Episode Report Card Miss Alli: A | 417 USERS: C+ YOU GRADE IT Again with the racing
By Miss Alli | Season 4 | Episode 1 | Aired on 2003.05.29
Know what a Detour is? Well, it's a choice between two tasks, each with its own pros and cons. No, it is. Ask Phil. The choices for this Detour are Search and Rescue. In Search, you use a locator beacon to search a 160-acre snowfield for a set of snowmobile keys. When you find them, you can use the keys to start the snowmobile and ride to your next clue. I'm sorry, a hundred and sixty acres? Of searching? Heavens, I think I'd need the keys just to look for the keys. In Rescue, you climb up a very tall rock formation, cross a very high, very skimpy-looking cable bridge, and take a trip on a very high zip line. In classic Detour analysis, this turns out to be something of a combination of Reckless/Chicken and Tortoise/Hare, because while Rescue is the Reckless option, it may also be the Tortoise option, in that you don't get the speedy snowmobile to take you to the clue once you finish it. It's not clear how much of the hike they eventually have to do at the end of Rescue would have had to be done at the end of Search, but it's an interesting arrangement of Detour options, and I like that it's more complex than the usual very obvious Reckless/Chickens, where it's clear that you'll be totally screwed if you don't jump or dive or whatever. I half-expect Josh to use the words "Reckless" and "Chicken" when he's asked which they should do and he says, "The scary one!" All four of these lead teams ultimately select Rescue.