The Amazing Race: Family Edition

-
(Spoilers ahead)

Everyone has their guilty TV viewing pleasures and mine is The Amazing Race.

I don’t know what it is about this reality show, but really gets me involved. I get tense when there’s a close finish; I’ve even cried in sympathy when my favourite teams have been eliminated, or wept for winning teams I care about. I know the show’s manipulative, but, well, I just so enjoy letting myself be manipulated by it!

Plus there’s the travel aspect. The show has made me aware of a number of destinations and their tourist attractions that I never would have placed on my ‘Must Visit’ list before the show.


Anyway, The Amazing race: Family Edition (Season 8) ended last night in South Africa. This 4-person family spin on the award-winning month-long race around the globe was pretty entertaining. I did dip in and out of the series until the participant numbers dropped (there’s a helluva lot more noise with 4 member teams), but I thoroughly enjoyed what I saw. And after the scheming of Survivor’s Rob and Amber in Season 7, it was a pleasant change to see teams who weren’t (generally) out to gut their opponents.


In fact, I was pretty much fond of all the teams. I had no problems with the winning Lintz family (3 brothers and their sister), and 2nd placed Bransen family (a father and his 3 20-something daughters) were easy to identify with. With the Bransens I could see my sister and myself doing the race with my father, although I think our arguing would have been more of the Paulo family’s proportions.


Even the uber-religious Weavers, who seemed more hated by contestants than I thought they warranted - had their entertainment value. It’s not everyday you get to see someone run over by an Amish buggy.

Next season, which looks to be a return to the standard couples format, is currently on TV in the States and I’m being very careful to avoid any mention of it online in case I discover who is being eliminated. The teaser was attached to the Season 8 finale, and this time, finally, the teams go to my dream destination - Greece!

---

In other news, I’m playing Titan Quest again solo, continuing with my necromancer-conjurer and her oh-so-powerful sidekick, Chad, the Litch King. I'll post some more screencaps soon.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is the rebooted Lara Croft gay? Evidence for and against...

-
Image
As some of you know, I’ve been fangirling hard over the new Tomb Raider , the first entry in the video game series since 2008, and ostensibly a reboot for the entire franchise . Taking the form of an origin story, Tomb Raider 2013 depicts the events that transformed a beautiful, if bookish, archaeology graduate into a pistol-packing adventurer with a devil-may-care attitude. We meet Lara Croft as a pretty, fairly ordinary 21 year old, brooding over her work notes, listening to her mp3 player and very much confined to the shadow of her male mentors. By the end of the game, however, she’s taken charge – she’s had to! – and, battered, bruised and bloody, she’s both a survivor and hero, right down to rescuing the princess and carrying her away in her arms. Yeah, this is probably the best point to mention that there will be some Tomb Raider 2013 spoilers in this post, so read ahead with caution. Anyway, I loved the game. Technically it’s near faultless, it looks beautiful, the ov
Read more

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Queer Icon (Part 4)

-
Image
Part 4: The mystery of Lara Croft’s sexuality “Now what’s a man gotta do to get that kind of attention from ya?” – Larson Conway (Tomb Raider, 1996) Despite being an icon for many queer pop culture consumers, Lara Croft’s own sexual orientation remains ambiguous. Outside of the Top Cow comics and live-action films – where Lara is blatantly heterosexual, with a fondness for slightly scruffy bad boys (who keep betraying and hurting her) – the character comes across as primarily asexual. Kurtis Trent is the only male figure who even comes close to being a love interest in the game series. Lara's apparent sexual disinterest is despite the adventurer appearing very sexually attractive herself; a figure of desire with bee-stung lips, voluptuous breasts, toned stomach and impossibly long, athlete’s legs. Yet Lara is never dominated by sexual yearnings or romantic affections. She is very much in control of herself at all times. It’s worth noting, however, that over time th
Read more

Ladies I Love: Part 2 - Rhona Mitra

-
Image
Following on from the first post in this series , you may realise that I have a very definite type. Anyway, today we profile model-turned-actress Rhona Mitra . This 36 year old Briton is of English, Irish and Indian descent. You'll have seen her pop up on the big and small screen multiple over the past decade and a half, although Mitra's claim to fame is that she was the second ever model (some say first if you rule out "unofficial"  Nathalie Cook ) to play iconic video game character Lara Croft . From 1997-1998, Mitra could be found in PR material, as well as at trade shows, events and conventions as a flesh-and-blood embodiment of Tomb Raider 's kick-ass archeologist lead. There have been many official Lara Croft models over the years , but as far as I'm concerned Mitra remains the best. In my mind, of all of them, she most closely resembles the video game character in terms of facial features. Plus she comes from money and had a rebellious boarding
Read more