AMAZING RACE
AND WE’RE OFF
By LindaM

The Amazing Race kicked off its 15th season with a new twist, unique couples, and my hope that it wouldn’t have any “ugly Americans” on the trip.  Well, toward the end of the premiere second hour that hope went down the drain but more on that later.

Let’s look at the new twist.  I must say that elimination before the race starts give the viewers an idea of what to expect.  The show has had 14 trips around the world.  Everyone who is on it has an opportunity to know how it is played.  The key is reading the clue carefully.  Now, I’m not saying that I would have necessarily noticed the Japanese characters at the top of the page but I hope I’d be thinking coherently enough to know that there is a clue somewhere on what I’m supposed to be looking for at the fence.  Each of our licenses plates are different and distinctive in some way so why wouldn’t the Japanese be the same.  It took one try for all the teams to figure that out.  Wish I had seen someone smart enough to think outside the box at the start!

Now, let’s move on to the unique couples.  While it is the usual mix, I think the addition of a former Miss America and the Harlem Globetrotters could be interesting.  If you expected Ericka to be a wimp as because of her former beauty queen title, you saw just how wrong you were.  She really stood her ground in the challenges.  The Harlem Globetrotters probably have been to every country they’re going to visit.  Will it help?  I don’t know.  Should they be racing?  Why not!  They deserve to have a go at this and I doubt they make as much money as some people suspect.  And, if you can have a millionaire on Survivor, you can have the Globetrotters on The Amazing Race!

Ugly Americans have already reared their head.  Did we really need poker players on this trip?  Granted, my attitude toward them may be influenced by Miss Natalie on Big Brother but I’m finding that their “lying” went over the top too early.  Here they are telling the other teams they do non-profit work.  I wish they did – maybe I’d like them better – but luckily they were discovered very early with the “great reveal” at the airport!  Their attitudes while with the people from Japan and Vietnam also left something to be desired.  They just blithely went on their way with two members of the game show party lost!

The other ugly Americans are Lance and Garrett.  Sorry but Lance’s attitude is grating on my last nerve already.  He is definitely all into one thing – himself.  I got so tired of the “me” attitude that I zoned out whenever he was on camera.  Garrett actually pushed someone off a bike last night to get to the finished line.  Phil called him on his anger and Jess told him that Garrett is always liked that.  Garrett needs some “anger management” when he gets back to the States.  His elimination means that there is one less ugly American for me to track.

I’m also not sure whether buying all the seats on the bus could count as being “Ugly Americans.”  I understand why they did it, and understand that the bus company’s rules allowed it to happen, but what happened to the people who showed up to take that bus and couldn’t because it wasn’t there.  Makes me go “hmmmm”!

If I have one bone to pick with the show it would involve the poker duo of Maria and Tiffany.  They basically got a free pass as far as I’m concerned in Japan.  While they incurred a two hour penalty and speed bump, neither really hurt them.  All teams made the flight at the same time to Ho Chi Ming City and the soup speed bump was minor compared to some of the others that teams have done.  I guess that the executives felt it was too early to give out any hard tasks but it seemed that they got by too easy.  And, on top of the lie, I just felt it was a little unfair.  I’ll be watching what the other teams receive as the show goes on.

First episode of season 15 reminded me that cultures are different the world over.  We have been exposed to Japanese game shows in the past, but the Japanese spicy cuisine was something different.  When I’ve been abroad, there were times I wished I had a flag to lead me but we saw how easy it was to get lost from the group.  I commend many of the teams for their concern of the people in their “tour group” and loved the scenes of the contestants carrying their “tour group”.  That in itself showed me that the contestants respected the culture.  I also must commend Zev for giving up his coat to the drenched man on the bus.  That’s going beyond the norm that you see on shows like this.

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