Stick a fork in Road Rules. It's done.
No, not the season - although that ended tonight also. This franchise. It's over. Kaput. Bunim/Murray has run this once interesting series into the ground with bland personalities, lame challenges, and just generally predictable storylines. Granted, the show must have some sort of appeal because I stuck with it all summer, but I think that might be due to tradition and the intense need to mock stupid people behind their backs. And while these are compelling reasons to watch any show, Road Rules has become so flat that even MTV must realize it's time to put it out to pasture.
Of course, the only reason why MTV keeps Road Rules around at this point is to fuel the ever growing fire of pathetic-ness that is The Real World/Road Rules Challenge. Without Road Rules, the Challenge becomes obsolete, but is that a sacrifice we're willing to make? Uh, not sure. Ask me again in about 15 weeks. In the meantime, let's fondly remember the final episode of this X-Tremely lame season.
Tonight's episode began with nary a hint of drama. With little ado, the show plunged us into the final mission which involved "surprise bridges". I personally thought that meant Beau Bridges would show up at random times, but apparently it was more literal than that. The kiddos had to traverse two rickety and poorly conceived bridges that were hardly conducive to foot traffic at all. For all you X-Treme devotees, there were no blindfolds involved.
Now, call me a nitpicker, but this was a pretty lame final mission. Yeah, it later proved to be rather difficult, but we like the last stop on the misery tour to be something big and over the top. This challenge was very Episode 5 - interesting, tricky, and forgettable.
The first bridge provided ample challenge when Patrick discovered that the already sparse wooden planks were of poor constructional integrity. Basically, they broke. Ooooh. An X-Treme plank! Everyone pretty much made it across without a problem except Jodi and Angela, surprise surprise. Jodi tripped and dangled for three minutes - enough to warrant a commercial cliffhanger - but as usual, it was all hype and she quickly hoisted herself back on the bridge.
Fleet footed Angela, meanwhile, took a large chunk of time to cross the bridge (there was a ninety minute time limit to complete the entire mission). Midway across the gorge, Angela channeled her fear into beverage requests by yelling out to her team "I need a drink of water after this!" Anything else we can get for you while you sully up pop culture?
Eventually even Angela made it across the bridge of doom which meant she could officially weigh in on how difficult this mission would be for Jillian. It would be easy, explained Angela, because "she has five percent more balls than me." Wow, that's an odd statement. Does that mean Angela has actually taken scientific measurements? If so, why have we never discussed that Angela has balls? Actually, she probably doesn't have testicles since she's, you know, a girl, and five percent more of zero is zero which means that they both have the same amount of balls. The statement is null, and Angela is an idiot.
The second bridge in this evening's tour of "The World's Worst Gorge Crossing Techniques" was an odd contraption with flying punching bags whirling around it. Honestly, if I were going to build a bridge across a giant gorge, I would specifically choose an area that wasn't flanked with flying punching bags, but that's just me. I would also design a bridge that wouldn't suddenly flip ninety degrees at random moments, but that's just what this dumb bridge did. The Road Rulers had to shimmy along a pole, then wrap their legs around some wires, then dodge the aforementioned punching bags, and crawl to the finish line. Oh, and kids, try not to fall off when the producers, I mean bridge, tries to eject you.
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Comments (2)
who knew? all that work to get the extreme keys, and it turns out the extreme machine is a giant confederate flag!! cool guys!!
1 of 2 | Posted by Leah3t | Posted on September 28, 2004 8:42 AM
ha, i'm with leah. who are the ad wizards that came up with an oddly colored confederate flag??
yaaay racism! down with the poor people too!!
2 of 2 | Posted by jash | Posted on September 29, 2004 10:58 AM