3/25/07 episode re-cap

:)

How was Planet Earth? The previews looked very interesting. I got distracted by the House marathon and forgot to watch it.

It was a commercial for HD (which I don't have). Very pretty photography but not much purpose other than showing very pretty photography.

But I turned to it during a TAS commercial break just in time to see the jumping great white so I was happy.

Funny moment of the show.

PHIL: You're team number 1 and I have good news for you. You have both won a catamaran.

CHARM: What's that?

PHIL: It's a little boat.

CHARM: Oh...um...YAY!!!!!

I thought it was funny when they didn't get the hooker jokes when they were waiting on benches.

That whole airport thing felt very...staged isn't the word. Over-orchestrated? Maybe it was just the way it was edited (like the fact that they were clearly overdubbing what the ticket agents were saying). I wouldn't say I got the feeling that anything was rigged against any one team, but I gotta believe that the producers made some sort of arrangement with the airlines that ensured X number of teams made it on the first flight, Y on the second, and Z on the third. I can understand why they would do that, but I'd much rather it happen a little more naturally than it seemed to happen.

You know, I thought that once again they set up the detour such that if you made the wrong random choice you were screwed, but the beauty queens rocked with the "schlep" challenge. Damn are those two in shape.

At this point, I'd say Danny and Oswald are my favorites, but I wouldn't mind if either they or the Beauty Queens win. The BQs space out on occasion, but they don't panic and for the most part are on the ball. Everyone else just kinda bugs me, some for intangible reasons (I was happy to see Ian and Terri go), some for far more tangible.

Okay, the M&C's broken English thing was bad enough up to this point..but Charla's Italian accent this episode just put it over the top. They seem to think that it somehow makes them appear more sympathetic to the locals. And I can't blame them for thinking it works...because it does work just not for the reason they think it does. It works because whoever they're talking to just does whatever they say to shut them the hell up. If they didn't have cameras pointed at them, they'd more likely get punched in the face than a ride. Ugh.

ETA: We caught the Deep Ocean episode of Planet Earth. We really loved it, some gorgeous shots and some amazing examples of cooperative hunting. I'd kill to see in person a pod of 50 dolphins booking it at full speed in open ocean. I could have done without the gratuitous preaching at the end, but it was just one statement, very overlookable.

According to the voiceover that was 500 dolphins.

And according to my brain it was too. According to my thumb, apparently, it was 50. Yeah. 500.

What GD said, of course.

My interest in this show is waning waning waning. Nearly all of the winning is due to luck, not skill. In fact, it seems there are only two skills that really work: the good old MA "read everything" skill, and being so damn annoying that everyone around you will help you get to where you're going. Seriously, this show is about bugging airport workers and harassing cab drivers. I just sit in my chair and feel awful for the people that have to deal with these screaming jerks who are being followed by camera crews. Ugly Americans indeed.

Did I mention that I hate nearly all of these people? I know that even if I watched it all the way to the end and one of the teams I sorta root for actually won, my entire reaction would be "well, there's that." Mostly because that's how I feel at the end of each episode.

GD seems determined to give it one more week, so I will too, I guess.

I miss the hippies. At least they actually seemed interested in the people they met along the way.