TV: Amazing Race 10 - Episode 1

This edition has started with much promise. The producers did a good job of bringing people from all around the country from different walks of life, but the teams were not radically different in makeup vs. past seasons. I found it amusing that all of the teams looked more like sibling than what they really were (except for the team that is actually brothers). Fortunately, so much about the couples were packed into a short time, that I quickly found redeeming qualities to like about most of the players. This is the first time I felt bad about seeing two of the teams go so early (oddly enough, it was the two teams that were most different from previous teams) vs. shrugging about the loss of a team that was just another anonymous face in the crowd. The shocked and saddened reaction from all remaining teams to the quick and surprising first elimination looked genuine and added to the emotional scene.

[I think it may have been more fun if they let the last team get a head start to the next clue, just to mess with the contestants minds. I figured the odds of an early elimination were high when the race started with 12 teams instead of the usual 11.]

I missed the first episode of Treasure Hunters, so I don't know how that contest began, but one initial area where the Amazing Race felt clearly superior to me was in how they edited the reading of the opening clue. Each team read a portion of it, as they got in their cars and raced off to SeaTac airport. That established the sense of urgency from the start vs. fully repeating the clue several times as if the producers thought we needed to have the clue drilled into our heads in order to play along. I suppose one advantage of doing this the 10th time vs. the first is that you get a chance to truly refine these little details that many viewers may subconsciously appreciate.

I've visited Seattle many times over the years (most recently, a month ago to take a cruise to Alaska), but I didn't recognize the hill where the race began. I had to guess it was north of downtown and west of I5. Thanks to Google Earth, I'm now positive it was the Sundial at Gas Works Park. I'll have to check it out on my next trip.

The home team from San Francisco (with one Cal grad) that I feel obligated to root for thankfully did not copy the BJ & Tyler Hippie look. They have more of a Silicon Valley vibe instead. Both have graduate degrees, but I have to wonder what they were thinking by pulling out squirt guns at the airport. They had another brain freeze at a challenge when they grabbed another team's bricks. While they looked like they have good upper body strength, they may not be built for endurance as they were beaten up the Great Wall of China by a pair of college cheerleaders. They will have to bear down quite a bit to win this thing.

I first and last visited Beijing in 1994, and it was an eye-opening experience. I expected to see everyone on bicycles wearing green uniforms. Instead I saw lots of people in designer outfits or sports apparel while several fancy European sports cars wove around the herds of bicyclers. New construction was going on everywhere. I imagine the city is even more bustling and cosmopolitan now. The Forbidden City was closed by the time I reached it, but I walked around Tiananmen Square just south of the Meridian Gate. I was awestruck at how large the square was and how it had just been a few years since students protested there. On one corner was a huge McDonald's but I opted for Peking Duck at an even bigger nearby restaurant (Quan Ju De?) where it people were arriving by the busload. The duck was delicious even given the large crowds being served.

Unfortunately, for one member of each team, the meal would be fish eyes instead of duck. I don't have a true HDTV (and the Amazing Race is not in HD either), but I suspect I would not have noticed the long thin strands of goo hanging off the eyeballs as they were swallowed on the analog broadcast. That sight made me shiver.

The coalminer wife handled the delicacy pretty well even though she acted as if she had never used a pair of chopsticks before. Later she had the quote that the episode was named after as she told a taxi driver, "Real fast! Quack! Quack!" I think I will root for them.

I opinion of the Triathletes bounced down and up. They showed no hesitation to use the Mirna and Shmirna sympathy card. But I imagine it's hard enough to climb a rope with two legs vs. one artificial one with a leaky hydraulic system. I wonder if it is more of a hassle for Sarah today to get around airports with a fluid ban enforced.

The biggest factors this week were navigation and noticing the brick pattern correctly.

I think I ended up visiting the same part of the Great Wall, which is still some distance from Beijing. Someday I might have to post the panoramic pictures I took there (assuming I can ever get around to finding and scanning them).