The Amazing Race (Winter 2018)

[Timewalker]

Happy New Year, Amazing Race fans!

Just starting a thread for us to talk about Season 30, which starts on Wednesday, January 3, 2018.

The teams appear to be made up of people with various claims to fame, ranging from sports, music, Big Brother contestants, models, along with a team of twins, and some dating couples.

Cast list.

As you can see, one of the couples consists of Cody and Jessica, my two most unfavorite contestants from last fall's Big Brother season. May they get Road Blocked and U-Turned and have the worst taxi drivers in the history of the show, and be eliminated ASAP. I wonder how many toothbrushes Cody will wear out when he stares at people he doesn't like with his cold, dead eyes and brushes his teeth at them.

Wikipedia has a page which I assume will keep a running tally of who is eliminated each episode, along with cast, team names (very handy for people like me who find it difficult to remember who everyone is for at least a month), and episode titles: Wikipedia's Amazing Race 30 page.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I'm pissed Cody and Jessica were there. It makes the Jeff/Jordan and Brendan/Rachel seasons seem like nothing. But otherwise I'm happy there's no dumb gimmick like 'Strangers paired up to date'.

Still wish they'd ax the U turn.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

One thing I’m noticing, AR is in the Survivor time slot with only 8 weeks before Survivor. Does this mean we will get lots of double episodes or will it get bumped to 9 when Survivor starts?

 

[Timewalker]

I read on one of the websites that there will be more two-hour episodes because Olympic coverage is going to muck up a lot of programming schedules.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I still haven't decided whether or not I want to watch this season, with Cody and Jessica being on it. I'm just so tired of seeing them on my screen.

I did read some spoilers about the outcome of the season...typically people track the teams around the globe to the finish line, and often spoil up to the final 3 teams, but not who the winner is. They have been pretty accurate in past years. If you want the season almost completely spoiled, read this at your own risk...

Spoiler: Possible final 3 spoilers

Okay, you have been warned...I won't spoil the other two teams in the final 3 (honestly I don't even remember who they were) but I will tell you that Cody and Jessica are one of the teams in the final 3. I hope this spoiler isn't true, but I have a feeling it is. So I'm having a hard time getting excited about this season.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Can you post a spoiler that just says whether or not Cody and Jessica are among the 3?

 

[Timewalker]

I think I'll avoid that spoiler, otherwise why bother to watch and cheer people on? I can't record the first episode since it conflicts with the Handmaid's Tale marathon that's on this week, but I'll be recording the other episodes.

There are some things I don't mind spoilers on, like Disco - since I hadn't ever expected to watch it, I didn't care (turns out that there's going to be a marathon soon on the Space Channel and I may record it just to justify the extra $$ I paid to watch the Doctor Who Christmas special).

Some things, though, I'd rather not be spoiled on - which is why I try to avoid this thread (along with the Survivor and Big Brother threads) until 10 pm when the episode is over (I'm in the Mountain time zone so it's on here later in the evening).

There was a time back in the '90s, when I felt like smacking the taxi driver who dropped me off at home. I'd just mentioned that I was looking forward to watching the men's figure skating that night to see how Kurt Browning did (he's best known for landing the first quadruple jump in competition, and won numerous Canadian and World Championships)... and the taxi driver blurted everything out since he'd already heard the results on the radio.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I agree in general, just in the case of one team I utterly revile the show's manipulation of how they cut the scenes is really stressful and leads me to be pissed off when it looks like they will be eliminated and aren't.

 

[Spot's Meow]

Can you post a spoiler that just says whether or not Cody and Jessica are among the 3?

Spoiler: Whether or not Jess/Cody are in final 3

That's actually all my spoiler above says - Cody and Jessica are in the final 3. I actually don't even remember the other 2 teams.

 

[Timewalker]

If anyone looks at that spoiler, please don't post what it says. I want to be unspoiled, because otherwise it ruins the fun of watching, cheering the good teams and booing the bad teams.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I have to admit, in that first episode Cody and Jessica almost seemed human. If I hadn't seen them on Big Brother I wouldn't hate them at all. They supported each other remarkably well.

 

[PepeWan]

Wait wait wait...was that the Mountain?

 

[Timewalker]

I have to admit, in that first episode Cody and Jessica almost seemed human. If I hadn't seen them on Big Brother I wouldn't hate them at all. They supported each other remarkably well.

Just wait until they interact more with the other teams and somebody says something one of them doesn't like. Boom, instant shouting, fireworks, and if they were on Big Brother, Cody would whip out his toothbrush and start brushing his teeth at whoever was yelling at him.

Is it a new rule that helping another team isn't allowed in road blocks? I seem to remember a considerable amount of helping going on in the last season or two and it wasn't a problem for anyone other than the ones who didn't get help or whose help wasn't reciprocated later.

And what was that concoction they had to drink? I caught "cod liver oil" but not what went with it. I know what cod liver oil tastes like; my grandmother used to make me take a spoonful of it every morning when I was a young child. Finally I put my foot down and refused to take it anymore.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The issue wasn't helping another team, the issue was the second team member helping the first team member. In a roadblock the other team member isn't allowed to help.

I thought that was the 'Black Death' drink, Blennavin or whatever it was called.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I’m going to be open minded about Cody. I’m just remembering how BB portrayed Hayden as a petty judgmental jerk then in Survivor he was a nice guy.

 

[Timewalker]

I thought it was hilarious when they got lost. Wouldn't Cody's military training have included how to read a map?

 

[Timewalker]

All right, I'm confused. I could have sworn this was The Amazing Race, not Survivor or Big Brother. At the end of the race, the teams have to go through a race dressed like packages of French fries, pushing a hand truck full of French fries around an obstacle course, and the loser gets eliminated.

Of course Jessica and Cody wouldn't have a problem with this - they already learned how to run bizarre obstacle races wearing dumb-looking costumes, manipulating unlikely objects.

How much time did this take up, anyway? It seemed to go on forever.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I liked the head to head thing, it's certainly less Survivor-like than the U Turn. At least it's a *race*. Felt bad for the team that laddered down from 3 to 8 and I hope that these head to head things don't end up too raw strength oriented.

I'd love if they added this on a U Turn leg to balance it out a bit and make it more fair. The one thing I don't like about it is being a strictly strength oriented race, a team could do everything else right, get there first, then get eliminated just because they are bad with a single skill set.

 

[Timewalker]

So... last night's episode prompted me to look up some stuff about Morocco, specifically what languages are spoken there.

Arabic
Berber
English
French (a little)

Spanish? Apparently not. It's interesting that a couple of the racers actually do know some Arabic.

 

[Keith1701]

Great Season so far.