TAR: 3/20 Don't Ruin the Basketball Game

[Fridge_Break]

Don't worry, we'll have a new thread next week.

[shan]

high ratings!!!

[BaileyCatts]

Last night 3 hours after AR ended I was watching HGTV's "House Hunters" & who should be house hunting? Mama Marion Paolo who was helping younger son, Brian, look for a condo in St. Louis for him to buy. He is now 21, college graduate & a very good looking young man. Towards the end of the show Dad Tony appeared but no older bro. DJ. (Family AR #8)

Seriously?! I KNEW I recognized that woman from somewhere but figured how could I possibly know some random woman from NY?

[Beefcake]

I was on TAR18's Wiki page yesterday, and noted a statistical schadenfreude for we fans of Tina & her old man, or any number of snubbed teams from Seasons 13 (completely snubbed), 15, 16, and 17 ...

... all three eliminated teams were from TAR14.

Three of five Season 14ers down. Margie & Luke, next, please!

[Flatfoote]

Finally got to watch this episode.

Glad to see the redheads gone.

I loved Vyxsin's shout out of "Number Five is alive," when they were checked in as the 5th team. I'm assuming that was a shout out to the movie Short Circuit. Although I see from their bio that she was about 4 or 5 years old when the movie first came out.

[Bev Johnston]

They are pretty awesome; they were last time, too, bathroom break and all. Very calm and methodical.

One of my favorite moments from season 14 was when Jen was running in Russia in her underwear and saying, "Look at me running in my underwear. Don't I look good in my underwear?" She did, too.

[Catherine M]

Lots of post race interviews out there with Jaime & Cara. They seem very "upset" about the fact that Kent & Vxysin were only given a 30 minute penalty for missing that mandatory flight in Japan. they thought it should have been 24 hours and claim that all the other teams had the same feeling.

They also mentioned that everyone took hours to do the dinosaur puzzle except for Jet who whipped through it really, really fast. So kudos to him for doing well.


http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/e...race-12094.php

[Skittl1321]

Sounds like the key to the dinosaur puzzle was to look at the guide frequently!

I wonder why no other racer decided to do that...

[Garden Kitty]

Just watched the episode last night and that dinosaur challenge was a killer. Physically demanding and mentally challenging. I especially felt bad for some of the smaller women who were trying to put those pieces in (and take them out again).

[Fridge_Break]

Did anyone notice Christina beating her pieces together with her fanny pack?

[Beefcake]

Lots of post race interviews out there with Jaime & Cara. They seem very "upset" about the fact that Kent & Vxysin were only given a 30 minute penalty for missing that mandatory flight in Japan. they thought it should have been 24 hours and claim that all the other teams had the same feeling.
http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/e...race-12094.php

Gotta agree (partially) with the Reds & whoever else on this. 24 hours is severe, but ... something more significant was warranted. Between the extended leg (*really a NEL, since the winners got a prize and all), the next day's TOTAL bunching. and this tiny penalty, K&V suffered nothing for a legendary awful leg that ended with a - what - 7+ hour deficit.

TAR seems quite uneven in penalty application from season to season. In this case, the producers likely determined that K&V's situation was completely out-of-scope (1. TAR had no contingency for a team arriving hours late for that "required" flight; and 2. K&V didn't actually make a decision to take a different flight - they had to since said flight was loooong gone) ... so a (maybe too-) minor penalty was applied.

[Spareoom]

I think that the decision to give them a minor penalty was based on the reason for missing the flight was bad luck and mistakes, not intentional. I'm sure that if their car really had broken down they would have been loath to give them such a harsh penalty for something out of their control. All in all, I think the situation was a bit unprecedented...perhaps in later seasons we'll see more provision or rules given to those kind of situations. I'll bet it left the producers in a bit of a quandary...there was no way that ANYONE could feasibly miss that flight, but K/V managed to. It's a bit of a no-brainer, but then again K/V weren't exactly Einstein on that leg.

[BaileyCatts]

I think the 30 minute penalty was fine. That's the same penalty you get for doing any task wrong, isn't it? They sort of already got a several hours ++ penalty just by virture of how much later they actually left the airport than the others. Hadn't everyone else already landed before K&V even took off?

[Allskate]

I think the 30 minute penalty was fine. That's the same penalty you get for doing any task wrong, isn't it? They sort of already got a several hours ++ penalty just by virture of how much later they actually left the airport than the others. Hadn't everyone else already landed before K&V even took off?

That's how I saw it, too. There have been times when I've thought penalties were too lenient, but this wasn't one of them.

[The Village Idiot]

I was actually surprised that they were assessed a penalty (but understood and was fine with it). The required flight is due to difficulty in obtaining flights out of the area or into the next area. Here, they made it even more difficult for themselves to get to the next destination so I didn't really see a need to assess a penalty for making the race more difficult for themselves. But I guess required means required (I was surprised that Justin took it there so literally...but I guess they were in trouble at that point). I wonder if they'll change that language in the future or continue w/ a 30 minute penalty for taking a later flight.

[Spareoom]

Sometimes, though, isn't the required flight given in order to purposefully even out the playing field a bit or prevent a few teams from gaining a HUGE advantage? Let's say you let them go to the airport and pick out their own flight, and one team manages to find a tiny, obscure flight that will give them a 24 hour lead. That's bad TV, right there. So to hedge their bets and make it simpler, they make the bunching points by creating required flights.

Of course, when you look at it that way, a 30 minute penalty would be paltry when one would consider a several hour lead. Still, it might be enough to keep teams from exploring other options.