Episode Report Card M. Giant: B | 1 USERS: B YOU GRADE IT Too Much of a Good Thing
By M. Giant | Season 22 | Episode 1 | Aired on 02.17.2013
With that out of the way, both Amazing Lines proceed northwest to Bora Bora, which a caption helpfully informs us is in French Polynesia. It's beautiful, all right, with white sand beaches, bright turquoise water and thatched huts that don't seem to care which of those two surfaces they're built on. The flight with the first five teams lands and they all spill directly out onto the tarmac and soon spot an Amazing Arrow sign on a palm tree pointing to a clue box standing on the beach. "Who's ready to take a giant leap towards a million bucks?" Pam reads from the first clue, which is kind of a giveaway as to what they're about to do. But to elaborate, we cut to a signup sheet hung on a clipboard followed by a shot of an ascending helicopter as Phil explains that each team will need to sign up for one of six chopper rides, each of which can carry up to two teams. "Then, in an Amazing Race first, they'll jump out of a helicopter as it hovers at ten thousand feet. They'll free-fall at speeds over 120 miles per hour in a tandem skydive as their partner takes a water taxi to the landing zone." After hooking back up with their partner, they'll get their next clue. Doing this will be Pam, John, Connor, Chuck and whichever one of the doctor twins whose name I'll see in a caption on the screen in a moment. There's the predictable race to the clipboard, and after some jostling, John and Jamil (thank you, captions!) end up on the first flight. Connor and Winnie get on the second flight, leaving Chuck somehow bullied into waiting to sign up for the third flight. The power of the mullet didn't help him much there.
Jumpers get geared up, talking about the imminent leap with varying levels of anticipation. Meanwhile, their race partners board motorboats for the ride across the water to the landing zone. John is the first to find himself in the doorway of the helicopter with a human being strapped to his back and the tiny archipelago laid out below him. It's quite a stunning landform, with the main island in the center and what looks like a pentagonal sandbar surrounding most of it, with a ring of shallow, turquoise water separating them. It almost looks like a bird's-eye view of nature's Space Shuttle launch pad. With a few excited and obnoxious screams on the threshold of the chopper, John is soon tumbling through the sky and continuing to yell in a way that has me rooting for gravity.
Jamil is a little nervous about "leaving a perfectly good helicopter," but reminds himself that he's going to do anything for a million bucks. He seems to enjoy it once he's on his way down, though.