CBS' The Amazing Race doesn't hit the road again until this Sunday at 8 pm/ET — this time with an elite group of "all-stars" — and yet people are already buzzing about the return of Rob and Amber, and whether it is fair that one-time winners Uchenna and Joyce got invited back. When TVGuide.com asked affable host Phil Keoghan how the encores were chosen and if this season would in fact be harder than ever, we were relieved to make it through the Q&A without being Philiminated!
TVGuide.com: What made you want to do All-Stars? Phil Keoghan: To be honest with you, in the beginning, I wasn't so keen
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Seriously? A second second chance for David and Mary? For all the talk this week about the Six Pack (formerly and now once again the Back Pack), the alliance with Alabama and the Cho brothers isn't doing half as much for Kentucky as good old-fashioned dumb luck. Then again, to show how much I know, I was thoroughly convinced that leaving the salt detour was Race suicide — and that seemed to work out just fine for everyone involved. Similarly, the brouhaha at the ticket counter between the single moms and the beauty queens (over Team Barbie helping the male models leapfrog in line) was more or less a nonissue. Yes, it was an uncool move, but all six teams made it onto the same flight, so why bicker? No need to antagonize the competition when there's still a yield looming somewhere up the road. And speaking of antagonizing, Rob and Kimberly are so the new Hayden and Aaron. (Hell, I'd say we're about one broken ox away from them being the new Colin and Christie, so stay tuned.) Ro...
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How's that for anticlimactic? Those oh-so-clever producers of The Amazing Race throw a kink in the works with their new post non-Philimination round "come in first or you'll incur a 30-minute penalty" scheme, and then they promptly render it useless with a fast-forward. As happy as I am to see David and Mary go from worst to first — especially after that incredibly selfless gesture from the Cho brothers — I must confess, I'm a little disappointed that the new rules didn't make for a more exciting leg. Of course, we did have Peter and Sarah's navigational ineptitude to make up for it. Seriously, is there a greater harbinger of doom on the Race than being told to go directly to a pit stop without finishing a task? That's when you pretty much know it's all over. (The only worse instance I can think of off hand is those poor Mormon sisters from Season 6 who couldn't find the clue in a haystack — and Phil actually came to them. Heartbreaking.) Here's the thing about Peter ...
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Is anybody else exhausted after watching this one? The bickering, the yelling, the crying, all that rowing... it was like Thanksgiving, only with less turkey and more primitive sea travel. If they didn't insist on using cutesy quotes from the teams as titles (more on that later), this week's episode might well have been called "Rob's Anger Management Issues and Other Maladies That Can't Be Cured by a Vietnamese Steam Bath." Seriously, could this guy have a shorter fuse? Between his multipart taxicab meltdown ("I'm done talking with foreigners" — yeah, there's a good attitude to have on a race around the world....) and his constant screaming throughout the entire pearl-harvesting detour (during which Kimberly did most of the work), I was having major Colin-and-Christie déjà vu. Despite all the unpleasantness, The Magnificent Bickersons came in first — winning a pair of Jet Skis (and not, sadly, a free week of couples' counseling). Luckily for Rob, he wasn't the on...
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I hate to get all My Name Is Earl on you guys, but if ever I've seen a glowing endorsement for karma, this week's Amazing Race episode is it. I was a little dismayed that only two teams — Tom and Terry and the Cho brothers — took a moment to stop and appreciate the magnitude of former prisoner of war and current U.S. Senator John McCain's flight suit on display at the Hanoi Hilton. I understand it's a race, but sometimes you've simply got to stop and show some respect. As it turns out, both teams were rewarded for their displays of human decency: Erwin and Godwin finished the leg in first place, while Tom and Terry narrowly escaped Philimination after incurring a 30-minute breaking-the-rules time penalty. (No motorcycles, boys!) Which is not to say our departing team deserved what they got — I'm disappointed to see Duke and Lauren go home this early in the race. As parent/child relationships go, I thought Duke was making an admirable effort to understand his daughter ...
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