LAST EDITED ON 08-22-06 AT 03:13 PM (EST)

>Here you had a team determined enough to carry 1 member
>and a canoe for a mile then carry her to the end and have
>her endure on crutches and you DQ them even if they finished
>ahead of 2 teams. THE NEXT EPISODE offered all teams a decision
>to continue with 2 racers. WHY NOT KEEP that team at 2? Give
>them a 3 hour penalty at the swamp to be fair, but keep them!
>No, bring the Brownies back instead. STUPID, STUPID!

I think your memory of the show is significantly flawed -- there's plenty of things to bash the producers about, but their handling of the Grad Students team's injury really isn't one of them.

The Grad Student girls weren't "disqualified" by the producers -- before it was time for the Episode 3 leg to begin, they decided to quit. Their decision to quit resulted in the Browns -- the team "eliminated" at the end of Episode 2 -- coming back for Episode 3. And the "leave one member behind" option only came at the end of Episode 4 (after Episode 3's leg ended with the Hanlons being eliminated on a Boston Harbor island), not in Episode 3.

But even if things had played out as you incorrectly remember, what would you have proposed the producers do, tell the girls that they might want to reconsider their decision because halfway through the next leg all the teams were going to have the surprise chance to dump a team member? Sharing secret information about the upcoming game would be fair? Plus, if I remember right, when they quit, the other two uninjured girls even commented that they had no interest in continuing in the competition if they couldn't compete all together.