I like at least some of these rule changes, especially the change to take money away from the last place finisher in non-elimination legs. It should make them hustle all the time, regardless.

I also thought that the FF was way overused last season. How many times did a team take it one episode only to be eliminated the next? It only temporarily supported the waker teams - IIRC all of the final 4 teams in AR4 used it late in the race or not at all. So given that they will be surprised to find it, I think that many teams will be tempted to take it, and thereby waste much more time than they should. I think it will be more interesting to watch, as it will not be used every episode.

The yield feature I have not formed a full opinion on. It will add a new level of strategy (aka backstabbing) to the Race, but it may well depend on how long and whre in the leg the yield is. For example, a one hour yield before a bunching point will not affect the game too much, but a 15 minute delay in the final spint may. I see teams bickering about how best to use it.

And Alison, I do not hate her yet. I am not a fan of BB, and have never seen more than parts of some episodes, so I do not remember her from that. I do not figure that they get many teams from the casting call anyway (the work to review all the tapes alone prevents that) and so casting agencies will provide the bulk of the teams. If the BB connection gets the ratings up, then so be it. I will still enjoy the show regardless. Flozac2 bothers me much more then Alison.

If CBS was really keen on the general casting call, then they would allow much more time for it and also require electronic, searchable applications that would minimize the workload.

Welcome to the boards OTARFan! Good to have you posting!

I agree mostly with what you say! I think I may have missed it but is the Yield always the same time or does it vary? The way they showed the timer it did not seem like a very long time to wait. Also, do the teams know how long the wait will be?

I must have missed something again, are they not giving out a Fast Forward every episode anymore?

One more of J Slice's Awesome Creations!

The order of Banana delivery should be organized by location to save on shipping costs

I think Phil mentioned last night, and it is cetainly on the CBS site, that the Fast Forwards are only on 2 predetermined legs. Once taken, that team can not use it the second time as well.

Well, to me, the rule changes don't seem so bad. I really started to hate the way we would have one team come in first, and then with the mandetory 12 hour wait, we would have bunching and that team could end up last in the next leg of the race. It could've been from the people doing the fast forwards or those who were good at doing something (like a physical test).

The yield sounds like an interesting twist. If we have two or three teams align, they could gang up on one team (a really good team) and stay in the game. I think that this might be the only chance that an all girl team could win. Realistically, this is the first time in the whole history of the game that we had a twist. At least in Survivor, we had tribe swaps, delayed merges, and the ghosties (though I disagreed with that twist) and in Big Brother, we had the Power of Veto enter the picture, the way the evictions were changed (with the first season having the TV audience voting out the House Guests (HG) which changed to the HG voting out the HG).

As for Alison, I hated her in BB. And I hate seeing her here. And even if they chose somebody who I liked (like Rupert from Survivor or Marcellus from BB), I would still dislike it. My opinion is that these people are taking a spot away from a fan who has tried to legitimately apply to be on these shows. It wouldn't bother me as much if they made a celebrity or a reality stars TAR.

Three is the perfect number.

I haven't really decided on the rule changes but I can say, as a non-BB fan, that I dislike Donnie more than Alison so far. It seems that they deserve each other.

None of these rules have taken place yet, so I'm not going to strike them down until I see how they'll work. I actually kind of like the idea of taking money away from last place teams on non-elimination legs. Why should a team that came in last not be punished just because they were lucky enough to be at the end of the line in a non-elimination round? And who knows, if they don't have money they may end up having to do several X-rated things to score money. Now that would bring in the ratings!