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The Amazing Race => The Amazing Race Discussion => Topic started by: Rob on February 28, 2010, 10:12:06 PM
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Was it just me, or were ALL the challenges tonight geared towards the cowboys! Kind of annoying to be quite honest with you. I can understand the frustration of some of the other team members!!
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No, it's not just you, and with all the livestock...I thought last week was geared to them too.
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There have been a lot of tasks where Jet and Cord excelled, but animal tasks have always been a part of TAR, some of which have been a lot tougher than this season's. The true test of the cowboys will be when they get to Europe and possibly beyond and are out of their element.
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Well, the polo tasks actually didn't involve horses, did it"
And poker was a pure luck based task.
And the smart move about getting directions from other travelers about geeting to the next clue box isn't peculiar to being cowboys, either.
So the only thing that was really "cowboy"-ish was the lasso detour. And that was about it this week. Every thing else was from how they play the game of TAR, and they're playing that exceptional well.
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Ok, so I am catching a LOT of flack for what I said on RFF Radio last night, and people are REALLY disagreeing with me about how the cowboys had such an advantage with the challenges, and then people point out to me that Carol & Brandy can speak Spanish and that gives them an unfair advantage too.....
Here is my point, Carol & Brandy have an intellectual advantage over everyone else if they are the only team to speak Spanish....so, they went into this game prepared for the race and speaking a language that MANY other countries speak.
There is a big difference when a production crew setup challenges that are tailored for a certain pair of cowboys. Its a difference of being prepared for something, and being setup to succeed. Thats my point on all of this!
Rob
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There is a big difference when a production crew setup challenges that are tailored for a certain pair of cowboys. Its a difference of being prepared for something, and being setup to succeed. Thats my point on all of this!
Well, isn't the challenges decided upon when the route is made, which is usually way before the teams are chosen? So, unless the production knew that Jet/Cord were going to be on this race way in advance, I don't see anything special in their favor.
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There is a big difference when a production crew setup challenges that are tailored for a certain pair of cowboys. Its a difference of being prepared for something, and being setup to succeed. That's my point on all of this!
Well, isn't the challenges decided upon when the route is made, which is usually way before the teams are chosen? So, unless the production knew that Jet/Cord were going to be on this race way in advance, I don't see anything special in their favor.
I'll say this once again: the order these things are decided upon doesn't necessarily matter. They could have chosen Jet & Cord knowing ahead of time what the tasks would be, instead of choosing the tasks after Jet & Cord were cast. The order it was done in makes little difference. Now we have very little knowledge about how TPTB do a lot of their internal planning and such, so that makes this all the more possible, IMO.
Plus, with last season strongly favoring Maria & Tiffany and this season (so far) strongly favoring Jet & Cord, I'd say these occurrences are highly unlikely to be a coincidence. Is it really outside the realm of possibility that they could have been looking for a particular team with the right set of skills to win both of these races? I say no. It's a stupid, corrupt type of idea, but unfortunately, this world doesn't seem to be particularly full of "higher-up" people with integrity. :P
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There is a big difference when a production crew setup challenges that are tailored for a certain pair of cowboys. Its a difference of being prepared for something, and being setup to succeed. That's my point on all of this!
Well, isn't the challenges decided upon when the route is made, which is usually way before the teams are chosen? So, unless the production knew that Jet/Cord were going to be on this race way in advance, I don't see anything special in their favor.
I'll say this once again: the order these things are decided upon doesn't necessarily matter. They could have chosen Jet & Cord based on the tasks, instead of choosing the tasks based on Jet & Cord. The order it was done in makes little difference. Plus, with last season strongly favoring Maria & Tiffany and this season (so far) strongly favoring Jet & Cord, I'd say this is highly unlikely to be a coincidence. I agree with Rob. It is ridiculous.
Ok, I've never understood exactly why everybody thinks the tasks were slated for Maria and Tiffany. Yes, the finale was in Vegas, but wasn't there an uproar about the "Male-centered" tasks when they got eliminated?
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There is a big difference when a production crew setup challenges that are tailored for a certain pair of cowboys. Its a difference of being prepared for something, and being setup to succeed. That's my point on all of this!
Well, isn't the challenges decided upon when the route is made, which is usually way before the teams are chosen? So, unless the production knew that Jet/Cord were going to be on this race way in advance, I don't see anything special in their favor.
I'll say this once again: the order these things are decided upon doesn't necessarily matter. They could have chosen Jet & Cord based on the tasks, instead of choosing the tasks based on Jet & Cord. The order it was done in makes little difference. Plus, with last season strongly favoring Maria & Tiffany and this season (so far) strongly favoring Jet & Cord, I'd say this is highly unlikely to be a coincidence. I agree with Rob. It is ridiculous.
Ok, I've never understood exactly why everybody thinks the tasks were slated for Maria and Tiffany. Yes, the finale was in Vegas, but wasn't there an uproar about the "Male-centered" tasks when they got eliminated?
Yes, but that was a one-time occurrence, whereas many tasks related to luck and skill with counting seemed to appear on that race. The poker chips, the game show, and the gold weighing are a few examples, plus the finale being in Las Vegas. It was enough to make me suspicious. I'd be surprised if someone wasn't. Rarely have we had tasks in the past that fit the skills of a team more than once or twice a season.
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There is a big difference when a production crew setup challenges that are tailored for a certain pair of cowboys. Its a difference of being prepared for something, and being setup to succeed. That's my point on all of this!
Well, isn't the challenges decided upon when the route is made, which is usually way before the teams are chosen? So, unless the production knew that Jet/Cord were going to be on this race way in advance, I don't see anything special in their favor.
I'll say this once again: the order these things are decided upon doesn't necessarily matter. They could have chosen Jet & Cord based on the tasks, instead of choosing the tasks based on Jet & Cord. The order it was done in makes little difference. Plus, with last season strongly favoring Maria & Tiffany and this season (so far) strongly favoring Jet & Cord, I'd say this is highly unlikely to be a coincidence. I agree with Rob. It is ridiculous.
Ok, I've never understood exactly why everybody thinks the tasks were slated for Maria and Tiffany. Yes, the finale was in Vegas, but wasn't there an uproar about the "Male-centered" tasks when they got eliminated?
Yes, but that was a one-time occurrence, whereas many tasks related to luck and skill with counting seemed to appear on that race. The poker chips, the game show, and the gold weighing are a few examples, plus the finale being in Las Vegas. It was enough to make me suspicious. I'd be surprised if someone wasn't. Rarely have we had tasks in the past that fit the skills of a team more than once or twice a season.
Luck tasks don't fit any team, so the gameshow can not have been designed for them (and even if it was, Maria was one of the worst racers at it) and counting is not a skill exclusive to poker. Had they reached the finale, then they almost certainly would have been able to count the 1 million in chips faster than any other team, because there ARE ways of counting chips that are very quick, which you learn if you play poker. There were other teams that were able to count the gold quickly as well, and it appeared to come down more to having a calculator and knowing how to use it than anything.
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Out of all the tasks we've seen on TAR 16 so far, the cowboys have only had a distinct advantage (as in only they had one) in the lasso roadblock. Similarly, only the final task and maybe the gold detour in Dubai last season skewed towards the poker girls.
But I do agree something may be up.
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I think they have just been lucky. They did gaucho tasks before (Even prompting the famous Gretchin line "What a gaucho you are") but that time there were no teams who had applicable skill sets.
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Playing 5 card stud is not a cowboy exclusive skill. Playing polo on wooden horses is not a cowboy skill. The only skill in Ep3 that was cowboy related was the steer roping. And Jet had to do that twice.
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Playing 5 card stud is not a cowboy exclusive skill. Playing polo on wooden horses is not a cowboy skill. The only skill in Ep3 that was cowboy related was the steer roping. And Jet had to do that twice.
Exactly, Some of the other racers also got it in two tries. I think it was just Carol and Brandy being bitter.
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I've responded to Rob in my last post even before he posted, so I'm not going to repeat what I said there.
As to casting teams for jobs, they've been doing that since season one; in fact season one had two teams identified by jobs, just like this season (lawyers, teachers in season one; cowboys and detectives this season)...and the NFL wives in season four, identical twin models in season three, deli owners in season five, models in season 6, beauty queens in seasons 10 and 11, and so on and so on and so on.
There's nothing new about that aspect of it, and it's not new that Lynn Spellman marches to her own drummer at times with casting. There's no way to know who is going to survive each leg, much less all of them to the final three, and I can only think of two teams that made it to the finish mat that never, ever should have been there and got there by luck more than pluck.
I think this idea about the leg being unfair because of the one task being something that the cowboys is a false one, just as the fact that Joe and Bill lived in Paris for two years was unfair to the other teams in Paris in season one, or Frank and Margarita had an advantage on the final leg in TAR Classic in Brooklyn and we all know how that worked out.
The hypothesis is faulty to begin with, not to mention the conclusion drawn from it.
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I think that bringing up the issue of fairness is a natural reaction.
I didn't agree with those who were claiming that Tammy & Victor had an unfair advantage in China with speaking Mandarin, but they were also my favorite team.
I'm neutral about Jet & Cord, but the issue of fairness did cross my mind regarding this roadblock.
Once I got past my initial reaction, I reminded myself that there is no such thing as "fairness" when it comes to the race.
If the race was fair, we wouldn't see senior citizens, people with disabilities, or out of shape teams on it.
Looking at all of the past winners, 13 out of the past 15 winning teams had at least 1 person in their twenties. All of these teams were some combination of thin, athletic, or physically strong. The only exceptions -- Chip & Kim and Uchenna & Joyce, who were in their forties, might have been chubbier than the other 13 winning teams, but they also had at least one physically strong team member.
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The hypothesis is faulty to begin with, not to mention the conclusion drawn from it.
Exactly. It's one thing to design a leg for a team's skills than to give a leg a distinct "theme". I would've been suspicious if the Detour involved a real horse. Still, it is unfair to assume a whole leg is biased based just on one task. I blame that on the illusion the "gaucho theme" has on us viewers: "It's a cowboy leg, so the cowboys are meant to win." IMO, Jet & Cord are dominating mainly because after the money exchange fiasco they haven't had any single blunder. Hopefully I'll be proven right when they keep rocking the race without having the so-called "cowboy tasks."
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Yeah I don't see it. All teams have set skill sets both physical, emotional, and mental. I seriously don't think they plan out legs with specific racers in mind (in fact, I think that aspect is done long before casting).
Seriously, its a just not something that is rational.
I mean seriously how many various racers have known how to do a task that others haven't. It's happens a lot.
And we clearly have lots of evidence of tasks that were designed that don't play to the strength of teams that we all believe the producers would love to see in the finals.
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How about Tammy and Victor in their Chinese Breeze? The task in Guilin (esp the stamp one), in Beijing (resto), and speaking the language themselves. That's kinda RIGGED BUT I still do believe it's all coincidences :)
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This leg was biased to Carol/Brandy!
The TPTB just knew that Brandy just loved loved loved sauerkraut, so they tailored this leg entirely for her!
I call shenanigans on this whole race!
:res:
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How about Tammy and Victor in their Chinese Breeze? The task in Guilin (esp the stamp one), in Beijing (resto), and speaking the language themselves. That's kinda RIGGED BUT I still do believe it's all coincidences :)
The only thing odd about that, is its very typical for racers to know Spanish (for example), but its rare that a team is fluent in a language late in the race. But it does happen, and unlike at the early stages, when its down to four or five teams it really helps. But as you say I don't think they cast for that reason. I think they cast based on who would make more interesting racers.
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The cowboys could have screwed up badly with the buses at the start of Leg 2, for all we know, it was a bad flight connection that prevented Brad & Vic from eliminating Tammy & Victor in Romania, Ronald & Christina were only spared elimination in Amsterdam because the lesbian ministers were so slow and they managed to get on the flight to Paris and I cannot say about the earlier seasons because I didn't watch them...
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This leg was biased to Carol/Brandy!
The TPTB just knew that Brandy just loved loved loved sauerkraut, so they tailored this leg entirely for her!
I call shenanigans on this whole race!
:res:
Let's take a minute to look at this task logically. First of all, apparently all teams except Jeff/Jordan finished this task without requiring the polka to be replayed. Most polka music is just over 2 minutes. The most famous Sauerkraut Polka is by Gus Backus, but my musical ear tells me that that is not the one that was used.
My point is that it made no difference who this task was biased toward as long as all teams completed eating sauerkraut within the time limit of the song. If so, then they could lose a maximum of 2 minutes but more likely 1 or 0 minutes relative to whichever team did it fastest. This is another one of the tasks that World Race Productions uses that do not differentiate between teams and therefore are pretty useless.
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This leg was biased to Carol/Brandy!
The TPTB just knew that Brandy just loved loved loved sauerkraut, so they tailored this leg entirely for her!
I call shenanigans on this whole race!
:res:
Let's take a minute to look at this task logically. First of all, apparently all teams except Jeff/Jordan finished this task without requiring the polka to be replayed. Most polka music is just over 2 minutes. The most famous Sauerkraut Polka is by Gus Backus, but my musical ear tells me that that is not the one that was used.
My point is that it made no difference who this task was biased toward as long as all teams completed eating sauerkraut within the time limit of the song. If so, then they could lose a maximum of 2 minutes but more likely 1 or 0 minutes relative to whichever team did it fastest. This is another one of the tasks that World Race Productions uses that do not differentiate between teams and therefore are pretty useless.
I was just teasing the people that think the entire last leg (leg 3) was biased towards the cowboys.
i would've said biased for Caite since she "played soccer since she was 5", but we all saw how that worked out... :lol:
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So in conclusion, every leg will have something that suits a different racer. This is a GOOD thing, since it allows teams to demonstrate their strengths and weaknesses.
End of discussion? ;)
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The cowboys could have screwed up badly with the buses at the start of Leg 2, for all we know, it was a bad flight connection that prevented Brad & Vic from eliminating Tammy & Victor in Romania, Ronald & Christina were only spared elimination in Amsterdam because the lesbian ministers were so slow and they managed to get on the flight to Paris and I cannot say about the earlier seasons because I didn't watch them...
Damn Brad & Victoria, we would've won if they didn't go for that connecting flight in Amsterdam! :lol3:
But yeah, Tammy & Victor actually got a HUGE advantage in China esp. that Tammy went to Guilin and Tammy & Victor visited Beijing for Olympics. I told myself, I don't care if they got an advantage as long as Mom and I aren't eliminated. :lol:
But look back at if Brad & Victoria didn't missed that flight or Mark & Michael and Kisha & Jen didn't leave their backpacks behind at the dock in Bangkok, Tammy & Victor would have came in the last place and have to do a Speed Bump task next leg.
Plus, Mom and I got a huge advantage in the finale leg. We lived in Hawaii before so we knew where to go in Maui. Yet, we didn't win so that didn't help anything. Also, it's just funny how the very final challenge was the visual task (I'm a visual person since I'm deaf and I rely on my eyes) and I managed to messed it up. Pretty irony :lol:
My point is that the race is full of lucks. It doesn't matter if a team got an advantage or not, anything could happens pretty much. Good or Bad.