» Spoilers: Season 12 and earlier Options

[Miss Alli]

I am pinning this final warning to ensure that it can't possibly be missed.

If you can be shown to read this thread (that is, you post in it) and you are found going elsewhere on the boards and using spoiler information which you are trying to pass off as speculation, that is a warnable/bannable offense.

Seriously, it's really unfair to other posters, and it's also really lame, because it comes off like you're cheating and trying to make yourself look like you're just a very good guesser.

Please, please stop this. I have had more problems with this during this season than during any other, and I'm determined to get it stomped down as we get closer to the end. I don't want the show ruined for other people. Please don't continue to engage in this, if you're engaging in it now. Thanks very much to the great majority of you who are careful about this.

[SeaBreeze341]

That's what was mentioned during the CBS party earlier this summer. Keep in mind that while the number of episodes have been reduced it doesn't mean the total number of segments. Also, say we have ten episodes; there can be three episodes with two pitstops. The fewer episodes still remain, and we're still at the standard number of segments (13 legs or 12 legs including a double TBC one). In addition, given how TPTB said that there were supposed to be fewer NEL and fewer episodes (I think) for TAR8, anything can happen, and there will be the normal number of episodes.

[Masem]

I do not believe they've mentioned cutting down the # of episodes, nor do I see them increasing the number of teams. Basically, there's likely going to be two TBCs (excluding final leg) as to keep 11 teams over 13 episodes.

Just no more clip shows, please!

[WAMgirl]

To add some more details to my TAR spotting in July...We were in the international terminal in LAX on July 8, 2007, at 2 pm PST. I have no idea what airline they were flying or when, but I assume they had awhile, because they weren't flying out of one of the immediate gates around us, and they were wandering around other areas looking for guidebooks and people who would trade euros with them. They did spend a lot of time across the way with a college kid who had a laptop and they were looking things up on it. I was just out of earshot though, so couldn't overhear anything. That's all I have...sorry!

This post has been edited by WAMgirl: Aug 27, 2007 @ 2:04 pm.

[apskip]

WAMgirl, thank you very much for the additional information. You probably had a few other things on your mind at the time.

Having a team very loose at 1400 is totally consistent with the most obvious flight possibility, a nonstop 10 hour flight EI144 leaving LAX at 1630 and arriving Dublin 1030 the following morning.

[Nascar]

I do not believe they've mentioned cutting down the # of episodes,

Executive Producer Jonathan Littman said there would be two fewer episodes during the summer press tour on July 20th. He also said the teams would be younger, which tends to conflict with the grandson/grandfather team previously mentioned.

[auntieB]

More info about that Jonathan Littman interview can be found here in "TAR in the Media" .

And thanks again, WAMgirl!

This post has been edited by auntieB: Aug 28, 2007 @ 11:24 pm.

[auntieB]

Since it has been more than a week, and there is breaking news to report, I hope I will be excused the double post!

From the team at RFF, an Alaskan TAR 12 leg has been confirmed.

More discussion about what is known and suspected for TAR 12 so far can be found Here at RFF.

[CoolKel]

The route is quite interesting - I'm wondering what countries were visited to make the (possible) trip to Ireland a week after the race started - I'm guessing leg 3*. Probably South America (yawn if they go to Argentina/Chile again) or maybe Central America (yay!). I'm guessing from Ireland they go to some country in Europe (Western Europe most likely) and then to Africa (to maybe fit in the Burkina Faso rumor) for a couple of legs and then to Croatia for leg 7 or 8 (or even 6) and then a bunch of other legs with Alaska as the penultimate leg (since there's too much time between the sightings and the confirmed end of the race to have it be the intermediate destination).

*I wonder why, if indeed they are going to Ireland in leg 3, they are traveling via LAX. I know they aren't discouraged from taking connections into the US (see Peggy and Claire), but if they are in fact in Central/Southern America, then there must be at least some connections to Europe (Spain, Portugal, England are obvious choices). Then again, they could be in Canada (or the US, shudders) for the first couple of legs.

This post has been edited by CoolKel: Sep 6, 2007 @ 7:35 am.

[apskip]

CoolKel, what have you got against the report from the grandson that they were headed direct from LAX to Ireland?

Try this for a speculative route:

1 Ireland
2 West Africa (Ghana or Ivory Coast)
3 Burkina Faso
4 Prague (doing a cross with Amazing Race Asia 2 there at the same time to confuse everyone)
5 Dubrovnik
6 ?
7 ?
8 China
9 near Girdwood, Alaska

I think there will be 2 TBCs. If there is only one, then there will be one more leg somewhere.

This post has been edited by apskip: Sep 6, 2007 @ 7:56 am.

[auntlada]

Ghana seems much more likely than Ivory Coast, given the conditions in those countries recently. Ivory Coast is possible, but the president only burned the guns in rebel stronghold Bouake in August. It's mostly peaceful, at least on the surface, but there are serious doubts about it holding. Other than U.N. troops and French troops, I don't think many Westerners are there still. (All the ones I know about left and closed their school permanently.)

Ghana, on the other hand, has had elections since 1992 with results that were recognized and accepted by all parties involved, with peaceful transitions between presidents.

I'd like to see them go to Ivory Coast, for my husband's sake, but it's unlikely they would be in the area where he went to boarding school, since that was near Bouake. Togo would be cool, too, since I've been there, but it seems unlikely for political reasons also.

[CoolKel]

CoolKel, what have you got against the report from the grandson that they were headed direct from LAX to Ireland?

Well, the race was confirmed to start on July 1st, while the flight is for July 8th - unless the July 1st date was for pre-sequester, in which case Ireland would be the first country visited. Still, SoCal again as a probable start point?

As fas as Western Africa goes, why not the Cape Verdes? It's easy to get to them from Portugal, plus they connect to Ghana, BF and other countries relatively easily.

This post has been edited by CoolKel: Sep 6, 2007 @ 11:34 am.

[apskip]

CoolKel, you do have a good point. My original hypothesis on where AR12 might go initially was Mexico or Central America before heading for West Africa. It is conceivable that the race started July 2 or 3 with 2 legs in Mexico (or maybe one of them in Central America, then one in northwest Mexico), then came over the border by plane, bus, boat or car to Los Angeles on July 8. Any location south or east of northwestern Mexico would not logically go through Los Angeles as a transfer point. It would go through Houston or Miami.

[tigesrule]

Given the hint of "places they had to look up to see where they were", what about somewhere like Uzbekistan or Kazakhstan? They would fit between Dubrovnik and China, and then maybe somewhere in Sth East Asia like Laos or Cambodia! Another possibility would be Jordan, which I would love since I have been there!

[apskip]

To continue my speculation about northwest Mexico, here are some possible places where AR12 could have gone very quietly:

Chihuahua
Hermosillo
Mexicali
Tiajuana
Monterey

However, I believe that the most likely places for AR12 to go would have been La Paz near the southern tip of Baja California and Ensenada just south of Tiajuana. In both cases, getting to Los Angeles on July 8 would have been easy (flights from La Paz and boats, buses or cars from Ensenada).

I do not expect that places as far south as Puerto Vallarta or Guadalajara would have been involved, since both can be reached through Houston International Airport.

This post has been edited by apskip: Sep 7, 2007 @ 12:30 pm.

[Soleil]

I haven't been watching or following TAR for the last few seasons, but while walking to work just now (around noon Friday) I just saw a white middle-aged couple holding black-and-yellow "The Amazing Race" envelopes pass me and make their way toward the rink in Rockefeller Center here in New York City. The weird thing was that they were just walking, not running -- if not for the envelopes (which were clearly marked TAR and looked exactly like the clue envelopes on the show), they wouldn't have stood out among all the other tourists in the area.

Also, I looked around and couldn't see any cameras filming them. I did see, seconds before spotting the couple itself, a guy with a big camera (like, either a small film camera or a big one for taking still photos... sorry, I'm not good with the lingo) shooting the street, like general environmental shots. He was just a few steps ahead of the couple, but again, if not for the TAR envelopes the couple was holding I would not have thought anything of this at all.

So, do these sound like racers? Maybe racers who are hopelessly behind and have given up? Or is this some sort of preliminary promotion?