Amazing Race Canada, Season 7 -- Premieres July 2

[WhiteTiger]

That was quite the episode. I am starting to like Trish & Amy.

I'm on the fence over whether or not what Dave did was cheating. But I also may be giving him a bit of a break since Irina doesn't seem capable of doing anything but running her mouth at other teams, so he's playing with a handicap.

Dave and Irina suck, though.

I think that the clamming challenge would have been much better served with them either not having to get any butter clams, or just one.

It was really neat seeing Aarthy & Thinesh working together with James & Anthony.

I got a huge laugh when those 4 rolled up to the challenge, guessed it using their Dora backpack, and rolled off while Marie (Meaghan?) was all "WTF??"

Looks like next week the other teams finally give it to Dave & Irinia

[GirlySports]

Why didn't all the teams agree to work together to get the shells. Even if the sisters weren't there yet. Do their share as well.

Then by luck they could have all solved the puzzle instantly thanks to James and Dave and Irina would have been gone.

[Fuzz]

I thought it was hilarious when Trish & Amy left the bungee jumping challenge first... "we make nainamo bars all the time!" Perfect for them.

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Why didn't all the teams agree to work together to get the shells. Even if the sisters weren't there yet. Do their share as well.

Then by luck they could have all solved the puzzle instantly thanks to James and Dave and Irina would have been gone.

They talked about doing that but then I think the clam task was so hard, they started to think they weren't going to complete it in 2 hours and things kind of fell apart from there.

[GirlySports]

Hmmm I think 12 people agreeing to dig at the same time would find 60 butters.

I think the fact the sisters showed so late due to traffic messed it all up.

[Johnny Makarov]

Whoever did the casting for this season needs to be fired! Has any other amazing race seasons, like 30 of them, ever taken so many penalties? and it's not even half way done.

Russian bride is seriously the worst racer to ever run the amazing race. Even worse than Flo. Pathetic.

Even the 2 nicest racers are idiots. You are at a clam challenge for 4.5 hours with an express pass?

[Johnny Makarov]

Yup. Even Jon Montgomery is pissed off.

Are we seeing history in this week’s episode with the number of penalties taken?

Jon Montgomery: Yup. Quite honestly, though, I hope Canadians never see this again on the show. I don’t think people should be quitting. Not when they’re being given an opportunity to run a Race that every other Canadian would love to see themselves on.

[You Need a Thneed]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Even the 2 nicest racers are idiots. You are at a clam challenge for 4.5 hours with an express pass?

Why would they use their express pass there when they weren’t in danger of finishing last there?

Sure, if everyone else is finished that task and gone on, they use their pass, but until that point, there isn’t too much risk. After they finished the task, they couldn’t possibly finish last, still holding an express pass, as there was a challenge still to go that they could skip if they needed to, and another team that would be getting to that task the same time they did.

They would have known other teams took penalties, and would know if they were nearing 2 hours after the last team took the penalty, were they would be risking falling behind every penalty taking team.

There will likely be a better time to use the express pass.

[darockwilder]

I kind of found Irina funny at the start, but that has severely changed. What am entitled idiot.

As far as Dave stealing the answer, I put that more on the mom not protecting her board. She knew he was right there weaselling for info. Still a dick move, but it was sitting right there.

[GirlySports]

Yeah why did she even sit near him?

Also noticed that Anthony was supposed to do the roadblock but James solved the puzzle. Is that allowed?

Irina is do bad but this season would not be the same without her.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by You Need a Thneed

Why would they use their express pass there when they weren’t in danger of finishing last there?

Exactly. I think it was Aarthy who told Anthony & James, when they were the only 2 teams left and were talking about taking the penalty :

'You take the penalty, we use the pass - and you lose.'

That pass may save them yet.


And what a terrible challenge. Fine, go clamming. But not like it's your job. Collect 95 clams total including 5 really hard to find is nonesense.

[Amethyst]

Yeah, this is one time where I don't fault the teams for taking the penalty. They know it's only two hours and once Dave and Irina took it and everyone started having trouble finding the clams, I can understand why everyone started worrying. It took two of the teams who completed the task much longer to find the clams than the penalty lasted.

[Fuzz]

I wonder if they modify the rules for future legs or seasons. Something like "you must attempt the challenge for at least an hour before taking a penalty" so the sunk cost fallacy can play a little role. Or just make the penalty 4 hours.

[dubc80]

Do you still max out at the number of challenges one person can do?

If this continues, Irina will have to do the majority of the remaining ones further on.

What a useless competitor.

[getbak]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Also noticed that Anthony was supposed to do the roadblock but James solved the puzzle. Is that allowed?

Interesting point. In the past, teams have been penalized when the partner not doing the Roadblock offered too much advice to their partner.

This was a weird situation where James was just thinking out loud and happened to guess the right answer. I don't think he was intentionally trying to help.

I'd guess they were considered safe because Anthony hadn't officially started the task yet when James came up with the answer. If they had already been at the location and James had overheard another team say "Goats on Roof" and James shouted that out then, there probably would have been a penalty.


It would have been interesting if they had been penalized for that, but Aarthy & Thinesh wouldn't have been because there's no penalty for accepting help from another team.

[craigwd]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I wonder if they modify the rules for future legs or seasons. Something like "you must attempt the challenge for at least an hour before taking a penalty" so the sunk cost fallacy can play a little role. Or just make the penalty 4 hours.

IIRC different parts of the race have different penalties.
ie. Roadblocks vs challenges vs Detours etc.

[getbak]

There are some penalties that are a fixed time plus the time gained by taking the penalty.

In the past, we've seen teams get penalized for taking a cab when they were supposed to walk or take public transit. In those cases, the penalty has been 30 minutes plus the time saved by taking a cab.


They should do the same for all these "strategic" penalties. It should be the fixed penalty length plus the time gained.

I would calculate the time gained by taking the longest time spent to complete the task by any of the teams that were successful and subtract the amount of time the penalized team spent attempting the task. That way, if a team gives up after hours of frustration and doesn't gain any time by taking the penalty, they'd only have to serve the penalty time. If a team just shows up and sees that every other team has been working for two hours and still isn't getting anywhere and decides to take the penalty right away, they'd get a big time hit.

The way it is now, it rewards the teams who quit earlier. If they changed it to the way I suggested, a team that quits earlier would get the worst penalty.

[surferguy]

How about no time penalties, complete the challenge or die trying.
Yes/No/Maybe?

[Amethyst]

Originally Posted by surferguy

How about no time penalties, complete the challenge or die trying.
Yes/No/Maybe?

In general, I agree. The only concern I would have would be a situation where a certain person had to do a task and there was an allergy or medical condition involved. For example, a hearing task and one team member was deaf. Although they could probably set it up to avoid that.

I think penalties should be long enough to be pretty close to an automatic loss, unless more than one team takes it. It's just wrong that the teams who actually did the task were worried about getting eliminated and all they did was the task (i.e. they didn't mess up travelling somewhere after the task).

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by getbak

Interesting point. In the past, teams have been penalized when the partner not doing the Roadblock offered too much advice to their partner.

This was a weird situation where James was just thinking out loud and happened to guess the right answer. I don't think he was intentionally trying to help.

I'd guess they were considered safe because Anthony hadn't officially started the task yet when James came up with the answer. If they had already been at the location and James had overheard another team say "Goats on Roof" and James shouted that out then, there probably would have been a penalty.


It would have been interesting if they had been penalized for that, but Aarthy & Thinesh wouldn't have been because there's no penalty for accepting help from another team.

It depends where the roadblock clue is. Usually it's in front of the task, ie the cave, and the designated member goes in.

But Canada likes to have people drive to the roadblock so on the drive, both team members can discuss what the one member will do.