TAR-Australia ep 2
May. 30th, 2011 09:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccMore Amazing Race Australia. First off I'd just like to thank Channel 7 for including so many ads that I had time to go to the bedroom and get changed into my PJs, brush my teeth, go to the study, shut down the computer, and still manage to watch the last three commercials. Also - thanks heaps for over-running again by more than our HD recorder's 7 minute overlap, I really enjoy missing the last 8 minutes and having to chase it down. Honestly, I'm starting to wonder if it'd be easier to download. Now I really want a TiVo that automatically deletes the commercials. At least then I know the program would actually be on there.
Anyway.
Episode 2. Another leg that was basically mostly a repeat from TAR-Asia 4, although they didn't make the teams take the bus (25 hours!) to Hue this time. I liked the plane shuffling, nice to see teams having to work to find flights and ending up with such a spread. Also nice to see a natural bunching, when tropical storms forced plane cancellations.
The "Miss Saigon" task was a new one - I didn't mind it although some of the teams interactions with the women carrying the fans were bizarre to say the least. The "put the tyres on and change the oil on the jeep" was the same as previous - and as previous the teams who finished the quickest were those you might expect to have had some experience with doing this. The detour was much better set up this time - a choice between carrying chickens about 2km to a local market or guiding a carabao to plow a field in search of a clue. I'm so glad some teams chose the carabao - I'd never choose that side of the detour myself, but it's always amusing watching other people struggle with an ox.
The roadblock was tricky - travel to a nearby temple and collect coins representing different emperors from the Nguyen dynasty. On return put them in order of the longest to shortest reigns - and despite being a repeat still had some problems. They needed at least one extra set of coins so that later teams weren't disadvantaged by being unable to compare the coins they had with the coins back at the task, which was pretty much the only way they were able to work out which coin went with which emperor if they'd mixed them up, which pretty much everyone had after guessing several times as to the orders. There was a lot more returning to the temple to get the coins in order this time compared to last time - not entirely sure whether the Asian teams were more organised with how they handled the coins and information, or whether they got the information about needing to organise the reigns earlier than the Australian teams did, which would have meant most of them would have needed fewer trips. I'll have to go back and have a look.
I started disliking the Bikers a lot during this episode - Dave calling Chris ("Muscles") "white trash" was both rude and a bit rich, considering the stereotypes around bikers. Then you had the really smarmy comments about refusing to help Joey during the roadblock - OK I get that you don't like the team (I'm not entirely thrilled with them either) but the way some of the comments were expressed was just really offputting to me. They come across as having a big chip on their shoulders to me at the moment.
"Muscles" himself wasn't exactly covered in glory - I know he's of Greek background and has possibly been brought up to believe that (a) the sun shines out of his arse and (b) he is obviously naturally superior because he has a functional Y-chromosome and of course he is 23 - but seriously mate? Get a grip. Your girlfriend is not innately inferior as a result of being female, and you will have a much happier relationship if you actually treat her as if she were equal. Honestly. Then again Anastasia ("Bambi") came out with "it's best to let the man make the decisions because it makes them feel better" - which again, you're 21 and young and quite possibly naive, but seriously? Argh.
(This actually lead to Dean and myself trying to work out how we come to compromises when we're arguing and not actually being able to do so. Dean claims he always gives in, but this is rubbish. I think if it's not important (e.g. gun control) he just refuses to argue with me; if it is important we just keep arguing until we find something we're both happy with. Either way he's not referring to me as "an irrational woman" while doing it - "irrational" full stop, maybe. Although that tends to be quite late in the argument when both of us are quite possibly being irrational.)
Joey and Richard were massively entertaining this episode - mostly I was watching in disbelief as they motivated themselves by chanting "Focus Believe Achieve" and "105". "105" is allegedly the kilograms that Joey's benchpressed once, and so is what she's aiming for. Dean doesn't believe she's done that, I would believe it - once, on what was probably a very high day. Either way I could understand the other teams getting really, really irritated with this particular team. I'm finding them more and more amusing in that they are really not very competent at the non-physical tasks - they were very good at catching chickens and running them to the market, and then fell down in a big heap with the Roadblock which involved some thought processes. I'm not sure I'd want them being entrepreneurs near me, not without a really cluey business partner. Joey also doesn't come across as having good social skills, at least not in the way she was trying to see if people wanted to team up, which would not help in being an entrepeneur I think. (And it may be just wrong but now I'd really like to see her on The Apprentice. Heh.)
The whole alliance/refusing to make alliances thing was... interesting. The WA teams certainly paired up quickly, and the only person willing to work with Joey was Mel, who was screwed if she didn't. Having said that I laughed a lot at Mel's post-leg interview in which she retroactively added conditions to her deal with Joey - at the time it was just "you have to give us a head start" not "and you can't overtake us and you have to let us win". Um, no, she gave you 2 minutes and there was nothing about not overtaking. Also? It's a race.
I was disappointed that Ryot and Liberty got screwed over - I could have lived with either of the other final three teams going home. They unfortunately chose the carabao first, then switched detours and then had problems because all the coins were gone and they couldn't compare them to anything. Up until their earlier flight to Hue got cancelled because of the storms they were having a really good leg. Oh well. They were a nice and pretty competent team.
Funniest line and expression of the episode? The Farmers asking if they could catch a bus from Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The expression was on the guy behind the counter's face, which was a nice mix of "did I just hear that?" and "you've got to be joking, right?" With a bit of paranoia of "Maybe I didn't follow their English... they did say bus, right?" in there as well. Because... well, that's probably not something he gets asked every day. (The short answer is yes, you could but it'd take you several days and there's a couple of ferry crossings involved as well. You might want to think about a plane, perhaps? And no, I'm totally not convinced the crew didn't put them up to that one either.)
Next week: finally a one hour episode!! Maybe I can manage to get all of it on HD recorder this time! Also? Hong Kong.
Anyway.
Episode 2. Another leg that was basically mostly a repeat from TAR-Asia 4, although they didn't make the teams take the bus (25 hours!) to Hue this time. I liked the plane shuffling, nice to see teams having to work to find flights and ending up with such a spread. Also nice to see a natural bunching, when tropical storms forced plane cancellations.
The "Miss Saigon" task was a new one - I didn't mind it although some of the teams interactions with the women carrying the fans were bizarre to say the least. The "put the tyres on and change the oil on the jeep" was the same as previous - and as previous the teams who finished the quickest were those you might expect to have had some experience with doing this. The detour was much better set up this time - a choice between carrying chickens about 2km to a local market or guiding a carabao to plow a field in search of a clue. I'm so glad some teams chose the carabao - I'd never choose that side of the detour myself, but it's always amusing watching other people struggle with an ox.
The roadblock was tricky - travel to a nearby temple and collect coins representing different emperors from the Nguyen dynasty. On return put them in order of the longest to shortest reigns - and despite being a repeat still had some problems. They needed at least one extra set of coins so that later teams weren't disadvantaged by being unable to compare the coins they had with the coins back at the task, which was pretty much the only way they were able to work out which coin went with which emperor if they'd mixed them up, which pretty much everyone had after guessing several times as to the orders. There was a lot more returning to the temple to get the coins in order this time compared to last time - not entirely sure whether the Asian teams were more organised with how they handled the coins and information, or whether they got the information about needing to organise the reigns earlier than the Australian teams did, which would have meant most of them would have needed fewer trips. I'll have to go back and have a look.
I started disliking the Bikers a lot during this episode - Dave calling Chris ("Muscles") "white trash" was both rude and a bit rich, considering the stereotypes around bikers. Then you had the really smarmy comments about refusing to help Joey during the roadblock - OK I get that you don't like the team (I'm not entirely thrilled with them either) but the way some of the comments were expressed was just really offputting to me. They come across as having a big chip on their shoulders to me at the moment.
"Muscles" himself wasn't exactly covered in glory - I know he's of Greek background and has possibly been brought up to believe that (a) the sun shines out of his arse and (b) he is obviously naturally superior because he has a functional Y-chromosome and of course he is 23 - but seriously mate? Get a grip. Your girlfriend is not innately inferior as a result of being female, and you will have a much happier relationship if you actually treat her as if she were equal. Honestly. Then again Anastasia ("Bambi") came out with "it's best to let the man make the decisions because it makes them feel better" - which again, you're 21 and young and quite possibly naive, but seriously? Argh.
(This actually lead to Dean and myself trying to work out how we come to compromises when we're arguing and not actually being able to do so. Dean claims he always gives in, but this is rubbish. I think if it's not important (e.g. gun control) he just refuses to argue with me; if it is important we just keep arguing until we find something we're both happy with. Either way he's not referring to me as "an irrational woman" while doing it - "irrational" full stop, maybe. Although that tends to be quite late in the argument when both of us are quite possibly being irrational.)
Joey and Richard were massively entertaining this episode - mostly I was watching in disbelief as they motivated themselves by chanting "Focus Believe Achieve" and "105". "105" is allegedly the kilograms that Joey's benchpressed once, and so is what she's aiming for. Dean doesn't believe she's done that, I would believe it - once, on what was probably a very high day. Either way I could understand the other teams getting really, really irritated with this particular team. I'm finding them more and more amusing in that they are really not very competent at the non-physical tasks - they were very good at catching chickens and running them to the market, and then fell down in a big heap with the Roadblock which involved some thought processes. I'm not sure I'd want them being entrepreneurs near me, not without a really cluey business partner. Joey also doesn't come across as having good social skills, at least not in the way she was trying to see if people wanted to team up, which would not help in being an entrepeneur I think. (And it may be just wrong but now I'd really like to see her on The Apprentice. Heh.)
The whole alliance/refusing to make alliances thing was... interesting. The WA teams certainly paired up quickly, and the only person willing to work with Joey was Mel, who was screwed if she didn't. Having said that I laughed a lot at Mel's post-leg interview in which she retroactively added conditions to her deal with Joey - at the time it was just "you have to give us a head start" not "and you can't overtake us and you have to let us win". Um, no, she gave you 2 minutes and there was nothing about not overtaking. Also? It's a race.
I was disappointed that Ryot and Liberty got screwed over - I could have lived with either of the other final three teams going home. They unfortunately chose the carabao first, then switched detours and then had problems because all the coins were gone and they couldn't compare them to anything. Up until their earlier flight to Hue got cancelled because of the storms they were having a really good leg. Oh well. They were a nice and pretty competent team.
Funniest line and expression of the episode? The Farmers asking if they could catch a bus from Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The expression was on the guy behind the counter's face, which was a nice mix of "did I just hear that?" and "you've got to be joking, right?" With a bit of paranoia of "Maybe I didn't follow their English... they did say bus, right?" in there as well. Because... well, that's probably not something he gets asked every day. (The short answer is yes, you could but it'd take you several days and there's a couple of ferry crossings involved as well. You might want to think about a plane, perhaps? And no, I'm totally not convinced the crew didn't put them up to that one either.)
Next week: finally a one hour episode!! Maybe I can manage to get all of it on HD recorder this time! Also? Hong Kong.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-05-30 12:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-30 12:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-30 04:14 am (UTC)Didn't know who'd lost until reading this.
Tim doesn't watch the show but is often in the room when I am, and even he finds Mo and Mos amusing. I loved the dismay over the loss of the 'Lucky Two-Pen'.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-30 04:23 am (UTC)The lucky two-pen was beautiful. Hope they got it back!
no subject
Date: 2011-05-30 04:48 am (UTC)