Originally Posted By Rsey103 Of the remaining teams, Trey and Lexi have come in at either #1 or #2 six times...
Originally Posted By Dabob2 They and the Chippendales seem like the strongest teams, with the goat farmers always barely making it, and the twins all over the map. The twins have a speed bump to get by in the first hour; if they survive that, I could see them winning, but I'd still favor the other two. Sometimes tells me the Chippendales are going to do it.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Okay, so my prediction came in second. In first: a real surprise but not an unpleasant one. If you're only going to win one leg, make it the last one.
Originally Posted By LacyBelle I was very pleased with last night's episode...the elimination at the end of the first hour, as well as the race winners.
Originally Posted By Dabob2 It was kind of nice too that Trey and Lexi had won several legs (and associated prizes), the Chippendales had just won the cars, and of course the Beekman boys won the whole thing.
Originally Posted By hopemax I was happy the goat farmers won, for no other reason than they were able to look at the United Nations symbol and recognize it without having to ask someone.
Originally Posted By Rsey103 It was the Amazing Race version of Impressions de France. I liked seeing Leonardo's tomb. I didn't know about that before... Lexi seemed to want to pout and whine instead of working the task for a million dollars. Don't just stand there. DO something---even if it's the wrong thing..
Originally Posted By hopemax I try to remember though, they are at the tail end of going a month without a normal sleep or eating schedule. Plus, all the travel. And then throw in the film editors. It's kind of easy to say just do something, if someone is tired and dehydrated the brain and body just go kaput. Earlier in the season one of the goat farmers broke down during that weighing task. Once he took a break, and rehydrated he was able to finish and actually "see" what the problem was. We don't really know how much time, Lexi spent really working hard, pulling those things up and down, when all we see are 20 second clips of crying. We know they were there at least 2.5 hours. So what's 5 min worth of crying in that amount of time?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Does anyone know: from the day they leave on the first leg to the day they finish the final leg... how many actual days have elapsed? They make it seem like 11 or 12 days - i.e. they finish a leg in the evening and leave on the next early the next morning - but do they get days off in between legs that we don't see?
Originally Posted By hopemax I Googled before posting and found out the race takes "about a month" from start to finish. And I think most legs are about 3 days. In the earlier versions they said that they had 12 hour breaks in between legs. So if they arrived at 4 PM they would leave at 4AM. They used to say "sleep, eat and mingle with the other teams." But I noticed that in this version they were often unaware of who was eliminated, so I don't know much mingling they do in between legs. Also, I think because of production (if they are moving too fast, they know flights are unavailable or other logistics) they may be stuck longer than 12 hours at times. We used to notice that sometimes they would announce what times people arrived and left, and other times they wouldn't. Ah, Wikipedia says "Pit Stops, mostly in earlier seasons, are normally twelve hours long, such that if a team arrived at 9:00 a.m., they will depart on the next leg at 9:00 p.m. When the show encounters production issues or if planned ahead of time, the Pit Stop is often extended by multiples of 24 hours, such that teams will still leave what appears to be 12 hours later to the television viewer. However, viewers have been able to use dates and times displayed during the show and post-Race interviews to determine where these extended Pit Stops occur and their approximate length. Beginning with season eight, the Pit Stops have included ones of various lengths between 12 and 24 hours as to prevent teams from loitering at airports or finding flights that may get them too much of a lead on other teams. One major clue when this occurs is when Phil does not indicate an arrival time for team departing first."
Originally Posted By FerretAfros I thought that last night's episode was one of the best finales I've seen in a long time. It was generally exciting, and was designed so that literally any team could win. I'm glad that the Beekman boys won; I'd kind of been rooting for them the entire time, but I really didn't think they had much of a chance. It's a great underdog story. I thought that the logic behind the Houdini challenge in NYC was a stretch, but it was a cool concept, so it worked. The UN challenge was absolutely perfect! Thematically, it fit the end of the race, fit the city they were in, and was hard enough that it equalized everybody. I think that I would have been able to get about half of the countries fairly quickly (China, Russia, Netherlands, Spain, and France) based on picking things up through the years, but it still would have been a very tough challenge, especially at the end of a long race. Given how long it took to complete, it seemed like they had to raise all the words before being told if they were correct; it seems like they were told which ones were right and which were wrong, but it was still apparently a very time consuming process It looked like they actually did leave France 12 hours after they checked in, since everything appeared to be arranged ahead of time. They had vans waiting to drive to the airport, and they all ended up on the same flight (presumably Phil, the twins, and the production crew were all there too for logistical reasons). It seemed like it was one of the quicker turnarounds this season, which makes it really impressive that any of the teams were able to function after a long day running around France, not much sleep, and a transatlantic flight.
Originally Posted By LacyBelle <<I was happy the goat farmers won, for no other reason than they were able to look at the United Nations symbol and recognize it without having to ask someone.>> Thank you, hopemax. That one got me, too. We immediately recognized the UN symbol while sitting on our couch, though we weren't in the pressure situation of the race. I was still appalled that only one in three teams recognized it. I suppose there will be those to argue that the Beekman's are NYers, so would know it instinctively. Interesting information on the pit stops, too. A little disappointing that production will extend the pit stop stays in order to allow everyone to take advantage of that great equalizer of airline travel (well, unless you miss your connection in Frankfurt). I understand it does make for a more compelling competition, though, in keeping everyone together. Can you imagine if a team dominated and ended up in a city two legs away based on building a lead over time?
Originally Posted By Dabob2 Yeah, that would make for a dull show. They have to keep them at least semi-close. Sometimes when they still have lots of teams, you'll see 4 or 5 on an earlier flight, and 4 or 5 on a later one that's considerably behind, but that's still exciting because only one of the earlier teams will win that leg, and only one of the later teams will be eliminated. In those cases, it's almost like two parallel competitions that week. I do think it's a little strange to show the previous leg winner getting up at the crack of dawn, opening up their envelope, hightailing it to the airport, and the first flight of the day to their next destination isn't till noon anyway... and by then most or all of the runner-up teams from the previous week have gotten to the airport too and made the same flight, essentially evening the playing field for the next leg. I mean, obviously it's good to win any given leg since there's always some prize given just for that, but it almost seems a slight disadvantage to make them then get less sleep and get up at dawn when the other teams can get a couple hours more shuteye and get the same flight.
Originally Posted By velo they never dealt with the twins' theft of the money, did they? (I really wasn't sorry to see them go). To me, it was theft, not "part of the game."
Originally Posted By WilliamK99 This entire season was worth it when my son turned to me after the goat farmers won and said " I am glad the good guys won, they acted nice and were able to win" The twins were probably the meanest players in a long time in Amazing Race, I was not sad at all to see them get eliminated...
