There is a reader on this blog named Tyler and if it wasn’t for him calling, we’d have missed the first 30 minutes of the show thanks to CBS and their apparent lack of knowledge of devices called “DVRs.” Since there was football on today, 60 minutes was scheduled for 6:30 to 7:30, with the Amazing Racing taking up the next hour.
Wouldn’t you know it, football got over early (shock!) and so they just went ahead and started 60 Minutes, and then Amazing Race at their normal times.
It’s like networks are clueless when it comes to the fact that many, MANY people use DVRs to record stuff and thus don’t just sit and watch their stations all day hoping their shows start on-time.
Thanks Tyler.
So having missed the first 12 minutes or so, we caught up to T.K. and Rachel apparently so far behind that we don’t see them again for like 20 minutes and a commercial later.
The teams head to Japan where they have to find some castle and then a guy cleaning a billboard for what looks to be all day long, just waiting for the contestants to arrive. As long as it took T.K.and Rachel to show, that was the cleanest billboard in all of Japan.
I love this show by the way. Christina looks around while in a cab and says “I’m never driving in Japan” and the editors put in a giant “gong!” sound right after. I lean over to my wife, “Oh…she’s driving on this leg.”
True enough, the contestants have to drive a couple in a taxicab to a post office. I must say, that would be a brutal challenge if you A) never have driven on the right side of a car, B) driven on the right side of the road and C) don’t speak Japanese.
But the teams all got through it much faster than I though. Although there was a brief moment when Jen wondered how she looked and the woman behind her shrugged. I half expected Jen to flip out, and then realized of course it was just clever editing. Crazy Amazing Race, oh how you play with my mind!
Oh yeah, where are T.K. and Rachel? Still inbound on a plane…fun stuff.
There are two lessons we learned from Nate and Jennifer this leg:
1. If Jennifer is smiling, they are in 1st place.
2. Nate can’t sit in a moving vehicle and listen at the same time.
Oh yeah, we’ve had all kinds of things happen to automobiles on the amazing race, from accidents to flat tires, but never has the driver suffered from a heart attack. It almost happened, did you hear that guy wheezing? I thought for sure there was going to be some blood coughed up at any moment.
So Ron and Christina finished first, blaming it on the fact that Ronald never yelled the entire time. Hopefully he’ll forget about that on the next leg. I just don’t want them to win.
Nate and Jen got done with the flower smelling detour before Ron and Christina, but couldn’t find a cab and landed on the mat in second place. They are fiercely competitive and I knew they’d get ticked over a missed 1st place once more.
And finally, once the top 3 teams finished, we get to see T.K. and Rachel going through all the challenges, reminiscing on their lives, how much they love each other, yadda, yadda, yadda…in a admirable effort by the editors to make us think they were going home.
But we knew better. Only one non-elimination round was left, and they aren’t going to use it on the final episode, so it had to come now.
Three hours behind and having to deal with a Speed Bump, T.K. and Rachel have an uphill battle. But as this show is fond of doing, you know they’ll all catch up together when they have to wait for a challenge or flight. In fact, from the previews, I think it’s safe to say that at least they’ll compete next week.
So who do you want to win this thing now? Who do you THINK will win The Amazing Race 12? Any guesses? I’m thinking Nate and Jennifer will do it after never finishing first.
No one loses anyone this week, obviously, but here are the standings.
Mike: Azaria/Hendekea, Rachel/TK, Lorena/Jason
Jina: Azaria/Hendekea, Rachel/TK, Marianna/Julia
Tracy: Ari/Staella, Rachel/TK, Jennifer/Nathan
Scott: Kynt/Vyxsin, Nicholas/Donald
Nicky: Jennifer/Nathan, Azaria/Hendekea
Kat: Nathan/Jenny, TK/Rachel
Don’t forget that Ron and Christina each won a CAR for coming in first! Are you kidding me? Not bad!
An electric car too!
I wonder why they didn’t have like a little promo of the cars…it was like “you each won an electric car” and they’re like…cool!
But what do they look like??? Come on Phil, show us!
They didn’t show us because it’s two of those electric cars that the little kids get.
If it was really a cool prize they would have told us more about it.
Btw, say bye bye to TK and Rachel. Even if they ‘catch-up’ due to flight schedules, which is likely on this show, the speed bump will likely end it for them. I like the speed bump, but it seems to almost doom any team that gets it. Maybe that’s the idea.
Scott’s last blog post..Resume Navigator
I watched my first ever episode of amazing race last night. The couple that got second place, man…is that chick a control freak or what?!?!?! At the end of the show can you say end of that relationship? lol. Man, even on the previews for next week she seems like a major… well you know. Of all the teams that are left it looks like the TK couple who came in last, are having the most fun and go together the best, too bad they have major milestones to get past next week.