Amazing Race!

They're not messing around -- this season, the first challenge took place before the teams even headed to the airport. They had to find a license plate off a wall of hundreds of them that bore the marks of a particular town -- and of course, the marks weren't in English.

Eric and Lisa, the married yoga teachers, were the casualties, but they took it OK, saying that they'd removed the shame factor for the rest of the teams.

After that, the teams headed to Tokyo, where their next challenge was to appear on a version of a Japanese game show. I'll just call it Wheel of Sushi. There was a wheel, and teams had to eat whatever roll landed in front of them, but they couldn't leave until they took on the wasabi bomb, a giant roll filled with an wickedly insane amount of the pungent green stuff. (I'd had sushi earlier in the day and had freaked when one of the pieces had just a smidge of wasabi. Couldn't imagine what this roll was like.)

Continue reading "'The Amazing Race': They survived a Japanese game show -- and herded ducks" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 4:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)
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The casts of The Amazing Race and Survivor have been announced, and I don't see any Baltimore-area folks on either season. Guess those two casting calls in March and April didn't garner us any locals to root for. Bummer.

Maybe next time!

The Amazing Race starts on Sept. 27, and Survivor starts Sept. 17.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
        

Here's a quick -- and I do mean quick -- video chat with the winners of this season of The Amazing Race:

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 1:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Spoiler alert: If you don't want to know who won on tonight's finale of The Amazing Race, stop reading.

OK.

Was it just me, or was tonight's finale pretty anti-climactic? The three final teams -- mother and son Margie and Luke, brother and sister Victor and Tammy and friends and former cheerleaders Cara and Jaime -- all caught the same flight from Beijing to Maui, so no one had a time advantage of any kind.

Once in Maui, the teams had to season a 140-pound pig and carry it on a pole 200 yards, then prepare it for roasting for a luau. This proved to be more difficult than it sounds, with Tammy and Cara in particular having trouble, dropping the pig repeatedly and getting behind.

The Road Block was the usual that we see in the finale, requiring the person to remember minutiae from the race and what leg things happened on. Margie and Luke got there first, and Luke, who had been prepping for this challenge since the beginning, jumped right in. He had to sort through hundreds of surfboards with icons on them and find the 11 with icons relevant to the different legs in the race. He got a huge head start, and for a while it looked like he and Margie might be out of there before another team even arrived.

Jaime and Cara and Tammy and Victor finished up and headed to the Road Block, but J&C ended up with a bad cab driver -- first he took them to the wrong surfboard fence, then his contact at base refused to help them figure out what street they were looking for (though she rightfully pointed out she was not their "personal concierge"), then he almost ran out of gas.

At the Road Block, Victor made quick work of the challenge, while Luke got stymied at the end. He had everything but 10 and 11 right, but he chose a random board for 10 and then kept picking the wrong things for 11. At one point, he had the icon for 10 in the 11 spot and then tossed it off to the side when he found out he was still wrong. Victor managed to finish ahead of Luke, and he and Tammy read their clue, which pointed them to their final destination -- the finish line.

Jaime and Cara, meanwhile, had finally arrived, and after a lot of kvetching at the beginning about how stupid all the icons were, Jaime caught up and had all but the first one. Finally, she and Luke decided to work together. He pointed out the one she was missing, and she helped him, too.

But it was too late -- Tammy and Victor were already at the finish and learning they had won the $1 million prize. Luke beat himself up a lot, but Margie told him repeatedly how proud she was of him. So then it was over.

It seemed like the pacing was really odd, though. Even with the problems carrying the pig and solving the riddles at the Road Block, the finale wasn't very dramatic, and it kind of came to a crashing halt out of nowhere. Maybe it was because I wasn't very invested in any of the teams that were left, but maybe not. It wasn't the most satisfying TAR finale ever.

But at least Jaime didn't win.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 9:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)
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David Zurawik over at Z on TV interviewed Amazing Race host Phil Keoghan about a race of a different sort -- a 40-day, 3,500-mile bike tour that is set to take him to Baltimore on Wednesday. Best of all, you can meet Phil at White Marsh Mall. Find out the details and read about his thoughts on two of the final three teams here.

Photo courtesy of L.A. Times

Posted by Carla Correa at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Is Jen ever, ever going to forgive herself for that, uh, pre-pit-stop pit stop?

Let's go back to the beginning, though. As you might recall, at the end of last week's episode, Cara and Jaime finished first finally only to discover that the leg wasn't actually over. Doh!

For the first task, the teams had to choose between donning full opera costume and makeup and taking orders for five diners in Mandarin Chinese and properly passing them on to a chef, then delivering the right dishes to the right diners.

While all the other teams chose the opera task, Victor and Tammy, who speak Mandarin, chose the waiter task. Even with knowledge of the language, it took them two tries to get it right, so that was not an easy challenge.

After that, they headed on foot to the next clue, which also featured a U-Turn. Victor and Tammy decided to U-Turn Kisha and Jen, which meant they would have to do the other task as well before they could proceed.

Margie and Luke and Kisha and Jen got through the opera makeup task rather quickly, but Cara and Jaime didn't. In their haste, the just communicated to their cab driver that they needed to go to the opera, and he took them to the National Opera building instead of the Beijing Opera building. 

However, everyone seemed to have trouble finding the clue box, which was actually right by the opera task. 

Tammy and Victor were first to the next task, which required one teammate to eat a plateful of fried street food -- including starfish, grasshoppers, beetle larvae and more. Victor powered through, though, and they learned that they were headed to the Birds' Nest from the Beijing Olympics for the pit stop. They came in first and won a trip to the Galapagos Islands.

Continue reading "'The Amazing Race': Worst-timed bathroom break ever" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)
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The final four teams had some interesting tasks to deal with on tonight's Amazing Race.

First, they had to fly to Beijing, though everyone was on the same flight, so it wasn't that dramatic.

After landing, for the Road Block, one teammate had to drink two cups of medicinal tea and endure a 10-minute -- and apparently very painful -- foot massage. Seriously, they were screaming and moaning in agony.

Then it was Detour time. The teams had to try their hands at Olympic-style events. In Sync, they had to try synchronized diving, jumping off a springboard and landing feet-first in the water at the same time. In Swim, they had to make like Michael Phelps and swim the 400M individual medley (though they'd each only have to do 200M, so it really wasn't individual) in a Speedo Laser Suit.

Sync was a total bust -- Tammy and Victor tried again and again and couldn't get it together (so to speak). Kisha and Jen tried it a couple of times, but Jen's total fear of the water hampered them.

Cara and Jaime got through the Swim task reasonably quickly and finished first. Margie and Luke did the same (though Margie remarked that she couldn't breathe in the super-tight suit, which made me wonder how much it really helps the Olympians. Bet theirs fit better, though).

Tammy and Victor shifted gears and switched to Swim. In the meantime, Jen totally melted down and cried about wanting to go home, but eventually her sister persuaded her to "finish strong" and get back in the water. They switched to Swim as well.

Cara and Jaime finished first for the first time, but doh! The leg wasn't over -- Phil gave them another clue and told them to keep on going.

Cue the "To be continued ..." sign.

I was actually surprised how much trouble everyone had with Sync. I think it was one of those tasks that sounded not too terrible, but in reality, it was tough tough tough. I did keep yelling at the screen for them to count together. That's what the divers do in the Olympics!

Oh, well. It's not over yet!

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 9:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
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Did you watch last night's Amazing Race? The big drama wasn't the elimination -- Mark and Mike finally got sent home -- but the infighting between Margie and Luke and Jen and Kisha.

At one of the clue boxes, Jen kind of charged Luke a little, he blocked the way and threw an elbow at her. She called him "a bitch" and even signed it, though he didn't see that. Margie did, though, and she was not happy.

Upon arriving at the next clue, Luke seemed to run right into Jen for no reason, which seemed a little excessive. At this point, both teams were getting really angry.

That escalated through the rest of the episode. Margie and Luke, Jen and Kisha and Tammy and Victor all finished at the same time, and M&L and J&K started having it out on the mat. Luke signed angrily; Kisha laughed a little. At that, Margie went ballistic. To be fair, at that point, Kisha apologized about laughing, but it didn't seem that sincere.

So overall, everyone was wrong. Luke was blocking the way at first; the elbow was a little much. Calling him a "bitch"? Also a little excessive. Luke slamming into Jen at the next clue? Definitely uncalled for. Kisha laughing also totally uncalled for. Yuck. At least Mike and Mark aren't in the final four!

What did you think?

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 3:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (16)
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I'm really kind of frustrated that we are down to the top five teams on The Amazing Race, and the same people keep making dumb, dumb mistakes and still getting through.

Last week, Mark and Mike got two 30-minute penalties for hiding parts from the other teams and failing to follow the instructions in one task, but they still managed to check in ahead of Mel and Mike.

Last night, several teams made the mistake of not making sure they had their bags at the end of one task -- Kisha and Jen tried to check in without their bags, their pack with their passports and travel documents or even Kisha's shoes. They were sent back out to retrieve their bags before checking back in.

Mark and Mike also didn't have their bags (though they did have their pack with the passports) and the were split over whether to go back for them. Eventually, they did, though they were flat out of money because of all the extra cab fare. They got through it by offering personal belongings (compass, watch, flashlight) in exhange, but this is apparently very against the rules. (Has that always been the case? I seem to recall teams doing this in the past.) But nowadays, that gets you a two-hour penalty, and because they did it twice, Mark and Mike racked up four hours of penalties.

But they lucked out again -- it was a nonelimination leg. Had I thought about the fact that we were down to the final five teams, I would have predicted that, but I didn't, so I just got extra mad. Why couldn't the nonelim been last week?

Last night's episode did clear up a few things for me: I'm rooting for Margie and Luke and Tammy and Victor. (I wasn't sure who I was for after Mel and Mike's departure.) Also, karaoke-in-traffic tasks should happen way, way more often.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 3:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
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I'm playing a little catch up since technically I'm on vacation (can't you tell?). I finally got to watch Sunday's Amazing Race last night, and ... sigh.

I so, so wish Mike and Mel had decided to follow the pack when everyone else figured out where the statue they were seeking was located. But they trusted their cab driver, who turned out to be clueless, and got so far behind, they couldn't catch up, though they came close.

This leg of the race took teams to Phuket, Thailand, where they had to go to the zoo, take a picture with a tiger and take part in an elephant show, and then on to a detour choice of running a rickshaw for 2 miles or sorting and filling barrels for a fishing boat.

The boneheaded award for the episode goes to Mike and Mark. Mark (I think!) decided to somewhat hide the tire pumps at the rickshaw challenge, and then they misread the clue and followed their cab in the rickshaw to the next destination, which was explicitly prohibited. They reached the pit stop first but incurred two 30-minute penalties for the two missteps and ended up checking in in third place. I wish they'd been last.

The winner for ugly American behavior this episode probably goes to Jaime, who admitted she had no patience, but who looked terrible screaming at the little old man in an herb shop who had to open one of 99 drawers for them as they searched for a clue. Ugh, it was awful. Bonus: Now I can finally tell Cara and Jaime apart. (Oh. Um, well, as long as we're being mean, I might as well admit that I laughed when Cara and Jaime called Mike and Mark "the Tweedles," as in Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Even moreso after they got two penalties.)

And scariest moment of the episode? Definitely Margie passing out on the finish mat after she and Luke checked in. She ran a large portion of the rickshaw challenge because she and Luke couldn't communicate when he was running and she was sitting behind him. This show has been to so many insanely hot destinations, I'm surprised that doesn't happen more often, frankly. But she was OK after a few minutes, so that was good.

I'm bummed, though, that Mel and Mike are out. I was rooting for them, hard.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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On last night's Amazing Race, the teams left the chilly climes of Siberia and headed to India. There was zero flight drama since they all traveled together, but as soon as they landed, the travel drama started.

Right off the bat, the contestants split into three groups. Tammy and Victor got way ahead of everyone, Jodi and Christie got way behind, and everyone else caravaned to the Road Block.

In a bit of what was probably unfair editing, Luke and Margie were shown getting very emotional over the state of poverty they were witnessing, particularly among the children. Then Cara and Jaime were shown getting upset about the level of poverty among the animals. It was all sad, but the juxtaposition wasn't too kind to C&J. (You can see the video here.)

Continue reading "'Amazing Race' heads to India" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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I headed over to the Harley-Davidson store in Rosedale today to check out the casting call for The Amazing Race. If you were expecting a scene like the one at last week's America's Next Top Model auditions, you would have been sorely disappointed. Whereas there was a near-riot in NYC last weekend after fears of a fire spiraled out of control, today's TAR casting call was relatively sedate.

There was still an undercurrent of nerves running throughout the holding area between two buildings at the Harley location. Would-be contestants lined up -- some reportedly camped overnight -- and were assigned a number. Then they waited until their number was called -- teams of two were called upstairs in sets of 10 for their chance to make a pitch to a camera for up to three minutes.

The first team I met was soon-to-be-married couple Mark Hidalgo and Diana Bennett. They brought their own gnome to the casting call, recalling previous challenges on the show, where contestants had to find "a Travelocity gnome" and carry it with them to the pit stop as part of a task. They gave me the rundown on the proceedings and told me that they didn't have a lot of experience traveling together ("except for to Philly and back"), but they were preparing for their forthcoming honeymoon in Barcelona.

Next, I talked with identical twins Jessica Kirk and Megan Heffen, 28, from Annapolis. Dressed in identical costumes including jerseys labeled "2WINS," they said they were interested in going on the race to get some quality time together since Megan was recently married.

After that, I caught up with Kristin Symes and Eric Masterton-Mott, coworkers at the Baltimore Convention and Visitors Association. They were hoping to be "Team Baltimore," and to promote the city during their time on the race if they were chosen for the show. They said that their team dynamic was interesting because they actually don't work that closely and thus don't know each other that well -- that they would be getting to know each other during the race itself. They mentioned that they kind of offhandedly mentioned at work that they were interested in applying for the show, and their bosses were all for it. "But we had to ask, are we still going to have jobs when we come back?" Masterton-Mott said. Symes added that the casting call had created a lot of buzz throughout the city -- that she heard someone mentioning the audition at her yoga class last night. (Based on the number of emails and comments I received here, as well as the Twitter activity I saw about it, I'd say she is right.)

Continue reading "Report from the 'Amazing Race' casting call" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
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Jodi and Christie might just be the luckiest contestants to ever be on The Amazing Race. They are still in it, but it has nothing to do with skill, that's for sure.

Nearly eliminated in several previous legs, they finished last in this past Sunday's episode after going to the wrong location in one of the tasks. And then what happens? It's a nonelimination leg. So we're stuck with them some more. Yuck.

If you hate the cold, this was not the episode for you. In the first task, teams had to either find a Russian bride and transport her to a church, where she would find her groom, or learn to drive a snowplow and navigate it through a training run. (The Jodi-Christie brain trust tried to deliver the bride to the wrong church.)

Speaking of a training run, in the last task, one of the team members had to strip down to his or her skivvies and run 1.4 miles. (They kept calling it a marathon, though, and a marathon is very specifically 26.2 miles, so I felt like they should have chosen a different word. Maybe that's just me, though.) That appeared to be by turns uncomfortable, humiliating, terrible and exhilarating.

Luke and Margie finished first and won a trip to St. Lucia, and Jodi and Christie came in last and then discovered their good fortune. That wasn't a very satisfying ending to the episode to me. What did you think of this week's show?

And don't forget, local readers: There's a casting call for The Amazing Race this Saturday in Baltimore. Read more here.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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Sure, you like watching The Amazing Race, but have you ever thought about being on the show?

There's a casting call in Baltimore on March 21. Check out this page on WJZ, which has all the details including a link to the show application. (They suggest filling out the application before you get there.) You and your potential teammate have to be there.

Let me know if you decide to try out!

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 3:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
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On tonight's Amazing Race, the teams head out of Transylvania to Siberia, getting a clue that tells them to go to the hydroelectric dam featured on the 10-ruble note.

Amanda and Kris do their pre-leg interview, and Kris says he thinks they are going to win this thing, which makes me immediately think they will be out at the end of this episode.

In the taxi on the way to the airport, Cara and Jaime are looking at the dam and one of them (I can't tell them apart yet, sorry) says, "Some pretty powerful beavers made that dam; must've been females." Um. Yeah. So many comments, so little time.

In a weird moment, Mark and Mike's cab driver says they can use his phone to call the airport, but he ends up calling one of the other cabbies, who thinks the call is for Cara and Jaime, so he hands the phone to them. One of them pretends to be a Lufthansa Airport clerk for a while, and then she hangs up. She said it was pretty mean, but it would have been truly mean if she had led them to believe that they had reservations.

Continue reading "'Amazing Race': Blind U-Turns and more!" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 9:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
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What a mess it was on tonight's Amazing Race. First, Tammy and Victor got off to a great start, catching a flight far ahead of the rest of the teams, only to have their plane turn around and return to Munich due to a mechanical problem.

Then Brad and Victoria were the only team to choose a route through Amsterdam, which became a problem when they missed their connection, which was the last flight of the night. They got so far behind that there wasn't any way for them to catch up, and yep, they got eliminated.

But Tammy and Victor surely gave them a chance -- in the Road Block in Romania, Tammy overthought the gymnastics task so much that she was the last to finish (except for Brad and Victoria). Then, at the Detour, the siblings chose the vampire-themed task (which involved lugging a coffin down a hill, unlocking and untangling some chains and impaling a bunch of blood-filled frames looking for one with a flag in it). Victor missed the usual red-and-yellow arrow sign and found a tree marked with red and white lines, leading his sister straight up a mountain on the wrong trail for what felt like years. Tammy finally persauded him to turn around, and eventually they completed the task, coming in second-to-last. At the mat, Victor burst into tears, then trying to claim, "I'm not upset!" These two need to just calm down.

Amanda and Kris almost had a major problem, when he misplaced their bag with money and passports during the Detour, but they found it, and all was well.

My favorite team of the moment, Mel and Mike, actually finished first thanks to Amanda and Kris' delay, winning a trip to Costa Rica (one of Mike's favorite places, according to his dad). That was nice, but I don't know how frequently that's going to happen.

It's always kind of a letdown when a team gets irrevocably behind, but I was at least glad it wasn't a team I was emotionally invested in. 

What did you think of tonight's episode?

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
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Finally got caught up on The Amazing Race last night after working until 1:30 a.m. the night before for the Oscars. Whew!

I didn't think anything would come close to last week's hilarity of rolling 50-pound wheels of cheese, but the contestants unexpectedly having to throw cream pies -- lots and lots of them -- into their teammates' faces during the detour was pretty funny. Funnier even that the other option, which was an obstacle course using a Segway.

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. At the beginning of the episode, the teams had to catch one of two flights to Munich, and brothers Mark and Michael made the first boneheaded move of the episode. Most of the other teams borrowed the cab driver's cell phone and reserved tickets, but M&M didn't and found the earliest flight was sold out. Whoops. Everyone but them and Christie and Jodi made the earlier plane.

Continue reading "'The Amazing Race': more laughs *and* more tears" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 2:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

The Amazing Race 14 got off to quite a start last night -- the teams started out in L.A. and then quickly headed to Switzerland. For the first detour, one member of each team had to do a 70-story (!) bungee jump, which looked even more terrifying than usual since it was right up against a mass of concrete.

But the falling wasn't over. For the second task, the teams had to trudge up a steep, muddy hill with antique racks for carrying cheese, then carry 200 pounds of cheese (in 50-pound wheels) back down the hill. These racks weren't up to the task; as the contestants fell (which just about everyone did), the racks splintered into pieces. Whenever that happened, the wheels of cheese usually got loose too, and then barreled down the hill at an astonishing rate. It didn't look like much fun to do, but watching as people fell and cheese went awry was hilarious. I'm not the only one who thought so; the men gathered at the bottom of the hill to watch were cracking up the whole time. I don't know why it's so funny to watch people fall, but when they don't get hurt, it really is. 

Here's my impression of the teams so far:

Continue reading "'Amazing Race 14' debut features lots of falling" »

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

As predicted, Nick and Starr won The Amazing Race. These two dominated the last half of the season. They won more weeks than I can remember, and they were also pretty entertaining. (The Starr and Dallas potential romance gave the show a subplot.) Basically, they deserved to win.

There were times during the season finale that I thought second-place finishers Ken and Tina might pull off the victory. (They led going into the first challenge; they were basically neck and neck with the eventual winners through most of the race.) But Nick's positive attitude and Starr's competitiveness resulted in the win.

Frat boys Dan and Andrew were in distant third for most of the episode. They were pretty funny about the whole thing.

"It's appropriate that we finished the race how we started: with an incredible amount of mistakes," one of them said.

Ken and Tina -- the seperated married couple -- said they found love during the trip. (They said that they intended to give their marriage another try. (Once a cheater always a cheater. Remember that Tina ... )

Speaking of romance, I was surprised to see all of the teams at the finish line except for Toni and Dallas, who were eliminated last week after Dallas lost their passports and money. This entire season, Dallas and Starr were flirting up a storm, but there was no resolution. I wonder if Toni and Dallas got caught up in Russia without their passports? But more importantly, I really want to know if Dallas and Starr hooked up after the show? Has anyone heard any news about them?

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 7:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

Nick got the birthday gift of a lifetime in the form of two dorky frat boys named Dan and Andrew during the most recent episode of The Amazing Race.

The frat boys spent money on purchasing sneakers instead of using their money for taxicabs. (At one point, the duo had to argue with their driver in order avoid paying the entire fare. Losers.)

Siblings Nick and Starr did a pretty good job during the challenges. They just picked a bad cab driver -- twice. Each time, the cab driver had no idea where he was heading, which frustrated the heck out of Starr. (She cried several times.) Nick was the calming force.

I thought Nick and Starr were heading for an exit, but the frat geeks screwed up on a military-themed challenge. Teams had the choice of dressing up in military garb and marching with soldiers or dressing up in military garb and then feeding about 75 troops. They attempted both missions. (They failed horribly at the marching.) Their struggles opened the door for the siblings. Later, the frat boys got involved in that argument about the cab fare, which allowed the siblings to place third.  

Meanwhile, Toni and Dallas did an excellent job getting through their missions. Dallas was a complete beast in a challenge that required teams to carry 50 bags of flour from a truck into a bakery. The bags were huge and looked like each weighed a ton! They were able to breeze through this leg of the competition. They took first place for the first time in the competition and were rewarded with a vacation to the Dominican Republic.

Ken and Tina quietly finished second. (I think they are Nick and Starr's biggest competition to win the entire race.)

Oh yeah, did I mention that this was a nonelimination episode? So all the stressing was for nothing. I hope that the frat boys will get the boot next week.

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

I swear I'm not a fortune teller, but some of my least favorite teams are being eliminated from The Amazing Race.

Sunday, the mistake-prone daters Terence and Sarah bit the dust while in Kazakhstan. They were just edged out by frat boys Andrew and Dan. The couple's problems started earlier in the episode when they tried to go head to head with siblings Nick and Starr. The two stomped Terence and Sarah during an eating contest. Terence, a vegetarian, struggled to eat meat, while Nick and Starr got a clean plate award, which led to them winning this leg of the race. (That's four in a row, folks. They were rewarded with a pair of wave runners.)

Before they finished the race, they had a showdown with Terence and Sarah at the Fast Forward, which allowed the the winning team to sprint ahead to the pit stop. The losing team essentially had to start from the beginning of the leg. This Fast Forward required the teams to consume a traditional Kazakh feast consisting of fat from the butt of a sheep. (Can you see why Terrence struggled so much?)

Anyway, the siblings won, and Terence and Sarah struggled to catch up with the rest of the pack for the rest of the episode. Terence and Sarah took a gamble, which was a mistake. The mistake cost them the competition. See ya!

Oh yeah, Starr and Dallas were flirting up a storm -- again! When are these two finally going to act on all this flirting? Enough already! Someone needs to make a move ...

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

Tina and Ken lucked out two weeks ago when they finished in last place during a nonelimination leg of The Amazing Race.

The luck however ran out for Kelly and Christy on the most recent episode of the show. I'm not sad to see them go. They were soooo petty and mean-spirited. No surprise that both of them were recently divorced ...

According to my calculations, only two remaining teams, Ken and Tina and Nick and Starr, have placed first this season. My money is on one of them to win the title. (I'm leaning toward Nick and Starr.) I don't think Toni and Dallas will win because Toni is not physically fit enough. Terrance and Sarah make too many foolish mistakes; Andrew and Dan are too immature to win.

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 2:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

The contestants started off in Cambodia. They had to travel to Delhi, India.

Dallas talked about his attraction to Starr. She did the same.

Ken and Tina appeared to be lost heading to their first road block. While at the road block, Tina nagged at Ken to the point that I started to cringe. That first road block required the teams to paint a taxi. Andrew and Dan breezed through the road block and surged ahead to first place.

Continue reading "'The Amazing Race': Lucky Ken and Tina" »

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
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A week after "southern belles" Marisa and Brooke were eliminated, couple Aja and Ty found themselves trying to battle back from last place.

The dating couple started off the most recent leg of the race in last place and couldn't rebound from the deficit. Aja and Ty surprisingly remained pretty positive even though they were eliminated. Both said their relationship had gotten stronger during the competition. (Save that stuff for Dr. Phil.)

Meanwhile, the other teams didn't struggle too much with a series of challenges that involved going on a scavenger hunt in Singapore; catching fish in large wooden traps; navigating their way through an ancient temple to find a "chamber of echoes"; and racing to another temple for the end of the leg.

Christy and Kelly brought the much needed drama factor back to the show.

This week, the two divorced best friends were extremely nasty to Dallas, They referred to him as "teen wolf" for a majority of the show. (I suspect that they are jealous because he has shown interest in Starr, whom the two women hate with a passion.)

Siblings Nick and Starr won this portion of the race. As a result, they won a trip to St. John's.

Sarah and Terrence continue to make foolish mistakes. Last week, they didn't follow the rules and illegally used a taxi cab. This week, they got caught speeding. As a result, they will be penalized with a 30-minute delay at the start of the next episode. (That might prove costly with fewer teams left.)

Anyway, getting back to Dallas and Starr. Next week's preview hints that the two  might be taking their flirting to a new level. (I wonder how that will affect their competitive spirit? I'm sure their partners want to win the competition, not register for wedding gifts at Macy's.)

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

The episode started with a little drama. Christy and Kelly accused Starr of throwing Christy's bra off of the ledge while it was drying. Starr denied it. Meow! Can you say cat fight?

All the teams had to make their way from Brazil to La Paz, Bolivia, for the next leg of the race. Some of the teams -- Nick and Starr, Mark and Bill -- had a little trouble adjusting to the higher altitude there.

After camping out near a statue, the teams had to scour a newspaper's classified ads for their clue. At the location of their next clue -- a hat shop -- teams were given two options to complete the next portion of the race. In Musical March, teams had to walk through the city on foot while leading a band. In Bumpy Ride, teams had to ride wooden bicycles along cobblestone roads. Terrence and Sarah and Mark and Bill did not follow the directions and used a taxi to complete this part of the race.

Continue reading "'The Amazing Race': penalty costs team" »

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 11:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)
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If ever there was a need for TiVo, this would be the time.

I missed the last half of The Amazing Race on Sunday night because a football game ran a half-hour late. That pushed back the entire CBS lineup. My VCR was set to record The Amazing Race. Instead, I got the tail end of 60 Minutes and the majority of the pairs struggling to get through a challenge that involved them pushing sailboats into the water. I already know Anthony and Stephanie were eliminated. Anyone care to fill me in on the other happenings in the episode?

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

The six-time Emmy Award-winning reality show The Amazing Race premiered last night, and I'm already hooked! (Editor's note: For the first time, TAR released a map of the race to come! See it here.)

And here are the teams:

Terence and Sarah are newly dating;

Marisa and Brooke are best friends;

Andrew and Dan are fraternity brothers;

Aja and Ty are dating long distance;

Mark and Bill are lifelong friends and self-proclaimed geeks.

Toni and Dallas are mother and son;

Nick and Starr are siblings;

Anita and Arthur are married beekeepers who look like big-time hippies;

Kelly and Christy are best friends;

Ken and Tina separated after he cheated on her;

and Anthony and Stephanie are dating.

Let the race begin! 

Continue reading "'The Amazing Race' premiere: first team eliminated" »

Posted by John-John Williams IV at 5:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
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I finally got to watch the finale of The Amazing Race, and I enjoyed it wholeheartedly. I think that was partly because the top three teams were all ones you could root for.

Forget the idea that evil teams drive up the drama. For me, watching couples' relationships degenerate or seeing people be typical "ugly Americans" and act rude toward people in other countries makes the viewing experience worse.

Watching teams whose relationship actually improved over the course of the race (Christine and Ronald) or who managed to not take things out on one another (TK and Rachel) was a much more fulfilling finale.

(Not that there wasn't a "good triumphing over evil" feeling after the previous episode, when Nate and Jen got the boot. But I was thrilled to not deal with them or their bickering in the finale.)

What did you think about the finale -- and about the winners?

I was pleased to see them in Anchorage. I went there for the Mayor's Midnight Sun Half-Marathon in 2005 and loved it. I didn't see that much that was specifically familiar, except for the Capt. Cook statue, but I still liked revisiting the place a little.

I also really liked the final road block -- a logic puzzle that required remembering what items went with what challenges in what cities, as well as working out the rest of the clues.

So for me, it was a satisfying end. I just hope that for future seasons, CBS doesn't kill it by putting it after 60 Minutes and football.  

(Photo courtesy of CBS)

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 4:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

I fully admit that, thanks to football, I missed a swath of episodes this season of The Amazing Race.

But I feel like I have seen enough to be fully thrilled that Jen and Nate did not make it into the final three for next week's finale. They were unkind to each other; she was shrieky. It wasn't pleasant.

So those final three teams are:

Ronald and Christina: The dad and daughter got off to a rocky start, with him often berating her when things got complicated. The past two legs, though, she's carried them to first-place finishes. She credited her dad for changing, but it's probably easier to be nicer when you're in the lead.

TK and Rachel: The (mostly) laid-back hippie couple have made it through the race (at least the parts that I have seen) staying kind -- and lucking out with a non-elimination leg when they totally messed up their flights last week.

Nicolas and Don: The grandfather-and-grandson team has made some smart moves (especially regarding rest) and with Nicolas really helping his grandfather keep it together. They aren't the nicest of the remaining teams, but they have worked hard. (Though I was struck last night when they ditched whiny Jen and Nate to talk to TK and Rachel instead on the train.)

So farewell, Jen and Nate. Sorry you got kicked off on your birthday, Jen, and sorry you and Nate didn't turn off your mikes before lamenting that the race had killed your relationship. But I'm glad to not have to listen to you two in the finale.

Are you excited about the finalists? The finale? Who do you want to see take home the $1 million? 

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

Football is always screwing things up. At least for whatever show airs after 60 Minutes on CBS, and lately, that's been The Amazing Race.

We only have one TV and cable box at my house, plus I'm usually watching football on Sundays anyway, which led me to get way, way behind with TAR.

I still have several unwatched episodes, but last night I decided to watch that latest one, because it was now or never.

Though I've basically neglected it all season, I do enjoy this show. Watching how teams deal with the stresses dealt to them in the race is always interesting.

I found it interesting that Ronald of the dad-and-daughter team is still berating her and realizing after the fact he needs to stop it. I thought by now he would have chilled out a little. Also, Jenn interviewed at the beginning of the episode about how she and Nathan were on an upward swing in their relationship and were going to be so much nicer to each other; once it got to the point where they were having trouble with a task, the meltdowns started yet again. 

In the end, goth couple Kynt and Vyxsin (pictured) were eliminated, leaving grandfather-and-grandson team Nicolas and Donald and dating couple TK and Rachel to fight it out with Ronald and Christina and Jenn and Nate.

Having missed so much of the season, I don't feel right in making predictions. What do you think about the final four teams? 

(Photo courtesy of CBS)

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 4:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

Since Viva Laughlin has been canceled, CBS is revving up to premiere the 12th season of The Amazing Race on Nov. 4.

Check out the cast here. No locals, but there are dating goths, a grandpa-grandson team and married (both female) ministers.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 11:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

After just two episodes, the drama-cum-musical performances Viva Laughlin is canceled. It's not a huge surprise, since it lost an insane amount of its lead-in audience from CSI.

News for reality fans coming out of this is that a new season of The Amazing Race will be replacing it in a couple of weeks. 

Viva Phil, instead! 

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Apparently, 465 people are responsible for The Amazing Race, because it looks like that is how many people are on the stage right now accepting the Emmy for Outstanding Reality Competition.

Go, TAR!

Edited to add: Ha! Apparently, not all we Sun bloggers are of the same mind about this.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 10:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
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On Sept. 20, Charla Foddoul and Mirna Hindoyan Buchinski will discuss their appearances on The Amazing Race 5 and The Amazing Race All-Stars at their alma mater, Towson University. The 6 p.m. event takes place in the University Union's Chesapeake Room. It's free, but registration is required. Call 410-704-2234 or email alumni@towson.edu.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
        

Yesterday, I interviewed Charla Baklayan Faddoul and Mirna Hindoyan, third-place finishers in The Amazing Race All-Stars, for this story. Here are some more tidbits from our conversation:

• Mirna said one of the biggest differences for her this season of the show vs. season five in 2004 was that she is now married, and her husband got to experience watching her on the show for the first time. "It was all laughter and excitement at our house," she said.
• Charla and Mirna attended "a fan party" after the finale on Sunday (I'm fairly certain it was TARcon) and said they heard so many "encouraging words" and that it was a "mob scene ... a little overwhelming" but oh so great to interact with the fans.
• They said the worst leg of the race for them was probably the last one. Mirna on their experience in San Francisco: "We had the best flight -- we had a two-hour lead [time stamp on the show indicated 40 minutes, just for the record], but when we arrived in Oakland, it was the matter of a taxi ride. Our driver had no idea where anything in San Francisco was, and his phone was broken. We arrived at each destination last because we had to change taxi drivers. That was the most frustrating thing."
• Mirna on luck: "We didn't always have the best luck -- we spent three hours on the cookie challenge and never found a cookie -- but regardless of how bad our luck was, we worked extra hard to push through."
• Asked if they were happy with the winners, they said they had made a couple of tight alliances in the game, with Danny and Oswald and with Eric and Danielle, so if it couldn't be Danny and Oswald, they were happy it was Eric and Danielle.
• Charla and Mirna agreed that their favorite Detour was the kung-fu fighting in Hong Kong. (They had to scale a wall while fighters did stunts around them to intimidate them and slow them down.)
• When asked if they get recognized a lot in Maryland, Mirna said they do, but that the show is also wildly popular in Asia, which often created "a mob scene" when the race took them there this season.
• When asked if they had anything to tell their fans in Baltimore, Mirna said, "We appreciate all your kind words and support, and we hope we made you laugh. ... That's what TV is all about."
• Speaking of TV, they made reference to a possible future reality show that would follow them and their husbands, but for the moment, it sounds pretty up in the air. If I hear anything else about that, I will let you know.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 7:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Maryland reality contestants, The Amazing Race
        

Tonight, we see who is going to win The Amazing Race All-Stars. In the running are beauty queens Dustin and Kandice, Eric and Danielle and Towson cousins Charla and Mirna.

The final leg begins in Fort Soledad in Guam. Dustin and Kandice read the first clue, which directs them to Honolulu, Hawaii. There, they will catch one of three charter flights to the island of Lanai. Dustin and Kandice interview that they have a lot of confidence.

About an hour later, Eric and Danielle take off. Eric interviews that finishing five minutes out of first place in Season 9 is the "most bitter" thing he's ever experienced, and that winning would be redemption.

About a half an hour later, Charla and Mirna get their clue and head to the airport.

Meanwhile, Dustin and Kandice have secured their flight. Eric and Danielle get tickets on a different flight to Tokyo, but the same flight from Tokyo to Honolulu. Charla and Mirna make that flight as well.

Eric and Danielle catch up with Dustin and Kandice in Tokyo, while Charla and Mirna realize there is another flight that arrives in Honolulu 40 minutes earlier than the other plane. They barely make it, and the other teams are FREAKED that Charla and Mirna aren't on the plane with them.

Charla and Mirna arrive at 6:40 a.m. and head to the helicopter place. The second flight arrives at 7:20 a.m., with the two other teams close behind. The teams will fly to Lanai and then drive to a harbor for their next clue. But the charter flights are only 10 minutes apart.

At the harbor, it's a Detour: Under or Over. In Under, they have to go to an underwater cave and swim under the rocks to find their next clue. In Over, they have to go to an inlet, stand and paddle on paddleboards to the a buoy.

Charla and Mirna choose Over, as do Eric and Danielle when they see Charla and Mirna. Then they change their minds again when they see the trouble Mirna is having (while Charla rocks it and gets it done fast).

After the Detour, they have to go to Shipwreck Beach and trek 1 mile up the beach to the next clue.

Eric and Danielle finish the Under detour, while Dustin and Kandice decide to go with that one, too.

Charla and Mirna start navigating the 1-mile trek on the rocky beach, which Charla is not enjoying. Eric and Danielle arrive, and Dustin and Kandice are right behind, having made up time somehow. The other teams pass Charla and Mirna, with Eric and Danielle arrive at the clue first. They learn they have to kayak out to a(nother) buoy with a clue on it, and the other two teams are soon also headed in that direction. Dustin and Kandice have an awful time and start arguing with each other. Meanwhile, Eric and Danielle get the clue. Dustin and Kandice finally make it there, while back on the beach, Eric and Danielle read the clue, which tells them to go to their final destination, San Francisco. There, they will have to find the Old Mint. In the car, Dustin and Kandice spar more over their troubles in the kayak, and it doesn't bode well for them.

Charla and Mirna continue to fight with the waves and finally get to the clue. Dustin and Kandice cry but agree to move on.

Eric and Danielle and Dustin and Kandice book flights to Oakland leaving at 11:55 p.m. Charla and Mirna try to work the airport staff some again, but it doesn't work out this time, and all three teams are on the same flight. (Dustin and Kandice, who have been listening in, are thrilled.)

The teams all catch cabs after the flight lands, and Dustin and Kandice get to the clue first. One team member must enter a vault and answer the questions on a wall about the other teams. The answers will create a code that they will program into a safe. Then, the other teammate will come in and try to answer the questions the same as their teammate, determine the code, unlock the safe and get the next clue. If they don't get it within 10 minutes, they have to stop. The questions are about which teams is the least trustworthy, has the best sense of humor, is the most overrated and the one you want to stay in touch with. By the way, everyone said Rob and Amber were the most overrated, which amused me.

Danielle gets it first. Their clue says to go to the Botanical Garden, which is the finish line.

Dustin and Kandice's 10 minutes are up, so they get the clue and head to the finish. They're followed momentarily by Charla and Mirna.

So it looks like it's going to come down to traffic and how good their cabbie is. Yikes!

And finishing first are Eric and Danielle! So I guess he will get his redemption, and she won't have to worry about him blaming their loss on her for the rest of their relationship. Dustin and Kandice come in second. Then, Charla and Mirna hit the finish. Host Phil Keoghan tells them they ran "a hell of a race."

Eric and Danielle call their families, but Jeremy, Eric's partner the first time around, answers the phone instead.

Man, that was a tight close on that race. But all in all, it was a fun season, even if it's not a result I would have predicted.

Tomorrow on CBS' The Early Show, they will get their prize.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 9:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: Maryland reality contestants, The Amazing Race
        

If you had told me at the beginning of the season of Amazing Race: All Stars that the final three would be Dustin and Kandice, Eric and Danielle and Charla and Mirna, I probably would have laughed in your face. But after last night's episode, here we are!

Last week's episode was pure insanity, with Oswald and Danny basically selling their yield to Dustin and Kandice because they had no money, then having a horrible rest of the leg (instant karma's gonna getcha?). I actually don't think yielding should lead to bad things since it's a part of the game, not a dirty trick, but maybe Danny and Oswald psyched themselves out so badly after making the deal with Dustin and Kandice. I was happy for them that it was nonelimination, but after last night, it didn't make much of a difference.

I missed the first quarter of the episode due to some user error with the ole Tivo, but suddenly, the teams were in Guam taking part in a variety of military-related tasks. It seemed like all the teams all finished pretty close to one another despite many issues with the GPS roadblock and the lengthiness of the air-drop detour that Charla and Mirna did. Though Danny and Oswald weren't the last to complete their tasks, they finished last and got eliminated. (Like them, I spent a lot of this episode lost and confused.)

They surely were sweet to each other in their exit interview. I highly recommend checking out the full video at CBS.com (unless you don't want to watch them saying not-exactly-nice things about the remaining teams besides Charla and Mirna). It might have been a long road and a rough couple of episodes for them, but the best friends finished strongly.

So how about that? Towson cousins Charla and Mirna have a chance at the million buck prize this Sunday. I'll be keeping an eye on that finale for sure.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 7:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Maryland reality contestants, The Amazing Race
        

Sad to say, but I haven't seen The Apprentice the past two weeks because I watched Entourage instead. Or rather, I saw the second half of last week's, but I was so confused (especially by the firings of Heidi and Kristine, who I had pegged as the final two) that I couldn't figure out what was going on. Sounds like no one got fired last night, so I guess I will catch up next week.

And speaking of not watching things, I completely forgot to watch the Dancing With the Stars results show on Tuesday (but House sure was good). I caught up with it on ABC.com this weekend and saw that Leeza Gibbons was voted out and that John Ratzenberger was in the bottom two with her. I'm not shocked by either of those developments -- though I really did think that Clyde Drexler would probably be at the bottom, too.

I am all caught up with The Amazing Race, at least. That show is down to the final four teams -- adorable Oswald and Danny, contentious but competent Dustin and Kandice, always-fighting Eric and Danielle, and Charla and Mirna, the Towson cousins who think this is a morality game. (Note to them: The Yield is a part of the game, not a grand double-cross. Yes, it can be bad karma, but it's not against the rules. So dial down the outrage, mmmkay?) I still can't believe how much of the airtime of the past four episodes has been spent in airports and how many airport difficulties people have had, especially when Eric and Danielle and Joe and Bill got more than an entire leg behind.

I also watched part of the second episode of The Bachelor: Officer and a Gentleman this weekend, and all I have to say is: That guy is creepy. On the surface, he seems like a "catch," but whenever he talks (especially about how attractive all the women are), he seems to lack a filter, and it's very off-putting. I think I'm done with that one.

And (the rain lent itself to a weekend by the TV and computer, OK?) I saw Shear Genius' premiere episode. It's just like Project Runway, Top Chef and Top Design, but with hairdressers, in case you haven't heard of it. Like those shows (except maybe Design), it was great fun, although I was surprised who got voted out and also couldn't figure out why Jaclyn Smith was there. I guess because she has great hair? I do hope the contestants will be able to cut real people's hair soon. Watching them cut mannequins' coifs and create "hair art" was interesting for the first episode but won't hold my interest for an entire season. (But I do have to share this. My friend Erika and I were discussing the show, and I told her that Theodore, who won the first challenge, reminded me of the guy from Greatest American Hero, and she responded with: "Believe it or not, he's working on hair ..." Maybe you had to be there, but to me, that is genius!)

Speaking of Bravo series, it is so sad watching Work Out right now, as the staff learns more about trainer Doug being ill. We already know that he passed away several months ago, so many of the interviews with him and particularly about him have proved extra poignant. I haven't seen every episode of that show, but the ones that I have seen, Doug always stood out as a legitimately nice and caring person.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Categories: Bachelor/Bachelorette, Dancing With the Stars, The Amazing Race, The Apprentice
        

With Rob and Amber out on The Amazing Race All-Stars, who's going to step up to dominate the rest of the race? I wonder how they felt when they realize they basically lost because they couldn't spell "Philippines" during the challenge.

(An aside: Anyone else just watch Simon Cowell on 60 Minutes? He claimed that they don't televise the people who sing bad on purpose to get on TV. Gonna have to disagree with that one. This season alone, I can think of at least eight people who just wanted screen time -- yellow-dress lady and "teach me to sing" girl spring to mind. But generally he came across as he usually does: a big old know-it-all.)

The teams start out in Argentina and head to a glacier, where they will have to find a buried clue. Brrr! They soon find the chair lift doesn't open until 8 a.m., so the teams all end up there at the same time. Dustin and Kandice fail to get their gear, so they have to go back to to the base to get it before they can search. Joe and Bill and Uchenna, Uchenna and Joyce and Eric and Danielle make pretty quick work of it. Oswald and Danny get cranky with each other.

Once they find the buried beacon, they head to Maputo, Mozambique. In a twist, they have been provided with tickets on the last flight to make sure everyone gets a flight. But if they can find a better flight, they can take that instead.

Charla and Mirna and Dustin and Kandice find beacons, but Oswald and Danny seem to be getting stick in the "needle in a haystack" situation and can't find one. Finally, they do, and they head out.

The other teams are having mixed luck at travel agencies -- one woman tells a team there aren't any flights to Maputo. Finally, it starts working out, and everyone gets on a flight arriving at 9:40 a.m. instead of 3 p.m. Joe and Bill go to the duty-free shop and spray themselves with cologne. I am thrilled to not be near them, because that would seriously kill me.

At the airport, they find marked cars with drivers and get to a park, but it's not open yet. While waiting, the Guidos and Eric and Danielle get into an altercation about nothing. The Road Block asks, "Who smells a rat?" Team members have to use a trained rat to find a(nother) buried marker, after which they will get their clue. Ian's rat is named Tupac!

Then they head back into Maputo to find a fancy building, where their next clue is. (No Tivo going, so I didn't get the name.)

Charla and Mirna are in last place, and golly gee, they have such positive attitudes about it!

Oh, no! They're casting Big Brother 8! I always end up addicted even though I don't want to.

There are two ways to Maputo, which is confusing the teams. Meanwhile, Charla and Mirna find their clue. Joe and Bill are still in first, and get to the Detour first: Pamper or Porter. In Pamper, the teams have to convince enough people to let them give them manicures. Porter they have to gather bags of charcoal, sew them shut and carry one for a while.

Charla and Mirna continue their tradition of speaking English with accents when they are talking to non-Americans. SO ANNOYING. You would think after hearing themselves doing this last time they were on TV that they would avoid it now. But, they finish the manicure task before anyone and head toward the pit stop. They arrive in first place and win a trip to Aruba.

The teams doing the charcoal task are not faring so well. Dustin and Kandice rock their way through the manicure task and head toward the pit stop, where they come in second. Teri and Ian end up at the manicure task by accident, but Ian is not excited. They stumble upon a couple of girls, who let them do their nails, and finish it quickly.

Eric and Danielle and Uchenna and Joyce finish up the coal task, and Eric and Danielle get some help finding the delivery address from some local kids, so they pass Uchenna and Joyce.

Teri and Ian end up team No. 3, which wouldn't have happened if they had tried the coal task. Lucky ducks. Oswald and Danny arrive at the pit stop and chase Phil to try to hug him with their coal-covered selves. They are fourth.

Eric and Danielle end up in a foot race with the Guidos. They Guidos win, and Eric yells at Danielle, but the Guidos are fifth, Eric and Danielle sixth. Uchenna and Joyce arrive and find out they are last -- but it's nonelimination. They are marked for elimination, which means they have to arrive first next leg or get a 30-minute penalty.

Next week looks interesting: Among other things, Eric and Danielle get pulled off of a plane.

Oh, and don't forget: Survivor is on Wednesday, not Thursday, this week. It's madness! (Of the March variety.)

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 9:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

OK, I sure didn't expect the team that would take Rob and Amber out of The Amazing Race All-Stars to be Towson's Charla and Mirna. Never in a million years. But maybe the karma of lying to Charla and Mirna while trying to find a clue did them in.

This is why this show is good, though: You never know what's going to happen! It's sad when one bad leg is the undoing of a good (and entertaining) team, but them's the breaks.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 10:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: Maryland reality contestants, The Amazing Race
        

Finally, I am caught back up with The Amazing Race All-Stars. I just watched last week's and this week's back-to-back. I can't believe Rob and Amber have come in first place three legs in a row. They annoy me, but I do have to hand it to them: They seem to get the job done while all the other teams are fixating on one another.

In last week's episode, Kevin and Drew were out after a rough few days for Drew. He took a hard fall in the first episode, followed by a bout of altitude sickness. He seemed so angry to be in last place, but I'm pretty sure he thought that the other teams hadn't been following the 40 kph rule and thus should have been disqualified. But back in reality, he had misread the clue (the 40 kph rule pertained only to the drive in the Valley of the Moon.

Then tonight, despite a bunch of teams making huge mistakes (Kandice and Dustin failing to pick up a clue and going straight to one of the Detours; one of the Guidos failing to write down the whole clue at the bottom of the fish tank; major failures in sign reading all across the board), David and Mary ended up in last and headed home.

Here's my take on the remaining teams thus far:

Danny and Oswald seem to have a great relationship and are handling most of the stress with a minimum of drama. Plus, they're funny, which always helps.

Uchenna and Joyce are racing strongly, but in the stressful moments (like when Joyce was having trouble with the "eye for details" task last week), Uchenna seems like he gets really frustrated really quickly, and then he isn't as supportive of his partner.

Charla and Mirna are driving me insane, just as they did in their initial go-round on the show. They talk in interviews about how important it is to be pure of heart and declare incredulously about people being rude or out of control when they are usually the ones who start the yelling or escalate a situation into "out-of-control" land. But when they talk about it, it's always someone else's fault.

Rob and Amber: See above.

Teri and Ian are racing strongly. I'm still getting a handle on them, having not watched their original season. It cracked me up when Ian bellowed "Security!" in the middle of a tussle with Mirna. He's a police officer! He should know better than to call for help when it's not warranted.

Eric and Danielle have me a little worried. I feel like maybe this was too early in their relationship for them to be racing together. She seems worried she's going to disappoint him, and he keeps making inapproriate (and marginally disrespectful) comments toward her. They are doing a decent job in the race, though. But I can't see this relationship lasting forever.

Joe and Bill (aka "Team Guido") are a weird mix of tearful, supportive, hard-core, overdramatic. I think sometimes their dramatics get in the way of the racing. If they keep their focus, though, they will do pretty well.

Dustin and Kandice are racing just like last season -- as hard as they can and without any interest in making long-term friends. (However, they did team up with Teri and Ian for a while tonight, so maybe they did learn something last time.)

I'm glad to be caught up. Speaking of which, I had a Tivo malfunction (OK, it was user error) last week, so I haven't seen Survivor yet, but as soon as I do, I'll get caught up here!

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 9:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

Well, I live-blogged this whole episode of Amazing Race, and then my connection timed out, and my whole post is gone. So, what do I remember?

The teams start off in Miami and head for Ecuador. From there, they have to find a clue at the Plaza del San Francisco, then find a restaurant, where they are given numbers. They eat and spend the night on cots outside near the restaurant, then leave in three waves the next morning, based on their number. They drive to a national park, and the first detour is between Wrangle It and Recover It. Wrangle It involves some cowboys lassoing a wild horse, and then the team has to clip its hooves and its tail. Recover It ... well, it's not worth mentioning since no one does it -- Rob and Amber give it a shot, but give up quickly when they realize part of it involves finding a button in a field.

Rob and Amber finish first, and she has a choice moment of telling the cameras that there isn't really anyone they are really interested in racing against, but she thinks all the teams want to race against them.

The usual airport chaos strikes again at the beginning, and some of the teams still haven't learned that just because a flight leaves earlier doesn't mean it lands earlier.

At the first clue in Ecuador, Drew fell down hard and first feared he had separated his shoulder, but he appeared to get over it, though he looked in not great shape by the time he and Kevin made it to the pit stop (in next to last place).

Rob and Oswald were definitely helped by their Spanish skills during this episode, though Rob's abilities were much more cursory. Charla and Mirna and John Vito and Jill both learned that you have to choose your helpers carefully -- both were led in wrong directions, John Vito and Jill to the point that they couldn't catch up and were eventually eliminated.

Oswald and Danny were second, Teri and Ian third, Eric and Danielle fourth, and after that, I start to forget. Charla and Mirna were in eighth and David and Mary directly behind, with David and Mary telling them at the mat how big of fans they were. And Jill and John Vito finish last, and they are very disappointed, but they say how nice it is to be together again and that maybe they can take their relationship back to a past-a-friendship level. I didn't watch their season, but they seem like really nice people and tough competitors, and I'm sad to see them out so fast.

Next week, it looks like Rob and Amber cause some consternation (on purpose) when the other teams can't find them at the airport.

Sorry for the convoluted post. It made much more sense when it was written as things were happening on screen. I (re-)learned: Save, save, save!

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

CBS has announced the cast of The Amazing Race: All-Stars, which starts Feb. 18.

• Kevin and Drew, Season 1, fourth place
• Oswald and Danny, Season 2, fourth place
• John and Jill, Season 3, fifth place
• Uchenna and Joyce, Season 7, winners
• David and Mary, Season 10, sixth place
• Towson's own Charla and Mirna, Season 5, sixth place
• Rob and Amber (of Survivor and Survivor: All Stars), Season 7, second place
• Teri and Ian, Season 3, second place
• Eric and Danielle, Season 9, second place (him) and seventh place (her); now they're dating
• Joe and Bill, Season 1, third place
• Dustin and Kandice, Season 10, fourth place

Interesting mix. I didn't start watching the show until Season 4, so there are a whole lot of people I'm not familiar with here. I'm tired of Rob and Amber, but it was almost a given that they'd be back. What do you think of the casting decisions?

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 3:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

After a pretty great season (although I missed some of it due to football delays), last night Tyler and James were named the winners of The Amazing Race 10. It was a crazy episode, with the lead flip-flopping a few times. (Most notably when Lyn and Karlyn were on a significantly later flight from Spain to Paris but beat the other two teams to the finish because they flew into Orly instead of de Gaulle airport, which was closer to the Eiffel Tower. Though this did them in because they returned to Orly for the final flight only to discover that it didn't offer direct flights to NYC.) In the end, it was a cab race between Rob and Kimberly and Tyler and James out of New York City to Garrison County, and Tyler and James made it out faster because their cab had an EZ-Pass. Got to be frustrating for Rob and Kimberly that it came down to that, but as a viewer, I'm satisfied because (from what I saw, at least) Tyler and James were nicer to each other during the race (their frustration about missing a flight earlier in the episode notwithstanding).

Speaking of satisfying endings, I was so thrilled to see Jonathan go home on Thursday's Survivor. He was annoying everyone, and he had to know it (especially when the women were like, "Uh, we're getting firewood" when he tried to talk to them after returning from Exile Island). I think, though, that Yul et al should have kept him around one more episode and taken out Adam. Jonathan isn't an immunity threat and he would vote with them for sure, whereas Adam? Not so much. What do you think?

But from the previews, it appears the backstabbing is going to start. We shall see on Thursday -- and then on Sunday for the finale.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)
Categories: The Amazing Race
        

Zoinks! Life and work got in the way there for a while. Sorry for the lack of posts for the past few days. Let's play catch-up, shall we?

First up, The Amazing Race. We're down to the final three teams as of last night -- Tyler and James, Rob and Kimberly and Lyn and Karlyn. If you had told me at the beginning of the season that for the first time ever, a two-woman team would make the final three, I definitely wouldn't have predicted Lyn and Karlyn, but they are doing pretty darned well late. They finished in the top two by minutes two legs in a row. Sure, they're tired and they're bickering, and they took getting yielded by the beauty queens really poorly last episode even though they planned to be the yielders if they got there first.  I'm not sure I'm rooting for them, exactly, but I'm impressed they keep on trucking. Rob and Kimberly I could do without, especially their screaming and giving up constantly. James and Tyler have been handling all the stresses pretty well. Sure, as Lyn and Karlyn pointed out, they get a little emotional here and there, but generally, they've been keeping it together.

I'm surprised Dustin and Kandice are out. They will say that they were gunned for because they were so competitive, but it was also because at times they were unnecessarily underhanded around the other teams, and rarely did it gain them any time on the teams. The only thing it did was engender distrust, which definitely did not work out for them in the end.

That final episode is always a doozy, so keep an eye out this Sunday to see who brings home the $1 million prize.

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Speaking of $1 million prizes, how about that Survivor? Jonathan flipped yet again, but he was given little choice by Yul, who would have voted him out had he not joined with the Aitu-ans. So the former Raro-ites were furious, and then everyone got furious after Jonathan acted like a selfish jerk at the reward challenge, an auction at which he won an insane amount of food and rubbed it in everyone's faces (albeit not literally). It got really ugly when Adam, Candace and Parvati were huddled in the tent, and everyone else started eating without telling them, leaving them with no fish. This carried over to an insane tribal council where everything came out in the open. It seemed like there was a chance that everyone was going to flip on Jonathan, but instead Candace went home, after making out with Adam in front of God, her teammates, Jeff Probst and the jury after the votes came in. I suspect Jonathan isn't long for this game, but I've been thinking that for a long, long time, so who knows?

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VH1 aired a marathon of repeats of America's Next Top Model this weekend, gearing up for the finale on Wednesday. I never end up seeing the show when it's on network TV, and it never fails that I get dragged into repeats toward the end. I don't love the show, but I love photography, and you can't see the shoots and the results of the shoots without seeing most of the episode. So yeah, that's my excuse.

It's just such a strange show. Real models get into the business early, so to have all these 18-to-23-year-olds supposedly getting their start just makes it seem even less accurate. But, as usual, there has been drama and personality conflicts and other assorted craziness to keep people tuning in. Wednesday we'll see who the big winner is. (Because we've seen oh so much of the previous six winners!)

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I'm all caught up with The Real World: Denver, which just makes me want to tear my hair out over the state of youth today, which makes me feel 947 years old instead of just pushing 30. But seriously, as of the end of last week's episode, the kids had been in the house for less than 48 hours and already Colie had made out with Alex, who promised to meet her in her room for more making out but instead had a fling with Jenn, who had already made out with Brooke in front of Tyrie and who didn't want to tell Colie about Alex, but Colie saw her hickey while talking to her in the shower. That doesn't even get into the part where Brooke basically forced Davis out of the closet after he had chosen to room with Stephen because they go to the same church, but Stephen thinks homosexuality is wrong.

It's all ever so classy. People say London was a boring season, but I really liked seeing the interplay between the roommates, who had jobs besides making out with one another. Even Jay, who sat around a lot of the time because his work visa was all messed up, was compelling because, having written and staged a play while still in high school, he was dealing with becoming a very small fish in a giant pond.

I've said it before, but I will say it again: Real World has turned into a puppy mill for creating Real World-Road Rules Challenge contestants. That's its only purpose.  Sick.

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More classy and less exploitative than I thought it would be is Beauty & the Geek. It's being rerun on MTV right now in anticipation of the third season, which supposedly starts next month. It's billed as a social experiment (exec produced by Ashton Kutcher) in which eight beauties and eight geeks team up in pairs and compete for $250,000. There are certainly humiliating moments, but generally the guys seem to gain a lot of confidence and the women seem to realize that there is more to life than looking cute. That sounds like a win-win to me. I hope the show keeps that innocence about it as it continues. Apparently, we'll see next month.

Posted by Sarah Kickler Kelber at 5:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)