It was not much of a surprise to see the brother/sister team of Nick and Starr Spangler reach their final destination in the final destination city of Portland, Oregon in 1st place. Nick and Starr had a record-breaking Six 1st place finishes during the course of Amazing Race 13 on CBS.Amazing Race 13 did not seem to visit as many locations as previous Amazing Races. They spent 2 episodes in New Delhi, India and 2 episodes in Moscow, Russia. I don't recollect Amazing Race spending that much time in single locations before. Previously it seemed like each episode you traveled somewhere new.
It was from the final Pitstop, in Moscow, that Nick and Starr learned they were to fly directly to their final destination city of Portland.
The 3 remaining teams all shared the same flight to Portland, so they started off even in the final leg. But the two Fat Frat Boys, Dan Honig and Andrew Lappitt, continued with their tendency to have bad luck and make mistakes. In particular they found themselves a very confused taxi driver. Dan and Andrew were soon hopelessly behind.
Which left it a race between Nick and Starr, who rarely, if ever, bickered, and frequently bickering Ken and Tina Greene, who hoped the race might help solve their relationship problems. Which apparently, despite the bickering, it did. When they came in second, Ken made for an awkward, weird reality TV moment when he pulled out wedding rings and suggested they start wearing them again.
The final challenges were very Pacific Northwesty, with the teams having to climb a tree and walk a log suspended high above the ground and zip-line from the Bridge of the Gods above the Columbia River. And find several locations in downtown Portland, including a green dinosaur by the Portland Building, which is a landmark Michael Graves designed building, which is one of the many reasons Portland is such a good-looking town.
When the Amazing Race ends, standing around the Final Mat, along with host Phil Koeghan, are the teams already eliminated from the race. The eliminated stay at an Elimination Station, til the race is over. This time the Elimination Station was in Acapulco, Mexico.
One odd thing, at the end of Amazing Race, was the absence Starr's budding boyfriend, Dallas and his mother, Toni Imbimbo. Where were the Imbimbo's? Were Dallas and Toni stuck in Moscow? Unable to leave Russia because Dallas left their passports and money in a cab? The missing Dallas and Toni was not mentioned by Phil. Which seemed odd.
In a totally indulgent local Texas note. I ended my subscription to my local paper last week, that being the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In my other Blog I regularly made fun of 2 odd things this paper would do. One being saying over and over again that some lame thing in Fort Worth was the envy of towns far and wide. They used several variations of this type verbiage. The paper was particularly fond of saying something in Fort Worth made others Green with Envy. It always made me cringe.
The other cringe-inducing thing this paper repeatedly does is if there is any, ever so remote, connection to Fort Worth, or Texas, to anyone on a TV show or in the news, that important Fort Worth or Texas connection will be noted.
Though I cancelled the hard copy Star-Telegram, I still take a look at the online version. I'll copy and paste a little bit from this morning's Star-Telegram article about last night's Amazing Race...
"North Texans have had a good year on TV’s reality-competition shows, and that continued Sunday night as Fort Worth’s Starr Spangler and her New York-based brother Nick won this season of CBS’ The Amazing Race.
The former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and her brother, an actor who has appeared in shows at Casa Mañana (a Fort Worth theater), beat 10 other teams to win $1 million in the round-the-world race.
The Spanglers’ win is one of several by North Texans in 2008. Fort Worth’s Joshua Allen won Fox’s So You Think You Can Dance; Arlington’s Melissa Lawson won NBC’s Nashville Star; and Dallas’ Iliza Shlesinger won NBC’s Last Comic Standing. Another Fort Worth contestant, Michelle Aguilar, is in the final four of NBC’s The Biggest Loser, which concludes this month."
Amazing Race 13 got good Nielson Ratings. Last week Amazing Race was the 13th top-rated TV show. Early on Amazing Race was often in danger of being cancelled due to bad ratings. Then winning the Best Reality Show Emmy Award year after year would save it. Now it would appear that good ratings will keep it on the air.
I used to have a friend with whom we both thought it would be fun to try out for Amazing Race. Way back in 2004 she decided she needed to lose weight before we could make an audition video. Since then she has nearly tripled in size. These days I think the only reality show she might qualify for is NBC's Biggest Loser. In more ways than one....
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