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supsandalee:
Garners survive week 2 of 'Amazing Race'
By Steven Godfrey

Every Wednesday the Hattiesburg American will update the progress of local couple Lake and Michelle Garner in their quest to win $1 million on this season of CBS' "The Amazing Race." Discuss their progress in our forums, www.hattiesburgamerican.com.

Week Two: "Overdone With Spanish"
Locations: Brazil

The Missions: Week two brought the "Race" team out of the city and into the Brazilian countryside, as they had to climb a fire escape, rappel down, scale a waterfall and go off-roading in ethanol-fueled VW bugs.

Garners Good: This physical leg of climbing and running was no sweat, especially for Lake.

Garners Bad: Can these guys catch a break on the road? A hop on the wrong bus and then poor directions from locals saddled our duo, prompting Lake to dismiss the entire language of Spanish (and Portuguese, too). We don't blame him.

Garners' Standing: After two legs, Lake and Michelle are in seventh place (down from fifth). Hippies B.J. and Tyler are in first, "Southern Amazons" Lisa and Joni were eliminated with clutch problems behind the wheel.

Patch Work: Just what are a dentist and his wife doing with nicotine patches? We got the scoop: Those dotted stickers you noticed under each Garner's neck aren't for smoking - it's for sea and airsickness, according to Lake's mother Diane.

Prognosis: The Garners should be safe while the slow teams are weeded out (seniors Fran and Berry could be next), but the travel voodoo could hex them for good.

Originally published March 8, 2006

 

puddin:
Phil Frontal

 
On ''The Amazing Race,'' as the older teams flounder through a series of challenges in Brazil, one of the host's eyebrows dominates the action by Josh Wolk
 
Oh, underdogs. How we want you to win The Amazing Race. The joy it would give us to see, say, an older couple or a pair of middle-aged ladies come from behind to overtake a young, athletic duo and grab the million dollars.

But it just doesn't look like it's going to happen this time. The underdogs this year are senior citizens Fran and Barry and brassy sisters Joni and Lisa. Both want to prove the value of older people. Unfortunately, their value is dropping by the minute. The sisters, a.k.a. the Glamazons, have dropped so far that they're out of the race, and at the rate they're going, Fran and Barry look like they'll be pushed through the next leg in matching iron lungs.

After both teams narrowly evaded elimination last week, both talked big games about how they were going to come back this week. And since everyone bottlenecked up waiting for the first clue marker to be available at 8 a.m., they had every chance to do so.

But the dream died for Fran and Barry at the rappelling challenge, when Fran chose to go up the most crowded fire escape and was last in line to come back down the building. I do have to give her some credit, though: Considering how many times last week she walked right past the clue box on the bridge, this week it was impressive that she was able to find the bottom of the building when she rappelled down. I expected to see her hovering three feet above the ground, saying, ''I don't see the street, Barry! Maybe it's up a little higher?'' And then there was the subsequent waterfall rope climb. Fran seemed to have little idea how to use the ascender, and they kept showing her twirling midrope and going nowhere. From a distance, the only way to tell her apart from a chicken hanging in a Chinese-restaurant window was the crash helmet.

But at least they're still in the race, unlike the poor Glamazons, who made for an odd optical illusion: They seemed to be exerting the most energy running and driving everywhere but getting there half as fast. At the finish line, it was sad to see Lisa burst into tears when they were eliminated. I wonder if Phil wanted to cave and let them stay in the race if they would hand over all their money and belongings, but then the producers said, ''No way are they giving us all their stuff. What are we going to do with 12 pairs of matching neon sweat suits?''

For the same reason, I'm sure the producers are also praying that the hippies never finish last in a nonelimination round: They don't want to have to stand around while Vanilla Fudge empties 24 Hacky Sacks out of their pockets. I'm beginning to suspect that these are not actual hippies but rather two people who are forced to act like hippies because they lost a bet. They seem like guys going to a costume party rather than authentic flower people. Like when they got into a VW bug and Tyler said, ''Back to our roots with the VW, right?'' These guys were born in 1980! The only VWs they might have driven were Jettas, and you didn't see many of those at a Dead show.

As for the rest, ''She's my hotty boom-botty with the naughty Pilates,'' said David about Lori at the beginning of the race. And to the producers, they're the nerdy hurdy-gurdies with the Kurdish blurry turdies: It seems like they only get camera time if they're doing something geeky. I think that's why the other half of the waterfall detour was a science project, to distill sugarcane juice into ethanol. It's like the producers are throwing nerdy temptations in their way to bring out their most nerdish tendencies. Next week, will the detour be ''Speedo...or Greedo?'' With Speedo, you have to get in a bathing suit and swim down a river, but with Greedo, you have to get in a room with Harry Knowles and debate who should have shot first in The Empire Strikes Back. [Whoops, I meant the first Star Wars. I am not fit to shine the nerds' +3 longbows.]

But this is all frivolous: In this episode there was a story bigger than all of the teams combined. I'm talking about, of course, the emergence of Phil's eyebrow as its own character. It used to be relegated to the first episode: Phil would raise his arm to start the race, the eyebrow would go up, and then the teams were off, and the eyebrow (or ''Browsie,'' as I've come to name him) would drop down to its normal position, where it would remain for the rest of the season.

But apparently Browsie has gotten a taste of the limelight and has expanded its range. The frat brothers — who emerged this episode as leering boobs who have based their entire personalities on what they've learned from Super Bowl beer commercials — placed second, and as they ran to the mat, one of them yelled, ''Phil, you know how cranky I am right now? I'm gonna spank you, woman!''

And just when you wondered how Phil would respond to such an affront, he did nothing. He let Browsie do all the work. Browsie crept higher on Phil's forehead than he ever had before, creating an expression that said so much more than just, ''The race is about to begin.'' It said, ''Phil is not a woman.'' It said, ''Please do not spank him.'' And it also said, ''This pit stop is a choice between two tasks: me kicking ass, or me taking names.''

Was this the end of Browsie's repertoire? I think not! Because when Fran and Barry finally stumbled over the mat — both of them having celebrated two more birthdays since they'd left the last mat — Phil gave his longest pause yet between the sad intoning of a team's name and an excited ''You're team number 9!'' And then Browsie did something astonishing: He did not travel alone. He said, ''Come with me, other eyebrow! And we shall travel to the heights of Phil's forehead together and convey a surprise the likes of which Jeff Probst's eyebrows have never seen!'' And Fran and Barry, though nearly suffering coronaries from Browsie's roller-coaster ride of emotions, felt that much more joy for it. And chest pain. But mostly joy.

Knowing now what Browsie can do, I think he missed an opportunity. When Lisa weeped about being eliminated, why didn't he lean forward and wipe her eyes with his hairy self? It might not be sanitary, but it would certainly win a game-show-host Emmy. I'd like to see Bob Barker's eyebrow try that.

What do you think? Should the series establish a maximum age? How about a minimum IQ? And which of Phil's other body parts would you like to see take center stage?
 

EW

supsandalee:
:rotf: Very funny article but I found it hard to concentrate after reading the title.

puddin:
Still thinking about Phil's package I see  :giggle: , me too  ;)

puddin:
Don't be late for this show, writes Lucy Beaumont.

IF COMPETITORS in The Amazing Race were drawn from an international field, we antipodeans would likely blitz the competition. We're more accustomed to being journey men and women, says host Phil Keoghan.

"Australians travel more than Americans," says the New Zealand-born Keoghan. "Because we're tucked away we feel this need to explore."

Keoghan has certainly done his patriotic duty. He lived in Canada, Townsville and the Caribbean as a child before returning to New Zealand, where he began his television career.

He is now based in Los Angeles with his Australian wife and their daughter. Having filmed nine series of The Amazing Race, a reality television show in which pairs embark on a high-pressure global scavenger hunt, Keoghan has worked in more than 60 countries.

"In America, people's perception of the rest of the world is so tainted by what they see in the media," he says.

"We see the world with a war or a natural disaster or civil unrest. (The show) is a way for us to show that the world isn't just one big, bad place."

The new series, which began airing last Thursday, includes a stop in the Middle East, albeit in spotless Oman, and in an Australian city (yet to be revealed).

Australian interest in The Amazing Race has grown since the first two series were aired sporadically (often late at night) on Seven, peaking last year when it was scheduled after Lost on Thursday nights.

A family version of the race that rated poorly in the US was not shown here. "We had 40 people with 10 teams of four," says Keoghan.

"Fans expressed that they would rather have less faces and more places. What was revealing was how much the locations were a drawcard in the show; as much as the people, if not more."

The faces have been perversely entertaining, though. From season one's villainous Joe and Bill to season six's Kendra whining that Africans "just keep breeding".

There have been twin brothers and Christian virgins, soccer mums and feisty grandparents. None have matched the shock and awe of married couple Jonathan and Victoria, also in season six, mentally and physically abusing each other in their pursuit of the million-dollar prize.

"I don't think we'll ever see another team like them," says Keoghan, whose favourite team this season is wacky pals BJ and Tyler because "they are just so out there". Dentist Lake and his dental assistant wife Michelle also promise competitive spirit.

Series nine premiered here a mere 30 hours after the first episode was shown in the US, meaning that websites and chatrooms will be relatively spoiler-free for Australian fans.

The finished product makes it seem that Keoghan enjoys a pretty cushy gig, cruising to each "pit stop" in the race to greet the winners and deliver that fateful line - "You are the last team to arrive. I'm sorry to tell you, you've been eliminated from the race". The reality of reality television means that he is also under tight time pressure.

"There's 13 shows and we shoot them in 28 days. In this season we do more miles and we shoot them in the shortest amount of time we've ever done," he says.

"People see me standing there calmly at the pit stop but if you look through the show you'll see me also at the 'roadblocks' and the 'detours' (task locations). Sometimes I'm waiting for the last team to arrive and the first team has left on the next leg."

Host and crew have to get as creative as the contestants, occasionally booking non-commercials flights and searching for shortcuts.

"They have been times when I've literally been running up to the mat with a team coming the other way. It gets that close."


The Age

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