Surviving the Amazing Race

[JirinPanthosa]

The random element of Amazing Race has always annoyed me about it. Who happens to get the good taxi, whose car breaks down, whose flight gets delayed. Exacerbated by the constant equalizers. In the first season two teams got a 24 hour lead over the other two teams and you know they've been very careful about that since. It helped a little bit when they introduced the 'Three start time' thing, it used to be if they got to a place in the middle of the night that opened in the morning everyone started at exactly the same time, but that doesn't help with equalizers on planes or busses.

I don't know what they could do to fix the randomness without making it possible to get those 24 hour leads again. Maybe they could have checkpoints go across airports, so if you reached the airport thirty minutes after the leader you left thirty minutes later than them.

But I get the hunch they don't want skill to be too dominant a factor in Amazing Race, because we see what happens then in Expedition: Impossible. This was a show that aired one summer that was basically an Amazing Race clone, only it takes place hiking across the wilderness instead of in populated areas. The same team won every leg. They don't want that, they want a big random element, with just enough skill that the better teams are just a little more likely to win.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Wow. I think Michele played a strong game, but to me Aubry was the clear dominant social and strategic player. I'm surprised the jury went for her. Maybe Scot just influenced everyone in her direction or Aubry really botched the questions.

On to Big Brother I guess, anyone know any leaks about this year's gimmick?

Wow, gen x vs Millennials.

Angry and bitter versus entitled and lazy.

 

[Timewalker]

I've never actually understood those "generation" labels.

Well, it's nice that Tai got some money and he gets to choose an animal charity. I was hoping that somebody on the crew would have found a way to bring Mark the Chicken back, but oh well...

 

[JirinPanthosa]

People born at different times have different formative experience.

Generation X were left alone after school to hang out and smoked a lot of pot to escape from the oppressive moral judgments of their parents, then smothered and overprotected their children to death.

They founded big companies, moved all the jobs to other countries, then blamed their children for having trouble becoming financially independent.

The Millennials experienced this overprotection, didn't learn independence, then got confused when they graduated college and didn't immediately get the career they wanted because the gen xers stopped hiring in the US.

 

[Timewalker]

So which decades were these people born in? The first time I ever heard the term "play date" was in the late '80s, on a soap opera. I wondered what it was, since play was spontaneous when I was a kid (in the '70s).

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Wow, gen x vs Millennials.

Angry and bitter versus entitled and lazy.

Well, we know at least one person who will lazily buy into Survivor's stereotypical casting and playing up of generational insults.

Anyway, the wrong person won Survivor, which is always a bummer in an otherwise enjoyable season. It drops this season from the low end of the positive column to the high end of the negative column. Michelle pulled out some key wins in the end, but mostly floated by on the good graces of others and never made any significant moves. Which is a strategy, but not a very satisfying one or worthy of winning the million dollars, IMO. And it should definitely not have been such a blowout even after she got rid of Neal's vote for Aubry.

Just a jury full of scene-stealing babies and poor sports who have to make it all about themselves instead of acknowledging Aubry's superior gameplay like they did during the frickin' show itself. Total bitter jury syndrome, just without any rationale for their bitterness since Aubry was never in an alliance with any of the people who didn't vote for her and therefore never betrayed them. So they were just bitter at having a superior player in the final three over them. Scot and Jason and the young blond woman who was their hanger-on will go down as some of the worst players in Survivor history not just for being assholes throughout the game, but for not rewarding Aubry's gameplay and better answers at the final tribal.

It's not even a matter of disliking Michelle, since she seems like a perfectly nice person and did a hell of a job at the end with those challenge wins, and she certainly didn't deserve the mean-spirited and bitter "look at me" send-off from Neal as he was voted off the jury. I know it sucks wasting all that time out there and not even getting to take part in the final vote, but I thought as a serious player he would have respected that she made the right choice in voting him off. That was a dick move on his part, and one of the things I wish Jeff would have followed up on if that reunion show wasn't such a joke. Sia somehow making it down the stairs without tripping with that lampshade on her head, then giving Tai the money for himself and charity was nice, but I watch the reunion show to get questions to the cast members, and it seems to get to be less and less about that each season. Also didn't need to hear from the Survivor doctor or Drew Carry. I also would have liked to see Jeff call out Scot and Jason on their poor sportsmanship, sexism, and crybaby-like behavior like he did with the two guys last season.

Tai didn't deserve to win, but I felt bad since he was obviously hampered by his inability to make a compelling argument like Aubry could due to the language barrier, but then it apparently didn't do Aubry much good either. Him bringing Mark the chicken with him was a stroke of genius, and he's shown that he's an intelligent and intuitive guy (he was the only one who picked up on the fact that Jeff left open the possibility of one more challenge after the penultimate tribal council), if a little wishy-washy.

I can't stand the theme of the next season, which IMO is in the worst Survivor tradition of playing up lazy stereotypes and then casting to fit those stereotypes. It's fortunate that those tribe dynamics tend to not last very long and get shifted around after the first few episodes. The spot they've chosen in Fiji looks gorgeous though, but Jeff said the weather again plays a huge factor in the outcome of the game, so I wonder if there's not the possibility of a cyclone or tropical storm.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Well, we know at least one person who will lazily buy into Survivor's stereotypical casting and playing up of generational insults.

If you want to have a conversation about the complexities of generational relationships, all you have to do is ask.

I'm not a fan of the gimmicks but I prefer this one to brains/beauty/brawn or 'blood versus water'. There is obviously no blanket rule that defines the personality of a person based on their age but people aren't coming up with these impressions out of thin air. Every generation has a different experience. I know millennials who are hard working, I also know a ton of them who grew up pampered and protected expecting to be handed a career right out of college then frustrated because they think they're too good to flip burgers as a means to an end. This is a real trend resulted from the parenting culture and economy of the 90s and 00s. And all you have to do is have a few Facebook friends in their 40s or 50s to know a lot of them are pissed their career didn't go as planned and now blame immigrants and so on. This does not apply equally to everyone, but it's an observable trend that you see just by listening to people.

These two groups are going to have different styles for how they form a community in their tribe and how they play the game, and it's not based on stereotypes, it's based on their different life experience.

Survivor has never played up the stereotypes nearly as bad as Big Brother does and I doubt this season will be an exception. Just they need to have a few sound bites meeting the theme for the trailer.

I actually think Michele was one of the five or six strongest players this season in terms of social game. She won with the Sandra game, keep your cool, keep your head down and deflect any attention that comes your way. It's not the most entertaining game but it works. Just Aubry and Cydney were far more deserving.

 

[mimic]

I thought I'd be cool with any of the final four winning, and then Michele won, and I discovered I wasn't. It's not that she's a horrible winner, as I wouldn't say she rode coattails. She managed to maneuver into the majority on multiple occasions and won challenges when she needed to. Aubrey just was such fun to watch and was the key behind most of the votes, and she deserved the win. We'll probably see her again, though.

Also annoying was how Jason/Scot/Julia treated Cydney at Ponderosa. Joe and Debbie on the other had showed themselves to be thoroughly decent people. I'm ashamed that I ever disliked Debbie.

 

[Timewalker]

Wow, what a trio of bitter children.

At first I just wanted Debbie to shut up, because every time she talked, she claimed to have yet another skill set or had some other glamorous kind of job. I dislike braggarts. But later on, she finally stopped doing this and started making more sense. I'd like to see her get a second chance some day.

Scot and Jason should be banned from ever participating again. Their stunt with hiding stuff and putting out the fire could have had serious health consequences for the entire tribe.

Julia deserves to be forgotten.