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Friday, November 13, 2009

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 16:31:00 GMT

The Amazing Race 15.09 Preview - We're Not Meant For the Swamp

THE RACERS PUSH THEMSELVES WHILE KNEE-DEEP IN ESTONIAN BOGS, AND TWO TEAMS COLLIDE ON THEIR RACE TO THE PIT STOP, ON "THE AMAZING RACE," SUNDAY, NOV. 15

"We're Not Meant for the Swamp (Estonia)" - The racers end up knee-deep in Estonian bogs, and two teams are neck and neck in their race to the pit stop, on THE AMAZING RACE, Sunday, Nov. 15 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Phil Keoghan is the host.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:00:33 GMT

The Amazing Race is Available on iTunes!

Want to keep The Amazing Race episodes for yourself? Download full episodes from You can also buy the episode to keep! Download it on .

Seasons 13 and 14 are also available, all episodes are priced $1.99.

You can buy the complete season 14 for $18.99 and complete season 13 for $20.99.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:43:00 GMT

Sam Vents and Ericka Promises No More Tears in This Week's Bonus Clips from The Amazing Race

Here are the latest bonus videos from the 8th leg of The Amazing Race. Watch more videos on CBS.com

MAT CHAT: Brian and Ericka On The Rise
What a difference a leg makes as the married couple happily stands in third place with Phil

Sam Vents
While unraveling countless hay bales, Sam tries to not become unraveled himself

MAT CHAT: Brothers Stand Together
They bickered and fought, but Sam and Dan stand united on the mat happy to still be in the race

MAT CHAT: Flight Time's Birthday Celebration
What better way to celebrate your birthday than standing on the mat with Phil in first place?

MAT CHAT: A Happy Ending
An exhausted Meghan is still emotional as she and Cheyne chat with Phil about their difficult day

No More Tears
Ericka jokes about her tendency to cry in the race and explains why it happens

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:36:00 GMT

Vietnam vs. USA Soccer on Elimination Station! Find out which team won?
Plus one team's relationship could be changed forever!

Find out which team won the shirts and skins soccer game, then watch as one team's relationship could be changed forever when a shaman visits the teams.

Also watch it on CBS.com

Monday, November 09, 2009

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:48:08 GMT

Episode 15.08 - This is the Hardest Thing I've Ever Done in My Life
Miss the episode or want to watch it again? Watch the full episode at CBS.com!

THE LEG
It's still light out, though it's already 9:33pm as Sam & Dan get their first clue of the 8th leg at the Mat. Teams will now fly to Stockholm, Sweden and once there must take a train and a ferry to amusement park, Tivoli Gröna Lund where they will find their next clue at the Fritt Fall ride.

The teams leave the Pit Stop one by one. Sam & Dan have 21 years of sibling rivalry, Meghan & Cheyne have done well in the Race, which is of course a sign of good compatibility for marriage, It's Flight Time's birthday and he wants to get first place for his gift, Gary wants to keep up with the youngins, and Brian wants to show Ericka's mom that her marrying a white guy is okay.

KLM ticketing opens at 5:30am, so the teams spend a few hours in the airport. When they get to the counter in the morning, Sam & Dan, Meghan & Cheyne, and Flight Time & Big Easy manage to get on the 6:55am flight. Gary & Matt and Brian & Ericka get the bad news that the flight is booked and have to instead get on a 9:25am flight.

The first flight touches down at Stockholm-Arlanda and the teams run for the train. Flight Time & Big Easy get left behind at the platform. Sam & Dan and Meghan & Cheyne get to the ferry and arrive at the cluebox in the park. One team member must ride the Fritt Fall and while on it, look for an arrow on a rooftop in the park pointing them in the direction of their next clue.

Cheyne and Sam go up and then down fast and they head to the next clue. Now teams will have to play Roaming Gnome Ring Toss. When they've landed a ring on one of the giant hats covering a Roaming Gnome, the attendant will hand it to them and will find their next clue underneath. And as always, they must keep the Travelocity Roaming Gnome until they reach the Pit Stop.

They get the Gnome and find the Detour.
In this Detour, teams will have to choose between two of Sweden's most notable historic figures.
In Nobel Dynamite, teams will fill sandbags to create a protective bunker in a rock quarry. Once they're protected, they'll set off "an enormous explosion" that will unearth a box containing their next clue.
In Viking Alphabet teams will decode a secret message using the Viking alphabet. The message tells them to "Find the Strong Viking" who will give them their next clue.

Both teams choose Nobel Dynamite and head off as the Globetrotters arrive at the amusement park. No one taller than 6'4" can ride the ride, so Big Easy is out. Flight Time goes up to search for the arrow. They get to the Gnomes and decide on Nobel Dynamite as well.

And as they finish, Gary & Matt and Brian & Ericka arrive in Sweden. Brian & Ericka get their tickets and get on the train, but Gary & Matt just miss it and are left behind. 15 minutes until the next one.

The Globetrotters want to name their Gnome. Flight Time suggests "Sweet Pea" ("Naaww, that's dunb."). Big Easy says "Louisiana Shorty" ("That's gettho!"). Then he says "Harlem Gnome" ("Harlem Gnome!?!?!")

Brian & Ericka get to the park and find the clue. Brian is scared of heights so it's up to Ericka to find the arrow. She has fun and they head to the Gnomes. Ericka gets it on first try. Gary & Matt get to the park and Matt goes up, even though Gary wanted to have fun too. They get the Gnome and all the teams are now on their way to the Dynamite.

The first three teams all meet up and start the Detour. Sam & Dan use their hands to fill the sandbags which was faster. Meanwhile, Meghan suggests she and Cheyne work together by having one person hold the bag open and another shoveling in the dirt. He won't have it. ("Cheyne! Encourage me please, help me!")

Still on their way, Brian & Ericka hire a taxi to lead them while Gary & Matt are confusing themselves with Swedish street names.

Sam & Dan finish their bunker and blow s—t up. They find the clue, telling them to drive themselves to Bögs Gård Farm, the site of one of the most infamous and daunting challenges in Amazing Race history (I just got chills). There teams will find their next clue.

The Globetrotters are next and Meghan & Cheyne finish last of the three. Meghan is frustrated Cheyne didn't listen and was so uncooperative with her.

Brian & Ericka arrive at the dynamite. Gary & Matt get pointed in the right direction. The Globetrotters get lost and Sam & Dan arrive near the farm. Meghan & Cheyne are right behind and it’s a 0.2km jog to the farm.

Sam & Dan get to the cluebox and *dun*dun*dun*, it's a Road Block.
Phil reminds us that nine seasons ago, this was the site of one of the most unforgettable Road Blocks in Amazing Race history. Simple enough, Phil says (yeah sure). We get a flashback to Lena & Kristy's unlucky afternoon turned night. Lena, almost 10 hours unrolling hay bales and she found not one clue. Now, in an "Amazing Race Switchback," teams will face the same challenge. This time teams will have to search 186 bales of hay for 1 of only 7 Race flags. Also, the farm is the Pit Stop for this leg, so teams will have to work even harder to avoid possible elimination.

Sam decides to do the Road Block. At the start, Dan starts yelling which Sam is not liking. Frustration already starting and they don't even know the half of what this Road Block can be. Meghan & Cheyne arrive. Meghan asks Cheyne which one of them should do it. He is silent… and silent… until Meghan says she'll do it. Hmm…

The Globetrotters arrive. Big Easy gets out into the field. Dan continues yelling at Sam. Sam continues yelling back at him to shut up. Meghan wants encouragement.

At the rock quarry, Brian & Ericka are finishing up their bunker, scooping the sand with the hands when Gary & Matt arrive. They put on one last row, Ericka goes to protect their gnome and the blast the cluebox out of the ground. They leave for the farm with Gary & Matt not too far behind.

Dan continues yelling at Sam. Sam flips him the bird. Meghan says "This is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life" a 2nd time. Flight Time tells Big Easy to find that flag first for his birthday. "Screw you!" Sam yells after Dan criticizes his hay rolling technique.

Brian & Ericka and Gary & Matt are running towards the field as Big Easy finally finds a flag. Sam proclaims the Globetrotters as "the luckiest team ever on the Race" as the two friends run towards Phil and the Mat. They claim 1st and win a trip to Turks and Caicos.

Sam says he hates Big Easy. Brian & Ericka and Gary & Matt arrive at the field and all teams are now at the Road Block. After some hesitation, Brian & Ericka decide Brian will do it and Gary chooses to do it for his team. Meghan is in tears, she's been there for TWO HOURS! (Oh my goodness! Go cry to Lena and Kristy). Sam is going to kills his brother.

Another WTF are you doing? to Sam prompts Brian to tell Dan, hey man, it's harder than it looks. Dan finally shuts up. Sam says they've only been doing this for an hour and a half!Matt says it's a little easier for them and Brian & Ericka since the other teams have already rolled out a lot of the bales.

Meghan finally finds a flag and wants to surprise Cheyne. She pretends she's giving up, but FAIL! she trips and falls in a hole. Ericka points and laughs, and Cheyne slaps Meghan's ass and they run off to the Mat to claim 2nd.

Three teams left. Ericka praying Brian finds it next. He does. He flips over a bale and they run to the Mat to the finish 3rd.

Dan now starts encouraging Sam, sympathizing with him. Matt says his dad's worked with hay all his life, he can do this. Finally, Sam finds a flag. They head to the Mat and claim 4th. Phil says… almost forced, "Wow… that was like a… replay of season 6." (No Phil… it was not.) Dan puts on the waterworks, though really he's only got one tear running down his face. Phil doesn't look impressed (haha).

An hour and 56 minutes have passed… Two hours and 45 minutes… finally Gary finds a flag. He didn't want to give up and it paid off. They run to the Mat and Phil tells them, he's sorry to tell them… next leg will be a tough one. This is a non-elimination leg. Speed Bump next week.

OVERALL
It was a great leg. First of all, why didn't the Roaming Gnome have his own safety gear? I loved last season's Gnome leg when he got his own costumes and stuff throughout the leg.

And the Switchback. While many TAR fans were speculating/reporting that the Switchback was some U-Turn/Yield type of power, it was basically just TAR recreating a past task.

And what a task to go back to. I admit, my eyes began to water seeing TAR6's Aaron and Jon rolling those hay bales and then I really started tearing up seeing Lena & Kristy and Lena powering through those hay bales for 8 hours+.

Showing Lena's toughness from TAR6 (5 years ago! Can you believe it?) and comparing it to the big babies from this week's leg… wow. Though Sam's frustration was aggravated by Dan's unhelpful yells, he and Meghan's Woe is me after just an hour or two? Come on! TAR6's Don could roll those hay bales faster than them.

But going around the TAR message boards got me thinking too about how much the Race has changed since then. Has it gotten easier? Harder? Honestly though, I must agree with some fans saying teams these days probably couldn't handle some of the things they've done in the past. The TAR6 Senegal salt Road Block comes to mind. The women powered through that one, while Adam, the only guy to do the Road Block struggled! And Mary Jean, so awesome in the Road Block, it brought husband Don to tears.

Which reminds me… about how the placement of the clueboxes right next to the Road Block defeats the purpose. The Road Block is (was?) supposed to throw the teams for a loop, that's why they are only given a cryptic one-line clue as to what the task is before they find out what they're actually supposed to do. But lately, the clueboxes are placed right next to the task which allows the teams to choose based on what they see and in most cases seeing other teams already doing the task. TAR6's Senegal salt Road Block was perfect because the cluebox was hidden behind a huge mountain of salt and the teams had no idea what the clue meant, automatically assuming it was something female-geared.

The Switchback… well, it's cool and fun especially for TAR fans who've been there from the beginning to see some of the most classic Detours and Road Blocks recreated. But like this week showed, it just paled in comparison and the teams seem so weak now! especially when you look at these teams going at it for not even 2 hours and crying, Lena did it for 8 hours+ and would've kept going had Phil not come out to them. Of course, future Switchbacks could produce some unforgettable moments as well, so we'll have to wait and see.

Well, there's a lot of things we can dissect and change about TAR and hopefully for TAR16, Bertram and Co. can make some fresh changes, but for now, TAR15 is getting into gear and hopefully gets even more exciting now that we're in the final stretch.

Leg Eight Itinerary
DEPARTURE
Zoutkamp Harbor, De Marne
Groningen, The Netherlands

CASH
$220

DESTINATION CITY
Stockholm, Sweden

ROUTE MARKERS
Tivoli Gröna Lund
Stockholm

ROAD BLOCK & PIT STOP
Bögs Gård Farm
Häggvik, Sollentuna, Sweden

Leg 8 Departure Times
Dolphin Bay Beach
Palm Jumeirah, Dubai
Sam & Dan 9:33pm
Meghan & Cheyne 9:48pm
Flight Time & Big Easy 10:32pm
Gary & Matt 11:08pm
Brian & Ericka 1:38am

Who Did the Detour?
In order of completion

NOBEL DYNAMITE

VIKING ALPHABET
No teams chose this Detour

Road Block Count

In order of completion; Italics indicate who did this week's Road Block
Who thinks they can spot a needle in a haystack?
4 Herbert Nathaniel 4
4 Meghan Cheyne 3
5 Brian Ericka 3
5 Sam Dan 3
4 Gary Matt 4

2 ~~Maria~~ ~~Tiffany~~ 4
1 ~~Mika~~ ~~Canaan~~ 5
3 ~~Lance~~ ~~Keri~~ 2
2 ~~Zev~~ ~~Justin~~ 2
1 ~~Marcy Ronald~~ 2
1 ~~Garrett Jessica~~ 1
0 ~~Eric Lisa~~ 0

Leg 8 Order of Finish
1st Flight Time & Big Easy
2nd Meghan & Cheyne
3rd Brian & Ericka
4th Sam & Dan
5th Gary & Matt
Non-Elimination Leg

My Team Rankings for Leg 8

	Brian & Ericka - After last week's rough leg, Brian & Ericka seem to have bounced back nicely. Though a bit of bad luck with the plane at the start of the leg, they had a much calmer and smoother leg which should help them regain the drive and the positive vibes to keep going. They had fun. Up that morale!
	Gary & Matt - Much kudos to Gary for completing the Road Block. Hard work on the farm probably helped, but good for him because I was surprised Matt didn't choose to do the Road Block. Great to see them saved by a non-elimination though because I feel like they could do a Nicolas and Don (TAR12) and go to the final three. One leg of bad plane luck can easily be recovered from.
	Herbert & Nathaniel - Looks like Sam & Dan aren't just frustrated with each other, but also with the good luck the Globetrotters seem to have every week. Really, the Globetrotters have the right combination of fun, skill, teamwork, and luck that gets them through each week. The Globetrotters probably don't care what Sam & Dan think, and why should they. They're doing perfectly fine on their own. Another good leg for them.
	Sam & Dan - The big things a little encouragement can do. Looks like Sam and Dan's impatience will be a recurring theme, regardless of how much they say they will change, though Dan put on the waterworks at the Mat pretty well. Again, keep those short fuses in check, calm down, and they're good to go.
	Meghan & Cheyne - They finish well, but a tough leg for their communication skills. Meghan actually made sense for the first time in the midst of her frustration. Cheyne wasn't having any of it at the Detour and his silence at the Road Block prompting Meghan to do it was mind-boggling. This isn't a good sign if they want to make it to the end. They should be careful with that or it'll catch up with them sooner or later.

Quotes from Episode 15.08
Brian: "The guy is supposed to win his girl something at the fair, not the other way around! But hey…"
Ericka: "It's 2009!!"

Big Easy: "Where did that big black man come from in that red shirt?"
Flight Time: "Big black, ugly man too!"
Big Easy: "You talking about you"

Episode Caps

800+ episode caps from Leg 8 now online at xangatheamazingracecaps2

Friday, November 06, 2009

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:55:33 GMT

The Amazing Race 15.08 Preview: This is the Worst Thing I've Ever Done in My Life

ONE TEAM STRUGGLES WITH COOPERATION AT AN EXPLOSIVE DETOUR AND THE RACERS RETURN TO ONE OF THE MOST INFAMOUS ROADBLOCKS IN SERIES' HISTORY, ON "THE AMAZING RACE," SUNDAY, NOV. 8 ON THE CBS TELEVISION NETWORK
"This is the Worst Thing I've Ever Done in My Life (Sweden)" - The lack of cooperation hinders one teams efforts at an explosive Detour, and during the series' first ever "Switchback," Teams return to one of the most infamous Roadblocks in the history of the show, on THE AMAZING RACE, Sunday, Nov. 8 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network. Phil Keoghan is the host.

May we always remember Lena & Kristy (TAR6)

And can I add that I love that CBS continues to plop that little Emmy into TAR promos? AWESOME!

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:53:00 GMT

Maria & Tiffany Talk to Ross Matthews

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:55:45 GMT

Teams Talk to Phil at the Halfway Point of the Race
Plus more bonus videos from this week

MAT CHAT: Brian and Ericka's Bad Day
The rollercoaster ride of Brian and Ericka reached a low, but they tell Phil how they'll climb back to the top

MAT CHAT: Get the Globetrotters
Brothers Sam and Dan may be in first place, but they tell Phil who they want to see out of the race

MAT CHAT: In It To Win It
Father and son Gary and Matt guarantee to Phil that they'll be in the final three

MAT CHAT: Happy in Holland
From massive weather changes to crazy bicycle riding, the Globetrotters tell Phil they're having a blast

Follow the Leader
The Globetrotters work alone, but they reveal the two teams who they consider worthy of following in the race

Sam's Big Mouth
Dating couple Meghan and Cheyne don't love that Sam gave Tiffany the answer at Martinitoren

Gary and Matt on Golfing
The father and son reflect and laugh about their crazy day of golfing

Ericka's Tower of Terror
She's smiling after, but Ericka tells Brian how difficult it was for her to count the bells

And log on to CBS.com for even more bonus videos from this leg and interviews with the teams.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:45:54 GMT

Tiffany Reveals What REALLY Happened at the End of the Leg!

Tiffany writes on her official blog and clears up a few questions, including recounting what really happened when Phil came out to them at the field and whether or not they "quit" The Amazing Race.

And Maria & Tiffany tell TVGuide.com what they could've done differently at the Detour.

Maria & Tiffany tell People Online that the final task was "unfair."

Reality TV Wanted ask Maria & Tiffany what the best part about the Race was and what made them initially want to try out.

And here's Phil's final "Mat Chat" with the girls:

And their final interview...

Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:27:55 GMT

Maria & Tiffany Check Into Elimination Station
Plus USA vs. Vietnam!

On this week's Elimination Station, Maria and Tiffany recount their rough leg, but the teams don't believe them!!
Later, the guys have a little shirts and skins soccer match with the local "Vietnamese" kids. Who'll come out on top?

Or watch it on CBS.com