SLAP - Whoever allowed Phil to the mat wearing his pajama shirt.
Shallow, but it had to be said.

In many ways, I agree. I'm close to the same age as vennui (Class of '75) so many of my memories of that time would be similar. Same feelings about visiting the B-52 site. Both events stuck me as on the far side of comfortable.

However, a good friend & colleague of mine was born in Vietnam, coming to the US at age 9 in 1980. He still remembers hiding in the forest during bombing raids and classroom lectures on the brilliance of Ho Chi Min. (He doesn't watch TAR so had no input on the content.)

On the positive side, the Pho adventure was brilliant.

I can't seem to get out of neutral this week.

No hand movement Easier to apologize after than see what you might be doing wrong before, isn't it?

No hand movement Some attempt was made to treat the bushmen with dignity. Part of the sabotage made against that attempt was done by the bushmen. The species is the same all over -- jokes behind the backs of foreigners included.

Slap Not a whole lot of purpose to that Roadblock as far as Racer actions were concerned. Dig a hole for a variable duration to an unknown depth, then sit back and watch. Unless you personally enjoy hand flapping on the Olympic level, all we got was a very incomplete lesson in African plains survival. The scorpion is your best friend? Why? Oops, time for more hysterics: look it up yourself.

No hand movement The Detour wasn't as unbalanced as it might have appeared on first glance: it's strength and reflexes versus intelligence and manual dexterity: just go wherever you're more comfortable. We're just used to seeing people not make fire, typically three days later in the week.

No hand movement I will do you the favor of assuming there was a plan in place should the visiting Americans continue to admire an approaching lion as if it was a particularly fine piece of animation. And that it wasn't 'Leave her there to find out for herself and whatever happens, keep filming.'

Clap - some of the scenes were reminiscent of 'The Gods Must Be Crazy', one of my all-time favourite movies, especially the part where a N!xau-lookalike jumped up into the tree upon seeing a lion, while leaving one of the country singers to fend for herself. I suppose that passes for entertainment around there, watching furriners potentially get eaten.

Some of the locals certainly looked like relatives of the late N!xau.

I'm assuming the fire is strength and reflexes. In which case, I would've gone with intelligence and manual dexterity -- in other words, Fowl.

Which reminds me -- you know you've watched too much Survivor when you take one look at the Detour options and go with Fowl because you know making fire from nothing is hard just from watching too many Survivor contestants struggle with it!

SLAP - What was with the Travel Agent Guard?

CLAP - Kalahari Bushmen in the Range Rovers. Priceless.

Comment - I'll reserve the term "no hand movement" to our dear hostess' use. However, the apology struck me as genuine and somewhat unusual because they said "...were offensive..." rather then the standard "...may have been offensive...". By saying it this way, EPBvM admitted he was wrong, and probably knew he was wrong from the beginning.

>SLAP - What was with the
>Travel Agent Guard?

I assumed he was part of the task of solving the destination clue...sort of a safeguard to ensure that teams didn't buy tickets to Brazil or something...

Slap - ensuring that no teams bought tickets to Brazil or something.

Which brings to mind -- has a team ever gone to the wrong country? I mean actually bought tickets and flew -- I know teams have "thought" wrong but were rescued at the last minute.

I believe it did happen in the first or second season.

*!SLAP!* Are you willing to bet your life that you got all the crocodiles out and away from the river before that Fast Forward hit? Not their lives. Yours. The Wednesday competition just lost a player: don't be so eager to match that record.

Slap For those wondering why Caroline & Jennifer couldn't split up at the police station: it's a course rule. If they're not separated by a Roadblock, teammates must stay within a certain distance (typically less than fifty yards) of each other at all times. This was clearly a case where an exception needed to be made. If not for the helpfulness and honesty of a local, they could have wound up eliminated by an invisible bungee cord.

No Hand Movement However, adherence to local traffic laws is a problem belonging strictly to the Racers. Revenue-raising speed traps aren't friendly in any jurisdiction, but ticketed teams are in no way the fault of Production. (There is a question of why immediate payment had to be made and not, say, after Pit Stop check-in, but the teams really had no way of knowing whether they'd jump nations mid-leg. And the government might not travel-clear anyone with an active fine.)

Clap Racers driving themselves. Oh, the hilarity. My, the number of people who can't follow or take direction. Gee, that poor wounded telephone pole.

Slap Arguably poor editing during the transit delay sequences. The early suggestions had teams being hung up for something that could have been hours: catch-up time showed others barely halfway across the river, if that. It had reached the point where I was almost expecting an All Night Long makeup: it may have been about twenty minutes.

Clap Animal antics which didn't risk fatalities. It took me a while to decide where to place the donkey branch of the Detour, but I'll give you this one in the name of comedy: the only thing harder than making a donkey cooperate is getting an honest edit out of a reality producer. Credit is also given for allowing the normally-sitting Racer to lightly participate in the Roadblock by turning them into waterborne goat restraints, as it probably saved a few goat lives --

-- from crocodile attack.

No hand movement: Being stuck at the police station. The copper told them the amount in local currency, and they brought US dollars to the station. They could have saved themselves time and worry by following directions.

CLAP More marvelous scenery.

SLAP We see one team's trials and tribulations with the local constabulary, but another is just in-and-out (the tail fender boo-boo was post cops).

CLAP Ditto to the goat-minder application. (and double ditto to the goat that peed...)

SLAP Quintuple ditto to the lets-swim-with-crocs adventure.

>>missing siggie<<

Slap Forget the gnome. This entire *#$%@$! @#$% of an episode was actually brought to you by Swiss Rail: We're Going Somewhere, But The Next Four Segments Aren't. Alfred Hitchcock presents: Teams On A Train. And then another train. Followed by yet another train. And then there may have been some more trains, but by that point, the only person still interested was Sheldon Cooper. So many shots of semi-lit tunnel interiors, you'll swear you're playing Half-Life and alien ambush? Would have been a mercy. Is this an hour of CBS airtime or a loading screen? Apparently it's both. Because thrilling scenes of being stuck in airports just weren't thrilling enough any more. Whoever laid out the course for this leg should be forced to travel it for the amount of real time it took in subjective. See you in thirteen years.

Slap The Switchback was mostly a failure. The snow arguably added too great a degree of ascent difficulty: teams shouldn't be at risk of injury just from approaching a task. And then it slowed everything up on the way back down. Losing the local audience took out the rest of the flavor, and all we had left was bland snow and chilled cheese.

Slap Um... Detour, anyone? Oh, wait: had to squeeze in another fifty-eight tunnel shots. Gee, someone's got a Freudian problem.

No Hand Movement There's a certain degree of accomplishment to a tunnel and observation port carved into a mountain, or would have been if we hadn't seen the first part fifty-seven times before getting there.

Clap Nothing can screw up the local scenery.

The local outdoor scenery.

No, this does not mean exterior shots of the train.

What a poorly-designed leg.

Slap Bunch points. Bunch on the flight to Switzerland. Bunch at the rail station. Miss your train connection? No problem, there's another bunch point waiting for the messenger to deliver the clue. And still more train bunching afterwards.

Slap Linear leg with few passing opportunities. In addition to the many bunch points, teams had to line up for the high-altitude traverse. (Joey and Meghan got stuck behind slower-than-molasses Wynona.) And the rolling cheese task also had built-in queueing, as Katie held up the line for everyone to climb the snow-covered mountain.

Slap Insufficient equipment for cheese task. Couldn't they have provided safer/proper footwear for mountain climbing in knee-deep snow?

Slap No detour.

Slap Arbitrary penalty to Chuck and Wynona for cheese rolling. Though I won't miss watching them, that was an arbitrary philimination.

Token golf clap Beautiful alpine scenery.

Ironically, in game design, this kind of player ferrying is known as railroading.

I was wondering about that traverse - why did Meghan and Joey have to wait for Wynona? Once the other teams were finished the other path would have been free, and they should have been able to use it.

I'm not positive and wasn't paying that close attention, but I'm guessing there were X number of nomes at each traverse point, and the others were takens so they had to wait for Wynnona.

Clap And never was an Hours Of Operation sign to be seen. All Night Long legs: the cure for too many bloody trains. Grab more coffee and keep moving.

No Hand Movement On the one hand, teams driving themselves in a completely unfamiliar city is just entertaining. On the other, you know the leg winner prizes have become predictable when teams start calling them off in advance upon seeing their overly promoted vehicle. Maybe it's time to get a car curse.

Clap Not providing a model for the model train Detour branch allowed the teams to not only exercise their creativity, but screw themselves over in new and exciting ways. (Minor subtraction for not bringing in some Gomez Addams sound effects.) The goal was also simple enough not to require a judge: get all the way around the track once -- and so didn't suffer from the subjectivity of other tasks.

Slap At some point, teams presented with a question to answer should be forced to not get the answer from those around them. Say, immediate passage for knowing it yourself and a twenty-minute penalty if you had to ask bystanders? Idiocy needs a price.

Slap Utterly predictable NEL.

No Hand Movement The only challenge which seemed to be involved in the post-editing Roadblock was testing the Racer's tolerance for new things. The actual labyrinth seemed to come down to stumbling forward and remembering to look up. This isn't a Slap due to the vaguely interesting setting, but still -- really linear.

Slap Major edit fail-- if the clue required the teams to travel to Dresden by train, why did we see a Lufthansa jet taxiing up to an airport jetway?

Slap Remind me why the teams went to Dresden? To pick up their Ford Fusions for the drive to Berlin?

Slap Apparently knowledge of basic history isn't part of pre-Race talent screening.

Clap Both detour choices in Berlin highlighted quirky things about the city and area.

LAST EDITED ON 04-22-13 AT 10:28 AM (EST)

Slap Dresden and Berlin -- two cities with a lot of history behind them. Why not have Mr. Voice Over give us a little lesson? (Other than the five second clips of Kennedy and Reagan that is).

No hand movement I don't have the techie know-how to post a screen capture, but I'm sure we had a brief glance at a screen with answer choices -- the question on "Who said 'Tear down this wall!'" -- and one of the choices was "The Brandenberg Gate in Berlin".

son of No Hand Movement The Ford Sync™ system has voice recognition -- so why not accept a verbal answer?

Clap A museum of letters. (with an accompanying tap on the wrist to the Hockey Boyz for apparently abandoning their neon letters on the streets of Berlin).

eta one more Slap Just what was that Native Greeter "wearing"?

Seana did another one.