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puddin:
Villages
 
Villages snowbirds Gretchen and Meredith Smith ride in a rickshaw in India during TuesdayÕs seventh episode of ÔThe Amazing Race.Õ Photo courtesy of CBS 
 

'Amazing Race' fans kept in suspense by cliffhanger finish

By THERESA CAMPBELL, DAILY SUN

THE VILLAGES - Just five more days. That is how long fans of "The Amazing Race" reality TV show will have to wait to see the rest of Tuesday's leg of the race, which ended with the cliffhanger phrase: "To be continued."

So how will Villages snowbirds and retirees Meredith and Gretchen Smith do in the rest of the leg in India? Down to five teams, will the Smiths survive the competition and challenges? Will they move from last place to stay in the race?

Viewers will have to tune in at 9 p.m. on Tuesday on CBS to see, and friends of the Smiths have been told next week's show is not to be missed.

Will Pardee, assistant general manager of Crazy Gringos, is thrilled that Meredith and Gretchen will be in Tuesday's eighth episode. He said Villagers packed the restaurant during the seventh show and cheered for The Villages snowbirds from Maryland.

"At 9 o'clock, we were filled with people coming in just to see Meredith and Gretchen on TV," Pardee said. "There were lots of cheers back and forth every time the fans saw them on-screen. Every time they were on, the whole place applauded for everything that they did. No one was disappointed that it will be continued; we're all glad that Meredith and Gretchen are still going. They are doing good."

Tuesday's show began with teams flying more than 5,000 miles from Africa to Lucknow, India. 

   
 

The contestants began the journey by signing up for a charter flight to Francistown, Botswana, and all of the teams were on the same flight. The teams had tickets provided to Mumbai, India, but needed to arrange their own flight from Mumbai to Lucknow.

The battle for the best flight to Lucknow began once the plane landed in Francistown. Two very clear camps formed as boyfriends Lynn and Alex quietly asked for the use of a woman's cell phone to book tickets for themselves, Uchenna and Joyce, and Meredith and Gretchen on the same flight landing in Lucknow at 9:35 a.m.

Meredith was appreciative of the gesture and asked Lynn why he was doing this for them.

"Because we want you guys in the finals with us," Lynn told Meredith.

Meanwhile, in another corner of the small airport, Rob and Amber and Ron and Kelly secretly found tickets on a flight to Lucknow arriving five minutes sooner than their rivals. In an effort to cover his tracks, Rob asked the agent not to help the other teams book this flight.

After landing, the teams donned traditional scarves before walking through the religious palace known as Bara Imambara, and they had to find an area known as Bouli for their next clue. The clue revealed they were to travel three miles by horse-drawn carriage, also known as a tonga, to a steel emporium where they would find their next clue.

Opening the clue, the teams discovered a roadblock, and were told one team member had to search more than 600 different-sized tin boxes for one of 10 containing a clue.

The Villages snowbirds made it to the steel emporium last, and Gretchen was overwhelmed by the daunting task ahead of her to find a clue in one of the boxes.

This clue instructed the couple to hire a cycle rickshaw to take them three miles to the area known as Aishbagh and find a gas station where their next clue waited.

At the gas station, Meredith and Gretchen received a warm welcome from locals when they arrived. For no apparent reason, the crowds began cheering wildly for The Villages snowbirds, and the Smiths waved and blew kisses to their adoring fans in return.

The next clue revealed that the teams had encountered a detour, and they were told they had to choose between Solid and Liquid. For Solid, teams were instructed to travel one mile to a coal depot and smash enough coal to fill two burlap sacks with 175 pounds, then transport the coal on a flatbed bicycle to a store four blocks away to receive their next clue.

To complete Liquid, teams had to travel three miles to a local tea stall, select a tea cart and deliver a cup of tea to five specific employees from a list of 10 in a nearby three-story office building in exchange for a business card from each of them. After collecting all five business cards, teams were to return to the tea stall to receive their next clue.

As Meredith and Gretchen began delivering tea, they found themselves faced with an impostor who tried to accept a cup of tea, but the Smiths quickly foiled the culprit when he had no business card to offer in return.

The other teams completed the task before the Smiths and were pushing their carts back to the tea stall for the next clue.

Opening the clue, the teams were puzzled by the instruction to see Phil Keoghan on the mat on the rooftop of a building a mile and a half away.

Amber immediately noticed the wording of the clue was strange.

"This clue is written differently. It never said pit stop," she said, yet she and Rob rushed to the rooftop to see Keoghan. Expecting to hear news of another first-place finish, Rob and Amber received a big surprise when Keoghan informed them that all he had waiting for them was their next clue.

The latest leg of the race was not over.

No one was eliminated Tuesday night, and for Meredith-and-Gretchen fans, the show's ending was great news as it means another week (at least) of watching The Villages snowbirds on "The Amazing Race."

Theresa Campbell is senior features writer with the Daily Sun. She can be reached at 753-1119, ext. 9260, or theresa.campbell@thevillagesmedia.com.


 http://www.thevillagesdailysun.com/articles/2005/04/14/villages/villages01.txt

puddin:
A day without end on ''The Amazing Race'': After two boring challenges in India, the show cheats viewers by having no finish line by Josh Wolk
 

   
SIKH, AND YOU SHAN'T FIND Meredith and Gretchen have run out of Lucknow
 
What's the opposite of adrenaline? Because that's exactly what was pumping through me (or sludgily oozing through me, more like it) as I watched tonight's two utterly noncompelling challenges: opening boxes and serving tea. Good Lord, what's less enthralling than that? I hope this does not signal a new, mundanity-oriented direction for the show. Next week I do not want to see Phil introduce a detour as ''Surf . . . or Turf. In Surf, teams will have to sit in front of a television set and change channels until they find a rerun of Home Improvement. In Turf, they will mow producer Bertram Van Munster's lawn. Those who pick Surf will get a comfy chair, but this is digital cable, so there are a lot of channels to get through. Mowing the lawn is strenuous work, but as long as they don't run over a squirrel and jam the blades, they could finish quickly.''

With five teams left, things should be getting more tense, not less. The producers are desperately trying to work up some false drama with Ron and Kelly, otherwise known as the least demonstrative couple since Michael Jackson and Debbie Rowe. (The one shot of physical contact we saw of them was Kelly trying to extricate herself from Ron's hug as if he had just proposed a wife swap with Gretchen and Meredith.) With Ray and Deana gone, the editors need bickerers, and so they've accentuated every disagreement between these two with ominous music and zooms in to Kelly's vaguely furrowed brow. I'm not buying it at all. Kelly has said that she reads the Bible for guidance on her relationship: If you're looking for volatility, you are definitely barking up the wrong tree with her, unless you're willing to count a tense citation from the Book of Ecclesiastes as a lovers' brawl.

Kelly did show a hint — just a hint — of competitiveness when Ron worried aloud about allying with the hated Rob and Amber: ''Keep your enemies closer,'' she said sneakily, as if she had studied The Art of War back in her pageant days — although I suspect she probably quickly tossed it away in frustration when she realized Sun Tzu was not specific enough about whether she should use double-sided tape to keep the bottom of her bathing suit in place. And all of her attempts at devious strategizing fell apart when she and Ron didn't yield Rob and Amber. She actually looked to Rob for advice. Someone should have told her that there are certain times when it's permissible to let the enemies get a little farther away.

Getting back to the challenges, I suppose the producers might have convinced themselves they had a difficult task in the metal-box search because it befuddled Gretchen so, but she's a horrible test case. You could play ''Which hand is the penny in?'' and stymie her. Hell, you could play it with palms open and she'd still be going, ''Ohhhhh, Meredith! Both the hands look so alike!'' I feel like this entire season has been one young producer's rebuttal of this couple's initial statement that age and experience would always triumph over youth and inexperience. ''So they think age is only a state of mind, eh? Ha! By the time I get through with them, they'll be begging for a condo in Boca Raton and a coupon for a 4:30 dinner.''

I've seen seasons of Survivor where contestants don't look as bad as Gretchen does now, and they have no food or shelter. This week she was dashing around with a scraped-up face, carrying all her belongings in a yellow shopping bag until she could finally get a pity knapsack. When will the degradation stop? I'm waiting for them to come in last for the next nonelimination round, when Phil says they can continue, but they will be trailed by a small bully who will yank their pants down every time they stop to read a map on a busy street. (''Ohhhh, for gosh sakes, Meredith, there they go again, down to my shoes!'' ''I know, honey, mine are down there too, let's just hoist 'em up and move on.'') Their one uplifting moment came when throngs of Indian people spontaneously cheered them on, which was either a case of mistaken identity or, judging from the way the locals crowded them, an unfortunate meeting with the Indian Pickpocketers Collective.

And then there was the tea challenge, which was nothing more than turning confused deliverymen with language barriers into a sport. Gee, maybe when my Chinese food arrived 45 minutes late last week and I couldn't get a decent explanation, I was part of a reality show and just didn't realize it. In that case, go, Team Cold Chicken with Cashews!

And here's another question: What exactly does the company that had the racers sicced on them do? Whatever it is, it isn't done efficiently if they can spare a day to have American game-show contestants pester them with drink orders all day. I sure would be annoyed if my boss allowed players on the Indian Amazing Race to dash around my office trying to give me a latte in exchange for a business card. ''It's like I told the last guy, Ramesh: I'm under deadline, I'm lactose intolerant, and Jim from accounting is down the hall!''

And all of this ended with a resounding thud as Rob and Amber arrived at Phil's mat first, only to be told that it was not in fact a pit stop but rather a handoff of another clue. Who are they trying to kid? A cliff-hanger is just a fancy way of disguising a non-elimination round — much like climactic music and slowed-down grimaces are just a fancy way of disguising a bland couple.

What do you think? Are the challenges getting tired? Are you praying for Gretchen to sent home for a rest? And are the show's previews too misleading, even by reality-TV standards?

To post comments to this article, you must be an EW Subscriber, EW Newsstand Buyer, or AOL Member. Please log in or subscribe. 
(Posted:04/13/05)
 
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/commentary/0,6115,1048702_3_0_,00.html

puddin:
'The Amazing Race' Amber, Rob near finish line
Scott Tady, Times Entertainment Writer
04/20/2005


She drove a camel cart, pushed an elephant's butt, scrambled across a rocky field and reached a finish line third.

 
And for that, Amber Brkich advanced to the final four of CBS's "The Amazing Race 7."

Brkich and Rob Mariano outlasted their nemeses, Lynn and Alex, who reached the finish line last, and were eliminated from the $1 million race.

The episode began in Lucknow, India, with a 24-hour train journey. All that downtime gave the now-newlyweds Brkich and Mariano a chance to charm opponents Ron, the former POW, and his beauty queen girlfriend Kelly.

"Rob is very humorous, and Amber is just very sweet," Ron said.

In the show's Detour segment, the teams had to choose between tasks authentic to Indian culture. Brkich and Mariano picked a task where they had to push a 600-pound elephant statue through a bustling Indian street. Brkich pushed from the rear, as Mariano tugged by the tusks.

In the episode's Road Block contest, where only one team member could compete, Brkich sat in a two-wheeled cart and used rope reins and a series of "Go, go, go" and "This way, this way, this way" commands to steer a camel down a dirt race course.

It wasn't glamorous, but at least she didn't lose her hair.

That was the fate awaiting Joyce, 44, a Houston resident who along with her husband, Uchenna, took a gamble by playing another of "The Amazing Race's" silly games - a Fast Forward - where the first team to finish a secret task got to automatically advance to the finish line. There was a big catch: To complete that Fast Forward task, both teammates would have to get their heads completely shaved.

That wasn't a problem for the already-bald Uchenna, though Joyce reluctantly accepted the game's sacrifice, and had her long, braided hair shaved off. Good thing for Brkich she didn't compete and "win" that contest, or she might have needed to wear a wig to her wedding last Saturday.

Scott Tady can be reached at stady @timesonline.com.


©Beaver County Times Allegheny Times 2005

puddin:
Lynn and Alex Eliminated from The Amazing Race 7
The Amazing Racers all get back to even when they all wind up taking a 24 hour train ride.  Rob Mariano is up to his usual cleverness and trickery and convinces Sanja, the manager at the hotel where he is staying, to be his guide through India.  Uchenna and Joyce go for the fast forward, while the other teams compete in pushing huge model elephants down a street.

The fast forward turns out to be a Hindu head-shaving ritual.  Uchenna is already bald, but Joyce is visibly distressed over having her hair cut.  However, she refuses to back out and makes it through the hair shaving like a champ.  Uchenna and Joyce win the fast forward and are given directions to go directly to the pit stop, which puts them in first place.

After completing the elephant task, the other teams struggle to race uncooperative camels around a track.  Ron & Kelly and Rob & Amber are the first two teams to finish, and they race each other to the pit stop.  They reach the pit stop in second and third place respectively.  Lynn & Alex are initially ahead of Gretchen & Meredith, but their taxi driver makes a mistake and takes them to the wrong palace.  Gretchen & Meredith make it to the pit-stop fourth, and Phil tells them that they are officially the oldest team to have ever made it this far in the Amazing Race.   Dating teammates Lynn & Alex wind up being the last team to check-in at the pit stop, and they are eliminated from the Amazing Race 7. 

http://www.realitytvmagazine.com/blog/2005/04/lynn_and_alex_e.html

puddin:
The Elephant Walk

 
''The Amazing Race'' continues to putter through India, where Gretchen lets Meredith push her around, leading to worries that the old folks could be on their last leg by Josh Wolk
 

   
DEATH AND TAXIS A bad cab sent Lynn and Alex to their well-deserved rest
 
It's at this point that many readers will expect me to apologize to Gretchen and Meredith. I've been riding them hard for looking like they're going to expire on every continent, but as Phil pronounced at the end of tonight's Amazing Race — when they once again barely dodged expulsion, this time by beating Lynn and Alex — they are now the oldest couple to ever make it this far into a season. But if you listened to Phil's voice, you heard the same tinge of shock and fear that I was feeling, as if after complimenting them, he wanted to add, ''So be happy with that and please quit, before you kill yourselves!''

I have nothing against older people, as some readers have accused. I love them. They're soft and cuddly and always have mints in their pockets and usually keep a Reader's Digest in their bathrooms so there's always something to read when you visit. And I don't think they make for bad competitors: Last season, were it not for some bad turns, Don and Mary Jean could have done well. My problem with Gretchen and Meredith is that it seems that their goal is not so much to win a million dollars as to find the best possible country to keel over in.

Meredith is 69 years old, and he was trying to single-handedly push a 600-pound elephant through the streets of India. (Well, 600 pounds plus whatever Gretchen's body weight is. Why oh why did she stay on that elephant? Why not just hop on Meredith's back for the whole detour?) He looked like he was going to collapse when he finished, and Gretchen's incessant yelling certainly wasn't helping matters: It sounded like someone was raping a camel. No wonder Meredith looked so scarred when he was subsequently made to run a camel race; it was the worst kind of déjà vu. And yet with all the abuse they take, they won't quit. Every episode I find myself yelling at the TV, ''Stay down!'' and they don't. It's like watching a Rocky movie, if Burgess Meredith had played Rocky.

But thanks to a bad cab driver — the game-killing variable that is to The Amazing Race what a pulled hamstring is to the NFL — Lynn and Alex fell behind and Team Deathwish stayed alive another day. I can't say it was sad to see Lynn and Alex go. I wonder if their hatred for Rob and Amber will stay with them in their daily life. When they heard that CBS will be airing Rob and Amber's wedding, did they say, ''Quick, we've gotta get to Massachusetts and get married first!''?

One other thing: When they were ejected, Alex kissed Lynn on the cheek, which seemed kind of demure for a longstanding couple. I'm wondering if the producers requested they not kiss on the lips so as not to throw the Parents Television Council into a self-righteous, FCC-baiting tizzy. The show tried to make up for this reticence with the gay-friendly move of introducing the Gay Indian Pedicab Couple: Stuck on inching transport in congested traffic, let them be a rallying cry for the world: ''In about an hour and a half, depending on whether or not that overturned chicken tikka stand gets moved, and if that cow decides to get out of the thoroughfare, they'll be here, and queer, so get used to it! . . . Actually, come to think of it, you'd better allow two hours — that cow doesn't look like it's going anywhere. So let's all meet then, at which point they will still be queer, and you should then get used to it.''

The only consolation for Lynn and Alex is that they lived to see Rob and Amber get nervous. Up until now, Rob has been so confident that it must have been maddening to watch him nearly always land in first and look as if he hadn't exerted any energy. But now you can see him start to worry: It's not fun anymore; it's a contest. After he hired Sanjay as his guide, he guarded him like he was the nuclear codes on 24: When Ron nearly persuaded Sanjay to get in his cab, I thought Rob would kill Sanjay rather than lose him. And then, of course there was the way he got help pushing his elephant by dragging young Indians off the street by their collars. Perhaps from now on he will have a different notoriety when he arrives at a new country: No longer will it be ''Aren't you Rob from Survivor?'' Now it will be ''Aren't you that famous American who stalks the streets, forcing innocent passersby into stressful manual labor to help you win a million dollars? Your exploits are legendary! And annoying. Legendary and annoying. But mostly annoying.''

While everyone else battled with elephants, Uchenna and Joyce went for the fast forward, and Joyce got shaved. If you remember, Bertram Van Munster floated this challenge out in AR5, and religious models Nicole and Brandon chickened out, believing that without their luscious manes, they would not be able to perform God's work by appearing in J.C. Penney catalogs. By stubbornly trying this challenge again, Van Munster tipped his hand that perhaps this was less about the game and more about his bald-head fetish. But hey, if a certain producer once had a major sexual awakening while watching Star Trek: The Motion Picture, I'm not one to judge.

It was a very touching moment to see Uchenna support and reassure Joyce as she wept through her scalping. This is when The Amazing Race really shines: when we see couples or friends able to be so caring even in the most stressful of situations. You see that with Gretchen and Meredith, too, even if it's harder to hear amidst all of Gretchen's yelling. See? I don't hate those lovable old folks at all. They've got a lot of heart: All I want is for those very hearts not to explode out of their chests during the challenges.

What do you think? Are you worried about the old folks' health? Is Rob losing it? Who could replace him and Amber as front-runners?
 



Post your response below.
 

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