'The Amazing Race': The Globetrotters try a new strategy

Earlier this season, I railed against teams quitting during "The Amazing Race." This week I stick by that assertion, even though it was the team I wanted to win who did the quitting. Seriously Globetrotters? You'd rather take a four hour penalty than rearrange five letters so they would spell out a name? Don't you know that I was rooting for you? Doesn't that matter?

Let's start at the beginning though, and work our way to the Globetrotters' complete betrayal of my principles.

The first stop tonight, another non-travel leg, was the Spanish Synagogue. It was wholly and completely irrelevant. Teams had to get there to get a clue that said to go somewhere else (the Ekotechnicke Museum). At that stop, they actually got a pretty cool, Kafka-esque (because Kafka lived there) task - answer the right five phones in a room full of ringing phones, get one letter from each phone, and work out that those letters spell "FRANZ."

Big Easy was the 'Trotter in charge for the Roadblock and got all his letters, but couldn't work out the right order. Big Easy doesn't seem like the brightest bulb in the pack, but working out the possibilities couldn't have been all that tough. He was, however, unable to solve the puzzle.

To some extent, this show is a psychological contest between teams, and I would have thought the Globetrotters, being professional athletes, would have had an edge there. They didn't. Dan was working with Big Easy until Dan got the answer, at which point he refused to give it to the 'Trotter. That totally psyched Big Easy out, and Brian then showing up and finishing the task before Big Easy completed the Globetrotter's decent into quitter-dom. Thus he opted for the four hour penalty instead of doing the task.

I don't buy Big Easy's saying that quitting was strategic and worked out better for them. They quit, pure and simple, and you don't do that.

Plus, let's not forget that after Dan gave Big Easy the first letter, the Globetrotter only had 24 possible choices left. It would have taken significantly less time to work out the answer than to take the penalty.

With the Roadblock completed - or avoided in the Globetrotters case - up next was a reverse sauna at Kryocentrum. Apparently Czech athletes hang out in really cold rooms, ones kept at negative 180 degrees Celsius. At least that's what Phil said, the sign said negative 160. Either way, that's only about 100 degrees from Absolute Zero. Hanging out in that room in your skivvies cannot be easy.

The Detours tonight were to either throw mud and straw on a golem or deliver 30 beers from one side of a square to another. I probably would have thought, as Brian & Ericka did, that the beer delivering was easier. They had some trouble with it while Cheyne & Meghan had none with the golem building. For Sam & Dan nothing is easy, and the golem building certainly led to fights, but they still completed it.

Meghan & Cheyne, who started the leg in front, finished the leg in front, and even though things will probably level out next week with some airline travel, those two seem poised to win it all. The Globetrotters won't win though. Their four hour penalty saw them - and their dignity - eliminated tonight.

Odds and ends:

• Maybe next year the Speed Bumps will be better, because this season they were pretty poor. Wouldn't it be better if the Speed Bumps required skill or effort or something more than doing a shot of alcohol or hanging out in a sauna?
• Sam & Dan and their fighting is getting really, really old. I wonder if they'll end up having a fistfight before they reach the mat next week.
• The drunk guy outside the bar when the beer Detour ended was great.
• It has to be said again - stupid Globetrotters! Stupid, stupid, stupid! What were you guys thinking?

The TV and Film Guy's Reviews - thoroughly exasperated.

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