A Correction - Why A Family Sells Ad Space On Their RV

In the final part of my Short Takes piece last Saturday I mentioned the Illinois family that had put advertising rights on their RV up for auction on eBay. The rights were snapped up by CBS who also hired the family to promote The Amazing Race and the show's move to Sunday night come September at various landmarks and events around the United States. In my article I made the statement that the family - who weren't named in the CBS press release - "thought they'd subsidize their summer vacation by selling ad space on their RV." That was entirely my assumption; again the CBS press release didn't mention the family's motivation in putting the advertising rights up for sale. I received a comment on the piece from Mike Aldrich, the man who actually owns the RV.

Mr. Aldrich stated that his intention in putting the advertising space up for auction was not to subsidize the family vacation but rather to "help with our air time cost for a kids sport highlight show we air in our home town." For getting that wrong I apologize but I suppose it's a natural assumption based on the lack of any explanation from CBS. In fact, Mike's C.I.K. TV (Central Illinois Kids Television) will be going national in the fall using the online service Lasoo On-Demand TV for which I definitely wish him and his family the best of luck.

One other thing that I got wrong, but which can be laid entirely at the feet of CBS is the availability of content that Mike and his family will be producing on their trip. It will not be uploaded to InnerTube but is in fact being prepared for "educational segments for our show." In a way I'm sort of unhappy about this since I for one would like to see the progress of the "Amazing Race Promo-mobile" and the people that they meet across the country. I think it would have been great summer content. I suppose that we'll just have to be satisfied with the Aldritch's C.I.K.TV Blog, which is offering extensive coverage of their trip as well as some photos.

Anyway I thought I'd send along my apologies to Mike and his family for getting it wrong - I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one who made assumptions about what they were intending when they put the RV advertising rights up for sale.

Short Takes - July 2, 2006

I've been remiss in getting a lot of stuff posted including a new set of Short Takes. Mostly I've been watching the World Cup (did that referee on Saturday take a bribe from the Portuguese Mafia? - I don't know about some of those calls), doing stuff around the house and trying to stay cool without being forced to use the AC.

An interesting take on the PTC: In his Time Magazine blog, TV critic James Poniewozik makes an interesting point about Brent Bozell and the PTC's current outrage over the rape scene in a recent episode of Rescue Me (which I haven't seen so can't comment on). Poniewozik starts with the fact that the PTC's "righteous outrage" took nine days after the episode actually aired to be expressed. I've noticed the same thing on several occasions, notably when reviewing the time line presented for the CBS appeal of the fines related to the "Teen Orgy" episode of Without A Trace. Poniewozik then suggests that maybe this is because the PTC doesn't actually watch the shows they're complaining about but rather watches what becomes controversial in the press and then express their moral outrage. I think his conclusion on this is rather insightful:

If so, it tends to undercut the PTC's argument - that children and people of delicate morals need to be protected from raunchy content. Because it would seem the system actually works: shockingly, people who don't like risque TV aren't watching Rescue Me in the first place. Why? Because Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl notwithstanding, edgy TV pretty much advertises itself as such; Denis Leary does not promote Rescue Me by playing an acoustic guitar to children and puppets. And because people are not idiots. Not even PTC members.

Watch the Frog...say goodbye: With the coming of The CW, both UPN and The WB will be shutting down. While UPN has yet to announce plans for it's last day on Friday September 15, The WB has announced that their final day on September 17 will feature the pilots of what they consider to be four of their most important older series. The shows and times are Felicity(5-6 p.m.) Angel (6-7 p.m.), Buffy The Vampire Slayer (7-9 p.m.), and Dawson's Creek (9-10 p.m.). They will also air promos from their 11 season existence. Apparently the whole thing took a lot of difficult negotiations with the originating studios and the cable networks airing them. To get the rights the network has to include promos for both the show DVDs and the network(s) currently airing reruns. Sounds okay but it might be fun (or at least interesting) to see at least one show from The WB's first season like The Parent 'Hood. Or maybe not.

Exploding Star: Since I've never actually consciously watched The View I've never really gotten the Star Jones thing. I mean I've seen Barbara Walters of course ("What kind of twee would you be?"), Meredith Vierra both when she was a serious journalist and now that she was hosting Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, Joy Behar's comedy act on occasion, and of course Elizabeth Hasselbeck when she was on Survivor (liked her better than Amber...then) but I didn't know anything about Star Jones or why she was on this show. I understand that she's a lawyer and all but beyond that I have absolutely no understanding of why she engenders such hatred from a variety of people. Apparently this hatred has extended to include the people on her show. It was expected that she would be dropped when Rosie O'Donnell was added to replace Meredith, and that happened. People were expecting an explosion between Star and Rosie (although again, I don't understand why - it would seem that the conservative Hasselbeck would be more likely to be confronted by O'Donnell) and believed that this was why Star was dropped. But Star was not about to go out quietly. After the announcement was made on the show, Jones fired back with some attacks on the producers of the show and Walters in particular, saying that she didn't jump, she was pushed. And she did it on every media outlet that would have her, including Larry King Live and The Today Show. But here's the thing that thoroughly and utterly mystified me - the heated reaction to her appearances by other people. Like this TV Squad post, or this one reacting to a repeat of the interview the next night. I can think of a lot of things that are vile - a network repeating an interview from the previous day is not one of them.

Casting news: David James Elliott will be joining the cast of Close To Home playing a new district attorney who used to be a Captain in the Navy. Sorry I made that last part up since the last series he was in ended with him being promoted to Captain in the Judge Advocate General's department of the US Navy. Elliott will be replacing John Carroll Lynch as Annabeth's boss on the show which will apparently be revamped to get rid of the show's central premise of crime in the suburbs. As part of this they killed off Christian Kane's character (Annabeth's husband) so I wouldn't be totally surprised if Elliott's character eventually develops a possible romantic interest for Jennifer Finigan's Annabeth. That is if he isn't married to a former Marine.

New rules - similar results?: I'm sure that if Bryce Zabel still reads this blog he'll deny this but it seems as though the new Emmy nomination process won't widen the field of nominees for the awards anywhere near as wide as was expected when the new procedure was adopted. In the new procedure the academy in its various branches votes for nominees, and the top ten or fifteen are then presented to a panel to select the five nominees who will be presented to the membership. According to this piece in the LA Times Gold Derby blog the ten drama series to make the second phase of the nomination process are: Big Love (HBO), Boston Legal (ABC), Grey's Anatomy(ABC), House (Fox), Lost (ABC), Rescue Me (FX), Six Feet Under (HBO), The Sopranos (HBO), 24 (Fox), The West Wing (NBC). The ten comedies are: Arrested Development (Fox), Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO), Desperate Housewives (ABC), Entourage (HBO), My Name Is Earl (NBC), The Office (NBC), Scrubs (NBC), Two and a Half Men (CBS), Will & Grace (NBC), Weeds (Showtime). Of the Drama nominees there's only one new show (Big Love), which is the only one that hasn't been nominated for an Emmy in some category - five of the series have been nominated for best drama. There are no nominations for series such as Battlestar Gallactica, The Closer, Everwood, Huff, Prison Break, Rome, or Veronica Mars in the Drama category. In the comedies the only new shows nominated were My Name Is Earl and Weeds while those two shows and those shows and The Office were the only shows on the list not to have previous Emmy nominations. Among the shows missing from the list: Everybody Hates Chris, Extras, Gilmore Girls, Monk, and New Adventures of Old Christine. So has the new procedure really succeeded in widening the nomination process or are people just writing down the names that they've heard before?

Better than advertizing on someone's belly: So there's this family in Peoria that thought they'd subsidize their summer vacation by selling ad space on their RV - those babies suck up a lot of fuel after all - so they put an ad on eBay. They got a response from CBS which thought that the RV would make a great mobile billboard and not only bought the ad space but hired the family of six to travel around the United States from Denver to Nashville and talk to people about The Amazing Race. According to George Schwitzer, president of CBS Marketing "I saw this posting on the web and immediately thought a traveling motor home would be the perfect vehicle to reach 'Amazing Race' viewers this summer. What better way to reach our core audience than by visiting them on the road and on their vacations at tourist sites across the country." As well as disseminating promotional material for the show at various locations and events, the family will interview people they meet in their travels including previous contestants on The Race and upload the interviews onto the CBS broadband channel Innertube.

Short Takes - May 22, 2006

Seeing as how I've spent the last week relaying news about TV, the usual topics for my short takes pieces are gone. On the other hand I've let a number of season finales go uncommented on, something which not only needs to be rectified but if done briefly also provides me with ample subject matter for this piece.

Sunday: The West Wing - Not just a season finale but a series finale. Before I say anything else, let me just express how profoundly disappointed I was with the way that NBC handled this series this year. First they moved the show to Sunday night, supposedly to "protect it" from competition from Lost and then, when the ratings went down (because of the move to Sunday) they announced that they'd be ending the show at the end of this year. And then they treated it the show was something being eliminated at the end of a single season instead of one of the most critically acclaimed series of the past decade. A planned retrospective was called off because NBC and Warner Brothers didn't want to pay the extra money and the episode itself was only an hour long (while Law & Order: Criminal Intent got a two hour season ender) and opposite the Survivor.

And yes I think the show needed a two hour finale. The whole atmosphere of the episode felt rushed, which I suppose is fitting given that the subject was the Inaugural Day transition between the old and new presidencies but I confess that I wanted a bit more. I wanted more closure to Charlie's story and more about where the relationship between Josh and Donna was going. I wanted to meet Sam's fiance and find out if she was an ex-hooker who has a relative working as a hospital administrator in New Jersey or a blonde conservative lawyer who quit the Hoover Institute after nine days. There were some great touches that were enough to bring pangs of nostalgia but it's like going to Disneyland for just one day - there's so much more that you want to see than you can. In this case though it was the people who were running things who decided that you weren't going to see anymore, and I think it was disrespectful.

Monday: Grey's Anatomy - This they give the whole night to, courtesy of President Bush. ABC decided to repeat the first hour of the finale from Sunday night rather than show Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball after Bush's Immigration speech. That was, I think, a little too much. The two hour finale was full of sound and fury but was there was a clear separation between the first and second hours for easy syndication. Yeah there were revelations, tears and laughter, sexual tension resolved, and storylines carefully left dangling over the edge of a cliff to hold onto the audience for next season. And yes there was good acting, particularly from Katherine Heigl who was by turns manic, depressed, full of joy and defeated. And even though Izzy is leaving Dr. Bailey's little band of surgical "butt kissers" I can't help but hope that they'll somehow manage to keep her on the show, just because she turned in such good work this season.

Wednesday: The Amazing Race - Yeah, I know that I should be writing about what turned out to be the series finale of Invasion but I'll let you in on a little secret - I've been missing both Lost and Invasion a lot in the past few weeks. At least with Lost I should be able to pick up some of what I missed during the summer. Besides, I love The Amazing Race. I really liked this season. It wasn't as much fun as the seventh season of the show which pitted Rob & Amber fans against Romber haters it was easily better than the dismal Family Edition. And hey a team that was not only one of my favourites but actually deserved it won. BJ & Tyler - The Hippies - had fun with the race but also brought some real skills to it. This was more than could be said for Ray & Yolanda, who seemed to get lost and start arguing at the drop of Ray's hat. As for Eric & Jeremy the so-called Frat Boys - who were actually college drop-out and from community college at that - while they excelled at the physical aspects they revealed some negative aspects to their character when they cancelled the cabs of two of the teams and made disparaging remarks about BJ & Tyler. And that doesn't even mention their apparently insatiable desire for sex with any young female they encountered. While some fans of the show have stated that they found the "Hippies"' shtick wore thin, they were smart players who made an effort to learn a few words of the language at every stop they made. They deserved it.

Thursday: CSI - I realise that nothing they could do would compare to last season's Quentin Tarantino directed finale, but really this was a rather lackluster pedestrian effort. The major event was the shooting of Captain Brass in the previous episode but since that case was solved - or more accurately the perpetrator was terminated - we were left with an "ordinary" (well ordinary for CSI) case of a decapitated man found on a railroad track. Underlying it all was the prospect of Brass dying and the various CSIs standing vigil for him. One interesting aspect was that Brass had given Grissom his medical power of attorney despite the fact that, as Grissom told Greg, their relationship was entirely work related: "We don't hang out Greg." It indicates a level of trust and almost intimacy that doesn't need to happen away from the workplace. The one thing to take the show above the ordinary was the revelation in the final minute or two, where we discover that Grissom is intimate (in a sexual way) with Sara Sidel. There's been speculation for some time among serious fans that the producers were going to bring them together. What's really interesting - to me anyway - is that there's a sense of intimacy and familiarity that suggests that we're only seeing it for the first time but that they've been together for a while. I'm not sure if this is a good development or not (supposedly it has a lot of people "enraged") but it certainly has shaken things up.

Friday: Numb3rs - I don't really have much to say about this except that it indicates an interesting approach by the writers and producers. According to co-creator and executive producer Cheryl Heuton, the premise of the show was so different that "this show had to tell people what it was about a little longer than most." Now they're finally able to delve deeper into the character's relationships. The season finale was interesting but less for the case - a serial killer for whom the stresser was having his trust fund cut off - than for the insight that we got into Charlie's character and history. The execution was interesting, using that most illogical of mediums - dreams - to give us some sense of what shaped a character whose occupation as a scientist forces him to be eminently logical.

Short Takes - May 14, 2006

Not much in the way of real news for this week's Short Takes. Maybe I haven't been paying attention well enough or maybe it's just that it's the weekend before the networks reveal what they're going to inflict on us next year and so rumours are rife about what is and isn't going to be on to the exclusion of much else.

David Blaine endangers health and fails to set record: No I didn't watch David Blaine's Drowned Alive stunt. Which of course is exactly what it was - a stunt not a magic trick. I think it may have been the idiocy of the title. I think it's fairly safe to say that everyone who has ever drowned was alive at the start of the process. The part that really got to me was his need to surround what was really a fairly basic trick that I learned about the first time I read the Guiness Book of Records and actually tried once, and surround it with the life endangering hype of the whole seven days in water filled plastic bubble crap (and I wonder how he did that part - presumably not well if his list of medical complications is any indication). The trouble is that no one would have tuned in to watch a guy hyperventilate oxygen for half an hour and then hold his breath. (For the record I think I hyperventilated for fifteen or twenty minutes and held my breath for five, but not under water. I don't recommend it.)

So maybe Reba is gone: No sooner did I finish raking people over the coals for the report that The CW wanted to get out of their contract for Reba than TVSquad reported that The CW wanted to get out of their contract for Reba. This one I believe and for one good reason - they cite sources. They cite a report from Broadcasting & Cable rather than devastated "anonymous sources" on the set. And neither TV Squad nor Brodacast & Cable wrapped the whole thing in some silly vendetta against Les Moonves. That's the sort of reporting that I want to see.

Rumours abound: Of course they do - upfronts are next week and the "industry insiders" whoever they may be keep getting information to their pet columnists - one of which I ain't. Depending on who you believe, Invasion is cancelled, Aquaman will never be seen, Veronica Mars is cancelled - or not depending on what columnist you choose to believe (apparently the evidence that it hasn't been cancelled comes from star Kristin Bell flying to New York this week). One thing that seems likely is that the CW wants 7th Heaven back for at least 13 episodes and is willing to pay for it. All of which begs that question "If the network is willing to take a huge loss to bring back its highest rated drama, why do they seem determined to dump Reba which is their highest rated comedy?"

Blankity blank blankblanking Motherblankers: According to CNN.com HBO will not be renewing the options for the cast of Deadwood after the end of the upcoming third season. According to CNN series producer "David Milch is shifting his attention to John From Cincinnati, a one-hour project he is writing for HBO. The surfing-themed drama has been ordered as a pilot, subject to finalizing deals on the financial and talent side."

We haven't had much from "Barney" Bozell lately: But that's about to change. The self appointed moderators of decency (whether you like it or not) known as the Parent's Television Council has decided to "blast" Staples and MacDonald's for supporting evil and badness by sponsoring an episode of the TV show Medium. "The February 6, 2006, Medium episode contained graphic depictions of a man having sex with a prostitute whose hands were tied to the bed. Viewers were subjected to an explicit sexual sequence in which the man reaches orgasm and then murders the prostitute by smothering her with a pillow. In addition, he is shown killing several more prostitutes in the same way. The episode was watched by over half a million children, according to Nielsen Media Research." Which is somewhat surprising since Medium is a "third hour" show. Staples responded to the PTC with a letter that stated that the company "advertises with a variety of media outlets, but we do not necessarily share the same views of these organizations or their content." while MacDonalds was a bit more combative: "As an advertiser, our role is not to determine what broadcasters should or should not air. That decision belongs to the broadcaster and, ultimately, to the individual viewer." Here's the really interesting bit though. The PTC's Best and Worst of the Week page isn't particularly easy to understand or navigate but I don't see any mention of Medium on the page. So either there were shows that were more evil and depraved than this episode of Medium or someone at the PTC didn't think the show was so bad. (Okay, just checked; their Worst for the week of February 6 was an episode of Las Vegas which I guess didn't have sponsors with high enough profiles.)

There was something else and now I can't remember it: I hate it when that happens.

Short Takes - April 1, 2006

I've decided to start referring to the times that shows air on the US and Canadian broadcast networks as being in the "first", "second" or "third" hours of prime time. It's easier than saying (or typing) 8 Eastern and Pacific, 7 Central and Mountain. As we saw with the Without A Trace situation the "third hour" varies from region to region and in the United States at least it does matter. Complicating things even more for me is that Saskatchewan does not join the rest of North America in the switch to Daylight Savings Time this weekend. The world shifts around us which means that times for everything but networks served by local stations. In other words to "8 Eastern and Pacific, 7 Central and Mountain" you can add "and 6 in Saskatchewan.

- Prison Break to change name for Season 2: Well duh. I mean you can't keep calling it Prison Break after they break out of prison unless of course they escape from one prison right into another. No word on a new name but I suppose they'll have to include something that will remind viewers that this is the show with plot holes you can drive an Abrams tank through but people loved in its first season anyway.

- CBS moving The Amazing Race to Wednesday's first hour: About bloody time if you ask me. The Amazing Race was ticking along quite happily in its Tuesday second hour time slot even with the execrable Family Edition. Then CBS panicked over American Idol - not without reason since they probably remember when Idol killed The West Wing in the ratings and did such significant damage to Amazing Race 2 that the network didn't trust it and put a revived version of Star Search in the slot and delayed the third edition of The Amazing Race until late spring. That nearly killed the show right there and for two season it became a summer replacement. This time around CBS has also had a "promising" new show called The Unit. They put that up against American Idol - and not coincidentally right after the military themed NCIS - and moved The Amazing Race to the third hour where it's only up against Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Boston Legal, and oh yes loses a lot of viewers who watch the show with their kids because seeing other parts of the world is educational. The new time will put it up against Deal Or No Deal, Bones, George Lopez and Freddie. If nothing else should tell us whether America wants mindless (Deal Or No Deal and the ABC comedies) or intelligent (The Amazing Race and Bones) shows. The problem at CBS is that their bench is way too deep and shows like Courting Alex and Out Of Practice (both of which had been drawing good ratings on Mondays) get put on hiatus and then shifted to Wednesday to replace two shows which had been doing adequately but weren't loved by CBS executives and were cancelled. Other network execs wish they had the problems CBS does.

- Commander-in-Chief moves to Thursday's third hour: I don't think it'll save the show, but it's an interesting move on ABC's part to try to compete against ER and Without A Trace with a drama rather than their tried and true newsmagazine Primetime. I expect Commander-in-Chief to wither on the vine in the new time slot but the big question should be whether this is the end of ABC's "other" newsmagazine or just a break.

- Dick Wolf must be happy: It looks like In Justice is toast. First Jason O'Mara, who plays investigator Charles Conti signed to do a pilot for ABC called Drift about an insomniac detective, and now word comes that Kyle MacLachlan who played lawyer David Swain will be a recurring character for a while on Desperate Housewives playing yet another poor deluded fool man who falls for Susan Meyer. I'll miss the show - even though I had a tendency to miss the show - if only as an antidote to contemporary TV's seeming addiction to the idea that cops and prosecutors are perfect beings who never make a mistake while defense attorneys are worse slime than the people they defend. This is a view championed by Nancy Grace in real life and by Dick Wolf in fiction and one that I'm not at all comfortable with. I can't help wondering if ABC is making a mistake by apparently dumping In Justice and burning off Commander-in-Chief on Thursday nights. Why not burn off Commander-in-Chief on Fridays and try In Justice in the third hour of Thursday?

- Is this some kind of a joke?: Fans of the original CSI may have noticed that William Petersen wasn't in last Thursday's episode. Rumour has it that Petersen has shot his last show. According to reports Petersen will be joining the cast of the next Star Trek film which will be a prequel to the original series set aboard the original Starship Enterprise under her first Captain. Indeed Petersen will be playing the lead role as Captain Robert April. Fools think that the first Captain of the Enterprise was Christopher Pike who was played in the series pilot by Jeffrey Hunter. However they forget the animated series which included an episode featuring April. Fools - including many officials at Paramount - doubt whether the animated series fit into the "official" Star Trek canon, but in the day no less an authority than Gene Roddenberry stated that it was.

Less Faces, More Places

That's what Phil Keoghan promised in a recent interview about the ninth season of The Amazing Race. This is after the Fall season of the show which was also known as The Amazing Race: Family Edition. You don't want to know what fans called it, and because children might find this blog, I can't tell you either. Even the broadcasters hated it - in its ads for the show CTV, which broadcasts the show in Canada (where it's the most popular reality show of all and almost a popular as Hockey Night In Canada) says that this season is a "return to its Emmy winning form."

I think you pretty much know that I love The Amazing Race with a love that burns pure. The Amazing Race: Family Edition was crap, mainly because there were too many people and it was reluctant to venture beyond the borders of the USA, and it was hard to identify with teams of four (and yeah some people hated that there were "cute kids" on the show). Yes there were ventures to Panama and Costa Rica, and even the wilds of Toronto and Montreal but people really didn't want to see the World's Biggest Office Chair (in Anniston Alabama), they wanted to see teams hang gliding off of Sugar Loaf in Rio and Ethiopian churches cut out of the living rock - and so did the competitors, including the ones with the "cute kids" some of whom were better travelled than the people who criticized their presence on the show. From the looks of things in the commercials that have been airing for the show, this season delivers what people want - bungee jumping over the Corinth Canal any one?

I usually give my evaluation of the teams in the Amazing Race newsgroup but wasn't able to this time so I present a brief version here. The Race has a tendency to cast teams as types - the Girl Team, The African-American Team, the Old Couple, the Gay Team, so I've mentioned which group teams fit into. Odds come from Online Casino News and reflect wagering from PlayersOnly.com - take some of them with a large grain of salt:

Eric & Jeremy 11-5: The prototypical Alpha Male Team. They both ran track in College and one of them spent a couple of years in Africa (and speaks some Swahili). They've adopted the Survivor attitude, which is that you don't make friends and you do screw people over if you get the chance. If any team is going to be the "heels" of this season's race it will be these two, and it's worth noting that only one team has really done well using the Survivor strategy - Rob & Amber, who were on Survivor. They'll make final four - they may even win - and be hated for it.

Ray & Yolanda 7-2: The African-American team who also fit another favourite requirement of the producers - they're a couple who have just started living together. They're educated and athletic - she ran track in college - but undoubtedly there are going to things they'll discover about themselves that will surprise them and test their relationship. Could win.

BJ & Tyler 4-1: Every season seems to have a really quirky team of "best buds" and this is them. For some reason they remind me of Kevin & Drew, one of the most memorable teams ever. They've travelled a lot and have a number of languages including Japanese, Spanish and Latin (although where they'll use that is unknown). I expect them to really deep in the race, maybe final four, and be fun and goofy all the way.

Fran & Barry 5-1: The requisite Old Couple. Old Couple have had a variable history in The Amazing Race. They tend to be underestimated and these two are bound to be. He's a retired Urologist who was also army surgeon with an Airborne Battalion. She's a retired accountant who has hiked or climbed every one of the 54 mountains in Colorado that are higher than 14,000 feet. They've travelled to 45 different countries - which I think is more than Phil has gone to(!) - so I doubt that they're going to be surprised by much. I expect them to make it to at least the last half of the race and they could be in the final four.

Wanda & Desiree 6-1: The final type that the show likes is the parent and adult child combo needing to recapture their closeness one last time. They've travelled together (Wanda used to be a flight attendant) a lot and Wanda in particular is well educated. I think these two could be a lot of fun and while parent-child teams rarely go a long distance, I think these two could.

John & Scott 6-1: While they're not a couple this is the Gay Team. These guys look as thought hey could be fun but they both have a lot of fears and not much travel experience. John has to cope with a fear of flying, amongst other fears and he's doing the Race to conquer some of his fears. Gay Teams have had a tendency to last for a long time in the Race, but with these two guys I just can't see it, simply because of the combination of fears and physical qualities.

Lake & Michelle 7-1: Married couple from Hattiesburg Mississippi. He's a dentist and she's a stay at home mom who works part time in his office. They have limited travel experience and while he's an impatient Type A personality she's somewhat laid back. I'd expect a bit of bickering, and could be an early elimination.

Dani & Danielle 7-1: High school friends from Staten Island, this is the "Girl Team" . They're both college graduates with limited language and travel experience, but they're cute and look good in a tube top so.... I expect them to go out early.

David & Lori 8-1: The self-described nerds in the commercials, they're a dating couple which is always risky for the relationship. I can't see them lasting beyond the first episode though so maybe the stresses on the relationship won't get to be too bad.

Joseph & Monica 8-1: They're another "Dating Couple" trying to take their relationship to the "next level". This is usually a recipe for disaster as they discover that the person they're with is entirely different under the stress of racing around the world. Couples have been destroyed by this Race - in front of hundreds of millions of people around the world - but better to have the relationship collapse before the wedding than after the kids are born. Depending on how badly they blow up could make it beyond the mid-way point.

Lisa & Joni 10-1: Another staple in the race is the "Soccer Mom" Team, women of around forty who are getting away from the husband and kids together either as friends or - as in this case sisters - and looking for adventure. These two will definitely stand out; they're both over 6 feet tall. They haven't actually spent a lot of time together so I think we can expect personality clashes as they "rediscover" each other. "Soccer Moms" can be a difficult group to handicap but they usually go out fairly early unless they have a lot of grit an determination. I think these ladies do so they should make the mid-point in the race for sure.

CBS maintains an excellent website for The Amazing Race which usually includes video not seen on the show and last season started an online talks show for the series. As well Ed Hasbrouck will use The Race to illustrate things that you can and probably should do in your own travelling through his blog The Practical Nomad. Now doesn't that sound like more fun than Simon Cowell insulting some wannabe singers?

What The Hell Are We Going To Phoenix Arizona For?

The title of this post was part of a quote from Marion Paolo, one of the competitors in this season's Amazing Race: Family Edition. The full quote was "What the hell are we going to Phoenix Arizona for? I want to go to New Zealand." It's a statement which basically sums up one of my reasons for not liking the Family Edition quite as much as I have previous seasons.

I'm a big Amazing Race fan; in fact I'm such a fan that I write recaps of each episode which are posted in the Amazing Race Usenet newsgroup. In fact I should be writing that right now instead of this, but this is probably going to take me less time. I've watched every season and have been almost and evangelist for the show since the beginning. You might call me hard core, although based on the behaviour of some of the self-described hard core fans when they heard about the Family Edition I think I would probably disavow that description. The show for me has always had multiple attractions for me. There was the travel to foreign places that you rarely saw; places that got more exotic as The Race went on. There was the fact that there wasn't really the backstabbing that you saw in virtually every Reality-Competition show. On The Amazing Race alliances don't really matter, popularity don't matter; all that counts is crossing the finish line of each stage in first place - or at least not in last place. What was often the most attractive were the personalities. Although everyone started The Race as a blank slate, as time went on you not only knew who the individuals were - something that usually happened in the first one or two hour episode since each team only had two members - but you also began to identify teams by their personality, developing favourites and identifying villains. Best of all, unlike Survivor this really did seem like something anyone could do, and unlike Big Brother it was a real adventure.

The hard core (the ones who I don't identify with) hated the Family Edition almost from the time it was announced that people as young as 12 (later lowered to 8) would be allowed to be on the show. They harumphed about teams with annoying kids and dumbing down the tasks. The expectation of some was that they'd be going from theme park to theme park doing things that little kids would be comfortable with. Things weren't made much better when there were leaks about places the show went. There were leaks about Huntsville Alabama in particular (NASA wasn't going to play the show's secrecy game), and the CN Tower in Toronto. The hard core were not happy, vowed not to watch, believed no one would watch, and uttered the words "jumping the shark" on occasion. Even the fact that when the teams were actually announced there were only four kids under 12 and only five more under 18 didn't help. The hard core was determined to hate the show.

I wasn't. I intended to give it a shot. The first episode wasn't entirely promising. They didn't leave the United States and the challenges in the first episode weren't particularly exciting. The first team eliminated had two kids under 12. The next few episodes weren't too hopeful either. Admittedly there were some interesting situations - like a civil war re-enactment where players had to carry "wounded" soldiers from the field to a hospital tent - but there were also challenges which involved climbing to the top of the biggest office chair in the world (in Alabama) or playing Blackjack at a Louisiana riverboat casino (probably gone now). Even so, some of the basic elements I liked survived. We cheered for the Gaghan family with plucky little Carissa (she's 9, runs a mile in 7 minutes and does 5K races while her parents run marathons). Villains also emerged. The battling Paolo family seemed like a team you wanted to get rid of fast - the two boys were always yelling at their mom and their father never seemed to want to correct them - but the real heels were the Weaver family, who most people were probably willing to sympathize with at least initially (Linda Weaver's husband was hit by a car and killed during a NASCAR race where he was an official). Initial stresses were seemingly benign (the Weavers weren't experienced at travel particularly by plane) but increasingly they showed why many of the teams disliked them almost from the start. It wasn't so much the fact that they were always praying but more that they seemed to think they were better than everyone else. In a recent episode they mentioned that they "don't trust other people, trust Family and God" and later that "We're responsible to a higher authority." At the same time, they ridiculed other teams - they called the Paolos "retards" because their team photo showed them in front of a garbage truck (Tony Paolo is a New York garbage man) - and in this Tuesday's episode threw trash at the car carrying the Godlewski sisters as they drove past. And they call themselves Christians.

Still I have problems with the show and they come down to two points. Despite the two episode interval in Panama and Costa Rica, the show has come across more as a family vacation across America rather than the sort of adventure that The Amazing Race usually gives us. In fact the show really came to life when they were in countries where teams struggled with language customs and the exotic. Moreover I'm convinced that the teams expected The Family Edition to be more like the previous seasons of the show. Like Marion Paolo I'm sure most other teams were expecting more international travel and were prepared for it (well maybe not the Weavers, who would probably be complaining about having to go out of the country). Some of the families had travelled extensively - Carissa Gaghan and her family had been to South Korea. Of course moving ten teams of four from the United States to Europe would have involved considerable logistics and once the free-for-all phase of air travel started (in most seasons the flight out of the U.S. usually is done on two or three specified flights) the number of players would have made it hard to keep teams relatively close together.

The other problem I have with the current season is bigger for me. I am having trouble identifying individuals and it is sort of becoming more difficult as the number of teams decreases. I can name - and even picture - teams from virtually every season of the race. They were memorable and they were individuals. For the Family Edition the four member teams means that it is harder to distinguish between players on a team. It's easiest when there are age and gender differences - it was easiest with the Gaghans who had father, mother, daughter, and son - and virtually impossible for teams with lookalikes - I can't tell one Godlewski sister from another and it's almost as bad with the three Linz brothers or the three Bransen sisters. It really is a case sometimes of "you can't tell the players without a score card." And yet these are supposed to be the focus of our attention.

The Amazing Race: Family Edition is pushing it's way towards its final showdown. There are four teams left: the Godlewski sisters, the Linz siblings, Walter Bransen and his daughters, and Linda Weaver and her kids. The show probably has two more Tuesdays left before a winner is crowned. Drama demands that the hated Weavers will probably be in the final three teams, and justice and drama probably require that they finish second. Still I for one will be happy when this season ends and the next season of The Amazing Race begins. Not because there haven't been enjoyable things in this season but because, for this experiment the producers have strayed too far from what made The Amazing Race great television - exotic locales and teams we can both identify and identify with.

Okay, That's It...

Summer is officially over. Forget about the temperatures. Most of North America has been sweltering under temperatures that pose a danger to the elderly and small animals if they don't have air conditioning. I wouldn't really know about that - Saskatoon hasn't had a really hot day yet in August and the past few days the night time temperature has been dipping to around 5 Celsius (that's 41 for those of you who still think in Fahrenheit). The networks have been running ads for their "new Fall programs" practically since the end of May Sweeps, so that isn't exactly an indicator either. I suppose we could talk about "Back To School" ads - I'm waiting for the Alice Cooper ad from last year, probably in vain - but the school supply companies and the office stores have been sending those out to battle since the beginning of August. No for me the true indicator has been the posting of the new players for Survivor and The Amazing Race. That's the true sign that it's time to start worrying about when to put on a jacket when you're going out.

The Survivor cast looks like, well your average Survivor cast. There's your requisite old guy - this time he's a former marine who joined the Aurora Colorado Fire Department and rose to the rank of captain over a 30 year career. There's the usual complement of "pretty" young people, some of whom are models/actors - which usually means waiters - looking for their "big break". (Actually most of the time all of the contestants on this show and other reality shows tend to be "pretty people" even the old ones. This is television after all.) There are a couple of interesting stories. There's the first female sergeant in the Revere Massachusetts Police Department, a woman who lists her occupation as "fishmonger" - actually she's the assistant manager at a seafood company but what the heck - a woman who's a sports talk show host and a former NFL quarterback (Gary Hogeboom who I expect to be gone, probably during the mid-game phase - too dangerous in individual competitions). Actually I think that the most interesting thing about this season is going to be the location. They'll be living in the ruins of an actual Mayan city. I'm not sure - someone will probably correct me if I'm wrong - but I seem to recall that the original plan for the fourth "season" of Survivor was to have the players living in the ancient city of Petra in Jordan, but ratings for Survivor: Africa weren't as good as desired and a lot of people were nervous about running the show in the Middle East right after September 11, 2001. It took a while but it appears as if the basic concept is finally going to be used.

Of course, those of you who know me realise that as much as I like Survivor, I am absolutely passionate about The Amazing Race which is why I find the cast announcement for that show by far more interesting. This time around TAR is running a "family edition". The format for this "family" version has teams of four instead of two, all of whom must be related to each other in some way. Moreover the minimum age for the show was lowered, eventually to 8 years old instead of the usual 21 and the originally announced limit of 12. This has set off a firestorm amongst fans who like the show just the way it was, with teams of two going around the world. "Family edition" implies children on all of the teams and the hard core fans (and yeah I did think I was hard core but compared with some of these people I seem like a dilettante) don't want the show corrupted by children (said with a horrified shudder - or perhaps a horrifying shudder - implied in the way they write it). Children (shudder) would mean that the Race would have to be simplified, made safer and "child friendly" with rappelling and such replaced with visits to amusement parks. The fear and loathing wasn't being reduced with a number of spoiler sightings of teams, all of them being restricted to North America. "They were at the Kennedy Space Center!" "Someone saw a team at the CN Tower in Toronto!" "They were in Vancouver! I swear it's true!!" (Visits to Vancouver are a bit of a joke in the Amazing Race newsgroup.) And then to top it off, Hera McLeod - part of the TAR6 cast with her father Gus - wrote on the Survivor Sucks! message board "From what I hear, they are having a lot of problems with it and it may actually not be a rumor that it all gets canned. Personally, I think it would be a blessing in disguise because TAR is not meant for children!" (Although oddly enough I can't seem to find her original posting, and how would she know anyway.)

So what have we got now that the actual contestants have been revealed? Well there are 27 Racers over the age of 20, and only three under the age of 12. Eleven are between the ages of 12 and 20. There are a couple of intriguing relationships. There is a team of four adult sisters. One team consists of a man and his three sons-in-law, the youngest of whom is 26. There's a 46 year old widow with her three kids, the youngest of whom is 14 and a father with his three daughters who were in a shampoo commercial together a few years ago. One team has two children under the age of 12, including the youngest competitor (aged 8) while another family has a 9 year-old and a 12 year-old. Beyond a significant absence of openly gay team members, the most significant thing to me seems to be that The Race actually seems to have attracted more older racers this time. There isn't the usual crowd of wannabe models and actors. Instead over a third of the competitors - fourteen in all - are 40 and older. That's "geezerhood" to many fans of The Race. I suppose that's necessary if you're going to have a race with the restrictions of familial relationships and the reduced age limit but still, when you consider the uproar about letting younger people compete in the race, the fact that there are as many people over 40 this time around as there are under 21 and as many people over 50 (advanced geezerhood) as there are under 12 would come as a big surprise if any of the raging fans bothered to notice.

I haven't pre-rendered judgement on the upcoming edition of The Amazing Race. I want to see at least the first before I do that. I don't take the spoilers all that seriously - yet - simply because the show has traditionally been very stringent when it comes to security. It's entirely plausible that the producers have hired families to show up at famous locations for the specific purpose of being noticed. That said, I will be happy when the producers take the show back to its roots with the ninth series of The Amazing Race. It isn't that the family idea is necessarily a bad one. Simply it is a case that I think that teams of four are harder to relate to than teams of two. I also think that teams of four are going to be more difficult to manage. Most of all I don't like the implication that the changes occurred as a backlash to incidents in a couple of earlier season - like the one where Jonathon, a racer in the sixth race, pushed and berated his wife Victoria leading to charges of spousal abuse. Worst of all I fear that changing The Race will lead to some of the hard won momentum that the show gained in its two series last season. Of all of the "Reality-Competition" shows on the air, I think that The Amazing Race stands head and shoulders above the rest and I'd hate to see it lose the ratings strength that it has so richly earned and I worry that changing the format could hurt the show more than it helps.

Amazing Race 7 Teams

I'm a "Big Fan" of The Amazing Race, which is generally regarded as the best of the reality shows. In fact I'm such a big fan that when the show is on I post an episode recap on the Amazing Race newsgroup. These posts are big - usually around 20 KB and I don't plan on posting them here. A summary maybe but not the whole thing. Before the season starts, I also post an evaluation of the teams and this is a somewhat edited version of what I posted last night. For details on the teams, check out The Amazing Race website which has biographies of all 11 teams and video clip interviews. As The Race goes on they'll also have episode recaps and video clips not seen on the show.

1. Meredith & Gretchen: Tricky this. Over 50s tend not to do at all well inThe Amazing Race. The best finish by any Over 50 was Ian in TAR3, but he was just 50. Couples who are both Over 50 don't win, and most tend not to make it beyond the first half of the race. I think Meredith is capable of going as far as Don & Mary-Jean did in TAR6 (8^thplace) but Gretchen seems a bit too naïve to succeed. Probably one of the first teams out.



2. Megan & Heidi: I wouldn't be surprised if they're the first team out. Based on their interview they just don't seem prepared for what they'll encounter. Being an all-woman team is a handicap; no all-woman team has been in the final hour of the show except as part of the cheering section at the finish line. Limited travel experience and Megan's fear of flying are definite negatives. Their personalities mesh but their self-perceived strengths and weaknesses are very much the same and don't strengthen them. If they make it to the fourth episode I'll be (pleasantly) surprised.



3. Susan & Patrick: I really don't like Patrick. He moved to my wrong side when he started talking about forming alliances and stabbing people in the back. He's on the wrong show if that's his strategy. If all he brings to the table is the sort of insight that has the other teams ganging up on Rob & Amber because they've won a million bucks then I don't think they're going to last on The Race. As well as the Over 50 factor, the parent-child dynamic comes into play - the best finish by a parent & child was Nancy & Emily in TAR1. They have learned the first law of The Race; never be apart from at least one other team. How much time will they have to put it into practice?



4. Uchenna & Joyce: I'm inclined to think that they are going to have a problem. They're worried about food and lack of sleep, two things that are almost a given on The Amazing Race. They have the physical part of it down, but most of the top 8 teams do. What I don't like is that there is some tension in their relationship. The Race is not exactly known for easing stress within relationships. They could do well but really I don't see them going much higher than maybe fifth or sixth.



5. Lynn & Alex: What is it about this season's trio of gay guys that irritates me so much? I know what it is about these two - they're hyper-judgemental. The love the old couple but think they'll be gone fast. They hate the Hillbillies (Ryan & Chuck) and think they're stupid. They think the Republicans (who? Ron & Kelly perhaps) won't do well in other countries where people don't like Bush. These guys haven't travelled much as a couple although they claim to have travelled extensively as individuals. They think that its an advantage that they're together 24/7. Lynn expects to argue about money and doesnt like the idea of sleeping outdoors - he wants hotels. If they last they could be this years villains.



6. Ray & Deana: I'd like to see this team go far simply because of their physical preparation- they've worked out a lot for this race. The problem is that they're another team with a relationship that can be described as rocky and he tends to be a bit controlling. They do understand that The Race isn't about alliances and that the team that they have to be most concerned about is themselves. For this and their physicality I like them better than Lynn & Alex and in the right circumstances they could make final four.



7. Brian & Greg: The Alpha-Male team makes a comeback. I like them but their lack of travel experience and foreign languages is - in theory at least - a weak point. They could go all the way of course, but there's something about them that doesn't sit quite well with me. This is one of those teams where I'll know better when I see them in action.



8. Ryan & Chuck: I love these guys. They're not afraid of hard work or hard conditions. I think teams are going to underestimate them, particularly Chuck, who speaks Portuguese fluently and has travelled in South America including their first destination, Peru. I'm also betting that their hard work muscles will surprise some of those with "Hollywood muscles". Their finish is a real wild-card, but I don't expect them to finish first or last. This year's answer to the Frat Boys and The Clowns.



9. Ron & Kelly: This might shock a lot of people but I don't necessarily see them as final three material. The weakness is her; I don't know if shes "a when the going gets tough the tough get going" type which Ron, the former POW in Iraq, clearly is. Another big weakness is that they havent been together as a couple for very long and they've been long distance dating since they did get together. They don't know the other person's foibles as well as couples that have been together for a while, or teams that are friends rather than romantically involved. The biggest thing in their favour is Ron's military experience. The stress won't be a big deal for him.



10. Rob & Amber: The hated Romber. I think they could be a major force in this. Unlike Donny & Allyson in TAR5 they've been through stress together. If 39 days on the Pearl Islands brought them together I can't see The Amazing Race pulling them apart. Language is a weak spot, but they seem to be approaching The Race more with a spirit of enjoying the adventure than the lure of the money. They're looking forward to challenges where they're confronted with things they don't know they can do. They seem to have a healthy attitude about the race, and Rob recognises that this isn't Survivor: here the only way you can win is by relying on yourselfs not by backstabbing or forming alliances.



11. Debbie & Bianca: These women impress me. Between the two of them theyve been to 34 different countries. Educationally they are very impressive. Debbie graduated summa cum laude from William and Mary, and Bianca has a BA in International Affairs and is working on her Masters in Education with a specialty in multi-cultural studies. Add in that Bianca spent time living on $5 a day in Thailand - which means living really rough - and it is entirely possible that we could see a female team in the final three for the first time. I don't think they'll win, but they'll be in the fight.

Put Another Race In The Books

There's plenty of good stuff on tonight: NCIS, the nicely rated but little discussed military criminal investigation series from the creator of Magnum PI and JAG, House, the show about the curmudgeonly doctor who would be English of only Fox would let the lead actor use his real accent, and NYPD Blue which is having a solid final season creatively if not in the ratings (only four more left). But for me the big one is the finale of the sixth Amazing Race. I love this show!

The Amazing Race has had a remarkable rocky history. Created in the wake of the surprise success of Survivor it debuted on September 5, 2001, a singularly inauspicious date for a show that was focussed on international travel to appear on given what happened six days later. The show wasn't a great success in post 9/11 America but it did pick up steam, and in an example of quality winning out it outlasted Lost which came from Conan O'Brien's production company. This piece of drek featured six randomly paired Americans left without any money at all begging and doing just about anything else to get back to the United States for some godforsaken foreign place (in the one I saw it was Mongolia). The Amazing Race did well enough to get a second series that aired in March 2002. That series did well enough that the third series was on the fall schedule opposite The West Wing. It finished a solid second opposite what was then regarded a show that was regarded as nearly invincible. The third series of The Amazing Race was set to debut in the same time slot in February 2003 but CBS panicked when faced with the juggernaut that was American Idol and pulled the show to replace it with a hastily conceived version of Star Search. The Amazing Race was delayed until the end of May 2003. A fourth series was produced for the summer of 2004 to fill Survivor's Thursday time slot, but there were open musings that there wouldn't be another one. That was until the 2002-03 Emmys. Nominated in the new "Best Reality Series" - a category that not only included Survivor and American Idol but also an AFI special and a tribute to the 100th birthday of Bob Hope - The Amazing Race 3 won. That was enough to earn the series a reprieve and a summer run in 2004 - this time on Tuesdays was produced. It performed extremely well in the ratings, and as an added bonus The Amazing Race 4 won the Emmy in the revised "Best Reality Competition" category against Survivor, American Idol, The Apprentice, and Last Comic Standing. Between the ratings success of the fifth Amazing Race, the two Emmys, and critical acclaim it was decided that the sixth Amazing Race, which had been scheduled for the Saturday night death slot was put on hold until another series from the Fall 2004 series died. That show was Tuesday's Clubhouse.

So what makes The Amazing Race into the show that Canada's National Post newspaper calls "the reality show for people who hate reality shows. It seems to be a combination of things really. One big one is that it is a trip around the world, taking viewers to places that a lot of them are likely never to visit. Like any reality show, casting is key and The Amazing Race has had superlative casting over the years. You need interesting people and this season alone has included a 70 year old doctor and his wife, a husband and wife who are professional wrestlers, a model who is a pampered princess and a bit bigoted to boot, and a father and daughter team where the daughter is a teacher and the father was a former CIA agent who was the first person to fly to the North Pole in an open cockpit airplane. Of course personality isn't the only thing - all reality shows cast based on personality (and then they manipulate those personalities based on editing - and the producers of The Amazing Race are no different on that score). In my opinion there are three things that sets The Amazing Race apart from the crowd. The first is that, despite the efforts of some of the competitors, you don't get ahead by lying and backstabbing or by allying with the other guy. Within teams, it is essential that the people work together because they have places to get to and tasks to complete, but working with another team at best gives only a temporary gain and there really aren't many opportunities to attempt to actively sabotage another team - and until the fifth Race and the addition of the Yield there weren't any. That hasn't stopped teams from trying though. A second factor is that there is a tangible reason for surviving to the next episode. Teams don't have to please their fellow players, impress a group of judges, or win a telephone poll - if you are the last team to reach the Pit Stop at the end of a stage, most of the time you will be eliminated. The goal is clear from the start and any mistakes can be fatal in terms of survival in the game. Finally I think that The Amazing Race may be the most accessible of the reality shows. You don't have to be extra fit or extraordinarily gifted to succeed on The Amazing Race. You need endurance and quick wits because you are travelling around the world in 30 days. You also need a willingness to experience new things, and a lot of patience with the person that you're going with. It is the latter which produces the best drama in the show. People come face to face with their fears. Personalities clash both between teams and within them, although the teams that do best tend to be the teams where personalities mesh rather than clash.

Tonight's final episode is two hours long. There are four teams remaining: Hayden & Aaron (dating, models from Los Angeles), Freddy & Kendra (dating, models from Miami), Adam & Rebecca (formerly dating, personal trainers from Los Angeles), and Kris & Jon (long distance dating, a Geography student and waitress from Long Beach and a restaurant owner from Scottsdale respectively). One team will be eliminated in the first hour and the three remaining teams will race for the finish line somewhere in the United States in the second hour of tonight's show. My personal favourites are Kris & Jon, because they've worked together as a team efficiently and of the remaining teams they've been the least argumentative and the least insulting to the people they've encountered along the way. The team I don't really want to win is Freddy & Kendra, largely because Kendra has behaved like a true pampered princess throughout the Race and has made some remarks which, presumably with the help of editing, make her seem like a serious bigot.

The Amazing Race airs tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern - 8 p.m. Central.