Topic: TAR 10 – Episode 4 Vietnam – Part II

[TAR8Vet]

A few thoughts on episode 4:


Listen for the clue – I enjoyed the twist of having to listen to the clue on the loud-speaker.  It was difficult, with some of the words in English and the place names using the local language, but fair for all of the teams and tested the teams’ resourcefulness.

Listening to the crickets – Dustin & Kandice standing by some plants and listening to some crickets thinking it may somehow be the clue is something most racers can relate to.  We slowly hiked through the rain forest in Costa Rica examining every odd looking stick or stone looking for a “relic” only to eventually run into life-size statues near the end of the trail.  You soon learn that what you are looking for is going to be fairly obvious.

Late Night travel – You are always stressed during the race.  When you leave late at night though, 9 times out of 10 you are going to end up being bunched somewhere.  So all of the stress of getting cab drivers to listen to the clues and get to the destination once again was not significant when they bunched for the bus ride. 

A Sprint – One of the interesting aspects to the race is the way each leg is structured differently in time.  You may get into a rhythm of each leg taking 2 to 3 days and then you get hit with a leg like this one - where all of the relevant action takes place in one small geographic area over a very short period of time.  It gets compounded by the luck of the draw with boats determining who gets to the roadblock first.  These are the legs that really get the blood pumping.

Peter & Sarah – They just seem to have a very stiff form of interaction – it just makes me wonder how close the relationship actually was going into the race – did they just teem up strictly because there team would have all of the elements that they look for in casting?

Product Placement – Another week with no plugs – they could show these episodes on public television.

Screaming/Bickering Couples – Enough.

Row Boats – One of those tasks that made you wonder “were these boats really that hard to row?”  It’s hard to tell without actually having the opportunity to do one yourself but it would seem rather obvious that it is better to have one person rowing at a time no matter how weak of a rower they were.


I'm interested to hear any comments or responses.

[Texan]

Good recap, THanks for doing this. 

I agree about the bickering!

The row boats... Wow that did look really hard for some.  I think Tom and Terry thought they were okay beacuse they did not see the moms, too bad they did not know they were doing the other task.

PEter and Sarah, do they seem they do tno knwo each other much.  I know competivness but coem on Peter atleast talk to her or sit by her.  He jsut seems like he does not want to be with her ~ I know that could be the editing but still.

[cinni]

peter and sarah remind me of ron and kelly. they ran as a couple but weren't really dating anymore in real life. just wanted to get it over with in the end. i think peter and sarah are crashing and burning a lot like them. it doesn't feel like a real relationship but one made up to get into the race. i think you're right about the casting part.

and i am so over bickering couples too. occasional fights, sure, they happen. but the constant bickering is getting on my nerves and we only see a fraction of what they tape. maybe that's all we're shown. doesn't matter. enough.

i did laugh at the girls listening to the crickets. i probably would have done the same thing. and maybe those boats were hard to row but they some teams seem to get it so not likely.

thanks again wally for your insight.