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Arianne playing goalie?

gj! As a reward, here's that classic moment, plus an inordinately large amount of TAR2-3 happenings:

#72 - Mark/Michael Bumble Through The Detour (TAR14, Ep 4)


Surely no-one expected that the Tweedles would ever show up on this list?

The season's not good enough to bother rewatching so I'm going on memory. After somehow lucking onto the first flight into Krasnoyarsk, Siberia along with Christie/Jodi and Kisha/Jen (and due to the fucking appalling editing, we we never shown why or how this happened, despite it being one of the few interesting strategic moments of the season ). All three teams attempted the Detour which involve stacking wood and, showing signs of their notedineptitude, their wall fell down - logically, they decided to try the other Detour before any other team arrived.

The other Detour involved building shutters, which was actually very simple - the hard part was delivering them to a marked house. Like I said in the introduction, I've omitted some of the more nebulous cases of teams getting lost since it's hard to say how difficult the area is to navigate. But this was a straight street with a clearly signposted destination within easy walking distance. If they'd gotten lost then, after realising their mistake, decided to switch back before the teams on the second flight arrived, it'd be a pretty minor moment. But to fall so insanely far behind as to go from first to second last - and to only survive because of a horribly placed U-Turn - is racing at its worst.

The only reason this is so low on the list is that Mel/Mike and Amanda/Kris, two of the stronger teams, had trouble with the task too - but they didn't approach finding finding the destination in such an incompetent way. Without Mike finding the house for everyone (presumably because of the cameraman focusing on it), the Tweedles could have (hopefully) been stuck there forever.

#71 - Gary/Dave Waste Time In Thailand (TAR2, Ep 5)


Travelling in rival tuk-tuks, Chris/Alex's overheated, letting "Team Bozo" (in the words of the much lamer Team Boston) take first place.

Teams were told to "search the temple grounds" for the cluebox. And instead of noticing the box right outside the steps (i.e. the grounds), Itchy and Scratchy took off their shoes to enter the temple, then started climbing further and further up and away from the obvious location.

Meanwhile, Chris/Alex, Mary/Peach and Blake/Paige all managed to pass them (after arriving on the 2nd, 4th and 5th buses to Ratchaburi - the 3rd bus held Tara/Wil, who unluckily ended up on the only one that wasn't an express one)

One of the less hilarous of the "completely missing the cluebox" incidents, but one that led to the perpetrators being beaten by half of the remaining other teams, so a pretty damned bad one.

#70 - Gary/Dave Waste Their Fast Forward (TAR2, Ep 7)


After being bunched on a flight to Hong Kong, Team Domination, as they were known (to themselves, at least) managed to kick major ass at navigating their way through the airport, getting themselves tickets on the first train out ahead of everyone else. They extended their lead by quickly finding Central Plaza, the country's tallest building (or "special administrative region's tallest building" if you are a geography nerd) - from there, they had to use binoculars to find a green star, which ultimately identified a 'Green Star Ferry' port (the only destination to appear in all three of the multi-continental international versions of the show).

After wasting much time failing to find the clue, they quickly decided to go for the Fast Forward - if they were in last place, this would make perfect sense. However, since they knew they were in first (and were in the right building), it would have been incredibly easy to stay behind and follow the lead of the next team to arrive - even if they didn't share information, you'd at least be able to figure out the areas people were looking.

This turned out to be a disastrous move as Dave starting getting very sick from the start of the next leg, which impacted their race performance - and without the FF as a buffer in Leg 9, they were sadly eliminated, ending the longest stretch of near-perfect episodes in TAR history.

#69 - Shola/Doyin Waste Their Fast Forward (TAR2, Ep 2)


FWIW, I like Gary's Baywatch joke

While Itchy & Scratchy are usually credited with the stupidest Fast Forward usage of the season, a more discerning viewer would give the Doublemint Twins the honour.

Gary/Dave and Peggy/Claire, the last two teams to depart, had a choice between two Detours - a first-come, first-serve hang-gliding task and a near impossible "search a beach with a metal detector" challenge. Knowing the former would be faster, and they'd be stuck at the back of the pack as a result, they both decided to try for the Fast Forward.

What they couldn't count on, however, was Shola/Doyin's erratic decision to take it, despite being in a safe position, because Shola was afraid of heights

This wouldn't be enough for this list except for the fact that before reaching the Detour cluebox, Doyin's Achilles Tendon was run over by their taxi-driver. Despite this, they decided to go for the FF that required lots of running on unstable sand - this, unsurprisingly, exacerbated the injury, slowing them down for the rest of the race.

#68 - Zach Waits In Line (TAR3, Ep 11)


Zach is generally held up as the rock of his team, but his laidback attitude also caused them to suffer on several occasion (just as his unnecessary stinginess with money put Flo in a much worse mood than she needed to be).

Perhaps the most obvious example was in Ho Chi Minh airport where his sloth and unwillingness to offend put them securely in last place. After ending up in the slow line out of the airport, Zach refused to "cut in line" to get ahead - as much as I'd normally agree, it's not "cutting in line" if your partner is waiting in another line. Particularly if you're bunched with three other cutthroat teams.

This unnecessary time-bleeding, along with their Detour failure mentioned in #111 would have gotten them eliminated if not for the infamous disasters that befell two other teams.

#67 - Heather/Eve Don't Walk (TAR3, Ep 4)


Everyone knows the famous moment when the Harvard-educated lawyers couldn't read a clue and took a taxi when everyone else walked. This even produced the best "Previously..." ever, even though it completely ignored everything that happened in the first 40 minutes of the episode ("Walk means run, skip, jump hop!")

While this is such a famous mistake, they have since changed the wording to the far less ambiguous "make your way on foot", which many teams have still managed to fuck up. And I personally believe Heather's side of the story that the cameraman okayed their taxi decision, probably because of the conspiracy theory that WRP wanted them out after their incredibly expensive flight-booking and cancellation plan that fucked over Dennis/Andrew.

#66 - Four Teams Fail To Check Opening Times (TAR6, Episode 4)


With multiple bunchings of TAR6 this had no impact, but it was a classic example of how to blow your lead.

After reaching the mat together (and playing rock-paper-scissors to decide who stepped on the mat first to claim the prize), Hayden/Aaron and Kris/Jon set off early in the morning towards the tower. Despite the actual building being very close (in walking distance, I think?), they decide to trust a local who tells them it doesn't open until 10am. Then Gus/Hera and Jonathan/Victoria leave and are fooled into thinking the same thing. Adam/Rebecca leave next bu don't ask any locals (presumably because the locals might scare Adam), and find that the actual opening hour for the tower is 7am.

This isn't the only time teams have messed up by getting their times incorrect (Mojo being misled about the bus-times in their boot episode; and Ida/Tania at a market-stall early on in a TARA3 episode I barely remember), but unlike those cases:
a) It was collective laziness on the part of several teams
b) It would have been incredibly easy just to visit the tower to find out for themselves
c) Why would you expect a random person to know the opening hours? At least Mojo had their local go to the bus station and read the information for them.

#65 - Cyndi/Russell Get Lost In Thailand (TAR2, Ep 5)


I've tried not too include too many examples of "X gets lost", because they could make up 80% of the list, but this is one of the few too huge to ignore. The likeable, if not well-travelled, pastors ended up falling completely out of contention early on in the leg - and unlike Danny/Oswald, they didn't find a Fern to help them.

Since most of what the episode showed was just random shots of the two of them looking bewildered, an interview quote will give a better of explanation of why they made the list:

CYNDI: On the flight to Bangkok, I met a nice lady who I tried to hire for the day. She was unable to come with us, but drew us a perfect map to the first clue box, which we also gave to Mary & Peach. Once we received that clue which told us to find the temple via the water taxi, my first thought was to go into the Hyatt Hotel on that corner and talk to the concierge. Instead, I asked two men sitting on a bench, who sent us to the wrong water system. Ishould have confirmed their directions with the Hyatt, but I was in too big of a rush! The rest is history and we got a wonderful, restful vacation at "Sequesterville"!"

This is also where they had possibly my favourite "team walks right past a sign telling them where to go and ends up going in totally the wrong direction" moments.

#64 - Arianne Does A Roadblock (TAR3, Ep 4)


Before the 'Bowling Mom rule' (which wouldn't have helped the Bowling Moms that much, anyway), teams had the option to let their stronger teammate do all the work. While many people thought this was unfair, it helped otherwise weak or cowardly players make it further than they otherwise would have, ultimately making for better TV. While it was smarter for a Tian, a Zach or an Eve to do the majority of the tasks, some teams decided to simply take turns. While this made sense in the case of some of the twin teams, it was ridiculous on many other occasions, of which this was the worst.

Because of an unavoidable train station issue, the teams were all unintentionally bunched on the way to a soccer stadium for the Roadblock. Once there, one teammember would have to block a shot from a skilled football player. Despite arriving tied for dead-last with Teri/Ian, they decided to stick with their 50-50 Roadblock splitting rule and have Arianne do the task. Tiny Arianne, instead of lanky Aaron.

Unsurprisingly, they ended up last at the pitstop and were only saved by the Heather/Eve incident. Easily the worst Roadblock choice ever, even eclipsing Ian making Teri throw a giant log in a two-way battle for what could have been last place in Leg 3.

#63 - Meredith/Gretchen Choose To Haul Boats (TAR7, Ep 11)


"OOOOOOH WE'RE OLD, WE'RE TIRED AND WE CAN'T USE OUR BRAINS FOR THE OTHER DETOUR, LET'S CARRY HEAVY BOATS!1!!11"

Good logic, Gretchen

This was particularly stupid since:
a) They could easily ask for help inthe mental task, since they were in London, which has a gazillion people who all speak the same language. Also, the typical TAR mental challenge can be completed by the typical five year old.
b) They were unable to get help lifting boats, as Uchenna tried to take pity on them but was told it wasn't allowed
c) They were competing aganst Uchenna, the strongest man left in the competiton.

But what can you expect from a woman who struggled with the lamest Roadblock ever: "open some random metal boxes"?

#62 - Andre/Damon Need Instructions On Donkey Handling (TAR3, Ep 1)


Almost every premiere features the teams getting on one of 2-3 flights, finding a cluebox, completing a task, then signing up for one of three chartered-somethings to split them up the following morning, so the casual viewers aren't completely bewildered by the sight of 11 teams doing the same task at once. Since TAR5, the departure time gaps haven't been that significant (TAR5's were half an hour; TAR14's were 15 minutes), but in TAR3 and TAR4 the teams left two hours apart. This saved two teams: Steve/Dave, who were slowed by Dave's injury, and Andre/Damon, who were slowed by being two of the most worthless duds ever found by any casting department anywhere in the world.

While this mistake was made in the premiere, Andre/Damon decided to ride a donkey instead of sky-dive, mainly because they were wusses. This required using a marked map - and as Phil described "Andre and Damon unwittingly" failed to follow it properly (as if they ever did anything "wittingly").

This gave them a penalty of 48 minutes for their time-gained and a 30 minute time penalty for being idiots. As no other team fucked-up, they would have been easily eliminated if not for the ridiculou departure-time gaps. Biggest missed opportunity for the best first-leg boot ever.

Next up, later this week
Another bunch of 11 to get this to the Top 50. Not in that Top 50:

god that season was braindead

It always made me sad that Megan/Heidi got the "ditz edit" despite being one of the only teams who didn't make a billion mistakes on the leg they got eliminated.

I need to get this finished before TAR15 starts, so I will be starting phase two of the rankings: moments people remember, so will probably start complaining about where they're ranked:

#62 - Dustin/Kandice Ostracise Themselves (TAR10, Ep 2-12)


Although TAR isn't a social game, there are many instances of absolutely horrendous social gameplay on the show (Jonathan making Meredith cry; TK/Rachel bitching about the U-Turn, add your own here). But, on the most part, this is was down to heat of the moment personality conflicts and didn't have a colossal impact on the game. In contrast, the BQs actively tried to play a strategic game of sneakiness that led to absolutely nobody having their back.

While they would have been even more stupid to follow in the Cho Bros footsteps (SPOILER, though if you didn't think they'd show up, you are very silly indeed), the BQs' dogged individualism was completely inappropriate for the season. TAR10, like the other lame seasons TAR4, TAR7 and TAR14, was dominate by petty alliance squabbling.

The Back Pack were pretty much the biggest cliquey assholes in reality TV history - one example nobody else remembers is when American Hero Duke wanted to get everyone's autographs at the Leg 2 pitstop, only for Tom to be a total prick and claim "OH MY GOD IT'S OBVIOUSLY A STRATEGY DON'T DO IT PEOPLE!!!" With such a tightly knit cadre of cunts, the BQs could have fairly easily earned the trust of the Druggies and Romberly, formed a strong counter-alliance and remained safe through most of the game.

Instead, the BQs isolated themselves, turning their backs on anyone who helped them, for no apparent reason. If anyone can seriously defend their strategy of being a total dick to Peter in Leg 5, I will be impresse (if they'd survived Kuwait, they would have just made yet another enemy).

Despite being competitve in the short-term sense, they weren't all that bright, and in the end their moronic aggressiveness bit them in the ass when they tried to get Tyler/James to let them check in first () only to be obviously laughed at and eliminated. Whether or not Tyler/James would have let Rob/Kim come in first in the same situation is obviously up for debate, but it's undeniable they would have had more chance of getting away with it if their overall gameplay didn't suck.

As a result, this is the only single dumb move to have arguably had an impact on two separate seasons, with David/Mary's distrust causing them to successfully mislead them onto a second flight. Even if you don't agree with this entry as a whole, you have to admit trusting your old enemy's best friends is really, really stupid.

Obviously this one wouldn't show up on everyone's list, but that is what makes all lists like snowflakes.

#61 - Nancy/Emily Don't Switch Detours (TAR1, Ep 9)


While the last one wouldn't make many people's lists at all, this one would finish up a lot higher. However, the seeming difficulty of the task and the fact it was the first season, make me a lot more lenient.

Everyone remembers this so I don't need many details. Future TAR winner arm-candy Emily and her mother lost out on the Fast Forward to Team Guido, forcing them to go back to compete the Detours. Here they spent hours wandering around Bangkok searching for one random car.

If this was the Roadblock, I probably wouldn't include it on the list at all. However, the other Detour only involved going to a bus station, so switching would have made a lot more sense. Somewhat bizarrely, instead of quitting outright, Emily continued to complete the Roadblock: walking with tigers. What does it say about public transport that she was more willing to walk with a tiger than take a bus?

Some people still consider their elimination the saddest moment in the show's history, but they normally ignore the fact that if they hadn't been Philiminated 5th, they would have had the face off against their best friends in Leg 11 or be stranded in Alaska in the finale, which would have been even worse.

#60 - Lake/Michelle Don't Ask For Directions To Rion (TAR9, Ep 7)


Everyone remembers Eric/Jeremy cancelling the cabs. But arguably Jeremy's greatest sabotage was lending Lake a razor, causing him to shave off his beard and lose all of his powers.

Despite being relatively competent navigators throughout the majority of the race (not that being a better navigator than Lisa/Joni or Danielle/Dani is much of a skill), their unexpected downslide began when they drove to completely the wrong Detour.

While Michelle bought them a map, it was in Greek and Lake stubbornly refused to ask for directions. Instead of going to Rion, they were actually headed to a place called Elrion, way off on the east coast of Greece, making it another Gmund/Gmunden incident, though one that was a lot more easy to avoid.

NB: Steve/Josh's elimination was superficially pretty similar to this but:
a) they were driving somewhere with exactly the same name as their destination, not something just vaguely samey
b) they didn't make a point of not asking for directions
Which is why they aren't on the list.

#59 - Wanda/Desiree Miss The Sign For Munich (TAR9, Ep 4)


lol fail.

I don't know if Desiree just didn't know that Munchen was German for Munich or just wasn't paying attention. Thankfully, she's cute enough to get away with it in either case.

Whether or not it was dumb to align with Danielle/Dani, who were younger and faster (barely) is up to YOU to decide.

#58 - Derek/Drew & Ken/Gerard Follow Yellow Flags (TAR3, Ep 11)


Flo's epic (unintentional) betrayal of her true love and the shock elimination of the obvious alpha-male winners is still easily the greatest Final 4 episode of all time and it wouldn't be possible without this mistake.

For the first time, the standard post-Season 2 red-and-yellow route-markers were replaced with pure yellow flags to avoid confusion with the former South Vietnam emblem. The Roadblock involved following these flags down a path on a cyclo, onto a ferry terminal, and all the way to the pitstop.

Arriving at the Roadblock in second and third, Derek/Drew and Ken/Gerard were distracted by the rows of many pretty flags, taking them way off course. Derek/Drew somehow even ended up in front of two random identically named buildings in a parking lot, despite the cluebox being on the outskirts of a busy road.

In Gerard's words, "the Brotherhood crumbles" as Oh, Brother! coincidentally end up at the ferry terminal just as Flo/Zach have boarded. Being an emotional whirlwind, Flo tells them they need their bikes and points them in the rough direction to go. Not being emotional whirlwinds, Ken/Gerard successfully managed to convince Derek/Drew they were clueless, giving them enough time to grab their cyclos as the Wonder Twins foolishly boarded the Ferry of Doom to meet Phil before their time.

One of the most entertaing mistakes on the list, and one of the ones that doesn't make me lose any respect for the teams involved.

Sidenote: In Season 10, the replacement flags ended up yellow-and-white instead of solid yellow and Duke/Lauren got eliminated, so I don't support this new change.

#57 - Romber Don't Check Their Spelling (TAR11, Ep 4)


After three episodes of bloated smugness, Romber seemed invincible until reaching the 'Sign It' Detour, forcing them build a signpost indicating the destinations on Magellan's voyage from Seville. Despite correctly getting the starting point, Rob's hi-larry-ous misspelling of Philippines

Being an embarassingly poor-sport when things don't go his way, Rob gave one of the whiniest post-show interviews ever, complaining that Uchenna/Joyce's sign was illegible because you couldn't see it on freeze-frame on the recordings (), so they should have been disqualified. They also bitched that directions allegedly mattered in the clue, claiming it made no mention of spelling - despite the fact Rob clearly complains on the show: "better not be a spelling thing". The fact he would consider it and fail to notice it is bad enough - but for some reason their first sign has 'Celebes' spelled correctly, but in the new version screencapped they've spelled it incorrectly.

Rob's terrible performance at this, and the following Detour, allowed them to be passed by the Guidos, who arrived an hour and thirty-five minutes behind them. In probably the most satisfying comeuppance of all-time, Charla/Mirna and Susan/Patrick both got to laugh at him before watching him vanish forever (until his inevitable loss in Survivor 20).

#56 - Colin/Christie Wait At The Wrong Airline Terminal (TAR5, Ep 1; TAR13, Ep 1)

Another flag incident, but one that you're more likely to forget.

Colin/Christie's eventual m.orph into racing gods is generally only recognised as beginning in the middle of Leg 3. However, hints of their superior skillz were clear when they got to the airport ahead of all the other teams. Getting on the shuttle, with no other teams around them, they headed to the American Airline counter.

This is where they started to suck, by ignoring the fact the clue said "flagged airline counter". It wasn't until Marshall/Lance arrived a little while later and immediately asked "where are the flags?" that they figured out they'd made a wrong move, which ultimately let Alison/Donny be the first to book flights (helping them come in first in leg overall).

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it, as George Santayana said, and given the number of mactors in recent casts, it is unsurprising that a very similar incident happened again in TAR13. Aja/Ty ended up at the airport first (which is pretty WTF given how their awful navigation in Leg 4 was the main reason they left the game) and waited at American Airlines after being told that tickets were sold "nowhere else". Ty remained skeptical, but despite seeing Mark/Bill and Ken/Tina join them, then run off (and book onto the first flight), they stayed put as Kelly/Christy, Nick/Starr, Toni/Dallas, Dandrew and Marisa/Brooke joined them, waiting patiently until they realised they were all in the wrong place, causing a mad dash onto the early flight.

Postscript: after TAR14's attempt to kill the franchise, any entertaining scenes of airport confusion will be replaced with shots of pretty scenery and overly long recaps of scenes were just watched last week.