Yikes.

Oh! Which reminds me of a somewhat related amazing thing I heard last week: Mike White was on Fresh Air, and talking about his dad and The Amazing Race, and said that Mel basically failed the mental health tests, and the people giving the results said that he basically scored like young black men from certain cities -- that he was that paranoid (because of all of the death threats he got from anti-gay religious people). I thought that was a stunning thing to hear, and wished Terry Gross had gotten into that more.

And not actually related to reality tv, but still.

Also, I just looked and saw that that Survivor guy's other uncle (other than the Survivor one) was kicked off Big Brother for flipping out and head-butting someone. That family should find a better way to make money.

Yay on The Sing Off news! I find I'm not really looking forward to the next round of The Voice... maybe if I just record it and fast-forward through the inevitable sob-stories (my mother has cancer/my father died when I was young/I quit my job for this chance/I spent 6 months in the hospital and almost died, etc. etc. etc.) and get to the actual singing and bitching amongst the judges it won't be as annoying.

I had The Amazing Race on in the background while I talked to my mother. I've never watched it before, but it seems to mostly be white people wandering around foreign countries yelling "English? English? Do you speak English?"

That's what a friend of mine dubs "Spock's Brain Syndrome" in miniature, that is, a casual glance at a show will inevitable see the worst and uncharacteristic moments.

The short explanation is that at this stage in the race, the teams are hitting both Killer Fatigue and culture shock, and some of them are just... foundering. Not as much screen time is given to the teams that coped better.

The longer explanation involves very long plane rides, sleeping rough overnight, so the teams had easily been racing continuously 24+ hours, and landing in Vietnam, which doesn't get much English-speaking tourism. (Given its recent history, wouldn't be surprised if English-speakers are reluctant to admit they can understand.)

My girls Pam & Winnie (Team Over-achieving Asian-American Women) seem to have cruised through the activities. With U-Turns in play, it's a real advantage to be in the lead in the pack. But some of their achievement was just calmly observing and figuring out what they were supposed to do, like holding hands when hopping over the bamboo clackers.

Also: reading the instructions carefully -- like noting you're supposed to bring your chickens along, or NOT play chess.

Very little physicality needed for these tasks this week, aside from the ability to walk (and hop) -- navigating and interacting with locals was more the focus, as well as a cool memory task. That stage production of a patriotic song was wonderful, including the lyrics which the teams weren't privy to, alas.

I would probably be one of the people yelling "English???" when given a grocery list in English to fulfill in a market where none of the vendors speak it....

I was especially impressed with Pam and Winnie, but generally impressed with all of them, in the Glorious Communism section -- I would have had a terrible time memorizing the phrase.

I liked the pho-tasting judge, who seemed generally pleased that the foreigners could successfully cook soup. :-) Me, I'd probably be tasting the soup, too.

Loved Pam & Winnie grabbing the living chess pieces by the hand to lead them onto the board. There's more than one way to overcome a language difficulty than yelling.

the Glorious Communism section

That cracked me up. I assume showing the subtitles was part of CBS' deal in being allowed to shoot in Hanoi.

Also: reading the instructions carefully -- like noting you're supposed to bring your chickens along, or NOT play chess.

Yup. Although I'm still not sure why they had to bring the chickens along, given that they were not plucked and put into the soup. (Maybe just so that the camera crews could catch locals laughing "look at those Westerners carrying chickens"?)

One aspect I like about TAR is that the producers are going for "laughing at the clueless Westerners" rather than "laughing at the quaint locals."