TAR 10 – Episode 7 - Mauritius

[TAR8Vet]

I’ve been lazy about writing any thoughts on the last 2 legs – maybe I’ll blame it on a lack of inspiration.  But there were a couple of topics that jumped out at me on this leg that got me typing.

Lyn/Karlyn – There are things that other racers do on the race that annoy you, but the thing I really disliked were teams that would lecture others about whether they were following the rules or not, what they were allowed to do, etc.  Last week trying to tell the beauty queens they couldn’t talk to the man who was helping them and this week telling them they couldn’t make reservations for another team - it gets a little old.  Just run your own race – if someone is really doing something wrong they’ll be made to stop it.  And don’t browbeat the poor ticket agent who has no clue what you are going ballistic over.

Bickering Couples (continued) – I understand people having heated conflicts on the race.  However, after continual meltdowns over several episodes don’t you think there would be a discussion that would include 1) how it hurts your racing 2) how it’s going to make you look stupid on television and 3) what strategies can we use to avoid angering each other?  If they’ve done this,  it isn’t showing.

Locations - Still an A+ for this season - great locations.

Swimming – Maybe it was the editing, but there looked to be some pretty nasty displays of swimming in this episode.  I think Tony Paolo could have looked like Mark Spitz in that group.

The six-pack – We always tried to work with other teams when we could, but I have some problems with the type of alliance some of these teams are trying to make work. 

1. The longer you go in the race, the less useful an alliance can be.  Weak teams banding together may help themselves slightly while there are still some other weak teams in the race who make mistakes you can capitalize on.  It is now past that point in this race.

2. Some of the practical problems with trying to have an alliance are obvious in this episode – it would require you to wait for others after tasks and if you aren’t being successful in relation to the other teams, you end up coming to the finish line together and someone is looking at elimination in a very random way.

3. The benefits of locking into other teams when traveling can slow you down as well as help you along.

All of that being said, these three teams come to a detour where they can either a) go try to perform a needle-in-a-haystack task which will virtually guaranty that they will all complete the task at different times and require them to split up or b) perform a task where they can all go together and use their unity to work together to complete the task quicker than they could if they were to do it individually.   Gee, guess which one they picked?

[cinni]

All of that being said, these three teams come to a detour where they can either a) go try to perform a needle-in-a-haystack task which will virtually guaranty that they will all complete the task at different times and require them to split up or b) perform a task where they can all go together and use their unity to work together to complete the task quicker than they could if they were to do it individually.   Gee, guess which one they picked?

exactly! they must have all been hoping to get "lucky" and be fast. i'm pretty sure that another poster around here could tell them about finding a red bean. i am not a fan of the dig/look/sort/break/whatever task until you find something. too much luck and not enough skill unless they can find a way to efficently accomplish the task. i was so sad when lena and kristy couldn't find a clue in the haystack and got eliminated for it. when the gaghans lost not being able to find the red bean. even trying to find the right key to a lock etc. some day, i would hope that i'd pick the other task that had a better chance of success.

thanks for your thoughts again. 

[TAR8Vet]

The other advantage of working together with a larger team should be that collectively you'll come to better decisions with the additional input - so much for that theory.

[puddin]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us Wally. !!