TV: Amazing Race 10 - Episode 6

Congratulations to the Miners for leaping from over 5 hours behind in last place to first with an assist from the Chos and a Fast Forward where Mary improved to 4 out of 6 in the unofficial episode naming contest. Maybe someone needs to inform her that Steven Seagal has starred in only one or two slightly successful movies in the last 10 years. Audiences cheering as his character fell to his death from a plane an early scene of 1996's Executive Decision indicated his career was headed in a similar direction.

The Miners won a trip to Negril, Jamaica. I visited the island (coincidentally around 1996) to attend a wedding, and had a great time. I remember parasailing over the long beach of Negril. The almost perfect scenery from up there was besmudged by what I initially thought was a hairy ugly albino manatee. Then I became horrified when a second glance revealed it was actually a fat old man who was completely nude with white fur all over his body except for the top of his head. Then, a rather attractive much younger woman with much less covering her waded into the picture to ... "greet" him. After I landed my parachute on a rather small platform in the water, I made sure to stay on the more modest section of the beach.

The episode scared me at first as a throwback to Treasure Hunters. The racers received their first clue via a cell phone (shameless product placement), and it was not that difficult. Basically, all they had to do was ask someone if they recognized some towers in Kuwait, only to find out they were called The Kuwait Towers. Then one member of each team had to climb up the outside of a tower to retrieve a satchel that contained some puzzle pieces that had to be combined with other puzzle pieces found in a "treasure chest" back on the ground. The feelings of deja vu continued as Erwin channeled the spirit of Sam from The Geniuses team who also a fear of heights. I guess someone behind the show wanted to prove they could do this better than the upstart competition.

Navigation once again determined the outcome of this race. The teams arrived in Kuwait at the same time. The Queens thought they had good directions to the Towers and left the airport first but still managed to get lost and lose a few spots. The Chos redeemed some karma points by getting a police escort to one clue and moving up a couple of spots out of last place. The ex-junkies / male models showed intelligence in being the first to complete a tricky puzzle. Then they avoided getting "Lost in Translation" by thinking of carrying the clue to a local to tell the name of a street writing in Arabic. However, they still got lost looking for the next clues and avoided elimination only because one other team was more lost than they were.

As the Coal Miners moved from last to first, the Triathletes fell from first to last and were eliminated from the race. I was more gratified by that result as Peter has been coming across as a loser. Perhaps it was due to editing, but the other teams did not trust him either. The Triathlets also lost points by trying to use Sarah's condition to cajole travel agents into finding a faster flight. Peter also seemed content to lie back and root for Sarah on the tougher Road Blocks. Those challenges and world travel experience helped Sarah grow up and realize that she deserves a real partner; not just some guy who supplies prosthetics (I had predicted this as early as week 1). The inability to navigate the streets of Kuwait City ended their $1,000,000 hopes. They must have gotten as lost as any people could get in an area the size of
Kuwait.

Other random notes:
The pit stop didn't seem to be the normal 12 hours as teams appeared to finish during the daytime the episode before but did not leave until the next afternoon. Either that or I'm losing my memory.


The view from the Kuwait Towers did look neat.

I am a little bit pyromaniac and a little bit pyrophobic, so the fast forward of grabbing a clue next to a simulated oil well fire would have been made for an interesting thought process.

The camel racing by remote jockey looked pretty fun. I am surprised more teams did not go for that Detour unless it was much harder to find or sounded like a trick. Camels could be stubborn and the one at the race track was snarling and baring his teeth, but overall, it appeared to be an easier Detour to complete than packing and hauling camel chow.

I've been noticing the T-shirts a little more this season. The Miners wore T-shirts that displayed a miner with the caption "Friends in Low Places". The Queens had shirts representing their home states, but I wonder how many people were trying to figure out what "CANY" meant or otherwise pretending to read those T-shirts very slowly. The Chos wore their Lost Phil shirts again, but also had one that said "Let's Hug It Out" which reminded me of a recent (and yet another hilarious) episode of The Office, where Michael was paying props to Entourage.