THE AMAZING RACE “They Don’t Call It the Amazing Race for Nothin’” Season 17, Episode 1–And they’re off! In the “They Don’t Call it The Amazing Race for Nothin’” 17th season premiere episode of THE AMAZING RACE, we meet the teams, watch them go from Gloucester, Massachusetts to the English countryside, and learn about a new wrinkle, “the express pass.”
The racing field is its usual mix, just with more beauty queens. We have Andie and Jenna, a birth mother and daughter who have only recently found each other; Gary and Mallory are father and daughter; Michael and Kevin are father and son; Brook and Clair are home shopping hosts who will never eat watermelon again; Connor and Jonathan are acapella singing buddies buddies from Princeton University; Nat and Kat are friends and doctors; Katie and Rachel are friends and volleyball players; Ron and Tony are best friends with very different jobs–Ron is a director and choreographer who appeared in Newsies while Tony is a doctoral student; and Nick and Vicki, Chad and Stephanie, and Jill and Thomas are all dating couples.
The teams are brought to the Gloucester starting line on lobster boats and then learn that the winning team will get an “express pass,” which can be used to skip any challenge in the race up until the eighth leg. That’s huge.
After Phil tells everyone the first flight from Logan Airport to Heathrow can only take three teams, they take off like bats out of hell to the waiting Smart Cars so they can catch that first plane to London. Ron and Tony, Jill and Thomas, and Chad and Stephanie (after originally getting in the wrong line) make the American flight, while everyone else is relegated to Virgin American. We get a nickname for Connor and Jonathan: Team Glee. Let’s see if it catches on.
From Heathrow, the racers must go to Stonehenge, which means driving stick left-handed. We learn Nat is a diabetic who does triathlons, Vicki had never heard of Stonehenge, Jonathan and Connor call Andie and Jenna the Gilmore Girls, and Chad seems to be an ass. Gary and Mallory get a flat tire while Katie and Rachel have an especially tough time on a hill.
Nat and Kat get to Stonehenge first (“Those are big frickin’ rocks.”) and from the clue figure out they must go to Eastnor Castle. Jill and Thomas are the first to arrive and learn they must storm it. The teams climb the wall as serfs douse them with muddy water. Brook yells “Woo-hoo! We’re medieval!” Then it’s time to grab a flag, run to a lake, and cross it in little toboggan boats that are ridiculously easy to sink. It’s a balance game, with the racers having to grab onto ropes to gently pull themselves across. It’s now official, by the way–Chad is an ass.
Roadblock! It’s time for the watermelon o’doom. The team members must ride with a knight during a joust and then catapult watermelons to take down a suit of armor. This challenge looks pretty hard to a klutz like me–aiming a catapult can’t be easy–and if you’ve seen the Youtube video, you know how it goes for Claire. She’s getting tired and Brook cheers her on by saying, “You’ve got this. Right in the kisser.” Well, Claire does put it right in the kisser–it just happens to be her own. Ouch. Brook is sympathetic, but firmly tells her to continue. “They don’t call it The Amazing Race for nothing’.”
Thomas kills his knight first, and he and Jill run across a field and pond to the pit stop to win the express pass. They look like a seriously competent and tough team and with this advantage? Watch out! Kat and Nat finish next, another tough team. Connor and Jonathan and Brook and Claire have an awesome sprint race to the pit stop, ending in third and fourth respectively. I’m rooting for Brook just because when she, her face numb, finally kills her knight, she joyfully yells, “I made it my bitch!” Katie and Rachel take fifth. These teams all look good so far.
For the not so good–at this point, Chad and Stephanie are wandering around looking for the pit stop in all the wrong places, Michael and Kevin and Gary and Mallory are trying to cross the lake, Andie and Jenna have started climbing the castle wall, Nick and Vicki are just arriving at the castle and asking random people if they`re battlements, and Ron and Tony are just lost on English roads.
Gary and Mallory earn sixth place with Kevin and Michael right behind in seventh. Chad and Stephanie finally find Phil for eighth place, which Chad calls humbling, saying he realizes they must change some of their ways and that their fights could cause problems. Hmmm. True insight or camera mugging? Andie and Jenna are team number nine. Nick and Vicki are a tenth, and Phil asks Vicki what country she’s in, to which she replies, “London,” making Phil stifle a chuckle. Ron and Tony keep sinking their boat and are eliminated.
Not bad for a first leg of The Amazing Race. For the most part, everyone is on their best behavior, and it will be a few legs before I know which teams are the annoying ones, though Chad is my early favorite for race jackass. I don’t see Andie and Jenna or Nick and Vicki making it much farther, so I hope Andie and Jenna get that bonding in now.
What did you think of the first leg? Who are your early favorites? Who do you like/dislike personality-wise?
Follow me on Twitter @michstjame
Please make sure to read our comment policy before posting a comment.