The Amazing Race 16: Episode 5: Louie & Michael #1 Again After Eliminating Joe & Heidi With U-Turn

I have not liked the "U-Turn" twist ever since it was introduced on The Amazing Race. The U-Turn pretty much lets one team eliminate another, not by racing better, but by forcing another team to do whatever Detour task the team had not done.

In the latest The Amazing Race episode it was Louie & Michael Blind U-Turning Joe & Heidi. Since Louie & Michael were in 1st place with Joe & Heidi in 2nd, it was no mystery who U-Turned them.

This was a very odd leg of The Amazing Race. It did not start with leaving the previous episode's Pitstop. Instead the Pitstop was a bus ride from Hamburg, Germany to some spot in France.

After finding a clue in a hunk of bread it was off to the location of some, apparently, well-known WWI battle. Teams had to put on WWI American Doughboy uniforms and choose a Detour between In the Trenches or Under Fire. All chose Under Fire because the other choice had to do with figuring out a message in Morse Code.

The WWI battle scene may be the most elaborate ever done on The Amazing Race. It was sort of bizarre. The teams had to crawl under barbed wire while soldiers were shooting at each other, bombs were going off and bi-planes were flying overhead.

Joe & Heidi made it out of the battle in second place, only to find they'd been U-Turned, which sent them back into the trenches to figure out the Morse Code message.

Meanwhile, Jeff & Jordan, nice kids, but a couple of the dumbest clucks ever to run the race, were far behind, got lost, bickered, finally got to the WWI battle to find their special Speed Bump. They completed that quickly and then started in on the Under Fire Detour, while Joe & Heidi kept trying to figure out the ridiculous Morse Code thing.

Jeff & Jordan got their clue directing them to ride old style bicycles to the Pitstop where they checked in in 7th place.

Phil then had to hit the trenches to tell Joe & Heidi they had been eliminated.

I did not like this episode of The Amazing Race. What does the U-Turn thing have to do with racing? And to have such a thing where the 2nd Detour task is pretty near impossible, thus, effectively letting one team eliminate another. This did not make for good TV. It may have been a Jump the Shark moment. I would imagine plenty of viewers found the U-Turn annoying.

I'll probably keep watching.