LEG 7 (Sri Lanka --> Italy) EPISODE ANALYSIS:
Rome, the Italian home of history, the nearby Vatican, and romance like no other. This Leg proved to be above average from what I believed to be in the episode's previews with competitivism and helping (eww in an all-stars term). I enjoyed Rachel refusing to help Dave & Connor directly telling them the clue box. Seriously, it's all-stars, don't expect anything to be just handed to you. Although the editing felt rather lackluster and sometimes overdramatized, I loved how they brought back TAR13's Salvador Pit Stop foot race soundtrack and instances of classic TAR music rather than the "Greetings, from the Royal Highness" type of tracks. At the end of the episode, I felt this is one of the better episodes of the season.
DETOUR: (Gladiator or Charioteer)
In Gladiator, teams had to perform two series of sword-battling maneuvers perfectly to get their next clue. I found this task to be rather challenging. Memorizing a minute-long choreography for a reenacted battle is difficult especially for those who aren't coordinated. In Charioteer, teams had to steer a remote control chariot around a course before the "fire" died down. Honestly, I don't like the fake-and-bake concept of this task. Either get real chariots and race around Circus Maximus like TAR10 did in the Atlas Mountains movie desert, or find a different task to do. I'll give them credit for creating difficulties with multiple teams at the task, but gosh, REMOTE CONTROL? Comparing these two tasks, they both had their challenges and balanced each other successfully.
DETOUR SCORE: 7/10
SPEED BUMP:
Caroline & Jennifer's extra task was a generic delivery task, nothing particularly special, but carrying a heavy typewriter for about a mile or more can be stressful if you don't know where the heck you are going.
SPEED BUMP SCORE: 7/10
ROADBLOCK:
The level of difficulty for this task was really good since team members had to count, translate, add, then reconvert the numbers back into Roman numerals. Some teams finished quickly and there is one flaw in there that explains why... THEY WERE ALLOWED TO USE LOCALS TO HELP THEM. I believe without the help from locals, it could have been an even tougher task and it could have probably change the order of arrival at the Pit Stop.
ROADBLOCK SCORE: 8/10
OTHER SCORES:
LEG DIFFICULTY: 7.5/10
TEAM DRAMA: 5/10
WATCHED 4 SEASONS OF SPARTACUS: 0/10
ELIMINATION SCORE: 12/10 (Didn't deserve to be all-stars in the first point)
OVERALL SCORE: 8/10