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Wednesday, May 11, 2005
5:16 am
151 Comments
Isn’t it astounding how the Amazing Race finale can be so exciting season after season? Even after reading a spoiler about the outcome (grumble grumble), my heart was beating like crazy, especially during the final torturous moments when the fate of one team seemed to rest in one taxi driver’s impetuous hands. And while it was exciting to see who’d come in first place, part of me simply wanted to know what sort of welcoming newlyweds Rob and Amber would receive. Needless to say, it was cold (and wonderful).This two-hour marathon event started all the way back in foggy London Town where the three remaining teams huddled together in a pub and downed a few pints of ale. We only heard a snippet of dialogue, and sadly, we were deprived of Uchenna’s new English accent. Still, I’m sure the deleted scenes would reveal him saying to the bartender, “Bloody good ale, this is! Might you pour me another one, good sir? Brilliant!”
Anyway, Rob and Amber were first to leave the Pit Stop and quickly learned they’d be flying to Kingston Jamaica and then cabbing it over to a place called “Frenchman’s Cove.” Don’t know much about this Frenchman’s Cove spot, but chances are it’s smelly. Rimshot! Yes, a little French humor to kick start this recap. Hey, did you hear the one about the French guy in the cheese factory? …Um, okay, I really don’t know any good French jokes. Quel dommage!
With their new destination set, Rob and Amber moseyed on over to Heathrow to book their flights, but unfortunately, the good people at Air Jamaica weren’t working at the counter, mon. And so Ramber sought out an internet kiosk, which was amusing only to hear Rob read “In-ter-net acc-cess.” Dude, it’s in English. You don’t have to sound it out.
Showing up at the airport next were Ron and Kelly who also found themselves waiting for Air Jamaica to open up. With plenty of time to kill, Kelly decided now would be a great time to plan out her future with Ron. She explained that she was a quality woman, and if Ron doesn’t see that, then he’s going to miss out. Yes, imagine all the quality nagging and complaining and neediness he’ll never get to experience again. For shame, Ron. And I thought being a POW made you appreciate the finer things!
Well, turns out being in the army gave Ron an intense aversion to authority and control, two things he feared from marriage. Listen Kelly, if your love reminds Ron of the military in a BAD way, well, maybe it’s time to reexamine your relationship. Alas, such logic escaped the beauty queen as she sobbed to Ron: “Ahhh luv yooo!” She then spent the next fifteen minutes complaining about his fingernails.
The last team out of the gate was Uchenna and Joyce who reminded us how when the race started, they were quarreling all the time. “We’ve been looking at options that don’t include being together,” Uchenna said diplomatically, adding “You know, separation, divorce, murder. Whichever works.”
Anyway, all three teams wound up on the same flight to Kingston, and upon arriving, Uchenna immediately waxed nostalgically. “We have a fun time coming to Jamaica on holiday,” he said. He then added, “I did enjoy England ever so much, but all the lorries really made quite a racket. I could barely eat my Pimms and strawberries, even in the comfort of my flat – located on the second storey of course!”
Having less of a good time was Ron, who managed to direct his constant flow of passive aggression onto the entire country of Jamaica. “Ah, the smell of a third world country again,” he said. No, Ron, that’s just your girlfriend. ZING! Take THAT, Kelly! Meanwhile, the Jamaican Tourism Board has this message for Ron: “Thanks, dipshit.”
Eventually, the three teams found Frenchman’s Cove which was the home of the next Roadblock. One member of each duo had eight chances to limbo dance under a pole. The lower the pole, the sooner the team would get to leave the next morning (all three groups had to spend the night). As the three women all attacked the challenge, Rob happily encouraged his woman by what was supposed to be a show of support, but really felt more like loud barking. Rob Mariano: Most annoying limbo spectator EVER!
Somebody decapitated Joyce! MEDIC!
Anyway, Kelly and Amber had no trouble bending backwards for the earliest departure time, but Joyce simply could not reach that one last rung. With one attempt left, Uchenna urged, “No more mistakes.” Sorry, but is flexibility a mistake? I can just imagine Joyce snapping, “I’m not as young and limber as Kelly and Amber. Oops, my bad. Shouldn’t have aged.”
The next morning, teams had to make their way to the upper Rio Grande for their next clue. As he and Amber rode along in their cab, Rob mused about winning the big prize: “[We have a] 33% chance of making more money than most people make in a lifetime.” AGAIN (just saying).
Well, teams more or less all arrived at the next clue at the same time (Uchenna and Joyce were fifteen minutes behind) and came upon this leg’s Detour: Raft It or Build It. In the first option, teams had to take a traditional bamboo raft eight miles down a river, using only a pole to move them along. The second option had teams assembling one of those bamboo rafts, then crossing the Rio Grande with it, climbing up a hillside, and then retrieving the next clue. Unsurprisingly, everyone chose to build the rafts which meant we got to see about five or ten minutes of a MacGuyver-esque montage as teams hammered bamboo with rocks, tied wires, and grew mullets. Okay, maybe not the last one. Of course, the difference between this and MacGuyver (other than the noticeable lack of Richard Dean Anderson) was the presence of Kelly who bitched and moaned and complained like the Southern princess she is. Ron didn’t make things better with his catty remarks and subtle put downs. You know, she may be the beauty queen, but Ron’s the true bitch.
With Ron and Kelly facing a mild meltdown, Uchenna and Joyce were able to make up for lost time very quickly, causing Rob to fret a little bit. He was curt with Amber from time to time, but she simply smiled it off, joking that she’ll do whatever makes him happy, but “After the race, you can make me happy.” Oh AMBAH! Look at you! Little Miss Comedienne! Make that Little Miss Horny Comedienne!
The Ramber hijinks continued later as they crossed the river and climbed up the slippery slope to the clue. Upon returning to the raft, Amber slipped and fell butt-first onto the seat of the raft. Careful AMBAH!! How is Rob going to make you happy later if you’re already pounding your ass now? Moments later, Rob had his own problems when he somehow lost his shoe in the river. “My sneakah! My sneakah!” he yelled, adding “I nevah lose my sneakah when I pahk the cahh in Hahhvahhd Yahhhd.”
This kind of looks like Amber’s getting impaled on a pole. Cool.
Anyway, Uchenna and Joyce finished the Detour first and learned that the next stop would be in Montego Bay where teams would find Phil and the mat. The two hopped in a cab with a driver named Mikey, and while they were in first place, their lead was dwindling with Ramber nipping at their heels. Rob told his driver Tyson (Mikey? Tyson? Where’s that cabbie Evander and his good friend Holyfield?) to get on Uchenna and Joyce’s tail, and for a moment, it looked like Tyson was going to pull some trickery by telling his cabbie friend to pull over for gas. Surely we expected that as soon as Mikey got out to pump some fuel, Tyson would peel out of there, but no! Mikey seemed to get a thimble’s worth of gas before zooming away while Tyson chilled out, filled up the tank, maybe played the lotto.
Things went from bad to worse for Ramber as they were pulled over for a random police check. Wouldn’t it be awesome if the officer just wanted an autograph? Finally, the fame comes back to bite them in the ass! Sadly, there were no such ironic twists in the adventure. It was just an average police checkpoint. However, even though Rob and Amber seemed to be indisposed for only five minutes or so, it was still enough time for Ron and Kelly to sneak into second place, infuriating our Boston man. Around this time, Kelly babbled about something, but I don’t really remember what since I was distracted by what looked to be a stuffed elephant dangling and flapping outside her window. Good god! They’ve got Babar! And they’re torturing him! WHY??? Oh the humanity!
Babar desperately tries to get Kelly’s attention.
Anyway, stuck in last place, Rob knew his luck might be running out. He really needed a miracle, he said. Well ask and you shall receive. Moments later, Uchenna and Joyce were suddenly sidelined with a flat tire. That’s awfully fishy timing. Okay, which CBS intern threw tacks on the road? CLEARLY this was a CBS conspiracy again!
Well, for this leg of the race Ron and Kelly came in first place, and surprise, they won no prize. Oddly enough, Ramber won a trip to Mexico for placing second. Okay, not really. “Uchenner” and Joyce arrived last, but of course, this was non-elimination which meant they had to hand over all their belongings. “Man, you guys got some money!” crowed Phil, his head filling with fantasies of a turtleneck shopping spree. Listen Koeghan, we’re keeping an eye on you. They better get every last cent back, or else you’re looking at a lifetime of mock turtlenecks! Think you can live with that? I DIDN’T THINK SO!
Anyway, when we returned from the commercial break, Phil reintroduced us to Jamaica, saying that the “rugged northwest coast of Jamaica” served as the latest Pit Stop on a race around the world. Did he just say “rugged”? Yes, that gentle breeze, the soothing waves, the swaying palm trees: pure hell, I tell you! (What are the odds that someone’s going to leave a comment saying “Well, actually, the coast of Jamaica gets rather cold and choppy in the winter months, not to mention hurricane season!”)
Well, after leaving the Pit Stop, teams then had to find a bag of onions in the town of Lucea and deliver it to a jerk shack (as in “jerk pork”. It wasn’t a shack full of jerks, dumbass). Ron and Kelly were first to leave, and while they fetched a taxi, Kelly once again teared up in an interview as she re-emphasized her desire to simply get married. Honestly, Kelly, give it a rest already. Part of me thinks she’s less enthused about getting married to Ron than she is about receiving a grandiose reality wedding like Trista & Ryan and now Ramber.
Later, when Ron and Kelly had snatched a cab, they got lost trying to find not only Lucea, but the place with the onion bags. “It’s like a needle in a haystack of needles,” Ron explained. Well said, Ron. And by the way, here is your certificate of redundancy certificate. By the way, is it actually possible to have a “haystack of needles”? Wouldn’t that be a “needle stack” instead? Shut up, Ron.
While Ron and Kelly drove around the island, Rob and Ambah found the onions and then the jerk shop relatively quickly. Once there, they learned they’d have to chop up fifty onions before getting their next clue. The two immediately got to work, and after some time, were joined by Ron and Kelly. Yes, the ever exciting mincing competition. Personally, I was surprised that Ron didn’t pipe up and say, “This kind of reminds me of when I was on KP in the army. Actually, I wasn’t on KP, but I remember one night thinking about onions in my bunk. Hey, did I ever tell you I was in the military?”
Meanwhile, newly impoverished racers Uchenna and Joyce couldn’t even entertain the idea of finding the onions (or needles in haystacks for that matter) because they had no cash. Even worse, their Pit Stop was relatively isolated, and despite being in a resort, at 3:00 AM, there weren’t many people around to beg money from. Luckily, the two managed to hitch a ride to the airport where they figured they’d have better luck finding people with spare change. This strategy didn’t pan out so well as the two spent what seemed like hours begging for cash. The real problem was that Uchenna did all the talking, instead of sweet Joyce. Honestly, he just had no game. At one point he offered to perform tricks for money. “I can do cartwheels. I can do a jig,” he said, adding “Basically, I can do any sort of racial stereotype.”
Well, Joyce lost faith in the entire exercise, and as Uchenna hugged his crying wife, we cut away to commercial. I have to say that there were a lot of crappy commercials last night (unfortunately, I was watching live, so the Tivo was of no use in this department), but I was particularly impressed with a Botox spot that started with a woman boasting, “I got back into my favorite jeans.” Because of Botox? What did she do? Botox her ass? Anyway, this commercial was eventually followed by Los Angeles’s very own KCBS promoting its eleven o’clock news with a story about traveling to Cuba. The anchor teased us by saying “Visit the forbidden paradise The Amazing Race couldn’t and find out why most Americans can’t go there.” Uh, let me guess: a forty year embargo? Fidel Castro? I’m stumped. But seriously, thank you CBS for reporting on breaking news from 1965.
But back to the action. So when we last left our teams, Ramber and Relly were chopping onions at the jerk shack. Well, they were still there, and Kelly was getting a little cocky. “Martha Stewart, watch out!” she joked, looking away from her knife. How funny would it have been had she accidentally nicked herself, sending a torrent of blood all over her onions. Okay, maybe it wouldn’t have been funny, but it surely would have been interesting.
Anyway, Rob and Amber finished first and headed to their next clue at a place called Rose Hall. There they found the Detour which was a choice between Pony Up and Tee It Up. In Pony Up, teams had to engage in horseback swimming. Basically, they had to ride a horse into the ocean, and when it started swimming, teammates had to dismount and grab onto the horse’s tail. Wow, what an incredibly odd sport. Kind of like water skiing before the era of motorboats. In Tee It Up, teams simply had to change into golf clothing and hit balls on a range. Once a team’s ball landed on a specific (and small) green, it could receive its next clue.
Ramber predictably chose golf, and in just two short seconds, our innocence was lost as we watched a doughy Rob undress to his skivvies for the challenge. But hey, at least he was fast, unlike Ron who took even longer to change than his beauty queen girlfriend. I’m not really sure what the holdup was, but I’m thinking he probably had a POW flashback. Maybe the Iraqis tortured him with Titlist apparel?
While Uchenna and Joyce finally raised enough funds to fetch their onions, the other two teams got to work hitting their golf balls. This of course led to a highly enjoyable montage of golf bloopers as Kelly in particular whiffed several times in a row. My god, why is that always so funny? I remember one time playing racquetball and having the biggest whiff ever. For some reason, about ten people witnessed this, and I just remember hearing laughter. Lots and lots of laughter. Gotta respect that though. Whiff = good comedy. Anyway, Kelly’s whiffing was particularly amusing, only because she had just bragged about having taken golf lessons recently. Apparently, by “golf” she meant “whining”. I really wish she wouldn’t use so many code words like that. She Kellys golf!
Kelly, just imagine the ball is Ron’s head. That’ll help the whiffing problem.
As for Ron, he wasn’t really whiffing as much as he was overshooting. Maybe that’s because he was using a DRIVER! Dude, it’s only 135 yards away! (This comes from me, the 75 Yard Wonder). Anyway, Rob hit the green first, and surprisingly, Kelly did as well. Where to next? San Juan, Puerto Rico! Both teams headed to the airport where they learned that the next flight to San Juan was no longer ticketing. “We’re screwed!” moaned Amber as we went to commercial break. Of course, two seconds later, they found a flight leaving even earlier and booked tickets on it. Where’s your defeatist attitude now, AMBAH???
Well, Ramber flew off to San Juan where they then had to seek out an old fort with about twelve different names (okay, maybe it wasn’t that bad: its name was the “Castillo de San Felipe del Morro Fort”). There they learned that they’d now have to travel 87 miles across the island to a sugar factory. Ah, but would there be hours of operation? Methinks yes! Sure enough, by the time Rob and Amber arrived, the ole factory was shut down for the night. See, there was hope for Joychenna after all!
Speaking of Joychenna, the two finally reached the Detour, and from what we could tell, Uchenna made short work of the golf challenge (the editors could have been fooling us for all we know). Joyce ripped open the next clue and squealed with delight as she read “PUERTO RICO!” Hey, Jamaica ain’t too shabby either. Uchenna then added, “My blokes and I rather enjoy visiting Puerto Rico on holiday!”
Anyway, yada yada yada, all three teams caught up with each other, and the next morning, when the gates opened up, everyone raced through the sugar factory to find the next clue. And guess what? It was the Roadblock! Would this be it? One last food challenge? Maybe a sugar cane beverage needed to be consumed? Sadly, no. Whoever was doing the Roadblock merely had to jump off a ledge into the ocean and swim to the next clue. Booo! That’s not very creative. Who designed this? Phil’s eyebrow? (Scratch that. Phil’s eyebrow only designs naughty Roadblocks).
Well, this simplest of Roadblocks managed to stymy the shrewd duo of Rob and Amber who for some reason went running off into the grassy hillside. They eventually returned to the clue box, only to see that Uchenna and Ron had already completed the challenge. “How do we get down there?” asked Amber, looking down to the bridge she was supposed to jump off of. I don’t know Amber. That’s a good question. Might I suggest you take the staircase located DIRECTLY NEXT TO YOU!
Hmmm… I wonder if there’s a staircase nearby…
While Amber gave herself a crash course in stairwells, the other two teams learned that the next destination was none other than sunny Miami, Florida. The producers were then kind enough to briefly play a some peppy cha-cha-cha music, just to drive the point home. Honestly, I feel like whenever anyone says “Miami,” I hear cha-cha-cha music (unless I’m watching The OC. Then all I hear is Will Smith over and over again). Well, Joychenna and Rob and Kelly hit the road while Ambah languished in her Roadblock. The good news: she finally found the bridge. The bad news: afterwards, she was so exhausted, she could barely walk. In the visual metaphor of the season, Rob wound up physically carrying Amber on his back as they trudged to their car. Ambah, you’re wicked heavy these days. Take off your sneakahs!
Anyway, even though the other two teams had a decent lead, leave it to Ramber to catch up thanks to a slow moving toll plaza. Once again, it was neck and neck with all three racing to the airport. Unfortunately for Ron and Kelly, they made some wrong turn (both blamed each other) and wound up on the wrong highway. Joychenna and Ramber, however, paid careful attention to the road signs with Joyce’s eyes nearly bulging out of her skull. As for Rob, he attributed his navigational ease to the signage. “The little airport signs make it pretty easy,” he said. Yeah, well, that’s what they’re there for. Rob later noted that “The stop signs really help me know when to stop. I like that.”
Thing quickly became very intense in the airport as Ramber and Joychenna purchased tickets for the same flight to Miami. Ah, but upon hearing that a flight was boarding at that moment, Rob ran to that gate and asked for standby tickets. The doors were closing, the plane was leaving — surely they were too late, right? WRONG. Rob and Amber happily traipsed aboard, thus cementing an important lead. As for Joyce and Uchenna, they learned of the boarding flight too late, and when they showed up at the gate, it was official this time: the flight was absolutely closed. Even the jetway was pulling back. That sucks. Once again Rob and Amber manage to sneak on by.
But wait! In an unprecedented moment for this season of The Amazing Race, people managed to bend the rules for non-Survivors! Yes, the gate agents phoned the pilot to see if Joyce and Uchenna could get on board, and wouldn’t you know it, he said yes! The ground crew even rolled the jetway back out. Wow. Was this the end of Ramber’s luck? Possibly. The plane flew off to Miami where a pseudo Miami Vice theme played on the soundtrack. Listen, Amazing Race composer, you’re no Jan Hammer, so back off, man. BACK OFF!
Anyway, after landing teams then had to go to a causeway for the next clue. Once again, Rob and Amber managed to somehow gain a solid lead on their competition for no apparent reason. They easily snagged the next clue which had them go to Little Havana and find a cigar shop called the King of the Havanas. The only catch: the store’s name was actually more commonly known by its Spanish name, “El Rey de los Habanos.” Tricky. Very tricky. Rob immediately went about asking random people for “The King of the Havanas,” but no one seemed to have heard of it. My favorite moment came when Rob cornered a random woman on the street:
“King of the Havanas?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
“You own it???” responded Rob excitedly. AMBAH! AMBAH! It’s the OWNAH!
Sadly for Rob, he had simply misheard the woman in his frantic state, and so the hunt resumed. Finally, he found a woman who said the store was on 27th, and with that, Ramber was off to the next clue. Wow, they’re really going to win this thing, huh?
Or were they?? Joyce and Uchenna’s cabbie asked a local where the King of Havanas was, and in a bit of luck, the driver asked in Spanish, which meant the person immediately recognized “El Rey de los Habanos.” Point was, the store was on 11th, not 27th. Oh damn. This was exactly the sort of break Joychenna needed to move ahead. Sure enough, they found the store quickly and received the next clue which told them to find the Finish Line in Ft. Lauderdale. Okay, heart is pounding rather heavily right now.
As for Ramber, not only was there no cigar shop on 27th, their taxi had abandoned them. YES. The two had a brief glimmer of hope as they saw the word “King” on a yellow sign, but it turned out to be nothing but a tire shop. Nice misdirection, MIAMI.
Meanwhile, Joyce and Uchenna encountered a small problem. They had run out of money for their cab. Uchenna tried to earn some quick cash by sticking his head out a window and asking a stranger for twenty bucks (you know, only the shadiest request EVER), but surprise, surprise, they were rejected. Eventually, Joyce and Uchenna arrived at the Finish Line but couldn’t head over to it until they’d paid off their cabbie a steep $40. Personally, i would have just bolted, but I guess Joyce and Uchenna have “morals”, whatever those are. The two frantically ran around, trying to extract spare cash off of tourists and locals. One man told Uchenna that begging wasn’t the way to earn money. Asshole, he’s on a game show! Can’t you see the cameras following him? He has no choice!!
Of course, the editors were sure to keep us on our toes by cutting away from this nerve-wracking scenario to show Rob and Amber suddenly getting their acts together and heading to the Pit Stop. Had I not been so consciously aware of reality show tricky editing, I would have thought Rob and Amber were but a mere block away by the time Joyce and Uchenna finally paid off their taxi. Luckily, this wasn’t the case. In the end, it was Uchenna and Joyce who crossed the finish line, much to the delight of all the assembled teams (including the brothers who had grown a pair of goofy mustaches and sideburns). Phil of course stood with one eyebrow firmly raised as if to say, “I bet you didn’t know that I’m an avid poncho collector. Well, I am.”
“You must excuse me. I’m playing sax for The Miami Sound Machine tonight.”
Hey, we like you guys. Don’t push it.
Anyway, Joyce and Uchenna officially won the $1 million prize, and in the emotional minutes afterwards hugged, laughed, cried, and thanked the other teams. And what would they do with their new fortune? Work towards having a baby. “In vitro, here we come!” shouted Uchenna. And if that doesn’t work, he added, “Adoption here we come!” And then of course “Kidnapping, here we come!” And finally, “Well, maybe we’ll just get a Roomba.”
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Placing second were Rob and Amber who waltzed in to a significantly chillier reception. The collective hate flowing towards them was really quite impressive. Luckily, some warmth returned as Ron and Kelly galloped to the Finish Line a few hours later. Phil asked how the Race had affected the relationship, causing Kelly to babble for what felt like an eternity about her and Ron’s relationship. Woman, you were a beauty queen. Don’t you remember how to give a sweet, succinct, and disingenuous answer?
Anyway, the season ended with more loving words from Joyce and Uchenna and images of all the racers hugging. It was a fun ride, and even though I found myself angry at Rob and Amber, they truly brought the entertainment value of the season up. They were great villains, but also sharp players. Furthermore, they demonstrated that the bad guys can be a fully functional and respectful couple, even if they are reality TV whores.
What did you think? Were you happy with the results? Did you enjoy the season finale?
TV Social
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151 Comments
Thanks, b-side, for the recap ride through this season!
The mrs. and I started out with almost (but not quite) as much hate for Ramber as we had for Alison and Donny – it was the pimping of the faux CBS celebs that did it. But, embarrassingly, we got sucked into the black hole that is Ramber, and were sort of disappointed that they didn’t pull it out at the end.
Tricky editors deserve another well-earned Emmy. And bwah! to the Miami Sound Machine remark.
I also got sucked in by Ramber. I kind of wished they would have won because the looks of the other racers at the end would have been priceless.
After Freddy & Kendra’s disappointing win last season, I didn’t think I could watch. If Rob & Amber had won, Amazing Race would’ve been ruined for me forever (Family Race *will* ruin it anyways though). Thank god the underdogs finally won!
I can’t even tell you how happy I was everytime Rob & Amber had a setback. I didn’t read the spoiler, so I had no idea who would win. A few times when they pulled ahead I was a bit nervous that they might capitalize on that good luck they’ve had throughout the season and win. Can you imagine the faces of the eliminated teams if that had happened? Not that I wanted that to happen, but I bet their faces would’ve been priceless!
What was up with Debbie & Bianca wearing those tacky airbrushed shirts with their names on them? I don’t even want to get started on the brothers’ facial hair. But maybe they’d been watching Anchorman a lot lately…? When I saw most of the other teams I was reminded of how much I didn’t care about them. Except for Lynn & Alex of course- they probably had the funniest post-Race interviews ever.
Anyhow, now that this season is over I think I’ll be taking a break from Amazing Race. The family Race is sure to be a trainwreck (and not in a good way). I can’t wait for Big Brother though!
I’m always impressed at how early these recaps come up.
That ending was awesome! I fortunately did not read the spoiler and was on the edge of my seat! I am so glad that the ‘good-hearted’ team won in the end!
BABAR!!! Love it! Can’t.stop.laughing…
Ok, so I heard the spoiler that Joychenna won this season, but this in no way diminished my anticipation, anxiety and racing heart during the finale. I wanted them to win so badly (or maybe wanted Ramber to lose so badly) that I was screaming at the TV when they got a flat tire. My husband kept saying, “You know who wins, why are you so upset?” It didn’t matter, the editors did a greadt job of creating suspense. I love Joychenna and I am so happy that they won!!!
Oh, and my husband and I are the official TVGasm couple – I’m so proud!
Hey, I just read that TAR is auctioning some of its props on ebay…including some of the clothes that Phil wore during the show…some of you Phil fans can bid on Phil’s turtlenecks and manboob holders!
I think you need to look into the fact that CBS MADE American Airlines bring the gate BACK to the plane just because RAmbler was going to win. I think that they should have let the cards fall where they may regardless of who was or was not on the plane. CBS Bad move. Did you think the Pilots were not going to talk after the show aired. C’mon……
Since Ramber had plenty of suspicious breaks earlier in the season, DH, I don’t see any reason why Joychenna couldn’t get a break.
I was delighted with the outcome, although I was very much afraid Ramber would win. Given Ramber’s smug attitude (well, the Rob half anyway) I think I would have given up on TAR if they’d won.
I kinda hope, even if they have one or their own, Joychenna goes back to that orphanage in Africa and adopts one or two little ones.
Over the course of this season, I have been interested not only in the actual show, but wondering what points will be highlighted in these recaps. Every clever comment, odd facial expression, strategic mistake, and Phil’s wardrobe is fodder and I try to envision what your snarks will be. Thanks for making this season doubly entertaining.
As for the results? So glad it was Joychenna. I’m a big Survivor fan, but I am over Ramber; however, I agree that they took the game to a new level and was interesting to watch. Kelly is an embarassment to all women and totally offends me. He’s just not that into you!!! Get over it and quit whining. Not looking forward to family TAR; also heard thay abandoned the all-star Big Brother (thank god).
Cheers to a great season.
Great Recap B-Side — I was SCREAMING at my tv when U&J won, then weeping, the clapping, leading my roomates to believe they were living with Jennifer Wilbanks II. (i.e. a maniac).
ps. Miami Sound Machine caption – seriously hilarious. I thought Phil looked UNBELIEVABLE at the finish line! Hahaha..
just be warned … if CBS is going to stack the deck against a rambler who is to say they will not open the door for a team who feels they were put out. I was rooting for Uchen ever since she cut her hair. CBS shame on you. Uchen you deserve the cash, take the money and go rescue some children. Love TAR !!
Dear Lord, when Joychenna won, I was tearing up like *I* had chopped those onions at the jerk shack. (what, no soda jerk jokes a la George?) (my own ridiculous and unoriginal joke to my roommate: “hey, if Rob goes into the shack, it’ll REALLY be a jerk shack!” Yeah, yeah, I know, waste of time.)
So, the contestants aren’t allowed to share with bystanders that they’re on The Amazing Race, I presume? I would have thought Uchenna could have said, “Dude, we’re on Amazing Race and this is the finish line! PLEASE give me money so we can win!” I bet the jackass who said Uchenna shouldn’t be begging really feels like a tool today. Jerk.
Breaking news from 1965! ha! Meanwhile, my own local news station interrupted constantly to tell us that Philadelphia police saved the ducklings that were waddling across the expressway! Nevermind the 3-alarm fire from that morning–show ‘em the ducks!!!
Fabulous recap for a fabulous finale, B-Side…thanks so much!
Jess,
Too bad you don’t live in the DC Metro area or else you could’ve enjoyed weeks of coverage about the duck who nested outside of the Treasury building. They had Secret Service protecting her until the ducklings hatched and then she was relocated to some pond. Seriously, it actually happened- this was National news at one point too.
It’s important to be informed of “fowl play” in the nation’s capital, Catie! HAR HAR!
*tummyache* I know, that sucked.
disappointed with the outcome. but if a team had to win glad it was uchenna and joyce. i give rob and amber a helluva lot of credit for playing so well not only against the elements but against the hatred every team showed towards them. funny how games turn adults into children. i am tired of people signing up for reality t.v. shows and blaming their poor performance on the lack of integrity of the other teams. “we lost but we took the high road”. perhaps in action but not in thought. the hypocrisy.
anyways, just a quick comment on uchenna and joyce: i have never seen 2 people more apologetic in my life. saying sorry to the people who wouldn’t spare any money for them is mindblowing in my books. the way joyce asked for money the second time at the airport should have been the way they approached their first attempt to gather some coin. you show weakness and you get nothing in return.
good season over all. romber added the excitement and without them i am afraid this season would have been quite dull.
thanks for the recaps.
reggie
Thank GOD Joychenna won! Yes, I think CBS made the airline let them on the plane, and bravo for that! They had manufactured so much “luck” for Ramber this season, it was only fair.
Did anyone else notice the look of pure hatred on Patrick’s face when Rob and Amber came in? Heh.
Satan + Carrot Top = Patrick
Thanks for the awesome recaps, B-Side! This was the best TAR ending ever.
You guys have GOT to put together a “Phil’s package” montage.
I, too read the spoiler but was on the edge of my seat when they came in last at the first pit stop. I thought there were only 2 non-elimination rounds for the whole race. You never know the source of the spoilers and I wasn’t entirely sure.
Also, I thought Rob was kidding when they were on the flight to Ft. Lauderdale and he said, “just leave the bags on the plane and hopefully someone will mail them back to us.” Then when they got off the plane, they really had left them there! What’s up with that?!
the babar thing: brilliant.
just when i lose faith in television, the amazing race keeps me coming back for more. tvgasm doubles my pleasure.
no way rob would have paid the cab fare. the man didn’t even stop for an overturned vehicle with someone visibly injured. he sucks.
Let me start by saying I am so happy Uchenna and Joyce won.
Last nights episode was amazing. I can’t believe the suspense of one team falling behind then the other team catching up and back and forth. I swear I stood up for the 2 hrs biting my nails.
And when Uchyce or Joyenna (whicever you prefer) were broke and so far behind I was sure they were out. I was about to stop watching I was so bummed. I just can’t believe how they won. Thank God. I was really rooting more for them to win then for Rambah to lose, unlike my gf.
It was a great episode. They deserved it.
Thanks for a season of recaps that I looked forward to almost as much as the show itself. The first thing I did every Wed morning when I got to work was boot up and go to TVGasm and was I disappointed if the TAR recap wasn’t there !!!
Knowing that Joychenna was going to win made the show even better for me because I kept thinking “what’s gonna happen that’s gonna derail this speeding freight train that’s Romber?”, so it made me even more interested. Is it gonna be the cops, is it gonna be the inability to find the stairs at the bridge, what’s it gonna be? The editing on TAR is great and should win an emmy.
I’m in the minority of people who have liked Romber from the beginning, but I was glad to read that others got sucked in during the season. Say what you will about them, they make for great TV and I don’t think we’ve seen the last of them.
I second RealityTV4Me’s suggestion for a montage of Phil’s package or at least some classic screen captures of his bulge.
Speaking of Phil’s bulge, don’t you think it will be a little inappropriate for the Family Race? I mean, it will be eye-level for the children. Just a thought…
Well, actually, the coast of Jamaica gets rather cold and choppy in the winter months, not to mention hurricane season!
I laughed
I cried
I thanked Al Gore for the internet
and most of all A MILLION THANKS B-SIDE for extending my absolute pleasure of the BEST AR ever!
What a fabulous ending. Joychenna truly deserved that win. they worked their asses off. I did fall in the Romber trap too though and was quite inpressed with the way they played, but boy did it work out the way it should have. All those good deeds Joychenna did during the race paid off. Plus they really grew closer instead of farther apart like most couples. I hate to say it but Rob and Amber seem awfully happy and cute togehter. This season was emotionally exhausting, I think I will sit out family TAR and stick to recaps only. Great job, B-side, best recap ever, keep’em coming.
Oh, and thank you for mentioning that Botox commerical. “I got back into my favorite jeans.” I was thinking the exact same thing. Botox in her butt?
One of your funniest observations:
“Babar desperately tries to get Kelly’s attention.”
She constantly had things rolled up in her window last night. Weird.
Oh, ok, and one last thing: Pony Up?!?!?!?!?!? Is this legal? Ethical? It sounded like a ‘torture the horse’ challange. Horrible.
P.s. Phil was rather hot at the finish line I thought. Rowr ;o)
i also want to thank b-side for the amazing recaps. i have enjoyed them immensely.
as for rigging the ending… i think that TAR producers intended all teams to be on the same flight to miami. given the nature of the tasks after arriving in miami, they surely wanted everybody on the same flight. either the teams took too long in completing the detour and/or roadblock, or producers couldn’t anticipate that ron/kelly couldn’t follow airplane icons to get to ther airport. whatever. but once the second AA employee said that she’d put ramber on standby, i suspect that TAR producers shit blue bricks and did everything they could to get at least a second team on the same plane.
so, IMO, once again AA would have screwed one team at the finish. TAR producers apparently did not want another finish tainted by the trained monkeys at AA.
i also want to thank b-side for the amazing recaps. i have enjoyed them immensely.
as for rigging the ending… i think that TAR producers intended all teams to be on the same flight to miami. given the nature of the tasks after arriving in miami, they surely wanted everybody on the same flight. either the teams took too long in completing the detour and/or roadblock, or producers couldn’t anticipate that ron/kelly couldn’t follow airplane icons to get to ther airport. whatever. but once the second AA employee said that she’d put ramber on standby, i suspect that TAR producers shit blue bricks and did everything they could to get at least a second team on the same plane.
so, IMO, once again AA would have screwed one team at the finish. TAR producers apparently did not want another finish tainted by the trained monkeys at AA.
Thanks for the lighting-quick recap.
- “More money than most people make in a lifetime.” Well, not exactly. Median household income in 2004 was $43,000. If you’re 25 and work for 40 years (and your salaries stay around median the entire time), you’ll end up with $1.7 million (in today’s dollars). And you’d owe far less in taxes (and have more Social Security benefits) than a one-time million dollar pay-off. But we know what you mean Rob.
- There’s something odd about an abandoned sugar factory having hours of operation. The hours were 1567 AD – 1878 AD. You’re 125 years too late! (CBS was able to pay a local to watch onion chopping at 3am in Jamaica, why not in Puerto Rico?)
- Joyce channelling Jim Carey, a la The Mask. Awesome still.
- Am I the only one who thinks the jetway rollaway/rollback shots were just editing hocus-pocus? “Let’s get some shots of the airplane taxing away and taking off. Now let’s get some shots of the airplane landing and taxing to the gate. Great, now we can make it seem that airplane returned to San Juan just to pick up Joychenna. Maybe we add some shots of rockets launching and imply Joychenna took a rocket to miami.”
- Because of a CBS booking problem, the brothers were sequestered in a 70s porn video. It would have been doubly funny if CBS didn’t give them back their backpacks and they showed up in their swimming trunks and flappy fur hats (What?! Isn’t the new Miami style?).
- Love the Joychenna cabbie. That was heartfelt. “I’ve been driving you around all morning and all you have is $10?” Just a Nigerian immigrant who counts his nickels to send to his family back home, never seen TAR ’cause he’s working three jobs and for whom $50 is a hell of a lot of money. Don’t let crazed, camera-shouldered Americans make a fool out of you. (Shouldn’t CBS have paid him a few grand just for adding to the suspense?).
- Love the woman who ran up to Joychenna and asked “May I ask what I’m contributing to?” In vitro fertilization, blurts out Uchenna. See those hulking mammary organs on Joyce? That’s not just for *my* pleasure, he adds. She cut off her hair, he tried to pawn our wedding rings – an O. Henry voice over.
-
Edge of my seat, hand wringing and shrieks. I am so glad Uchenna and Joyce won! If they hadn’t pushed for that flight to Miami it would have been all over.
Awesome, awesome, awesome!!! They must have had to settle with the cabbie, otherwise why not get to the mat and deal with him after check-in? Fantastic editing. I was insane for them to win!! It was more exciting than when Chip and Kim beat Colin and Christie last summer.
My enjoyment of TAR this season was doubled by B-Side’s recaps. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! Thankfully, did not see the spoiler so I was on the edge of my seat and screaming at the TV for 2 hours. Awesome. It is nice to see the “nice guys” finish first. After last season’s disappointment at Kris & John’s loss I was happy to see that the couple who not only played well but were nice to each other AND to everyone else along the way. Romber get their props for playing well and upping the drama quotient but, not very nice people. Besides, their 15 minutes is sooo up and there’s still a televised wedding (YUCK!!!)
Ron and Kelly are close to winning the all time TAR prize for being the most annoying unlikeable people. It’s amazing that someone in a position to garner major sympathy points and support (Ron – the POW)could make himself so completely unlikeable and unsympathetic. Also, his famous last words “I don’t want to be married right now” are easy translatable by any woman who’s ever heard that line before. It means, “I don’t want to marry you”!!! The most mis-matched couple ever.
Can’t wait til next season. Thanks B-Side, keep up the great work!!!!!!!
My enjoyment of TAR this season was doubled by B-Side’s recaps. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! Thankfully, did not see the spoiler so I was on the edge of my seat and screaming at the TV for 2 hours. Awesome. It is nice to see the “nice guys” finish first. After last season’s disappointment at Kris & John’s loss I was happy to see that the couple who not only played well but were nice to each other AND to everyone else along the way. Romber get their props for playing well and upping the drama quotient but, not very nice people. Besides, their 15 minutes is sooo up and there’s still a televised wedding (YUCK!!!)
Ron and Kelly are close to winning the all time TAR prize for being the most annoying unlikeable people. It’s amazing that someone in a position to garner major sympathy points and support (Ron – the POW)could make himself so completely unlikeable and unsympathetic. Also, his famous last words “I don’t want to be married right now” are easy translatable by any woman who’s ever heard that line before. It means, “I don’t want to marry you”!!! The most mis-matched couple ever.
Can’t wait til next season. Thanks B-Side, keep up the great work!!!!!!!
Although the plane returning to the gate for Joyce and Uchenna was far fishier than anything that has happened to Rob and Amber (they made flights on close calls but never after the flight had fully boarded and closed the door, for pity’s sake!) I was glad to see an exciting finish. Obviously that’s what the producers were going for–make sure no one team, regardless of who they are, could walk away with it with a huge lead at the end.
To all of the people saying the Race would have been ruined forever had Romber won, you must not like the Race for what it is. It is about who is able to win, and that includes skill, luck, and the mistakes of other teams. The Race isn’t about who is nicest. If a team who is unpopular wins, that only serves to reaffirm why this show is better than ones based on voting and polls. Being willing to quit liking the show because it stayed true to its central premise means you don’t understand the whole point of the show!
HALLELUJAH! i’m so relieved that joyce and uchenna won; not only were they the only likable team left, but, according to CBS, they both recently lost their jobs due to their boss’s accounting shenanigans (uchenna worked for enron; joyce for worldcom), spent a bundle trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant, and were basically broke and on the verge of divorce before the race. i know it’s TV, but they really seemed sincere about how the race improved their relationship and about their desire to start a family together. unlike rob and amber, joyce and uchenna actually need the money, and will likely use it for something better than red sox memorabilia and tacky faux-hipster t-shirts from urban outfitters.
nevertheless, i concur with b-side that rob and amber made the show a lot more entertaining. it couldn’t have worked out better (though it would have been pretty fun watching the hate from the also-rans if the rombers had pulled off the win). yeah, rob’s a jerk, and yeah, amber probably is too, since she married him, but man, they ran a good race. despite the spoiler, i wasn’t convinced the rombers weren’t going to win until joychenna’s feet hit the mat.
my one complaint about the finale is that, once again, there wasn’t much of a challenge between the airport and the finish line. if joyce and uchenna had reached the departure gate five minutes later, rob and amber would have finished an hour before the other teams even landed in the US. it would have been a lot more fun if the teams had to eat something gross (as opposed to, say, deep dish pizza) to get the last clue. i’m thrilled that the nice team won, but it was sort of a bummer to see rob and amber fall out of contention so close to the finish due to a cabbie’s poor sense of direction.
thanks again, b-side, for another hi-larious season’s worth of commentary.
Great Finish! The Likable People Actually WON! They were great racers too. As far as their boarding the plane being ‘fishy’(Ashes)… I didn’t get it that way. Thanks to editing, we actually saw a significant portion of Joychenna’s begging to get on, the desk calling the pilot, etc…. when Ramber boarded at the last second, several episodes back… all we saw was them being refused…. then suddenly they were walking across the tarmac, boasting that ‘they are holding the plane for us’. Hmmmm… ???!!! But what delicious victory to see the tables turned on Ramber this time….. does Karma really work after all?
Looking back at it all… the only real memory I have of Amber herself (not a ‘Rob’move) is her laughing gleefully and wickedly over how the others ‘would have eaten all that crap FOR NOTHING! HA HA!”…. other than that, it seemed an “All Rob” team. Thank goodness we can now put Ramber to rest…. it was fun… but I’m glad they are over.
It was SO GOOD to see honest, ‘do-it-on-your-own’ racers win!
Jack… agreed… it would have been Much more interesting, if the eating 4 lbs. of gross meat, came in Miami… significantly changing the famous and albeit intelligent Ramber move to quit that task.
b-side, this was the funniest recap yet…Thank you!!!
Good god! They’ve got Babar!…This had me rolling on the floor.
“I got back into my favorite jeans.” Because of Botox? What did she do? Botox her ass?
What would happen if you botox your ass?…Will the crack disapear?
Did I see it wrong, or was Joyce the only one to keep the golf chalange clothes on?
I am very happy for Jyoychenna, they realy deserved to win as far as I am concerned.
Rob and Amber did not make the show more entertaining. It is mostly a placebo effect because people tend to like what is familiar to them. Rob and Amber personally did not add anything to the race that has not been accomplished before. We only celebrate their antics more because they have already developed a pattern of behavior. They deliver on that pattern and so the weak-minded think they are kings. Their whole existence on this show was so orchestrated that I think CBS held the plane back because they wanted it to appear that they actually wanted somebody else to win. Little did they know Rob would fuck up so badly finding the cigar store. The longevity that Rob and Amber had in this race *directly* affects the viability of not only the Viacom produced wedding, but the newlyweds show in the making.
Long live the conspiracy!
It’s too bad that they didn’t give Uchenna and Joyce the chance to go back to the cab driver and wave the check for $1 million in his face and say, “See! I was going to give you like a $1000 tip, but you had to be an asshole, and now you get nothing!!!”
good god! ashes is on her soapbox again!!! I love TAR. Business hours are the great equalizer and who cares about airport security, it’s a free for all, everyone on the plane, no boarding passes, passports or money required!!!
I like Rob and Amber, but i didnt want them to win, I do think it was unfair that they got so much help from people due to their “celebrity”.
By the way, weren’t Ron and Kelly engaged already? I thought thats what they were labeled as when the show stared. And now he says he doesn’t want to get married. Why not just come out and say it, we hate each other! Not, oh I can’t handle authority after I was deprived food and water.
I think the more likely conspiracy is CBS saying ” Hey, come in second and we will pay for your wedding”. are we supposed to believe that in AMERICA, Rob can’t find anyone who knows him to lead him by the nose to the cigar shop?
poing, what’s your problem? I only got on my “soapbox” in response to the people who claim that they would never have watched the show again had Romber won. Surely it’s valid for me to point out how utterly ridiculous that is! That said, I was cheering for Joychenna. I wouldn’t have quit the show in a huff had an unpopular team won, but it’s nice to see the nice team win sometimes (unlike last season.)
So I really thought the conspiracy folks were idiots before, but this plane thing really seemed suspicious to me. And to be fair, since I really suspect their was some producer-interference with the plane thing, I have to admit it is much more likely in my mind that Rob and Amber may have been helped in earlier episodes.
Evidence that the plane pulling back may have been fixed:
1. Pulling a plane back to the gate after the airplane door has been shut is a huge deal especiialy:
A. In the post-9/11 era
B. With American Airlines specifically
C. In the Puerto Rican airport (where I have been numerous times), where flights are constantly overbooked and the agents have a very ambivalent attitude towards helping people.
D. To a couple without a boarding pass and apparently not even on the waiting list.
2. The gate agent when she closed the original door said, something along the lines of “No, the door is closed,” in a very “fuck you very much” tone. What changed suddenly?
3. I watched the scene over a couple of times and it seems like they dubbed in at least one of the lines (“I will check with the pilot.”) The line comes in crystal clear despite the agents being 15 feet away and not being miked (her voice is very soft in a subsequent scene despite being about 1 foot away from Uchenna). If you’ve still got it on TiVo, watch it again.
4. Most telling to me was how little begging and pleading they showed U/J doing. If anything, they seemed resigned to their fate….in their body language, tone of voice, choice of words, etc. You know if they were doing any hard-core begging, they would have been all over showing that footage.
It all adds up to something very odd to me. And again, I’m now more willing to consider that the original conspiracists may have been right all along.
Doesn’t it appear to be a HUUUUUGE security risk to board a plane just minutes before takeoff AND plan to leave your bags onboard when you depart? What a bunch of jackasses.
yeah, weren’t they engaged already? As someone already commented “He’s just not that into you” AND “I don’t want to get married right now means I don’t want to marry YOU!” I feel bad for the girl (says the recently jilted girl herself).
Kathyl, on the Early Show this morning, Ron and Kelly said they aren’t dating and are “good friends.” Kelly also claimed that from her point of view, they really only fought once!
Why did I use really like 5 times in the first two sentences? I really don’t know. I really need to learn to proofread….
Soriner, you really make some really good points! As I said before, the plane coming back for Joychenna was fishy, even though it was exciting to see them benefit from it. If there was a CBS conspiracy, it wasn’t to make sure Romber won, it was just to keep them in the Race during the first few legs and then to make sure two teams got to the final city at the same time.
I was hoping to see the racers on CBS this a.m. but it aired after I went to work. Glad to hear Ron & Kelly ended things. What a disaster those two are together. And I can’t believe that Ron said Jamaica smells. I went there on my honeymoon last summer and not only was it amazingly beautiful, the only weird thing I smelled was the ganja coming from people’s hotel rooms.
Conspiracy or not, I’m so glad Joychenna won. I have a lot of people close to me who’ve struggled with having children, and it’s such a heartbreaking thing. As Joychenna discussed how they’d use the money to have a baby, it got me all choked up. I hope they have that child they want very soon.
I don’t begrudge their win but something has been bugging me all season: If Joychenna both lost their jobs and had bills up the wazoo, and hadn’t been getting along, whyinthehell were they trying to have a baby? Because they had nothing else to do? How did they plan on providing for this child? As nice and polite as they are, that put me off them from the start. Almost every episode we got to hear about the poor, childless, not getting along couple looking for sympathy. And they really weren’t the better racers.
YAHOOOO!!!! The RIGHT people won!!!!! ‘nough said.
“Although the plane returning to the gate for Joyce and Uchenna was far fishier than anything that has happened to Rob and Amber (they made flights on close calls but never after the flight had fully boarded and closed the door, for pity’s sake!)”
I totally agree. When have you ever heard of a plane letting someone on after it has pushed back. And I don’t think that was editing, because they show Joychenna reacting to the door closing…
I was/am very angry! I really think that Rob and Amber were the best comptetitors ever.
OH NO! I didn’t see Barbar…and I’ve deleted my Tivo…how sad. Usually when Kelly starts her crap I tune out and think of things I’d like to purchase. Now I’m blue ’cause I only have your little clip. Can you blow it up for those of us who missed it?
Oh BTW: Botox apparently also gives you a good hair day.
wha, not being able to have a baby can strain a relationship, so it could be that they started trying to have a child before or around the same time as getting laid off, and those two issues added together caused them problems. Also, if they started trying before they got laid off, they may have kept trying because that had been a major longterm goal that they didn’t want to give up on just because of their jobs. The stress of the Race normally brings out whatever meanness is between two people (i.e. Kelly and Ron, Susan and Patrick, etc.) but Joyce and Uchenna weren’t mean at all. I get the feeling that their marital problems may have stemmed from not communicating and not approaching life united. The Race gave them a chance to focus on each other and themselves as a couple and to communicate and encourage one another as a united team, and that just brought back out the love that was already there. (Granted, I’m not a marriage counselor, so this is all just my amateur opinion!)
The ending was a complete joke. The fact AA brought the plane AND the GATE back is preposterous for all the reasons Soriner listed above. You could ask 300 million people if that has ever happened to them before on a commercial airliner and guess how many answers you would get? Two, Uchenna and Joyce. This only proves that big, billion dollar corporations with ratings on the line can dictate the outcome of anything, including so called reality tv.
I understand the Rob and Amber hatred and I was rooting for the other 2 teams also, but Ramber ran a better race and all I can do is laugh at the ending. You people choose to ignore it because the team you were rooting for won. Rob and Amber thinking of the stand by ticket was brilliant and CBS was not prepared for one of the teams to actually pull that off. Ramber was calmer through adversity, thought out all the options, and made the right decisions when they mattered most leaving mistakes for more insignificant portions of the race. They were first 5 times, the most by far, and you can’t tell me over the course of 25 cities that it was luck or help from CBS that got them highest average finish. If so, tell me where through 11 episodes they got that much help. You can’t because they didn’t get help.
If you notice, in the last 2 races the best team has not won because of airlines. The difference and downfall here was the race organizers at CBS actually controlled the outcome, not the players getting tickets or unpredictable flight delays. Do you really think Uchenna and Joyce got the pilots to let them on? Because its cut as it is, the race head honchos called down and forced AA’s hand. The producers are right there running around with the players while the whole thing is going on. Shame on you CBS. This is akin to Burnett and company RESHOOTING scenes in Survivor to get better acting.
Needless to say, I’m diappointed in CBS determing THE OUTCOME (that has to bother you people) of an otherwise exciting season. You should feel robbed.
yes! i was so excited joychenner won! i read the spoilers, but that didnt change my excitement for the outcome!
now about the flight, loads on carribean flights are low in late fall/early winter (when the show was taped) so it would have ben easy to get seats, however, i do not believe the pilots would have opened up the gate once more just for two people booked and confirmed on the next flight. clearly something tricky there. the pilot is the *only* person who has final say on returning to the gate and is normally only done if someone on the plane is violently ill and must get off at once. tricky indeed.
I was offended (for lack of a better word) when Rob starting pulling every lame excuse out of his ass to get on the 10AM flight…”my mother’s sick…” blah blah blah. You could tell the gate agents were like, “yeah yeah”. What about those peeps who legitmately DO have emergencies? it’s people like Rob who ruin the excuses for the rest of us! (ha!)
meanwhile, watch that A&E Airport show (whatever it’s called) and watch sweet eldery women get denied flights just because they have oxygen tanks! Just doesn’t make any sense to me that AA would open a closed jetway for UJ when Gramma can’t even get through pre-boarding without a hassle.
During the golf challange, the first two teams did take a while. If you watch the ball towers, they did go through a couple of layers. Uchenna and Joyce only went through the top two layers (5 balls max).
The editors of TAR are funny. They made it look like Rob & Ambah were pulling up right as Uchenna and Joyce payed the cabbie. But then they showed Uchenna and Joyce winning and talking, for a couple of minutes. I bet if Rob and Ambah had run in first, Patrick might have jumped on them and held them down.
Amber is a stick, she had no personality this whole race. She was almost like a second bag for Rob to carry around. I thought Rob had only done five road blocks. Maybe I counted wrong.
So what do you guys think happened to Romber’s bags that they left on that last flight? Anybody on the morning shows ask them yet?
When Ron told the Security Guard to not hail the other teams a taxi, the Security Guard admonished him about his willingness to “cheat.” Ron then had to defend his moral code. “It’s not cheating.”
When Rob cut his hands creating the raft, Amber asked him to put on gloves. “No glove, no love,” she should have cooed. However, she was too involved with the idea of Rob making “happy.” Come on America, who can’t wait to see that wedding dress? I know I can’t.
And lastly, where is the gratuitous screencap of Rob changing into golf clothes with only his underwear on? Disgusting image to some, yes. But for me, seeing this on here would have made me laugh.
Thanks for the fun, B-side.
Anyone know when the next season of TAR begins? I hope not September. That is too long of a wait!
YESSSSSS! Rob is 0-3!!! He still hasn’t won squat.
Jess, the “my mother…” excuse that Rob started (he never got to say “is sick” or “is dying” or whatever because he got cut off) is extra-stupid when you think about how they are with a camera crew that is obligated to disclose before filming people that this is for a tv show. Before Rob got to the point of pulling out whatever excuse he was about to pull, the ticket agent knew that he was being filmed for tv.
As for the timing at the end of the Race, Amber said that she say Joychenna up ahead of them, so either she was mistaken (saw a cab and assumed it was Joychenna’s) or they really were very, very close. Once Joychenna hit the finish line, the producers could have held Romber back to make sure they caught the whole emotional “5 continents” moment. There’s a chance that Romber really was within 60 or 90 seconds of winning.
Ashes, it is very true that desperately desiring a baby that nature doesn’t seem to want you to have can put a huge strain on a relationship. My point was that with the lack of financial support and their self admitted problems in the marriage, that they shouldn’t have been looking to a child to fix everything. Having children in the position they were in only compounds the problem. I don’t know when they started or if they had stopped trying after the lay-offs, but all we ever heard from them was baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby baby.
IMHO TAR went to that orphange to show Joychenna that there are other options and they seemed open to it (Joyce more than Uchenna). That is until Uchenna said when they were begging that the donations were for in-vitro. And now they are getting free in-vitro treatments because they were on TAR. I hope it works for them, or else their “working things out” during the race won’t mean anything and they will be back in the same place they were when they started except with more money in the bank.
A father is someone who loves a child unconditionally whether or not his sperm helped create a new life. I think Uchenna needs to realize this and get his head together.
As for the plane coming back to the gate. They would never do that unless there was an emergency or the President needed a ride. Mighty fishy indeed!
I love this show. I don’t care what anyone says, when the flight was “brought back” to get Uchenna and Joyce, I was estatic. TAR makes for great tv.
I am a little behind on TAR but I thought when someone comes in last on a non-elimination leg they lost all of their money and their belongings. I saw Joyce and Uchenna begging for money to pay the cab drivers but how do they have money for their plane tickets?
Kim, the teams never have had to pay for plane tickets out of their “allowance.” That has always been handled separately.
I have always wondered if the additional cab fare for the camera person/people is paid separately or if the price we see the teams pay includes those extra passengers. For airfare the teams don’t have to worry about it, but they are in charge of paying for cabs, admission to places, etc. and their crews must come, too.
Kim, the teams are given money for taxi, dinner and if needed hotels. The plane tickets are provided by the show. No money needed there.
oh yeah…. Ashes…. I do like the show for what it is, trust me on that one. I know the game is based on skill, luck, and the mistakes of others, and who is able to win. I think the issue for those of us who didn’t like Ramber and others in past seasons who have been pretty cut-throat… is none of those things… but it has been that it’s one thing to, for instance, get an earlier flight and decieve/fool the others into not knowing about it… letting them figure it out for themselves… It’s another thing to purposefully impede the progress of other teams by paying off or getting favors from locals… It’s one thing get a front seat on the bus.. but another to pay the driver to impede the progress of others by not opening the back door… or by blocking a gate, closing it, etc…
I think the other issue around Ramber was the preferential treatment that any popular, recognizable team may get, and the Potential for unfair advantage it can set up.
Finally, I think they were a ‘lightning rod’ because of Rob’s cockiness and arrogant attitude… which was both entertaining and annoying.
But don’t get me wrong… in all respect… Ramber
raced wonderfully and worked as an incredible team… and I hope to see more of that on future races.
Long Live TAR!
YAY! So happy Joychenna won! Even though I had read the spoiler, I was still on the edge of the seat, believing it was too good to be true (which the editing reinforced). My fiance thinks I am a nutjob now – crying and clapping and cheering when Joychenna won like a total maniac. I am still feeling giddy over their win – they totally deserve it and I wish them the best!
I nearly rolled off the couch laughing when Ron channeled his inner-Kendra with his “Third World Smell” comment. Wow…will shallow reality TV participants ever learn? Sheesh!
Also, if you and your spouse (or life-partner) ever want to send a audition tape to the casting director of TAR, the code word is “baby.” It’ll get you on-air every time, gar-un-teed.
Agreed on the possibility of the plane being held by CBS, to get two teams into a dead-heat finish… that’s good tv. They probably had a hand in the ‘held plane’ for Ramber too.
But really, all that is besides the point…. once Ramber and Joychenna landed in Miami, they were both on an even playing field again… and from that point on, Joychenna won it fair and square, facing huge adversity, and pulling it off with class, humor, honesty, and a great sense of competition.
God I Love This Show And It’s Fans!
eddys, I completely agree with you that once in Miami, Joychenna had a better time of it by finding someone who knew the correct location of the cigar store (a luck factor the teams can’t control but which is critical in every season) and therefore clearly and fairly beat Romber. If the tables had been turned, I would say that Romber fairly beat Joychenna, the plane coming back to the gate notwithstanding. That’s the beauty of the Race–it takes more than just skill to win, although plenty of skill is needed, and anyone can win.
I hope that both Rob and Amber’s and Joyce and Uchenna’s relationships stay as positive and strong as they appeared to be during the Race. And for their own sakes, I’m glad Kelly and Ron aren’t dating any longer!
Hooray for Joychenna!! I too read the spoiler but it had very little effect on how I watched the show. I was screaming at my tv most of the night wanting Joychenna to just move faster! Could they have chopped the onions any slower?
“As he and Amber rode along in their cab, Rob mused about winning the big prize: “[We have a] 33% chance of making more money than most people make in a lifetime.” AGAIN (just saying).” I said the same thing too. Every time Rob made one of his smart-ass ‘we’re gonna win’ comments, I had to follow it up with “Famous last words!” I have to admit that Ramber did add a lot of excitement to this season and they really did run a great race, for me, it would have been totally unfair for them to win.
Booooooo!
I can’t even read all of the posts because I’m too upset about the winners- Joychenna are super nice, moral yadayada, but come on. Villians or not, Ramber were (are) the best racers (let their record of wins etc. speak for itself). I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but getting the pilot to hold the plane (with no tickets of any kind!) is a bit much…anyway, great season- I think that I’m going to need some therapy to get over this one.
Obviously, luck is a part of this game. But in general, teams do well by making smart decisions and doing well on the tasks. I love TAR because it is a merit-based game.
Unfortunately, the producers have decided that bunching and tasks relying more on luck are needed in the last leg to ensure a close finish. I think the direct result has been that the best team (the most skilled racers) have not won in the last 3 seasons. Also, there hasn’t been anything really near a close finish.
Does anyone else get a kind of “fake nice” feeling from Joychenna? Not to be offensive, but there’s something “Uber-Christian nice” about it…sort of phony with some underlying hostility. I thought Chip and Kim were a lot more real and legitimately nice.
He he he¦. I can not wait for ABC news “The Amazing race: reality of staged”
Did the producers step in and get Joychenna on the final flight to victory?¦.
Were the producers helping Romber all along?¦..
Did they place foreigners in each country to help Romber with the tasks?¦..
Did they control the taxis and determine which teams would have a bad one and which ones would have a good one?¦¦
Does CBS hate black and gay people? Why didn’t they win any prizes for winning a leg?¦..
And you’ll never guess who slept with who!!!!
Tune in Wednesday at 10pm for all the answers. With Special guest commentary from B-Side of TVGasm.¦..
That would be hilarious!!!!!
Everyone is flipping out because of some crafty editing. If you watch the whole plane coming back to the gate, it is not in sequence, or even played forwards. Look at the guys on the ground guiding the plane, look at the reflection in the glass doors as the lady closes them. With editing anything is possible.
The plane was held for Romber ealier in the season, it is the same thing. The only difference is that for Romber there was no gate for the plane, they had to walk outside, so you didn’t get all the inside shots.
j-unit: i’m with you on the conspiracy theory, but i still thought rob and amber made the race more fun to watch. sure, recycling their reality stars is a cheap trick on the part of bruckheimer and CBS, but it worked. the other teams immediately hated the rombers (i’m sure they too suspected that the deck was stacked), so the race was tense and competitive from the start, as opposed to last season, where the first half of the race was dominated by the manufactured drama of jonathan and victoria. i also think it’s been pretty fun theorizing about when and how CBS/bruckheimer might have rigged the race to keep rob and amber at the front of the pack. some folks like them, but i think most of us just thought they were fun to hate. i’ve gotten quite a few laughs from the recaps and comments about the rombers’ asshole-ish behavior and suspicious run of good luck.
that said, i hope they NEVER DO IT AGAIN. i’m afraid the rombers’ success will only lead to more reality whores (jase and holly, anyone?) popping up on the amazing race, which would suck royally.
About the AA plane pulling away and coming back — THAT’S NOT WHAT HAPPENED! The way I saw it (and I don’t have the clips on Tivo or tape), the plane did not move, just the jetway (the tube that you walk on to get into the plane) was pulled away. Then, when they got permission, the jetway was moved back so they could get on. Can someone with a recording check this please?
Also, on this mornings Early Show, Joychenna talk about the jetway moving back NOT THE PLANE. Check out the clip at cbs.com (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/05/10/earlyshow/series/amazingrace/main694246.shtml)
Wackattacj, good thinking! Perhaps there are some cash receipts that a former losing racer (Lynn and Patrick both have the right attitude to fill the role) can claim demonstrate that CBS paid for Romber’s lunch a few times to save them money from their per-leg allowance. Perhaps there is an ambiguous phone message from Phil or footage of Phil smiling at Amber that can be used as evidence. Someone call ABC News and have them unleash their crack investigative team!
Bah humbug. I wanted Ramber to win. Who cares if they didn’t need the money? They were the stars of the show. They are what kept me on pins and needles. I love Ramber.
I read that Ron and Kelly aren’t together anymore (duh!). Loved the poncho joke. It’s been a great season.
over-all, one of the most fun TAR, having the most teams with personalities and lines to watch for.
but thank god, the winners turned out to be joyce&uchenna. they played a fair game, were good players (tho romber team are arguably the most competitive and efficient, with colin&christie coming close second).. and they needed the money! they went in this race with a real purpose to win the prize, unlike others who are just testing out their relationships.
post-win scene. uchenna remarks how he and joyce haven’t eaten in 24 hours and how they are so hungry, and lynn remarks they “never will be again” (to which phil laughs heartily at background). aaaaawww….
still.. m trying to imagine rob banging his head on why he didn’t yield joyce&uchenna (haha!).
another million dollar chance lost for rob!!!
To all those who say Ramber’s gameplay style was totally acceptable and they were just doing whatever they could to win, I refer you to the term “sportsmanship”:
sports·man·ship
1. The fact or practice of participating in sports or a sport.
2. Conduct and attitude considered as befitting participants in sports, especially fair play, courtesy, striving spirit, and grace in losing.
Sportsmanship does not include disdain for your fellow competitor’s safety. Courtesy does not mean lying to your fellow competitors to get ahead. Fair play does not mean asking/paying people who have helped you to not provide the same information or assistance to your competitors. (Even the guard in Jamaica called this “cheating” when Ron tried this Rob-style tactic.)
This isn’t a life-or-death situation where any means can be employed…it’s a simple competition. The show’s name is The Amazing RACE, and every racing event I’ve ever seen was considered a sport. Uchenna and Joyce were arguably the MOST sportsman like competitors in the field. Rob was the ultimate poor sport, and offers a TERRIBLE example of how do conduct yourself on the race. I surely hope his behavior doesn’t become commonplace in the next season.
some dude, my problem with your point of view is that you seem to think that Rob and Amber will be solely responsible for changing the game if others use tactics similar to theirs. That ignores that Romber wasn’t the first team in Race history to use such tactics. Teams in past seasons have said things like “Please don’t give information to the other teams,” bought tickets for an ally team who wasn’t next in line to prevent an “enemy” team from getting them, and so on. Plenty of other teams have been arrogant and spoken poorly of other teams during the Race, and we’ve heard past teams tout an anything-goes philosophy (in fact, we heard some of this season’s teams mention an anything-goes philosophy up until someone else practiced it to their detriment, then they were suddenly all about kindness and fair play.) If you don’t like those tactics, that’s fine and makes perfect sense to me, but I don’t see how you can claim that Romber has fundamentally changed the game or introduced an attitude we’ve never seen from any past team.
Jase and Holly from the last big brother would actually be really funny. They would come in last on the first leg, so it would be a waste. They are just so dumb they might actually be entertaining.
If Rupert is on the family one, there is crazy stuff going on over at cbs. How nice that they decided to have a crappy family race right after Rupert won the million by america voting and he loved to talk about his daughter and wife while out on survivor.
i can’t believe rob and amber are STILL getting crap for not stopping when the brothers flipped their car. they were CLEARLY fine and lynn&alex had already stopped to make sure of that. it’s a race. does EVERYONE have to stop and hold the brothers’ hands? on a different note: TAR FAMILY EDITION? please. who the hell is gonna watch that?
if rupert is on the show, i am out. if jase and holly are on the show, i am out.
I loved it all! Especially Babaar, Joyce’s bug-eyes, and the Roomba!!! Unfortunately you didn’t comment on Rob’s neon orange skivvies, or the fact that there was some female maid in the men’s changing room. What was up with that?
Calling this show a race is one thing, but a sport? That’s a stretch. It’s a competition for money. Sportsmanship is fine for Monopoly money, but this is one million very real dollars. If people aren’t going to give it some effort this show won’t be able to hold an audience. We want to see drama. Interesting things must happen otherwise it’s just another PBS travelogue.
Future contestants will behave according to their own personalities. They’ll only shadow Rob’s shadiness and ingenuity if that’s who they are. If this show teaches us anything it’s that people’s true natures surface under pressure.
Hey..Ok ppl. Pipe down. Lets call it “The rat race”.
B-side, i Wowe yewwww..Please ,please tell me that you are gonna cover every second of the “Uber-white trash” (britney and that rat Fed’s) show ..Pretty please..
BTW I have a nagging question somebody must answer..
Is it accpetable to purposefully leave your bags in the plane.
I mean who pays to ship it home to Romber? Or they should trash it..BAH
The brother in gray seems to also have grown about 20 pounds!
Although I totally knew who was going to win (damn spoilers!) at least they weren’t ahead the whole time so it kept it interesting.
Now all I want to know is did Rob and Amber ever get their bags back?
Going all the way back to the commercial break comments….I live in Pittsburgh where Ambah is from-ish….every news break there were shots of Ambah’s family (like really 6 people) watching the TV in a living room with blue carpet and Lay-Z Boys…really really important news…let me tell you.
first steroids in baseball, now reality show stars ACTING!!! that’s it. I’m jumping!
Is it a rule that you can’t bail on cab fare? That fake begging/high moral bullshit almost tainted the ending, but it was saved by their sincerity up on the stage. Just be like, “dude, about to make a mill, I’ll come right back and hit you with a nice G.” Or can you not say that either? The show really never explains all the rules, nor does it have end of season reunion shows, which is kind of refreshing, but I would of liked to see one with this cast.
Just hope Kelly cleared up that acne. Beauty Queen my ass!
While TAR may not be a sport as in a league, it’s certainly a competition with rules. Lady J don’t you think professional sports today are focused on money? And a HELL of a lot more money than a measly $1 million. Yet the competitors are expected to act in a sportsmanlike manner, and are regularly penalized when they do not do so. If your argument that money is a mitigating factor, any professional athlete should be able to do whatever is within their means to win…taking steroids, cheating, bribing refs, etc.
And Wicked, I’m not upset that Ramber didn’t stop for the brothers…it was his ATTITUDE that was caught on camera. It was clear that even if it wasn’t obvious that they were OK, which I don’t even agree was the case, Rob would not have stopped.
I do agree that other teams have used unfair tactics in previous Amazing Races…but Ramber’s absolute dependence on their conniving ways is what is unprecedented. Even Phil described their style as “innovative”…not because it was effective, but because they had taken such tactics to a whole new level. What I’m afraid of is that future teams will do the same.
Kate – either they got their backpacks returned,or someone is pulling a fast one. On ebay, there is currently an auction of Amber’s backpack from the Amazing Race, signed by Amber herself. Don’t have the link, but go to ebay and time in Amazing Race and Amber and you should find it. Very strange. Who the hell would want her backpack even if it is genuine? Thank god they lost.
CBS fixed the race. I wonder what you would be saying if they held the plane for rambler when chen was on it alone..hummmm…makes you look at it in a different way now doesn’t it?
Just trying to help this post reach the Century Mark. Yah Joychenna!
Many of the people who don’t care for Romber cross the line to outright hating them in a way usually not directed at strangers known only through the tv, but it is obvious that plenty of people like them, too. On tvguide.com on Tuesday, a poll showed that Joychenna was only a few percentage points ahead of Amber and Rob for the question of who people thought should win. On cbs.com, Amber and Rob did well in poll questions such as who among the racers has the best relationship and who would you like to travel with. The hatred for Romber is strong in some quarters, but it’s not universal.
I asked it before, and 2 many shows also kinda asks the same thing: can they NOT tell bystanders that they’re on The Amazing Race? Can they only say “I’m in a race”? I noticed that every time, they’d kinda purse their lips and say, “well, I’m…on a race…” “I want to win”, but they didn’t (couldn’t?) flagrantly spell out what program they were on, right? Still, wouldn’t the cameramen give it away, kinda?
(get to 100 posts! get to 100 posts!)
Yeah the 100 post mark has been reached!!!
Jess, after past seasons I’ve heard racers say in interviews that the camera crews must disclose to people who will be filmed directly interacting with a team that this footage is for an American tv show. Faces of locals have been blurred before, apparently because the people weren’t properly informed or wouldn’t consent to their images being used. However, Joyce and Uchenna have said in their recent interviews that they “couldn’t” tell people that they were with The Amazing Race (when begging in the airport at the beginning of the last leg) or that they hoped they were about to win a million dollars (with the cab driver at the end.) If you put those two things together, it sounds like people know the racers are in a race filmed for an American tv show but the racers can’t say more–anyone familiar with American tv would know what that means, but someone who doesn’t watch tv or is from another country might not.
Does anyone else know more about how these rules work?
Wow, we bought seasons 1-5 on Ebay and started watching them last night. The first few episodes of the show so far are crazy.
The contestants have NO idea what they’re doing -they cry a lot – and the rules are much easier. The name of the first detour was Near or Far – Take pic’s of animales at a near location or at a far location – to give you an idea of how much the creativity has improved. I mean, the horse swimming, tail riding thing from the last episode of season 7 would only work in a cartoon, right?
Finally…I’ve been away from the computer for a day and unable to read the recap…
Thanks for a great season of recaps B-side.
Everyone has pretty much summed up my thoughts, so I’ll just add, for wicked and Reggie, the AR: Family Edition will not feature Rupert and his family (there was a rumor out there a month or so ago – but he says on his website that they will not be on TAR).
Bring on Big Brother.
Look at this…Have you ever seen a bunch up like this before? This is like a five inch bunch up.
DOWN WITH BUNCHING!!!! DOWN WITH CABBIES DETERMINING THE OUTCOME OF THE RACE!!!!
This site has compiled a collection of rules (both current and past) for TAR. Although, they admit that it is not a complete listing of the rules: http://www.answers.com/topic/the-amazing-race
An interesting excert: “Each team is accompanied by a cameraman and soundperson throughout the race. When purchasing tickets, teams must also buy them for their camera crew. On the program, teams are only shown requesting two tickets, so that they don’t break the fourth wall.” So there are two guys following each team around.
Another interesting item: “The first team to reach the Finish Line wins the race and $1 million. All other teams win lesser amounts of money on a sliding scale based on their finishing order.” Did anyone ever hear of this before? If true, what then is the payouts?
And the best tid bit of all IMHO “Host Phil Keoghan is known to take the same flight as the teams on various legs of the race.” Wow, maybe he was the one who talked to the pilot in San Juan!!
If CBS were really cheating by manipulating the airlines, why would they SHOW it? Wouldn’t they edit things differently? I think most people (including airline employees) just don’t want to look like jerks on camera & did things they normally wouldn’t do.
B-side, I LOVE your recaps. People keep wondering what I’m laughing at when they come in my office!
phil k… the web site you shared was very helpful. answered many questions and gave interesting info i hadn’t even thought about before… thanks.
Phil_K,
A lot of reality shows do their payouts in that fashion. Survivor works the same way, as does Big Brother.
Phil_K, thanks for posting that web address. I can always glean some of the rules from the show and post-race interviews of the teams (such as hearing that the camera crews tell people this is for American tv) but I never saw a breakdown of all of the rules. And I have always wondered about the purchasing of extra tickets for the crews, so now I know.
I remember hearing Rob talk about having a quarter of a million (pre-taxes, I assume) after Amber beat him in the final vote of All-Stars Survivor (I think it was in an interview when he was saying that he wasn’t living off of Amber’s winnings.) Not bad for second place. That may have been just for All-Stars, but if everyone out of the 16 or 18 people gets something, I would assume that the lowest amount is a few thousand and it works its way up to at least a nice one or two hundred grand for second.
I stumbled across this about season 5, albeit nothing to do with this recap.
“On the final leg, Colin ordered the limousine in Dallas by using a fake credit card number. Teams were only allowed to use their provided credit cards for purchasing airfare.”
“Colin and Christie’s limo actually had a tire blowout in Dallas. This mishap essentially prevented them from winning the race.”
“Two challenges were edited out of the program since they did not affect team placement. First, there was a nut finding Roadblock in the markets of Dubai. Second, there was a teepee building challenge in Banff, Alberta.”
“Colin and Christie gave one of their trips to Dennis and Erika.”
“Erika, Alison, Nicole and Christie all knew one another from competing in various beauty pageants.”
“Nicole spent 4 hours to complete the caviar challenge in St. Petersburg.” I’m glad she didn’t take the penalty, that was fun to watch!!
Tid bits about season 6:
“Filming began on August 13, 2004 and finished on September 12, 2004.”
“The trains that carried the teams in Sri Lanka, and the town of Galle which they visited, were heavily damaged by the tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake.”
Post-game interviews suggested that Kris and Jon were less than a minute behind winners Freddy and Kendra before a train held them up at a railway crossing. At Fishbowl.com, Bolo suggested that Kris and Jon were only 30-40 seconds behind Freddy and Kendra to the finish. At RealityReel, Kristy said that “Right after Freddy and Kendra started running, literally within 30 seconds or a minute later the train came, and Kris and Jon arrived. Otherwise it would have come down to a neck to neck race.”
And Season 7: “Filming began on November 20, 2004 and finished on December 17, 2004″
“Three reality show alumni were part of this race. Engaged couple Amber Brkich and Rob Mariano both appeared on Survivor. Brian appeared on a Christmas episode of Fear Factor.
“Brian appeared in a Heineken commercial with Jennifer Aniston. ”
Sometimes we see a leg without a detour or roadblock, so I’ve always figured there were challenges that happened that we didn’t see. With the advent of the “each person can only do 6″ rule, it’s become more obvious because there have been times when we only saw 11 roadblocks on air so it didn’t add up to 6 per person. If everyone finishes in the order they arrived and no one is funny, frustrated, snarky, or incompetent, I agree with the editors’ decision to leave it out.
As for the timing of the finish last season, I thought it sure looked close until that train came. I was mad that that train ruined the chance for a footrace for the finish. This season, it looked close until they got to the mat, but I think Rob and Amber were held back off camera once Joychenna got up there to insure the capture of the victory emotions. That would explain why Amber said she could see Joychenna up ahead as she and Rob arrived but then they didn’t go to the mat until after the whole winning speech was over and Joychenna got their moments of glory.
It’s a good thing my spoiler was right, if not then B-Side would have gotten mad at me for nothing. That sure was a relief.
And now B-Side, I have a wild question for you. By chance is your name Andy? I know that may seem like a weird question, but is it?
ha – no. my name is not Andy.
btw, I think the Amazing Race is ripe for a behind the scenes documentary. More so than any other reality show, I really feel like it’s a huge production, and I’d really like to see the creation of every leg.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “You own it???” responded Rob excitedly.
i am still laughing about that rob moment… i must have missed the next 5 minutes because i was trying not to wet myself… classic.
All the Romber conspiracy theories aside, that was the biggest fix I have ever seen and honestly, I thought it blew.
Long time reader first time poster.
Lisa:
If B-side isn’t mad at you…please know a lot of us still are and hope you don’t do anything like that again.
You may still not understand the scope of your spoiler but having read it, it stuck in my brain and I was reminded of it over and over again. Each time I heard or saw a commercial – I thought f’n Lisa!
I’m glad this season is over but I wish I could block you’re stuff from my favorite site.
somedude…. I’m with you 100%. I liked Ramber. I liked how they worked as a great team (though it is arguable how much Amber really had to do with anything, other than letting Rob run things). I wish them well and think they are fun and cool. I just didn’t like the way they and others who’ve used these tactics… played the game. It’s done Fans…. let’s move to next season…. Yah!
B-side, I know that you mean a “how’d they do that” type of behind the scenes look, but I can just hear the announcer: “This is the story of The Amazing Race…the E! True Hollywood Story.” And then we’d find out that Phil is on drugs, hates everyone he works with, and has a stalker in India who threatens to kill him every season!
I agree with you, a look at the logistics and planning would be great (e.g. planning and creating challenges; clearing airport security; filming inside planes, trains, and cabs; fitting 2 extra people and equipment in cabs and the occasionally small cars they have the teams drive; getting permission to go in all the buildings, churches, etc. and to film the locals; what the pit stop accomodations are like; etc. etc.) You work in tv, right B-side? Pitch the idea to CBS; surely a popular and Emmy-winning show would get good ratings for such a special!
B-Side, would you tell me if I was right about your name? I have some more guesses. I will go alphabetically. Ben? Cliff? Are you wondering where I am getting these names from?
I know many people are skeptical about the Uchenna and Joyce being allowed on the plane after the door had been closed. I travel quite a bit, and I have actually seen this happen three times. Once I was the one they were letting on the plane. Okay, so it’s really rare but with the cameras on and too many incidents in which airline personnel comes off looking bad, I can see it happening, especially if the plane was going to be held at the gate or on the runway for a while anyway.
I guess for once I’m not the most cynical person in the room!
I was so happy that Uchenna and Joyce won, but I wouldnt have been upset had Rob and Amber won. This season was great, its the first time I have watched all the way through.
I have to agree with eddys on this, lets look towards TAR-8.
Anyone else think that TAR-8 will pose new challenges?
Instead of geting to the work piled on my desk, I’ll procrastinate and write about some of my own thoughts about TAR-8…
Each team will probably require 2 taxis (or large SUV’s) to travel as a group of 6? (with 4 adults and a crew of at least 2…maybe another camera crew also?) and all the packs. Getting one taxis has proven difficult, two would be worse.
Some of the small hopper planes that they use from time to time may only be able to carry one or two teams, hopefully this will spread out departure times.
I would like to see the original fast-forward rules reinstated. I really don’t think that the newer FF/Yield rule ‘intensifies’ the game. I would like to see more teams fighting it out to get the FF, or at least being forced to think strategically about when to use it. Most teams really don’t have an opportunity to use it the way the rules are today. If Romber or Colin&Christy are in the lead, they are always going to go for it. And then the 2nd or 3rd place team will go for it the next time it appears. BORING! I want to see the back of the pack fight for it! Could you imagine the frustration that Rob (and even Colin) would have had if they knew that there was always the chance that someone would spring ahead of them?
I especially hate it when the Yield and FF are used on a non-elim leg…what a waste.
What would you like to see in future TAR’s?
B-side, I agree with you on a ˜behind the scenes’ look. The DVD’s would be a good place to see it as well.
I sure hope that they cast the Griswolds….
Hello, My name is Tinkerbell, I am a reality tv junkie.
I must confess I loved Ramber/Romber and wanted them to win from the moment I heard they were going to be on the show. I was disappointed that they lost until the moment I saw Joychenna’s reaction to winning – they were such a sweet couple how could I begrudge them their joy?
As for future seasons of Amazing Race – they can put Rupert, Jase, Holly and Naked Richard Hatch on and I’d still watch – I can’t help myself. Is it wrong? Maybe. Will I stop? Not a chance.
And if reality tv is my crack – TVGasm is my lighter and spoon that heats it all up and gets it to a boil.
Thanks for every last giggle, gasp and groan B-Side!
Does anyone know the date that the final episode was filmed?
Thanks!
This has been trying to find its way to the front of my brain since everyone started saying how wonderful and honest Joyce and Uchenna were. Let’s take a trip in the way-back machine to episode 2:
“Rob then explains for the camera that this was a collaborative effort between Uchenna and Joyce, Ray and Deana, Ron and Kelly, and himself to pay the driver to open the front door only. They all chipped in five sols to pay off the driver.”
Yep, that was sooooo honest of them. Get off those high horses!
Oh yeah, I forgot to say something.
Soriner, I think I found you a partner for the next installment of The Amazing Race… Jones. Hopefully you both can keep your complaining of little things to a minimum long enough to not finish in last.
Bob,
For TAR-7, Filming began on November 20, 2004 and finished on December 17, 2004.
One last point:
This plane was late for takeoff. When Joyce and Uchenna are looking at the arrival/departure screen they day “It’s 10:04.” This is confirmed on the screen. The flight was supposed to leave at 10:00a.
You have to figure it was 10:10-10:15 before all of the stuff w/ U/J went down.
On a plane that is already running late and filled with pissed off passengers, I doubt the pilot is going to order the doors opened in such a situation.
Also, the scen that was dubbed in (“I will check with the pilot.”). I just noticed the VIDEO is spliced in as well. It is the exact same video footage (the same 4 women walking in the same order with the front woman with her left arm flexed at the elbow) as before the commercial with Uchenna asking if Americans got on the flight and then them dismissing the with, “No, Im Sorry. It’s closed.” (while walking away from them no less).
Watch the scene over on Tivo. The more I think about it (which has been an inordinate amount), the more I’m convinced this flight was held not because of anything Uchenna and Joyce did.
Soriner,
We are beating a dead horse here, but it’s interesting and fun so why not?
Anyway, I just read an interview with Uchenna where he goes on about how he “glared at” and “yelled at” the gate agent and that’s why she called the pilot and that no producers were talking to her when it happened. Based on his own words then, he’s not the “nice guy, always respectful to everyone” persona that fans have made him out to be. I have no problem with that, because I think you can be an honest, kind person while still doing what you need to do to get action from an airline employee not inclined to make any extra effort on your behalf, but many of his fans like him only because of a moral judgment about his character. That just highlights for me how ridiculous it is to assume that an on-air, as-edited persona like Rob’s means he’s a truly evil person while an on-air, as-edited persona like Uchenna’s mean he’s a perfect guy who would never use a Rob-like tactic to win. As pointed out above, Uchenna and Joyce were in on Rob’s “bribe the bus driver” scheme, and Uchenna yelled at a gate agent to get on the plane.
B-Side, would you tell me if I was right about your name? I have some more guesses. I will go alphabetically. Ben? Cliff? Are you wondering where I am getting these names from?
I’m sure you’ll tell EVERYONE!!!
Shut
B-Side, would you tell me if I was right about your name? I have some more guesses. I will go alphabetically. Ben? Cliff? Are you wondering where I am getting these names from?
I’m sure you’ll tell EVERYONE!!!
Shut UP
B-Side, would you tell me if I was right about your name? I have some more guesses. I will go alphabetically. Ben? Cliff? Are you wondering where I am getting these names from?
I’m sure you’ll tell EVERYONE!!!
Man I love the brothers!! Brian totally looks like Inigo from the Princess bride in the pictures above!
“Hello!! My name is Inigo Montoya you killed my father, prepare to die!!!!”
I was one of the few that liked Ramber/Romber. I did so for one reason – they were the ONLY couple that did not scream, curse, argue or denigrate each other. They are obviously in love and it showed. Besides, 99% of the time they made their own luck such as checking again at airports or following directions. I liked the couple that won – anyone but the Beauty Queen & the POW, two of the most unlikeable folks around.
“I’m sure you’ll tell EVERYONE!!!”
Everyone but you.
Here’s some conspiracy theories for you- the abnormal betting that lead to the spoiler originated in Massachusetts, now isn’t Boston (as in Boston Rob) in Massachusetts? That greedy little bastard, lost the million bucks, AGAIN. So, he figured, he could recoup so money by betting on the Race! Or maybe he didn’t bet but he told somebody? My other theory and I say this with an evil grin- Could Romber have tampered with Joychenna’s tire? I don’t have Tivo to check my theory but compared to all the other conspiracy theories I have heard, I think this is more likely, than CBS was in cahoots with AA. But maybe the pilots were Romber haters and finally Romber’s infamy worked against them? And how can anybody say Romber were better players than Joychenna- they came from LAST PLACE with NO MONEY and still beat Romber!
“Oh yeah, I forgot to say something.
Soriner, I think I found you a partner for the next installment of The Amazing Race… Jones. Hopefully you both can keep your complaining of little things to a minimum long enough to not finish in last.”
More evidence that Lisa’s “apology” for spoiling the end of this season’s TAR can charitably be decribed as disengenuous. She clearly is living in a fantasy world where people enjoy having the endings of movies, books, and reality shows given to them, whether they want to see them or not. She is truly as stupid as she is inconsiderate.
B-side: I’m sure you guys are looking to attract more viewersgip, but is their anyway you can ban this chick’s IP address? I swear I’ll talk the site up to my friends and replace her with 3-4 viewers if you ban her.
P.S.:
I’ve been ignoring all of your whining over the last few weeks about how everyone is mean to you, etc. But you really do bring it on yourself.
I still don’t know what you are bitching about. I haven’t given any unsanctioned spoilers without warnings since you started complaining about it. That includes what Amber’s wedding dress looks like. I saw a picture of her & Rob and know what it looks like but I’m guessing you still want to be surprised so I won’t even tell you the color.
Quite frankly, I don’t even know why I am giving you the time of day. You are acting like I just ran over your dog or killed or best friend. I told you who won The Amazing Race. Does your whole life revolve around TV? I gave a spoiler and you want me banned? Well, I’ll do you one better. I’ll voluntarily stop coming here. I hope I made your 3-4 friends very happy.
P.S. Soriner, if I never talk to you again that will be too soon.
Did anyone notice Rob saying “Ayugadilla” instead of “Aguadilla”? ^_^
Anyway, really thrilled that Joychenna won. I liked a lot of the teams this season, but I was mostly rooting for them, Brian and Greg, Lynn and Alex, and Meredith and Gretchen.
I imagine there would have been some mumbling and fidgeting and half-hearted clapping had Rob and Amber won. I didn’t like them much, but one has to admit that they ran a good race, and they look cute together! They seem like they’re totally in love with each other, so that’s good. And did anyone else feel sorry for Rob at the Jamaica airport saying “You can’t help me?”
Lisa: And I haven’t addressed you at all after you gave your half-assed apology and removed the spoiler in the forums…..that is, until you decided (randomly) to call me out in this comment section, obviously still upset that a good portion of the site is still annoyed with you.
Have fun finding somewhere else to post where people love having shows spoiled for them without warning. I’m sure you’ll find somewhere that loves you! Bye!
Holy crap, I can’t believe more people aren’t pissed by that obviously SET-UP flight fiasco!
I mean, come on! I must have taken at least 60 flights all around the world in my life, and NEVER have I heard of an airline employee “asking the pilot” for boarding permission after the thingamee has been rolled away and with the engines started! Cripes, you could have your prosthetic limb shut in the door, and they’d be like, “Buy another fucking plastic leg for yourself when we get there or I’ll hit you with a Toblerone!” There is no way on god’s green earth they decided to magically hold the plane for U&J without CBS pointing a gun at AA’s head. These dipshits won’t even let you bring TWEEZERS on an airplane- nevermind showing up late with the plane practically backing down the runway!
The fact is CBS didn’t want a one horse race, and they were totally caught off guard by Ramber’s superb idea to try the standby counter. U&J would never in a million years have thought of this idea themselves, and would have stood there like deer in the headlights scratching their heads if it wasn’t for the producers taking them by the hand to the standby counter for some spoonfeeding!
Think about it. They had already paid for their tickets anyways- AA had already made their money off of them for a later flight, which they could board an hour later with no extra hassle. What possible incentive would AA have to suddenly disrupt the pilot who is in the middle of checking his instruments and preparing for takeoff, get another employee to drive the staircase thing all the way back to the plane, alert the attendants to stop the safety demonstration and other preparation duties to unseal and open the door, and then seat 2 more people on an already delayed plane? (Wait- make that 4 people, including 2 cameramen with a lot of electronic equipment that would have to be packed away in heavy cases after being scanned and examined by security workers. Remember, these same security guys take 10 minutes to examine a metal belt buckle on an invalid 80 year old man). So was all this waived because AA just wanted to be “nice” to two customers who looked a little blue that they couldn’t get an earlier flight? Don’t make me laugh! The favourite word any airport employee, as we all know, is “No!”.
Ugh. And then to have to listen to the nauseating speech of “we gotta do what’s right and pay this man!” while they are running around scratching up money to pay the cabbie at the finish line! Like THAT wasn’t a soundbite just waiting to happen! And all the syrupy comments about in-vitro and babies and adoption, etc etc. God. Can I get a shot of insulin, please? Does the whole world really need to hear how you’re shooting blanks in some undignified attempt to gain a symapthy vote?
I’m glad that U&J won over Mr POW and the weepy “beauty” queen, but surely Ramber won this race without question, IMHO.
missmermaid, as for Joychenna being concerned with “doing what’s right” in paying the driver at the end–they had no choice. The rules this season, according to several articles and quotes from Uchenna himself, included a rule that all drivers must agree to let the team leave before the team could leave the cab. In other words, if a driver said, “Ok, pay me as much as you can,” the team could leave, but if he/she said, “No, you must pay me at least $X,” then the team had to stay in the area and couldn’t move to another task or clue until the driver was satisfied. Joychenna was following the rules that any other team would have had to follow (or risk being sent back by Phil.) Their natural inclination might be to be “good” and pay drivers, but they didn’t pay this one just because of a desire to be good.
OK, I’ve read your comments on how happy you all are with the underdogs win. The only thing that surprises me more than the fact of who “won” the race is the fact that all of you were dooped into thinking they won on skill or persistance? What a joke on CBS’s part to completely skew the results and make it a close race. Nevermind the fact that Rob and Amber had kicked but the entire race, let’s give someone a chance just to make it interesting! Oh, by the way, the little FAA violation by the “pilots” would have never gotten by in a real-world scenario. I think it’s a joke and the joke is on Burnett for pulling such big strings with his checkbook. Oh well, don’t feel sorry for Rob and Amber it looks like their freebie wedding will do as a “we’re sorry” jesture.
Ashes-
Yeah ive read that that was a rule this year as well. They should call it the “Colin Rule.”
Lisa posted a spoiler on the Survivor recap page on May 13. It was edited but several people couldn’t help but see it. Just thought TAR fans would want to know.
What does IMHO mean?
Lisa has left the building….FINALLY!!!
I know I’m wrong, but I wanted Ramber to win. I am a reality tv addict. (admitting I have a problem is the first step )Tell me you wouldn’t love to watch the bloodshed if TAR did an “all reality tv star” show. Watching Richard Hatch duke it out with, say, Omarosa? C’mon, the diehard “good must prevail” people wouldn’t watch, but the majority of us would, and would love every stinkin minute of it.
151. SLAM.