Tag Archives: Tammy and Victor

May 10, 2009 · 9:58 pm

Who Won The Amazing Race Season 14, and Did They Deserve It?

[Looking for details on The Amazing Race Season 15 finale with Meghan and Cheyne, Sam and Dan and Brian and Ericka? Find out who won, and whether they deserved it, here!]

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Who Won The Amazing Race Season 14?

May 10th, 2009

In what began as one of the most promising seasons of The Amazing Race in recent memory, with some slick new editing and the much-loved pairing of Mike and Mel White, tonight’s season finale was in some ways a let down before it even began: while there are reasons to appreciate or even admire the three teams who have made it this far, they have all done things that have kept me from actually liking them. This isn’t to say that any of the three teams are objectionable, or that they don’t truly deserve to win, but rather that all of them feel at least a little bit problematic from an analytical perspective.

However, there needed to be one winning team, and after traveling tens of thousands of miles and visiting what seemed like even more individual countries than ever before (until the end, anyways), the winner of The Amazing Race Season 14 is…

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Tagged as Amazing Race, CBS, Detour, Entertainment, Episode 12, Final Leg, Finish Line, Hawaii, Jaime and Cara, Margie and Luke, Phil Keoghan, Pig, Reality TV, Roadblock, Season 14, Surfboards, Tammy and Victor, TAR, Television, Unfair, Who Won the Amazing Race?, Winner

May 3, 2009 · 9:30 pm

The Amazing Race Season 14 – “Episode Eleven (China)”

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“He Made Me Look Like Alice Cooper”

May 3rd, 2009

At the beginning of tonight’s penultimate episode of The Amazing Race’s 14th season, Kisha and Jen are elated to find out that they’re still racing, that last week’s cliffhanger meant the leg wasn’t over yet. Jen, in particular, is pleased: she had let the team fall behind with her fear of water creating a gap between them and the other teams, and she didn’t want that fact on her conscience should the team be eliminated.

The story that unfolds after the fact is an epic tale of Amazing Race karma, and results in an ending that needs to be seen to be believed. The rest of the episode, meanwhile, is more fuel on the fire for those who feel the race is unfair based on its current location and the language skills of one of its teams. And while I don’t necessarily agree with this assessment, I do think that some things need to be discussed in further detail…as soon as I run to the bathroom. I’ll be back after the jump, promise.

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Tagged as Amazing Race 14 Unfair, Bathroom, Entertainment, Episode 11, Margie and Luke, Pee, Phil Keoghan, Reality TV, Season 14, Tammy and Victor, TAR, Television

April 26, 2009 · 10:01 pm

The Amazing Race Season 14 – “Episode 10 (China)”

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“Having a Baby’s Got to Be Easier Than This”

April 26th, 2009

One of my favourite travel stories from my trip to California was that, when I was waiting for a late flight from Toronto to Halifax, I sat down in the departures area to watch the previous night’s episode of The Amazing Race. Now, admittedly, I shouldn’t watch TV in public as a general rule: I tend to be fairly reactive (aren’t we all?), and while an airport creates a cramped space that gives you some pause before overreacting an airport lobby feels open and results in some rather embarassing outbursts of laughter or shock.

However, I should have been doubly aware of this when queuing up last week’s episode of The Amazing Race, which I had no idea featured a spectacular meltdown of epic proportions as Jen and Luke got into TWO consecutive footraces resulting in TWO highly physical confrontations where a combination of aggressiveness and Luke’s sensitivity to physical contact (as he would be unable to hear them coming) created a whole overblown scenario. Killer fatigue playing the role that it does, emotions were high, but I tend to be on the side that Margie crossed a line when she attempted to claim it was deaf-bashing, an argument that felt like a defensive action she had in her pocket the entire race almost searching for an excuse to pull it out. This is a highly competitive race wherein emotions are high, and the best course of action in conflict is to chalk it up to a misunderstanding: lobbing accusations never gets anyone anywhere, except for the Amazing Race editors who got material to make an unsuspenseful episode extremely engaging.

Unfortunately, or fortunately for the racers’ sanity, there is no such event this week, as the teams travel to Beijing for a mostly uninteresting leg that seems almost mean in its efforts to accelerate the teams’ killer fatigue to the point of outright exhaustion. While last week’s episode may have been about personal exhaustion creating drama, I have slightly more of an issue when the producers are outright creating these kinds of reaction.

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Tagged as Beijing, CBS, China, Entertainment, Episode 10, Jaime and Cara, Jen and Kisha, Margie and Luke, Michael Phelps, Phil Keoghan, Season 14, Swimming, Synchronized Diving, Tammy and Victor, Television, To Be Continued

March 22, 2009 · 10:02 pm

The Amazing Race Season 14 – “Episode Six (India)”

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“Alright Guys, We’re At War!”

March 22nd, 2009

The worst kind of Amazing Race leg are the ones where nothing happens: the good teams are good, the annoying teams are annoying, and everything goes according to plan with the weak teams lagging behind and the strong teams rocketing forward. On the surface, this could seem like one of those episodes, where the leading teams don’t really change and where the outcome is one we could have predicted before the leg began.

But there’s been some subtle changes that have made this a better race to watch, and this leg continued that trend: teams that seemed to fade into the background before are becoming more distinct, while a team that was once impossible to watch has become more charmingly than frustratingly annoying. It’s not that the poverty and chaos of India immediately makes teams more likeable, and there’s a few instances of Ugly Americanism, but something about these teams are making them a really competitive and interesting group to watch.

So, despite nothing major going down, a building leg for the race.

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Tagged as Alright Guys We're At War, Amazing Race, Camels, Deaf Dancing, Detour, Elephants, Elimination, Episode Six, India, Jaime and Cara, Jaipur, Jodi and Christie, Kisha and Jen, Luke and Margie, Margie and Luke, Mark and Michael, Mel and Mike, Phil Keoghan, Pink City, Poverty, Roadblock, Speed Bump, Tammy and Victor, Ugly American

March 15, 2009 · 9:44 pm

The Amazing Race Season 14 – “Episode Five (Siberia)”

“She’s a Little Scared of Stick…”

March 15th, 2009

I spent a great deal of this, the fifth leg of The Amazing Race’s fourteenth season, wishing that last week’s blind U-Turn hadn’t happened, or that Kris and Amanda had been able to make it past the Detour in time to keep it from affecting them. While I understand that it’s part of the game, this race is weaker without them: a team that were likeable, fun to watch and competitive is the kind of team you want to have while you get rid of the weaker teams who are, well, not those things. Kris and Amanda may have been a threat to the competitive spirit of other teams, but they were much better from my own perspective – selfish, I know.

This week did little to assuage my concerns that we’re dealing with a slightly less interesting race as a result, although I’ll admit that this remains one of the most genuinely inoffensive group of racers in a long time. While there are a few teams who are legitimately struggling, it seems less as if they are just really bad at this race but rather that their skills lie in certain areas that don’t happen to come into effect when the teams are trapped in the depths of Siberia. We’re getting to the point where frontrunners are quite clear, and where the people who struggle are becoming more clearly identified, but there exists no one team that I would U-Turn if I was running this race with them.

But, of course, I’m not in race mode, so perhaps my rationality would go out the window when the time came.

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Tagged as Bunching, Detour, Entertainment, Episode 5, Jaime and Cara, Jodi and Christie, Kisha and Jen, Kris and Amanda, Leg 5, Margie and Luke, Mark and Michael, Mel and Mike, Mike White, Novosibirsk, Phil Keoghan, Polar Bear Run, Roadblock, Russia, Russian Bride, Season 14, Siberia, Snowplows, Tammy and Victor, Television, Trans-Siberian Railroad, Underwear Marathon

March 1, 2009 · 11:13 pm

The Amazing Race Season 14 – “Episode Three (Romania)”

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“I’m Not Wearing That Girls Leotard!”

March 1st, 2009

The major change that we’re getting during this season of The Amazing Race is that there is no rest for the wicked – while before there were often legs which were constructed so as to require no planes at all, staying within one city or one country for a second leg, this year they’re mixing things up. Just as quickly as the racers had flown into and raced around Germany and Austria, the teams were back on a plane to Bucharest, Romania, and off for another leg of their adventure. It’s something that is going to catch up with teams very quickly, the spectre of killer fatigue preparing to play an even more substantial part in this race than in years past.

Unfortunately for one team this week, though, it’s not early enough yet for this to start to happen. And when it comes down to flying at the start of the leg, there are various problems that can crop up, and when things add up just wrong for you the leg isn’t going to give you a chance to catch up – there’s no suspense in this one, and it’s a sad story for a team that really didn’t deserve to go home at this stage.

But this isn’t to say that this is a momentum killer for the season, in fact quite the opposite: there is still plenty of heartwarming moments from Mel and Mike, finally a chink in the armour of too perfect Kris and Amanda, some redemption of sorts for two all-female teams who proved they’re not quite as incompetent as we first thought, and one team even gives the editors a freebie to be able to make it seem at least theoretically competitive. It’s a very even field right now, and despite the unfortunate loss there’s a lot to look forward to.

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February 23, 2009 · 12:37 am

The Amazing Race Season 14 – “Episode Two – Germany”

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“Your Target is your Partner’s Face”

February 22nd, 2009

When this, the second episode of The Amazing Race’s fourteenth season, begins, there’s a sequence where the teams all start talking about how much they are inspired by Margie and Luke, the latter of whom is the race’s first deaf contestant. To be honest, I was frustrated with this: not because they’re not inspirational, but that we are capable of discerning for ourselves how impressive his work is: in this episode alone, we see Luke making friends with Jamie and Cara (without his mother being present), and even offering his own individual interviews wherein he questioned his mother’s decision making and gave a glimpse into their team dynamic.

This is how you inspire us with Luke: not by shoving down our throats that he’s overcoming diversity, but showing how he is just another contestant in the end, how despite not being able to take part in tasks that require verbal clues he is an active participant in this race. He’s a heck of a lot more observant than some of the other teams in this leg, as massive errors continue to define the bottom section of the racers, and at this point it’s clear that there isn’t another Nick & Starr in the race: no team looks like it will be devoid of mistakes and drama both, and this could lead to some teams’ undoing.

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Season Premiere: The Amazing Race Season 14 – “Episode One: Switzerland”

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“Don’t Let a Cheese Hit Me”

February 15th, 2009

While we just ended the last season of The Amazing Race a few months ago, a lot has changed over the short break between seasons. The editing has changed, the maps have become Google sponsored, the font is different, and they even went and remixed the show’s classic theme song to give it a driving rhythm for some reason. Combine with a shinier opening title, and some shinier graphics, and you have a very different kind of Amazing Race.

Okay, that’s a lie: the game is actually pretty much the same, here in an actually even more frantic and challenging version that tests people’s abilities to travel via three modes of transportation plus complete two tasks that test both psychological and physical strength. There’s just a lot of room for people to make mistakes here, and while the episode actually felt oddly impersonal and detached for a few reasons that I’ll get into, the transfer of the drama from the airport decisions to the actual completion of the tasks gives us a better sense of what kind of racers, as opposed to just people, the teams will become.

And I like the group of people: there is some humour, there are some people who clearly are on an adrenaline rush the second they start the race, and there’s enough differences in strategy and personality that one can see themselves watching these people race around the world without wanting to throw things at their television. So for all of the changes (both cosmetic and, in one case, actually kind of offputting), this is really the same race in the end: a frantic, often heartwarming, always exciting, trip around the world.

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