The (not so) Amazing Finale

09May07

So the Amazing Race All Stars is over, and Danielle and Erica are the winners.

Maybe it’s just me, maybe I just bought into all the hype, but this season disappointed me in a way only the Amazing Race Asia could.

Then again, I’m not exactly an avid watcher of the Amazing Race. I’ve only watched TAR10 and that season where they went to the Philippines before this. But unfamiliar competitors aside, this just wasn’t as compelling as much as the aforementioned seasons.

A few observations:

Karma really IS a bitch this time around. It almost seems as if Jerry Bruckheimer and Mark Burnett had Karma under their payroll or something, and the biggest example of this is Rob and Amber.

Talk about ruthless. That couple would do anything and everything to get ahead. Apparently a million dollars justifies having no moral compulsion whatsoever. If there’s any two people that are the poster children for bad reality TV, it’s them.

Amber not so much. At first, she would get mad at some of the actions that Rob would make. But by the end, she was cackling and bwahaha-ing as much as he was, which lead to their downfall.

I was glad that it was Charla and Mirna that beat them.

I was even more glad that it was the Philippines where they basically lost it all.

Originally I was rooting for Uychenna and Joyce. They were, I think, the people that ran the race as cleanly as possible. They rarely bickered with each other, and it really looked like they had fun most of the time. I guess that’s why they were always so unlucky with the planes.

After Uychenna and Joyce left, I rooted for Danny and Oswald just because they were so entertaining to watch. I was hoping their little encounter with karma wouldn’t kick them out of the race, but it did.

They should’ve just begged for money instead of dealing with the Beauty Queens.

In the final three of Dustin & Kandice, Eric & Danielle, and Charla & Mirna, I was actually rooting for Dustin & Kandice to win. Between the three of them, they deserved it the most. Maybe it was because the characters in this season’s run were a lot more aggressive, I don’t know, but they were more subdued this time around. They also relied more on their skills than their looks this season. Charla & Mirna, despite their being the perennial underdogs, weren’t that great. The irritating accent that they used whenever they were in a non-English speaking country annoyed me a lot, and most of the time, their interactions with each other bordered on abuse. Basically, they were just tiring to watch every week.

Then there’s the eventual winners, Eric and Danielle. If there was any couple that didn’t deserve to win, it was the one who won.
Eric was okay. He wasn’t really that irritating. Everything he did in the game was more or less reasonable. Danielle though, wow. It’s as if her sole reason for existing was to represent the stereotypical dumb blonde the entire race, since Dustin & Kandice didn’t exactly fit the description.

Every time she’d make a really stupid and idiotic mistake, I’d slap my head and hope that they would be kicked that episode. Obviously, they didn’t.

They didn’t deserve to win simply because the only reason they even got that far ahead in the race was because of pure, dumb luck.

Biggest example of which is the final challenge. The challenge had totally nothing to do with what the race was supposed to be about (mental or physical prowess, speed). Rather the final challenge was about the one and only thing that Danielle cared about. It played to the one and only strength that Danielle actually had.

Gossip.

Yes. The final challenge, The Newlywed Game style, was about gossip. Talking about the other people behind their backs. Who was the most overrated? Who can’t you trust? Who’s the most fun?

Ironically, with the producers’ attempt to level the playing field (because strength and intelligence wise, the two other teams didn’t hold a candle to Dustin & Kandice) they inadvertently gave the one team that made it through the game by the skin of their teeth the advantage.

OF COURSE they were going to win. Who else was going to be as good in that challenge than the dumbest blonde in the game?

Too bad Dustin & Kandice didn’t win. It would’ve been great had they gone down in history as the first ever all female team to win the Amazing Race.

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