I'm reposting this because DST makes time-locked threads all wonky.

CBS:

I thought the road block was a little unfair. You had to have a least one physical strong person on the team to complete it. I thought the dance option should have only been the dance and the fish thing after.

Well, THAT was disappointing.

Lost one team I liked and was rooting for. Meanwhile, I have to watch (and hear) Ericka for another week.

NEXT WEEK: We've run out of ideas!

Dear Tar:
If your goal was to guarantee that an all-female team won’t win your race, congratulations. By designing a detour where a Y chromosome was practically a requirement to complete either detour, you created the most unfair situation I have yet seen on your show.
They were never going to get through that detour under any circumstances. They took – what – 75 attempts at that “strong-man” bell, and at least 17 tries on that long and windy “golf course”? So you can never claim that they gave up the moment the going got tough. They did their dogged best, but were simply not STRONG enough to complete the detours. Horrible, horrible race design.
I’ve been really annoyed by racers before, but I’ve never been angry at the race design like this. That detour was, in a word, bullshit.

Yeah! The poker players are finally gone! That's one stunt-casted team down, two more to go.

Is this the first time that a team has quit The Amazing Race?

Favourite part of the episode (aside from the elimination/quitting): "Brian!" Good editing by the show there.

Kind of a boring episode. Counting, swimming, golf. Kind of sad the poker players are gone. Really unfair to have the bell thing. Wasn't it enough to have the dancing and the fish? Next week: HAY BALES!

Tonight was classic TAR! The bell ringing in the ears was a good start.

No wonder "BRIAN!" couldn't drive, he lost his arms...

Sound of Music yodeling, a cultural staple of Holland dating back to the Von Trapp migrations.

Fish and onions for lunch tomorrow. Maybe.

GT's are my all-time favorite TAR team. Always hilarious, always a great attitude.

Would Lanceroid call that a quadriplegic bald snark?

I'm ready for Brian and Ericka to go.

I still got nothing but love for the GTs.

It's funny how I think Gary's not only the oldest but most capable person left in the race.

I thought the Poker players were going to find some sort of deep-seated strength and persevere, but all they did was hold each other and sob a lot. Aww.

Yeah, I don't really know how Tiffany and Maria could have done either of those detours any differently (well, other than Maria not completely sucking at everything). But they tried both of them twice, and neither of them were going to get any easier as they got more tired. So...that kind of sucked. I really enjoyed Tiffany.

My big issue - both challenges were very strength oriented and would be especially hard for female only teams. The poker players would probably have done alright at the dancing, they just couldn't get past the bell ringing. The dancing task didn't really require strength other than that, but it was still next to impossible for them.

I'm glad that Brian and Erica weren't philiminated (though I wish it was on their own merit not because of the rigged challenge), I actually like most of the teams that have been through this point. Erica seemed like she was just tired out from her hard time with the bells, but I think that Brian was a perfect example of how to be supportive.

That detour was designed to eliminate an all female team, and it did just that. As I said last week the Poker chicks were going to lose the first challenge where Maria had to exert herself and her "attempts" at ringing the bell were pathetic. I felt bad for Tiffany because she was saddled with such a lousy partner.

I cannot wait for Ericka to be eliminated from this game to see if she attacks Brian for not carrying her to $1 million. She is now without question the most useless player left in the game.

"Flight Time and Big Easy . . . you look ridiculous!" Bwah! And so true. Watching them dance was one of my favorite things I've ever seen on this show. They just always have such a great attitude about everything. Love, love, love watching them.

Love Gary and Matt too. They are so endearing to watch together.

Brian was ridiculously sweet and supportive of Erica during the Roadblock. Such a contrast to Cannan last week. He has the patience of a saint to be able to put up with Erica. (Loved Herb saying if they know anyone's name, it's Brian's, because of how many times they've heard Eric shriek it.). I hope Erica has a better attitude next week.

Maria looked like she wasn't even trying to whack the bell. Those were the puniest whacks I've ever seen! Also, they were making me dizzy with all their Bald Snarking of the Detour. Not sad at all to see them go, since Maria seemed like a totally useless partner, and I can't feel sad about anyone who quits the race. I'm also glad I don't have to see Sam and Dan complete the race for them anymore, because that shit was getting old.

So Ericka and Brian got a penalty for not using the bikes, but Megan and Cheyne got a free pass for both of them doing the Roadblock?? That seems a little bizarre to me.

I don't know that I've ever been as unhappy with the race producers as I am right now. The two detour options seemed almost designed to screw over two-woman teams. WTF was the point of having the strength-bell at the beginning of the dancing task?

I wasn't a huge fan of the Poker girls but I thought they stuck it out well and gave it everything they had, and I don't hold it against them for quitting when they did. The weather/cold was definitely working against them and the more attempts they made the more unlikely it was that they would be able to finish it since they were becoming more and more tired.

The whole time I was having flashbacks to Lena and Kristy with the hay bales (ironically, given the previews for next week).

I cannot believe they pulled this episode out of their asses--the season is looking up!

This was a great episode, especially after I realized that Team Zebra may not be so obviously doomed. ..And then the girls had to go and quit. Hmph.

Laughed my ass off at the random shots of armless Brian.

Next week: Fratricide and hay bales! HAY BALES!!!!!!

ETA Phil, I don't like the pit stop ad-libbing. X & Y, you are team number Z--stick with it, please.

Man, that sucks for Maria and Tiffany. I was really (somewhat to my surprise) rooting for them to make it through that, but they were really just at a disadvantage. This is turning into a season full of people going out in terrible ways.

The Globetrotters at the Detour were totally glee-inducing, though, and this was also a fun leg for Gary and Matt and Sam and Dan, and I like (for some reason) when the Detour options involve that many steps, so all in all a good leg for me.

Poker ladies could have made it to 5th if they'd just stuck with golfing from the beginning. Sad to see them go.

Seriously, Erica! I like her but how hard can it be to count bells?

Okay - why did Team PokerGirl quit? Like, I didn't get that. If they had quit the challenge it would have been [???] time penalty, and then.... poof! But I think that was so unfair. But then I had to laugh at Maria for tapping the dinger bell thing. The perfect stance is to actually stand as if you were on parallel beams and then swing like a lumberjack. I am going to miss them :( But I like Sam and David and Pinky and the Brain.

Next week.. Ooh. finally, I get to see the haybale challenge. {I didn't get to see it the first time}

I agree that the bell was nearly impossible, but Tiffany came oh so close so many times. But I think they would have been able to complete the golf course if it weren't so windy and they had stuck with it the first time. All that swimming is what doomed them, I think.

I'm not sorry to see them gone because Maria having to do the rest of the roadblocks would surely have caused them to lose anyways, because it became quite clear that Tiffany was carrying all of the weight on that team.

I'm all set for Ericka to be eliminated any time now, kthankx.

I think part of the problem was that neither Maria nor Tiffany was getting the proper leverage on the mallet to ring the bell. They would have had to have held it as close to the end of the handle as possible, not where the tape was wrapped around the handle.

How was the detours that unfair? Ericka obviously managed that hammer task ok if they were seen in the dance hall. Meghan seemed to have done ok with the golf although it took them several tries to get it down.

It looked to me like one of the Poker girls was a bit more physically adept than the other. The Hammer did not look all that heavy (but then I could be wrong)- its a matter of swinging it in one go.


Wow is all I can say.. that's the second.. no.. third time that Phil has had to go out to the players to eliminate them. Wasn't expecting that outcome at all.. Was very sure that Brian and Ericka would be gone.

Loved the Globe Trotters dancing. .they are such gracious sports with that lol. Brian and Ericka kicked but but the bells and the forgetting the bikes really really hurt them.

Kind of knew the poker girls would be gone once they started bald snarking... I started to lose count after a while.


Also.. 6 teams left and they're still helping each other? I would NOT have helped the team that consistently comes in 1st! Good grief!!

While I wholeheartedly agree that the strongman thing was unfair, I can only fault Tiffany for bringing such an utterly useless partner along for the ride.
And it really looked they they could have done the golf with a little practice. But honestly, triple baldsnarking is just dumb.

I can't believe they're going back to the haystacks - my least favorite TAR moment ever, as the site of the demise of a truly awesome female team.

While the ringing of the bell seems geared towards teams with better upper arm strength, I'm not willing to scream UNFAIR! at TAR producers.

Is it possible to give up on a Detour (but not the entire race) and take a penalty? I know you can do it on roadblocks, but I'm not sure about Detours.

Incidentally, what season was the hay rolling challenge from again?

That was a weird way to go out. Unfortunate, as I am ready for Brian and Erica to get off my screen. I thought it humorous the globetrotters pointed out that "We certainly know one name on this race. BRIAN!!"

The globetrotters were really great tonight. I'm probably rooting for them at this point, but honestly all 3 of the guy teams I'm finding very likable (and honestly thats quite a feat, because I usually dread finishes where there's all guy teams left).

The cameramen in this show are flat out....wait for it....amazing. The shot he got of the girls hugging: showing Maria's face, slowly going around them, and then Tiffany's face, was absolutely perfect and gave me chills. Amazing Cameramen indeed!

This was one of the better episodes of recent memory. Good location, ok tasks, fun to watch. The only things I didnt care for were the frequent shots of cows (with post-production adding in Moo's for non-hilarity), and the obviously edited in 'BRIAN!!!' right after the globetrotters had mentioned that little nagging trait she has. Super-obvious and fake editing I do not find funny.

The scene of the brothers coming out was really good: reminded me of Millie and Chuck coming out of the Virgin closet back in s4. It's nice to have "real" moments mixed in with the race as well.

Really good episode tonight!

I was really impressed with how supportive Maria and Tiffany were to each other. I hated to see them go, but I have to admit they haven't been very strong players.

Brian's understanding and patience with Ericka tonight was just what I needed to see after the ugliness that was Mika and Canaan. I did think it was hilarious when FT and BE said, "If there's one racer whose name we know, it's Brian. 'BRIIIIIIAN!'"

Gary and Matt remain favorites, but I really love every team that's left, so every elimination is going to suck from now on, unless a team completely goes dysfunctional on me.

You know what would've made a WORLD of difference in that Detour, and would've balanced everything out?

If BOTH team members had to ring the bell.

I understand they figured the dance was way too easy, compared to the gold. But the solution, as somebody above posted, was bullshit.

An interesting leg, if not a great one.

It's interesting to contrast the physical nature of the detour with the more intellectual nature of the last detour in Dubai. I suspect that Maria & Tiffany could have prevailed at one of them, but they're not things that can be thought through in the traditional sense. One needs a little physical skill and coordination to learn either task or some coaching. They were approaching the bell ringing with their upper bodies mostly, and weren't getting big wide swings. So much for Sam & Dan's big plan.

Nice to see the teams with some down time, and it was interesting to see Sam & Dan come out to the other teams. Good on Flight Time for powering through eating the raw fish. Also good to see Brian & Ericka persevere through the bell counting. 62 seems like a familiar number though - is that 5 octaves? They got really lucky with the bikes.

On the other hand, they weren't the most coordinated nor strongest women we've seen on this race.

Wow.. that was something! The Poker chippies are gone, due to quitting or a Philimination, I am not sure. The strength thing looked hard and Tiffany almost had it but Maria, woah, not even a little bit.

I'm loving "BRIAN!!" and Erika, they recognize their faults but they pull through. The globetrotters rock, as well as the Pinky and the Brain. Actually, I am pulling for all the teams. :)

The bell challenge was all about leverage. You'd think after 70 tries, they would have tried something different.

In any event, I think the poker girls should have been penalized for not doing the bell challenge themselves. Maria didn't count a single bell, did she?

Only one person had to ring the bell, and that person was a man in every case.

Only one person had to ring the bell, and they showed Brian doing it. Also, Meghan still had Cheyne on her team. The point is that each task disadvantaged teams that were composed of two females.

No. It's happened several times, actually, one of which will be referenced next week.


Abandoning the dance challenge much, MUCH sooner would have been a good start. The "Farm Golf" challenge looked to me more like croquet on steroids, and less like any version of golf I've ever played.

Yes and no. I think the problem was two fold. One is Maria sucks so completely that Tiffany was essentially forced to to do the golf by herself. it's also possible that when they tested this detour the weather was not a factor as it is now

As for the hammer.. is it possible none of the girls would be able to do it? I don't think so.. there is a trick to those things mostly hold both hands above your head and let the handle rest against your back, and use the mallet's momentum to give it all the power it needs.

I don't think it was intentional, but I wonder if they had done the golf first they might have had a better shot because they were tired by the time they got there.

Megan worked with one of the brothers, not Cheyne.

Those tasks were really poorly setup. The golf was supposed to be the "physical" challenge, but by putting the bell ringing, they guaranteed that the dancing would be physical as well and ensuring that it was unlikely that two women would be able to complete either task unless one was particularly strong. That detour would have eliminated most all-women teams. Now I have to put up with another episode of Ericka.

The one referenced next week didn't quit, they were Philiminated at the task as a mercy elim, but others have done it. The Pizza Brothers did it during a find task.

I understand it was bad race design in that the detours were stacked against the all woman team, but more so I think they might have gotten it if Maria wasn't useless. Tiffany really did get close to ringing the bell quite a few times and with a different partner, I do think she could have gotten it. Tiffany in part exhausted her strength because she was also trying to compensate for her partner's weaknesses.

This is a reminder that all you have to do is avoid last place. Brian|Ericka win the dubious honor of less disastrous leg. I think they should have been forced to go back and bike the route rather than just get a time penalty, but it wouldn't make a difference anyway. There's no excuse for Maria and Tiffany's Double Bald Snark. Once they saw both Detour Option, they should stick with one. It was a mistake to go back to Dancing. Hitting the bell seemed like a straightforward thing. Either you have the arm strength to do it or you don't. It's not like they suddenly get it the 30th time unless they were right on the verge. They'd just get more tired. Even though the goal is difficult, there's always a chance of getting some lucky shots. I think Ericka got lucky on the bells. She counted 15 below (where most teams counted 13), so I think she had offsetting errors. Sad to see teams go through the grinder so much. But I was sick of the deadweight on those two teams (Maria and Ericka).

I wonder if they were permitted to take flashlights to count the bells. That's what I would have done.

At first, I though Brian|Ericka were too far back since the other teams arrived at the rural town before they had even left. Then, I remembered it's the Netherlands, so locations probably aren't far apart.

It's ironic that Matt's only trip out of the country was a fishing trip, but he hates eating fish so much they had to leave the Dance task. I don't like bony fish (shellfish, etc. are okay with me), but I'd have no hesitation to chow down for Race purposes. For me, it would help that they had onions to offset the fishy taste.

Ehhhh, I don't really see the detour as completely unfair. Did you see how close Tiffany came to the top on that stupid hammer thing? It was physically possible for her to do it, she just wasn't hitting it in the right place at the right time. Challenging, but not impossible, like everything on the race.

The other detour was possible, if it wasn't for the damn wind.

Anyways, that was a really, really crappy way to go.

As always, I love Gary & Matt above all. I love their positive attitude without all of the annoying showboating, a la Globetrotters.

No.. there was one other team that quit that I remember.. Marshall and Lance quit.

I don't fault Tiffany and Maria for quitting, though I'm guessing this leg was supposed to be a non-elimination leg (otherwise, wouldn't Phil have come and eliminated them?). So couldn't they have just taken the time penalty for not completing the task and stayed in the race?

But yeah, at that point they were never going to complete either task. Maybe if they had stuck with the golf at the beginning they could have made it.

To be fair, that referenced incident had the team in question take too long at the hay baling, and Phil came out there (so production called time and ended the task). Maria and Tiffany gave up, and told production who sent Phil out there.

Agree that the Poker Chips should have stuck with the golf the first time. They would have been fresher (of course), and I think they would have grasped that long shots were not all that necessary -- just accurate ones. If it were strength and/or athletic skill needed to prevail in the golf, then I think Meghan would have been much better than she was. Dad/son combo just perservered with relatively short shots but kept the shots towards the center of the "course."

Brian was amazingly supportive. And yep, Flight's imitation of Erika followed by the shot of her in the cab was great.

Wow. I didn't expect this finish for this team. It's been a long time since a team basically gave up but I think they knew they blew too much time on the Detour and called it a day.

I have to say that I like that the teams are really getting along and brings back a bit of the old "Eating, Sleeping and Mingling" moments of seasons past. Casting did an admirable job of getting a group that do play off each really well.

Speaking of bringing back history.....Lena and Kristy, we dedicate next week's show to you.

I also object to the design of this leg. I thought TAR had given up on the late-arriving upper body strength tests that have always served out to knock out the all femaie teams. I'm a fan of the race, but I really, really tired of seeing this.

It would also kill the older competitors, but they don't usually last this long. What ever happened to a little balance in the competition? After the first couple of seasons, it's been mostly brawn, not much brain.

That said, I'm also really disappointed in field of female competitors this year. Yeesh.

Cheyne didn't do the Roadblock. Megan and whichever brother it was who did it partnered up just for that one Roadblock, since they were the two front teams and wanted to stay in front.

Ericka's meltdown wasn't surprising -- but at least she persevered until she got the bells right. And Brian definitely showed how to be a good partner. Also a husband who wanted to stay married -- if he hadn't been supportive, she would kick him to the curb, I suspect! They're not much longer for the race, though, in any case; she's got a serious attack of killer fatigue at this point.

Loved everyone's faces eating that herring. Hee! And the GTs, as usual, were the highlight of the show -- they do everything with such energy and gusto! It's so fun watching them.

Matt and his dad are turning into a fabulous team -- they've been so quiet till now, but they just calmly kick ass no matter what they do. Go Pinky & the Brain and GTs!

I was a bit sorry to see the poker girls go, but really, there wasn't any way they would go much farther -- if they don't have the strength to play golf with giant, easy-to-hit balls, how would they survive the physical tasks that are sure to crop up in the latter part of the race? They stayed good friends to the end, though, which I appreciated.

And next week -- HAYBALES! Oh my heaven! We were just talking about poor Lena and the haybales not three minutes before that popped up. I really hope we don't end up with the same result, that was just horrific the first time around.

I thought the episode was fabulous - my show is back! And HAY BALES! Phil must have been just dying inside having to go out to the field to eliminate the girls, knowing what task was coming up next. And the editors had to have been salivating over all that last place switching tension. I'm surprised they gave up, but who knows how long they had been going at it? If it was summer that it was filmed, in the Netherlands, daylight is a long, long time.

I don't think it was a bad race design. If they were really looking to screw all-female teams over, they would have designed much more physically demanding tasks than golf or dancing.

I'm sure they tested the bell ringing thing with some women before the race started.

Did anyone notice that when Phil mentioned something about "age-old forms of farmer's recreation", they switched to a shot of sheep?

Apparently the Amazing Editors are also 12 years old. :)

I almost think it would've been more advantageous for the Poker girls to just haul ass through the dance, eat the halibut, go to the pitstop, and incur the penalty.

I loved Flight Time after eating the fish: "I don't wanna talk about, get the camera outta my face....BUT DID YOU SEE ME DANCE, THOUGH?!" Bwah! I love them.

Gary and Matt are really growing on me, too. I think it's between them and the GTs for me. Brian and Ericka, Sam and Dan, and Cheyne and whats-her-face are all starting to grate.

The weather was always a problem. Look back at when the brothers arrived. However, they were stronger and could cut through the wind.



But only one person had to ring the bell, so Maria being weaker wouldn't really make a difference.