Episode Report Card Miss Alli: C- | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT In my beautiful (and slow) balloon
By Miss Alli | Season 8 | Episode 9 | Aired on 11.28.2005
The first team to arrive at the park is the Bransens, who get a morning departure time of 8:30 AM. Next to get there are the Weavers. As they approach, Rebecca tells everyone to help her find the turn, because she's all wonky. Like she's been in math class. "You failed math class, Bec," Rolly says. "No, she didn't!" Rachel protests. "Yes, I did," Rebecca clarifies. "Twice." Impressive! Let's see...we know they don't know math, geography, languages, or etiquette, and I don't really see them as wordsmiths. Where does all the time go? I mean, I guess a good bit of it goes to their Religions Of The World class. HA HA HA! Yeah, just kidding. Anyway, they pull in and get an 8:45 AM departure. They agree once they're situated that they need to get money. Remember, they didn't get any? See, you wouldn't notice, because the non-elimination, in addition to being in a Yield leg, was placed before a leg in which practically no money was needed. So...great! The begging is as boring as ever, as they walk up to someone, ask for money, and get it. They also get a map. They do not get a stern talking-to. It's never the stuff you really need, you know?
The Gadzookskis are third to arrive at the campground.
And then...the Linzes. Who, you will remember, were in first place. Phil explains that once again, for the second time in two episodes, a "production error" with the camera equipment drained the battery in the Linzes' car, and as a result, they've fallen to last place. You know, first of all, that shit should not be happening. Especially not twice. I don't know what that "production error" is, but it sure as hell sounds like somebody not having the presence of mind to know you can't charge equipment off the car battery when the car isn't running. In any event, they should obviously have been credited time for this, just as the Godlewskis should have last week, and it's incomprehensible why it didn't happen, except that the people in the field weren't able to figure it all out in the middle of the leg and decided to punt. It's absurd -- this isn't bad luck. This the show screwing up and totally influencing the course of the competition, and that's just...I mean, it's only a show, but within the scope of the show, it's unacceptable. It's way too close to the end for a team to be falling from first place to last place because of a production problem and not getting a time credit. If there were some explanation for why they didn't get one, you'd think it would have been provided. I mean, I realize that time credits look a little sloppy and are difficult to calculate with precision, but you've got to make the effort to do something. This attempt to gloss over a development so utterly unfair only serves to make the entire undertaking look incredibly amateurish. It's like Survivor announcing that the votes were miscounted last week because somebody's vote stuck to the bottom of the urn, so the wrong person was thrown off, but, you know. Oh, well!
At any rate, the Linzes talk about trying to "roll with the punches" and so forth. They show up at the park and get their 9:15 AM departure. Ridiculous. They had overnight to figure this out. They had overnight to make sense of it, knowing that the Godlewskis had had the same problem. There's no way you don't get it together at this point.