[Televisionary]

Wow. Two hours of The Amazing Race ? Way too much drama for me on a Sunday night, though I do have to say that I would have been peevishly outraged had they broken the episode into two parts, given the fact that--a first in Race history--teams were beginning a new leg of the Race before the trailing teams had finished the last one. Way to go, Dustin and Kandice! It really was two hours of twists and turns and uncomfortable alliances but I'll limit my comments to just a few salient points. After all, I don't want to be droning on endlessly like Mirna or something. The Best Laid Travel Plans. Is it just me or has this season of TAR featured the most excruciating travel sequences ever? Some teams, like the Guidos or Eric and Danielle (ha!) have faced setbacks time and time again. Last night was no exception as two teams (forced to "work" together) missed their connecting flight by mere seconds and watched in horror as they moved the stairs away from the plane, leading

It's official: Charla and Mirna have completely worn out their welcome in reality TV. Last night's episode of The Amazing Race reinforced those feelings for me as, through a fluke of luck most likely unforeseen by the producers and travel specialists of TAR , Charla and Mirna not only managed to keep their first place lead over the other teams but seemed for a little while to be nearly a full day ahead of their competition. As it were, thanks to some weather problems, Charla and Mirna (sorry, but I refuse to call them "Too Hot to Handle") were unable to board their traditional African dhow to Zanzibar until the following morning (wahoo!), leaving time for Danny and Oswald to catch up to them. I'm still not entirely sure what the hell happened last night regarding the ongoing travel snafus as teams attempted to leave Maputo. Sure, there have been times in the past when securing airline tickets has been problematic at best, but last night took that to a whole new l

I don't know about you, but I am still bummed about Rob and Amber not being in the race anymore. Considering I was rooting against them the first few episodes, that's certainly saying a lot. But for the other teams, most of them weren't competing against one another but against Romber, the end-all and be-all competitors on The Amazing Race . And with them gone, I can't help but feel as though some of the teams had the wind taken out of their sails a little bit. I'm still hoping Danny and Oswald will win this thing, even if their calm exteriors belied a little bit of friction last night when they were doing the avalanche beacon task... and somehow finished last. But you have to give these guys some credit: they never let adversity get the better of them in the long run, and they quickly bounced back from the squabbling to their normal, buoyant selves. They genuinely seem to have fun 99 percent of the time and, despite all the craziness of the race, still find time to

Oh. My. God. I am in shock. Serious, serious shock. And I never thought I'd be capable of uttering the words, but I'm sort of heartbroken about Rob and Amber getting eliminated. Yes, sometimes even I can surprise myself. It seems that the team I was previous rooting to lose (for the last several years, it seems) finally won me over... just in time for them to get booted from The Amazing Race in a shocking twist, all because Rob couldn't spell Philippines. That's right. It didn't come down to a foot race or airline tickets or unclear directions. What it came down to in the end was that one single mistake during the Detour in which Rob correctly realized that Magellan's travels began in Seville (come on people, common sense says it couldn't have been Guam) but couldn't manage to suss out that he had incorrectly spelled the Philippines. (He even hoped that the reason the judge wouldn't give them the clue wasn't because of a spelling error. Hint: it

Was it just me or was last night's Amazing Race one of the funniest TAR episodes in a long time? I never thought I'd say this but Rob and Amber are actually not driving me crazy this time around. They're playing smart and not paying attention to the other teams, which I think is definitely key to a long-term victory in this race. Plus, while they're being aggressive and wily, Rob isn't playing as dirty as he normally does. Finding a travel agent in the middle of the night rather than just camping at the airport was a smart move and it paid off for Rob and Amber, who managed to get on an earlier flight than most of the other teams. Good going, guys. While Team Romber might not be driving me mad, several other teams are, including Eric and Danielle, Teri and Ian, the Guidos, and Charla and Mirna. When you're hoping that nearly half of the remaining teams take a powder, it doesn't really give you many choices in who to root for (Team Cha Cha Cha, the Beauty Q

It's funny how the smallest thing--a slow cab driver, a missed connection, a delayed flight--can radically alter the outcome of the game. And sometimes, on The Amazing Race , those things don't mean a lick of difference whatsoever. Just take a look at Rob and Amber and Danny and Oswald on last night's episode of The Amazing Race . Even with a delayed flight that put the two leading teams all the way behind every single other team on the Race, they still managed to finish first and second, respectively. And there were no equalizers. So just how did they do it? Pluck, determination, and grit, I guess. It also helped that they seem to be a hell of a lot more detail-oriented than the other teams. Racers left Cotopaxi National Park (well, most of them did: Mirna and Charla had to be towed by David and Mary) and made their way to Santiago, Chile. Rob and Amber and Danny and Oswald managed to get earlier flights but, thanks to delays, they ended up landing in Santiago after everyo

Hopefully you all enjoyed, like yours truly, a spectacular three-day weekend that was filled more with Rome , Extras , and the season premiere of The Amazing Race: All Stars than with thoughts of Britney Spears shaving her head. (Though to be honest, as sick as I am of Britney and her one-day-rehab-shaving-off-locks ways, I do think I am slightly more fed up with Rob Mariano, but that's just me.) I've been really looking forward to this season, which brings back some familiar faces to the Race, but I have really been dreading the return of Romber, the aggressively competitive team of professional reality TV gluttons Rob and Amber, after two Survivor installments, Amazing Race , their free wedding, and their own Fox Reality channel series. While Rob and Amber might have their fans (and, lordy, I do know a few of them), I was really hoping that executive producers Elise Doganieri and Bertram van Munster would opt to leave them out of the mix. C'est la vie. As usual, 11 team

Colin and Christie won't be getting a second chance to run the Race , after all. CBS has revealed the identities of all 11 teams on The Amazing Race: All Star Edition , scheduled to launch on February 18th at 8 pm ET/PT. As expected, the list of players on this installment of The Amazing Race includes reality fame hounds Rob and Amber (their fourth time on a CBS reality series), favorites Charla and Mirna (Season 4) and Drew and Kevin (Season 1) and last season's Team Kentucky (David and Mary, how we've missed ye!) and the Beauty Queens (Dustin and Kandice). Here's the full list of players, arranged by Season, for your amusement: Season 1: Team Guido (Joe and Bill); Drew and Kevin Season 2: Team Cha Cha Cha (Oswald and Danny); John and Jill Season 3: Teri and Ian Season 4: Charla and Mirna Season 7: Uchenna and Joyce; Rob and Amber Season 9: Eric and Danielle (and, no, they didn't run the Race together, rather it's Eric from the Frat Boys and Danielle from th

One million dollars certainly buys a lot of moisturizer and styling products. It had to happen. One team had to cross the finish line and win the million dollar prize. You didn't really think this season of The Amazing Race would go on forever, now did you? (As much as it seemed as though it did go on for about a year and a half.) Ultimately, I was just rooting for Rob and Kimberly not to win. As for which of the teams would end up winning the grand prize and the big speech from Phil about "four continents" and all that, I had a feeling that Tyler and James would end up being the first to cross the finish line, so long as it didn't involve another "place the flags of the countries you've visited in the correct order" challenge from last season. Put together a stylish jacket on a mannequin? Sure but I'm not too sure the models/recovering drug addicts would have been able to do that. Teams departed Barcelona for Paris but ended up running around the F

Argh. Just when I was starting to root for the Beauty Queens too! In what seemed like an impossible situation, Dustin and Kandice began last night's episode of The Amazing Race marked for elimination, meaning that unless they completed the next leg and arrived at the mat in first place, they would receive a 30-minute penalty, a HUGE matter in a game which now only has four teams remaining. Sadly, they didn't even need the penalty in order to be eliminated, but more on that later. Teams started this leg of the race in Morocco and followed instructions that led them to Casablanca and specifically the Quartier des Habous, where they encounter a Roadblock. In this Roadblock, one team member must find a butcher and receive 1 lb. of uncooked camel meat, make their way to Cafe 11 in the crowded market and grind and season the meat, before presenting it to a cook to grill... and then eating it. Honestly, this seems a hell of a lot easier than fish eyes or cow lips... or that entire pl

Ohmigod. I can't believe I am actually going to say this, but I'm now rooting for the Beauty Queens to win this thing. There, I've said it. I know I've been on record since the start of this edition of The Amazing Race with my dislike of the Blondes, but they've far and away proven themselves to be the team to beat, even when they're dead in last place. And while I knew, based on the odds, that this would be a non-elimination leg, I nonetheless was on the edge of my seat to see whether Dustin and Kandice would be sent packing... or marked for elimination. And every iota of my very being was hoping that they wouldn't be out just yet, if only because all of the remaining teams seem to hate and fear them quite so passionately. (Guys, don't get pissed at them for taking off at the airport and trying to ditch you... and then follow them blindly.) I've even begun to view their somewhat serpentine actions with a blend of admiration and respect; these woman

So it seems like producers of The Amazing Race should have had that pit stop at the bottom of Olympic Stadium tower in Helsinki last week, after all. Pushing the teams for another whole leg before allowing them to check in could have shaken some things up, but in the end, the teams ended up more or less staying in the same exact order they did as they rappelled down the tower. Crazy, huh? The teams left Helsinki for the Ukraine, armed only with a clue that told them to go to the capital city of the country home to the infamous Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster, or as the Blondies called it, "where the atomic bomb went off" (another shining example of what's wrong with the American educational system!); teams seemed to think that it was in Russia and I was REALLY hoping that at least one team would do something rash and foolish, like board a plane to Moscow before realizing their error. No such luck. All the teams managed to learn from the somewhat helpful counter agent that (be