The Amazing Race 10 - Where have I been for 9 Seasons?

I have enjoyed for...two (?) seasons reading Jen's recaps of The Amazing Race. Last season I nearly added it to my rotation but at the last minute decided not to. I will admit, I've been living my life as a bit of a reality TV snob. Now however, thanks in large part to Jen (though Dancing with the Stars I owe to my sister), I have sipped the sweet koolaid and pronounced that, by and large, it is good.

Thus it was that the season premier of TAR 10 came to be recorded on my DVR. Jen posts her thoughts here and links to another summary here. (And I generally agree with their sentiments.) As always, here be spoilers, so look away if you don't wanna know.

They started off in Seattle with 12 teams of two. The first task was to make it to the airport to get on one of two flights to China. This fairly immediately pointed out which teams will yell first, problem solve second: the team from Kentucky and the odd dating couple. That's going to get annoying very quickly. Hillarious comment from this leg, however was the girl half of the odd dating couple, "How was I supposed to know Thrifty is a rental car company? I don't rent cars." Are there really people in the US who don't know what Thrifty is? Especially when they're driving in a rental car?

At the airport - first off, what moron actually thinks playing with squirt guns at an airport is a good idea? Those meathead brothers are lucky they didn't end up with more of a problem than having their toys confiscated. Plus it's a great way to win friends and influence people: squirt them with water. Whatever. Secondly, while ok sure, maybe it's annoying to have Triathlete team girl alternating between chest pounding "I can do anything" and playing the disability card. However, one - she admits that she's playing the card, which is slightly better than not understanding that it's conniving, two - if she hadn't preboarded people would most likely have been whining about her speed down the jetway and pushing and it's not like it got her anywhere faster than anyone else on the flight. That said, I was more annoyed by the Alabama team's complaining about it than anything else. Because they're trying to play the ethnic single mom card - and that's their right, just suck it up and admit it. Just about everything they said was downright catty.

The fish-eye eating challenge seemed to go pretty smoothly for everyone, no major drama other than just not getting there in a speedy manner. But how do you control how good your taxi driver is? Or was it a matter of not giving clear direction? Wasn't sure, but to some degree it seemed slightly sad that plain ol' bad luck resulted in an elimination. (The whole new rules thing is obviously lost on me as this is my first season watching, but it was interesting to see the team reactions...I'm guessing that there will be some sour grapes later on when surprises crop up.) The Muslim guys handled it very well and I hope they were at least able to see a little of China before having to go home.

I was mildly surprised at how few people chose brick laying over the "simple" routine. Wasn't surprised that the cheerleaders chose it - but I also expected the beauty queens to choose that route rather than the manual labor. The canny ones paid attention to how others were doing it, others struggled on their own and, ultimately, this is what cost "Team Karma" (as another team referred to them). Hillarious comment from this challenge was the cheerleaders after the gay boyfriends finished first, "What? The gay guys just beat us!" (This is more hillarious after their initial preening about how easy this would be because, "We're cheerleaders!") Tim's comment on this segment was to imagine that the Chinese were most likely thinking "Stupid uncoordinated Americans messing up our routine."

Then off to the Great Wall. I will be the first to say that I very much doubt that I could have gotten up that rope. However, that said, I did get a great deal of joy from catty Alabama team having such difficulty. For all of the disability card playing on the triathlete team, she got up there, one legged, and that was pretty amazing. Some of the teams just flew up the wall, the cheerleaders made it look incredibly easy, as did the girl half of the odd couple. In general, this challenge (to me) really showed how well the teams are going to get along. It'll be interesting to watch. I was disappointed that "Team Karma" had to go, but they also took it well and seemed to have enjoyed the little bit that they got to do.

Current initial favorites (or at least those who I'm really interested to watch):
- The triathletes (even with freaky super-encourager man)
- The father-daughter team
- Kentucky (kinda in the train-wreck-waiting-to-happen way though)

Marginal interest still remains for:
- Cheerleaders
- Beauty Queens
- Gay Boyfriends

The rest will have to grow on me, but here for now are my nicknames (though they may change to standardize with other people):
- Alabama Catty Moms (or just Alabama)
- Rehab Boys (though I'm torn, I might call them the Pretty Boys, but they make such a big deal about their recovery that I figure it's apt to include it)
- Meathead brothers
- The Odd Couple