More Amazing Race

Season 17 just ended. At the beginning of the season my husband and I thought all the young coupled teams were weak. There seemed to be drama and a total lack of partnership from the very beginning. We both thought this would be the season when a female team won. We were expecting the doctors (who would make a great couple) and the volleyball players to do well and had high hopes for the gay best friends who all seemed very fit. Of course the volleyball players were super cocky and went out early and the gay best friends went out the first episode. But the doctor's did win! They frustrated us by winning a leg and then almost losing the next leg but we loved them as a team and felt like they really cared about each other. And it was nice to see someone with diabetes living such an active life without them hitting you over the head with the diabetes story. We totally fell for the father daughter team of Gary and Mallory and the HSN hosts Brooke and Claire. They were much stronger than we expected and we'd love to see them on an all-star season.

Season 16 had our favorite team of all time: The Cowboys. They were great competitors. They had great personalities and didn't fall into any of the childish games that the other teams played. We also liked the cops, Louie and Michael, and loved to hate the lesbians Carol and Brandy. There is nothing more frustrating than the "alternative team" making a bad name for other people who live an alternative lifestyle. We were surprised by how well Brent and Caite did despite their stereotypical dumb model moments. It was painful to see Joe and Heidi kicked out early with a U-turn but he was an ass so I guess it was karma. They could definitely win if given another chance. We couldn't stand Dan and Jordan, the brothers and eventual winners. Why do so man 20-somethings act like they're still in high school?

Season 2 had our second favorite team of all time: The Miami Diva Gays aka Danny and Oswald. They had the best attitudes. They were hilarious. They kept their sense of humor, they maintained a great friendship and when time allowed they went shopping and got spa treatments along the race. I would love to hang out with them. We had high hopes for Shola and Doyin, the twins, and were hoping they would last longer. Cyndi and Russell, the married pastors, were a team we wanted to hate but they did have a great attitude and a really sweet marriage. It's always nice to see older people that can compete. The former roommates (Gary and Dave) and the separate couple (Tara and Wil) were annoying. We went in and out of liking the uber fit brother and sister team (Blake and Paige). The grandmothers were inspiring but we didn't have any hope for them. We were happy when Chris and Alex, the best friends won, but only because we liked them more than the other teams in the final three.

Season 3 is the last season that we watched before season 17. This season featured the most annoying competitor and worst winner ever. Based on this season all of the rules for future seasons should be set. One team member should not be allowed to complete most of the tasks. Zach and Flo won the race. Flo complete 1 road block. Zach did the other 9. Flo constantly quit the race and Zach often had to physically carry her because she was too lazy to try. I hope he took his half of the money and never spoke to her again. Terri and Ian, the older married couple, started as another couple with a bossy husband and submissive wife but during the season he seemed to realize how important she was and she started to assert herself more. We found ourselves rooting for them more and more as the race wore on and were happy to see them finish second. We liked the brothers, Ken and Gerard, from the beginning but feel like they would have gone further if they didn't get caught up in all the alliance drama. We were hoping than Team 911, Andre and Damon would do better. We also rooted for John Vito and Jill but they often got caught up in the high school b.s. with the other teams jealousy towards the wonder twins, Derek and Drew.

So we've watched 9 seasons of the Amazing Race in 14 months. Eight more past seasons to catch up on and an All-Star Season coming in February. It seems like in recent seasons CBS has skimped on the production of the show. There haven't been 2 hour specials. There haven't been fake pit stops that were actually just the half way point in the race. They have the footage and they definitely have the money. Why not give us a better show like you did in the earlier seasons? They need to stick with making sure each teammate does an equal number of roadblocks and stop equalizing the field at the beginning of every leg. There should be multiple flights. There shouldn't be one team sitting around for 12 hours before a place opens to let all the other teams catch up. I know they have to do it sometimes but if they do it every time it gets annoying.

My Amazing Race Obsession

My husband and I just started watching The Amazing Race (TAR) in October 2009. We were relaxing in a hotel room after spending the weekend visiting family and flipping through the channels. There was about a month of season 15 left and we were instantly hooked. We spent the next week catching up on all the old episodes from that season. When the season ended we suffered from TAR withdrawal and sought out every other season.

Over the past year we have watched a lot of TAR. With the season 17 finale coming up tonight and an all-star season coming up next year, we started going through all the seasons we had seen and listing our favorites. I figured if I'm going to go through the effort of looking through the old seasons I might as well blog about it.

During season 15 we fell in love with the Globetrotters team and wanted them to win. We also rooted for the interracial couple, Ericka and Brian, even though we found her pageant queen personality annoying and him too passive. Meghan and Cheyenne, aka the Blondes, were so perfect it was annoying. They were beautiful. They were great racers. Even when they made bad decisions, they had luck on their side. It was enough to make you vomit. So of course they won. We were sad that Zev and Justin lost their passports and got kicked out early. It would have been interesting to see how Zev's Asperger's affected them throughout the race. We were also pulling for Matt and Gary. There is something very engaging about a father and son team who clearly have very little in common and are getting to know each other during the race. We absolutely hated Sam and Dan, the twins. They were sneaky, backstabbing jerks and whining babies. We didn't like Maria and Tiffany, the poker stars who couldn't finish a mission without help from other teams, and Lance and Kerri, the worst husband ever and a completely miserable couple. It will be interesting to see who they pick for an all-star season. Fan fave, almost winners or most hated?

The next season we watched was Season 1. From the very beginning we liked Joe and Bill (life partners) and Kevin and Drew (fraternity brothers). It only took a couple legs to realize that Joe and Bill were overconfident jerks. We couldn't believe that Margarita and Frank had ever been married since he was such an a-hole. This was one of the best finale's ever because Frank was so sure they had won the race. He bragged endlessly about how well he knew New York and re-directed the cabbie onto what he thought was a shorter route. It was great seeing the shock on their faces when they realized they were second. It was also great to see the life partners told when they still had a day of racing left that someone had won the race. Nancy and Emily were a surprisingly strong team of granddaughter and grandmother that we found ourselves rooting for. We were happy when the lawyers, Rob and Brennan, won but we weren't really emotionally invested in them.

It was at this point that we realized that CBS had only released 2 of the 15 seasons on DVD (Seasons 1 and 7). You couldn't buy any of these other seasons or get them off Netflix. Fans of TAR have written hundreds of letters to CBS requesting that they release the previous seasons but CBS has not budged. It is not clear why they wouldn't release all of the seasons when they could make millions of dollars. Luckily a lot of the more recent seasons can be found on You Tube and other similar sites and some industrious folks have made money selling DVDs of older seasons that they saved. Thanks to technology and pack rats, my husband and I will have no problem catching up on the rest of the seasons.

Next up was season 7. We loved Lynn and Alex, the gay team, and Meredith and Gretchen, the old couple. Both teams were often frustrating but definitely made it entertaining to watch by both reinforcing and breaking stereotypes that people had about homosexuals and older people. The best moment was when Gretchen busted her head open during the cave challenge and proceeded to spend the rest of the leg with a giant bandage on her head. Rob and Amber were the team that you loved to hate. We have never watched Survivor but it seems like winning a million dollars on one CBS show should take you out of the running for competing for a million on another CBS show. Kelly was another annoying beauty queen and her boyfriend Ron realized she was wrong for him half way through the race. Patrick was a whiny child who frequently brought his mom Susan down. Ray another jerk who treated his wife Deana like everything was her fault. We wished that Ryan and Chuck, the hillbillies, made it further along. We were so excited when Uchenna and Joyce won. It was the first time that our favorite team, and a team we were rooting for the whole time, won the race. They were a great couple with a great story (failed fertility treatments and a desperate desire to have children). She had to shave her head in India and they had to beg for money at the end to finish first. It was an epic season.

In general we think CBS has a fantastic show. We hate the seasons when they don't make each team member complete an equal number of road blocks. There is nothing more annoying than watching a team excel because one person is doing all the work (the worst offense of this came in a future season). We also don't like it when they take away all of a team's money and belongings and make them beg for money to keep continuing the race. Watching Gretchen and Meredith go through that was painful. That sort of humiliation should never be part of the race.

Season 14 was next. Mark and Michael, the short stuntmen, were a great counterpart to Jen and Kisha, the tall college athletes. The brother-sister dynamic was a great part of this season. Tammy and Victor, the brother-sister Asian team, were the most engaging of the three sibling teams. Their relationship grew the most during the trip and you were happy to see them win in the end. Margie and Luke were the most annoying team yet. The fact that he was deaf didn't have to be the focus of this team but it was because he was such a petulant child and she was his enabler. If anyone criticized him or called him out on his bratty behavior they were being prejudiced against deaf people. It was ridiculous. Mel and Mike were a great father and son team who didn't really seem to have a chance but were great to root for. Linda and Steve were an interesting couple because she was so out of shape and he was not supportive. It would be nice to see them come back and compete after some time with a personal trainer and a shrink.

Season 13 was next (I know, it's disturbing that we've watched this much in a year). We knew the hippies, Arthur and Anita weren't going to make it very far. We were amazed by how negative Dan was towards his teammate Andrew and how out of shape these young college kids were. Terrence was a creepy guy who constantly needed to be validated by his girlfriend Sarah. We hope she broke it off and got a restrianing order against him after the show. Tina, the mean wife for a change, to her too forgiving husband Ken (we know, he cheated on her once but if you're going to make him pay for it every day of your relationship then just end it). Nick and Starr, very fit, sometimes fun, sometimes annoying brother and sister, won it all in the end. Toni and Dallas, a little too close mom and son, did better than we expected and Mark and Bill, the Mythbusters look-a-likes and nerdy team, didn't do as well as we hoped.

Okay, taking a break now. Will finish up another day.