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
At the Milan airport, a sign tells us that the SwissAir flight is delayed. The next thing you know, the SwissAir and Lufthansa flights are landing, only five minutes apart. Everyone scurries into the terminals and then looks for taxis. Kelly and Jon are first into their taxi, with Millie and Chuck right behind them. Then Russell and Cindy, Amanda and Chris, DadSteve and Josh, and Al and ClownJon, who seem to have lost a little ground inside the airport. AirSteve and Dave, however, calmly ride the moving sidewalk inside the terminal, in absolutely no hurry. That lollygagging shot is so great. They trust you to be smart enough to grasp the significance of it without saying anything about it, and they're smart enough to want you to notice things like who hustles and who doesn't, rather than focusing entirely on bungee-jumping and snakebites and things of that nature. Furthermore, the camera guy had the presence of mind at that moment to shoot it from a nice low angle and from quite a few feet back, which is exactly the right shot to emphasize the complete lack of action. It also goes by fast, so you just have time to go, "Good grief, they're --" and then it's off to the next shot. The usual fine work of your Amazing Editors and Camera Guys. Awesome.
Out on the highway, Kelly and Jon are out in the lead in their taxi, and glad to be so. Kelly mentions that she and Jon have both been to Milan before. (As always, contestants should exercise caution in describing their travel experiences, lest they be accused of having lived everywhere for two years.) Cindy and Russell are next, and she's trying to egg on the taxi driver in a way that she thinks is cute and funny, but that I would find very irritating, like being stuck on an airplane next to an overcaffeinated college cheerleader. DadSteve, meanwhile, takes the time to remark that he and Josh are in Italy, and he voices over that he's not traveled out of the country before, so that part of it will be more difficult for him. Elsewhere, Al and ClownJon are talking about fitting twenty-five clowns into a Volkswagen, and rather than make one of the many, many actually funny jokes that situation suggests, ClownJon goes with, "Oh, and it was so funny when somebody passed gas, wasn't it?" Good grief. GET. THE. HOOK. Al interviews about how they'll use their senses of humor to their advantage. Hmm -- good luck with that.