Monday, February 21, 2011

Amazing Race 18 Leg 1

Head Down and Hold On (Australia)
I was lucky enough to catch the Amazing Race Premiere on AXN while browsing through the channels. I really have no prior knowledge that it will be premiering today, February 21. Good thing I was browsing at that time.

Wow! Amazing Race is back! Also returning are 11 teams of two from previous seasons as far back as Season 12. I won't be enumerating the teams one by one, you can search them on Wikipedia ;) But one thing is for sure, the teams are back for some Unfinished Business. I was happy to see some familiar faces returning.

So, the starting line this time is in San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm in Palm Springs, California. What is new in this season is that there is already a task at the starting line. The first task for this season is to search through a field of airplanes for the one matching "Queensland and Northern Territories Airline Services". The teams should be looking for an airplane marked QANTAS to receive their first clue. The first 8 teams to finish will be on the first flight arriving 90 minutes earlier than the second flight which the last three teams will take. Also, the last team to finish the task will incur an automatic penalty, a U-turn at the first detour.

But well, this won't be the Amazing Race without the unpredictable, and this happened on the first flight as it has to land in Honolulu, Hawaii due to a medical emergency, and with that, the tables have turned. The second flight, carrying Gary and Mallory, Kisha and Jen, and Amanda and Kris, touched down in Sydney, Australia first giving them the advantage. But not long after, the flight carrying the remaining teams arrived. Upon arrival in Sydney, Australia, teams must make their way to Ocean World and complete a roadblock. For this leg's roadblock, one team member must scuba dive in the shark and ray tank and retrieve a compass. Then, they must decipher a series of nautical flags, each flag corresponding to an alphabet, to which the compass has the decipher code. The code will tell the teams to proceed to Manly 16ft Skiff Sailing Club, find the Commodore, and tell him the passcode "I am between the devil and the deep blue sea" to receive their next clue. This clue is a route info which tells them to ride a sailing skiff, complete a course and retrieve their next clue from the buoys along the course. After this task, the clue will tell them to proceed to the pitstop, Shelly Beach. The first team to arrive will receive the Express Pass, a coveted item which enables the team to skip a task and continue on to the next part of the race. The recipients of the pass? They are the father-daughter team Gary and Mallory. But the race does not end in Shelly Beach. To the surprise of the teams, this is only a marker halfway of the leg and they still need to continue racing. At the end of the episode, 10 teams have already checked in at the virtual pitstop, leaving the cowboys, Jet and Cord, stuck at the roadblock.

When I was watching this episode, I am really rooting for Jet and Cord to be this season's winners. But they still have to go through a lot of challenges, and the first one they have to conquer is this roadblock. It was really unfair how other teams were able to proceed by asking for the passphrase from the other teams who were able to decode them. I hope there will be a penalty at the pitstop for these teams because truly, they were not able to complete the task. I really hope that they complete the roadblock in the next episode and I hope that they can catch up. I think they are the only team who really accomplishes the tasks, does not do dirty tricks and give their best. I wish them luck!

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