Amazing Race 11 Tidbits -- Thoughts and Outlook

Amazing Race Tidbits

CBS' The Amazing Race 11 -- All Stars Edition

Thoughts on Twelfth and Final Episode

Episode Twelve was the run for the million dollar prize. The start was interesting as Charla and Mirna discovered the fastest connection out of Tokyo to Hawaii. It was a risk, but it paid off as they got to Honolulu two hours ahead of the other teams. But their advantage melted down to 10 and 20 minutes at the charter helicopter place for the 120 mile ride to Lanai Island

Detour

From the Website:

Under: In Under, Teams needed to take a boat to an underwater cave and swim under the rocks where their next clue would be waiting for them. Eric & Danielle swam through this Detour in style. Dustin totally freaked out before completing this scary Detour.

Over: In Over, Teams had to take a boat to an inlet where both Team members needed to stand and paddle themselves on a paddleboard to a buoy to retrieve their next clue. Charla & Mirna got over this Detour eventually. Charla was the one with balance, while Mirna struggled, dissuading other teams from even trying this Detour option.

Episode Twelve Detour
Members	Option	Result
Eric and Danielle	Under	OK with it. Eric faced the only fear he has shown, a recent fear of sharks.
Dustin and Kandice	Under	They were scared, particularly Dustin, by the water rushing out, but they eventually got their heads around the nature of the challenge. Frustrated to not gain any time.
Charla and Mirna	Over	Charla had an easy time of balancing on the paddleboard Even the short Mirna struggled with it. Pretty much held their initial lead.

Unbroadcast Roadblock

Who's ready to take the plunge?

Likely done between the Detour and the following activity. Somewhere on Lanai, teams had to choose one member to jump off a cliff into the ocean below. On the Reality TV World Website, the interview page with Charla and Mirna has a photo of Mirna taking the plunge. As Eric had done all the Roadblocks allowed, Danielle had to also dive off the cliff, in spite of her fear of heights. Whichever of the beauty queens chose to do this was of little consequence as teams arrived at what may have been the next activity in the same order as the Detour, though a bit closer together.

Shipwreck Beach

An exciting activity on the north shore of Lanai, but one that only changed frustration levels, was the kayaking to the shipwreck to snag a clue. Kayaking? The sea was rough and it was high tide, as revealed on the FINISH LINE. Of the three teams, Eric and Danielle had the easiest time. Eric is the beach type anyway, so he knew about the waves, how best to get over them, and they had the combined strength to muscle through them. Both all-female teams really struggled. The beauty queens suffered an emotional setback bigger than the loss of a lead as they began fighting each other as the waves overwhelmed their kayak. They were fighting over which way to steer, according to their interview on Reality TV World, and whether to stay in or out of the boat--out was not a good option with the rough rocks under the shallow water. The crashing waves were loud! During a Detour on the 10th Edition, Dustin was presented as an experienced sailor, the expectation being that she would know best which way to steer. The drain from the emotional tension affected them for some time, even though they were not that far behind. Charla and Mirna barely got the task accomplished, and when they did, they were physically drained.

The flight to the final destination city of San Francisco was required to be taken to Oakland International Airport. Only one airline had a flight from Honolulu to Oakland, ATA airline, a discount airline now defunct as of April 2008. This producer-controlled flight restriction resulted in all teams ending on the same flight. No breakaways, or airport mixups, this time around. Dustin and Kandice need not have worried about what Charla and Mirna had up their sleeve, this time! The taxi ride into San Francisco to the Old Mint looked closer than it may have been, at least for third place, according to Charla and Mirna. In their interview with Reality TV World, Charla and Mirna described their taxi woes leaving Oakland International Airport. They had a tough time with their ill-equipped and not-too-knowledgeable taxi driver, and evidently had to change taxis on the way to the Old Mint. By the time Charla and Mirna got there, Eric and Danielle were "finishing up" at the Mint.

Final Activity

Old Mint, San Francisco

In this activity, one teammate had to write down answers to four questions in numerical code. The teammate had to enter the code into a safe. The other teammate had to guess the correct sequence of four answers by pressing a four digit code into the front of the safe. If it matched, the safe would open, revealing the final clue. If the second teammate exhausted 10 minutes trying to match the code, the guard would call them to leave the vault, and hand them the final clue. Only Eric and Danielle clicked on the winning combination of 8947.

In your opinion, which team

was the least trustworthy?
had the best sense of humor?
was the most overrated?
would you want to stay in touch with?

The winning combination, 8947, corresponded to the following teams, in order of the questions--Danny and Oswald, Charla and Mirna, Rob and Amber, and Uchenna and Joyce. The list of teams were based on the previous episode's standings, with teams listed in reverse order, not counting the team assigned to the room.

Episode Twelve Final Activity
Members	First Team Member	Second Team Member	Result
Eric and Danielle	Eric	Danielle	Key is that they agreed on the last 3 questions. Danielle only had to change the first one, least trustworthy, from an obvious pick of Dustin and Kandice, to the team Eric hated most, Danny and Oswald. Still, it took over 7 and a half minutes.
Dustin and Kandice	Dustin	Kandice	Dustin struggled with setting the combination, and changed her choice of least trustworthy team to the unlikely Joe and Bill, based on prior reputation of Team Guido. To Reality TV World, she said "I actually thought I was trying to guess the popular vote", then realized she was trying to think like Kandice. Kandice never got the same choices in the 10 minutes.
Charla and Mirna	Mirna	Charla	Charla was putting in various combinations, to no avail, using up the entire 10 minutes.

Pit Stop

San Francisco Botanical Garden

CONGRATULATIONS TO DANIELLE TURNER AND ERIC SANCHEZ!

The queens were level-headed in defeat, while the ending came with a release of emotions by Danielle, who clearly endured a lot to get to the top. Eric was proud and triumphant, still Eric, even when surprised to be talking to Jeremy instead of his parents. My guess is that Eric and Danielle won by closer to five minutes than ten minutes over the beauty queens, based on the queens hearing cheering going on as they reached the Botanical Garden. This guess is also based on the Early Show interview where the initial estimate by Eric was 5 to 10 minutes, but I could hear the queens objecting. In later interviews, Eric tended to up his estimate, but Danielle said more like, or about ten minutes. Also, in their interview with Reality TV World, Kandice said they were just five minutes away from winning. But it is also clear from the show and the interviews that there was no sprint to the mat, as the most exciting finish of the much maligned Fanily Edition featured. A case can be made that that kind of ending, not involving taxi rides from the final acitvity, would have been more exciting, as also shown in the popular Ninth Edition.