PremiereWatch: 'The Amazing Race' and the wheels of cheese

I don't know about you, but I just love the way Phil says "a race around the world." It's actually half the reason I watch The Amazing Race. Then, half the reason I watch is to see teams like Christie and Jodi (the stewardesses) get eliminated. And, finally, half the reason I watch is that it's just plain good fun.

Oh come on, you know that every season there's a team of women who say that they're going to use their looks/body/"feminine wiles" to win. That's always the team I want to see gone first. Christie and Jodi may be terribly nice in real life, but I had to instantly root for them to disappear because of the attitude they instantly displayed.

The first destination this year was Locarno, Switzerland, and teams were given the choice of flying into Zurich or Milan. Not only did the Zurich flight arrive first, it arrived in the right country and the train station was right in the airport. The folks arriving in Milan had to leave the airport run to the train station. And, in one of those things I never understand, a team, Jennifer and Preston, got lost on the way to the station.

Now, by my count more than one team was on the plane with them and everyone deplaned at the same time. How did one team, and only one team, get lost? Perhaps the problem was Jen, as she said she had never in her life been to a train station. Perhaps she didn't want to start now. Perhaps she just wanted to be in the first couple to have a fight this season. Perhaps Preston set the whole thing up so that he could pick a fight with her.

The second team to have a fight was Linda and Steve. Apparently Linda can't run as fast as everyone else and Steve forgot his crop so he just had to verbally whip her for being slow. It all happened at camp the first night after they weren't the first team to sign up to get a clue the next morning, a clue that was going to lead them to a bungee jump off a dam. The poor lady cried. As for the dam itself, if the place looked familiar that might be because it's the location that was used for James Bond's bungee jump at the opening of GoldenEye. Ready to save the world again, 007?

In another bit of idiocy I didn't understand, following the jump the teams were told to take a train to Interlaken. Tammy and Victor got to the station first, asked about which train to take, got a definitive answer, and then, when other teams showed they acted like they were completely unsure about what they were doing. It didn't make sense, everyone that arrived before the train in question departed hopped it. I guess though that it was better than Christie and Jodi's plan. They arrived at the station after that first train left and, after being told that there were two trains heading via different routes soon, they opted to get on the one that left first but arrived second. These people are flight attendants, can they really not figure out that leaving first doesn't necessarily mean arriving first?

I think though that the most interesting thing we learned tonight is that there's some sort of trick to carrying cheese in Switzerland. There's certainly some sort of odd wooden contraption which goes on your back and head and to which the cheese attaches, but the contraptions seem to break with alarming frequency. That wouldn't be so bad if each individual cheese wheel wasn't ridiculously heavy, and, as a they're "cheese wheels," round. The roundness allows the cheese to roll down the hill from the aging shed to the cheese's final destination. The teams were supposed to get the cheese downhill, but apparently rolling the cheese down the hill wasn't an acceptable method of transporting them.

Admit it, watching those teams trying to figure out how to get the cheese down the incredibly steep hill was one of the funniest things you've seen on the Race in a long time. I was completely surprised that none of those cheese wheels broke anything (including bones) on their way down the hill when they got let loose.

Margie and Luke finished first tonight, and Phil was kind enough to inform them of that in sign language as Luke is deaf, the foolish deceivers, Tammy and Victor came in right behind them. Remember now, cheaters never win (except when they do).

I have to tell you, this has to have been one of the best first legs in a long time. Not only was there a fantastic cheese roll, there was actually a foot race to see who would get eliminated. The wrong team, Preston and Jennifer, lost the foot race, with Christie and Jodi coming in second to last, but the foot race itself was a great conclusion to an excellent premiere.

Let me ask you this -- how exactly would you have tried to get the cheese down the hill? I think Linda and Steve had it right. Not true to the culture, but perhaps the easiest method.

The TV and Film Guy's Reviews - we're full of cheese.

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