Tag Archives: Amazing Race Canada

Amazing Race Canada, Featured

Comments and queries for the week of July 8

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Swimming with the fishes on The Amazing Race Canada

There’s something fitting about a bus pulling away just as you run up to it, even on television. They seem to be trying to inject a bit of a strategic game in our Race, usually the Express Passes are given for winning a leg and the Fast Forward takes you out of the way—but you’ll probably get first that episode with the FF. In typical Canadian politeness two teams agree to work together … but in no real shock the team from Big Brother breaks the deal. Though when they aren’t yelling at each other they seem like a strong team.

Although with the other Pass having to be given away either in Episode 3 or 4, I don’t see how much strategy could really go into it. There are eight teams left, so it can’t cause too much of an upset. The Face Off twist from last year was kind of a bust too. In terms of being strategic better just leave that to the U-Turn boards.

Having been to Calgary last year, I was deeply amused how the twins kept searching around the wrong building, which you can see from the tower but it clearly wrong. Two rapeling Roadblocks in a row? Meh. I know they’re going for a positive edit, but damn if Lowell’s big grin going down the tower and fish puns with Julie wasn’t sweet as hell.

That Sim Detour must have been harder then it looked. It seemed just like a video game but three teams GTFO almost instantly.

Oh wow! An actual footrace between the last two teams! This is so tense and exciting … way to undercut the tension there. I know non-elimination legs are planned in advance but this seems a bit early. (And aren’t we short at least one team this year to begin with?) Going international next week Yay! —DanAmazing

 

I find there is a lack of age diversity this time. Not very many older couples, it’s all very pretty and attractive shiny people. —Kelly H.

Where will Major Crimes and Rizzoli & Isles land?

Now that Super Channel has lost the rights to Major Crimes and Rizzoli & Isles, is there any word on the new seasons being picked up by a Canadian broadcaster? I know the last season of Rizzoli, which aired on Super Channel, is about to air on Showcase.

Meantime, has a Canadian broadcaster picked Shooter, which begins in the U.S. soon? —Doug

No word yet on where Major Crimes and Rizzoli & Isles will air now that Super Channel has lost the rights, but Showcase is a natural and likely fit for both, especially since Rizzoli is airing in a second window on that station.

As Jayme notes below, Shooter will be broadcast on Bravo this fall.

Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? Email greg@tv-eh.com or via Twitter @tv_eh.

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Amazing Race Canada, Featured

Swimming with the fishes on The Amazing Race Canada

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I’m consistently fascinated by the odd times Amazing Race contestants depart for a new Leg. In Tuesday’s newest journey, for instance, Jillian and Emmett departed Jasper, AB, at 12:56 a.m. Why not round it up to 1 a.m.? Why set it that late anyway? Can anyone answer that question for me? I really, honestly, want to know.

But back to the contest itself. Following a dramatic Leg, The Amazing Race Canada upped the ante in Week 2 with a pair of Express Passes—ways of skipping challenges without incurring a penalty—up for grabs. Out of the gate, Jillian and Emmett and Steph and Kristen have proved themselves to by not only physically strong teams but savvy ones too. So it was no surprise they emerged from the first bus into Calgary—following another rappel test—and decided to team up in a hunt for the Express Passes. (Can I just say it was a little disappointing to follow up last week’s height test with another one in Calgary?) They were thick as thieves … until Jillian and Emmett discussed and decided it was more important to finish Legs of the Race in first place than it was to score the passes.

With that, they left the girls to hunt through hundreds (thousands?) of vinyl records at Canada Boy Vinyl on their own while they headed off to the “Swim” Detour, corralling thousands of hatchery trout into one area and scooping them into cages. Steph and Kristen’s gamble paid off after an hour of work—scoring them an Express Pass and one to hand to another team—but costing them precious time. Luckily, they were fast and physical, outgunning other teams at the hatchery to land a respectable fifth place for their troubles. Jillian and Emmett, meanwhile, never gave up their lead after that, cruising into first place again. When they’re not bickering, Jillian and Emmett are simply unstoppable.

Meanwhile, there was a log jam in the hatchery, as every other team save for Joel and Ashley chose to scoop up fish. Instead, the father and daughter opted for the “Sim” side of the Detour, involving using a crane simulator to move a concrete weight through an intricate obstacle course in under six minutes combined. (Steph and Kristen, Kelly and Kate and Rita and Yvette took one look and swapped challenges.) After much practicing, the pair completed the task in their first try and hit the mat in a very respectable fourth place.

Things never improved for Kelly and Kate and Rita and Yvette, who entered Calgary in the last bus and never made up ground. In a footrace to the mat. Rita and Yvette edged out Kate and Kelly for the last spot. I could right away by Jon Montgomery’s tone that it was a non-elimination Leg, meaning the two friends have a Speed Bump to contend with in Vietnam. My take? Amazing Race Canada introduced a non-elimination way too early and should have waited until next week.

Here’s how the teams finished the Leg:

  1. Jillian and Emmett (trip for two to Paris)
  2. Stéphane and Antoine
  3. Frankie and Amy
  4. Joel and Ashley
  5. Anne and Tanya
  6. Steph and Kristen
  7. Julie and Lowell
  8. Rita and Yvette
  9. Kelly and Kate (non-elimination Leg)

What did you think of this Leg of the Race?  Comment below or via @tv_eh on Twitter.

The Amazing Race Canada airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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Amazing Race Canada, Featured

Bad moves and bad weather on The Amazing Race Canada

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The first episode of a new season of The Amazing Race Canada is always tough, because you’re just getting to know the teams, figure out who seems to work well together and decide who to cheer for. That first hour shows the competitors adjusting to the team dynamic as well, sussing out their strong and weak points.

But the producers offered the Season 4 contestants no mercy, throwing them into a terrifying Road Block—crawling under a cable car hundreds of feet in the air—that cued tears for more than one competitor and a bunch of penalties for the rest. Not every team took a penalty for deciding not to participate, but inclement weather on Jasper’s SkyTram meant those that didn’t complete the test or leave with a penalty hanging over them were forced to wait for a determined amount of time before moving to the next stage. It had all started so swimmingly: the 10 teams bolted into the trees around Yellowknife’s legislature at the top of the hour, seeking the translation to a First Nations greeting.

Former Big Brother Canada players Jillian and Emmett broke the code first and departed for the airport, where they quickly devolved into a bickering twosome. Jillian’s yelling and crying from the back seat clearly frustrated Emmett, though they still managed to land spots in the first airplane to Jasper. And though she groused at him the entire Leg, the pair still landed in first place at Pyramid Lake, scoring a trip for two to London, England. Jillian and Emmett are certainly strong players who boast strength for physical challenges (Emmett aced crawling under the SkyTram car in his first shot), but a lack of patience getting to locations could derail them.

Dating couple Steph and Kristen scored second place thanks to physical prowess (Kristen turned a hand slip on the tram into a success thanks to well-placed feet), confidence and support that should serve them well down the stretch.

Husband and wife Julie and Lowell are an inspiration already. Lowell has just a pinhole of sight remaining, and it’s going too, and Julie is determined he sees as much of Canada and the world as he can before he loses his sight completely. How can you not cheer for them?

As for the rest of the teams, it’s really too soon to tell which ones will be in the hunt for the $250,000 prize, cars and title, but it won’t be Anthony and Brandon, the two friends from Windsor, Ont., who opted to skip the SkyTram challenge just before the rest of the teams were halted due to weather. If the weather had held, the move would likely have paid off. Instead, they could only watch helplessly as slower teams completed the leg, leaving them up for elimination.

Would you have gambled like Brandon and Anthony did, hoping other teams would finish behind them? Comment below.

Here’s how the teams finished:

  1. Jillian and Emmett
  2. Steph and Kristen
  3. Stéphane and Antoine
  4. Joel and Ashley
  5. Julie and Lowell
  6. Frankie and Amy
  7. Rita and Yvette
  8. Anne and Tanya
  9. Kelly and Kate (four-hour penalty)
  10. Anthony and Brandon (four-hour penalty, eliminated)

The Amazing Race Canada airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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Amazing Race Canada, Featured, Podcast, Sunnyside

Comments and queries for the week of October 2

TV Eh B Cs Podcast: The Many Realities of Mike Bickerton

A good listen! I knew Kristen’s leg cramps on TAR Canada and all the penalties must have freaked out the producers!

Also knew it was too cold for a Survivor Canada, it’d be hard to tell whose who under all the winter clothes, see teams from a distance in the snow and they could find the Hidden Immunity Idols by just following the crew member’s footprints. —DanAmazing

Smart and silly Sunnyside returns to City

So happy this got a continuation. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s new episode! —Iris

Up in Arms a gem of a documentary

This is such a divisive issue. I grew up in rural Saskatchewan where guns are everywhere. My father probably at one time had a dozen guns around the farm and he used them often for shooting various pests, particularly skunks which often carried rabies or coyotes which went after livestock. My husband has guns, is an avid hunter (like most men around here) and also shoots a lot of skunks which wander into the village. Guns are just a way of life around here, it always has been. And people in Northwest Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta absolutely hated the gun registry because it costed law-abiding gun owners a lot of time and money and inconvenience. There are also of people in Saskatchewan who would support the NDP because Saskatchewan is more socialist in culture (this is where the NDP has their roots, recall) but because people here are afraid the NDP will bring back gun registries or something related, they won’t vote for them. —Ally Oop

Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? Greg@tv-eh.com or @tv_eh.

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Amazing Race Canada, Featured

Interview: Amazing Race Canada winners give tips to wannabe Racers

Gino and Jesse Montani won this season of The Amazing Race Canada, and the next step in their journey has begun. A day after they captured $250,000, two Chevy trucks, flights from Air Canada, gas from Petro Canada and the title, the brothers from Hamilton, Ont., were still in awe of what they’d accomplished.

They took some time out from a busy day of interviews to look back on the season and give some valuable tips to anyone plotting to audition for Season 4.

What’s it been like to sit and watch the show back and relive all of those moments?
Gino Montani: It’s been a cool experience. You remember back to running the Race and you hope they don’t put something in, because there is so much footage to edit. Sometimes you don’t even realize you said something.

Jesse: Yeah, like, ‘Wait, my laugh sounds like that?!’ Oh, I need to change up my laugh.

Has it been hard to keep the secret from your family every week?
Gino: It was so tough. You don’t want to keep anything from the most important people to you, especially something like this. But, at the same time, to see their faces at the end of the Race and seeing their reaction, was priceless.

What was your game plan going in? Sure, you has some squabbles, but overall you were a very strong team.
Gino: Everyone is labelled with a first impression, and we knew we would be labelled as the jocks. We’re physical, and it’s the way we look. That’s fine. But there is much more to us and the other teams didn’t know that. We were strategizing the whole time. One thing we wanted to make sure we did was to take that extra second during challenges. You can’t just come into this and be reckless. You have to think about what you’re doing. So we took an extra second, or minute, to figure out a game plan at each challenge rather than waste time doing it three, four or five times. And it worked … but in the finale, it worked against us. We were taking too much time in the map challenge with the measuring string.

Jesse: We wanted to do it just once and Nick and Matt did it so fast. I wonder how fast we would have done it if we had just done it they way they did?

“We ran the Race to finish first. But other teams were racing just not to finish last, and that’s a huge difference.”

Let’s talk about Nick and Matt. You guys were back and forth all season, battling it out. They pushed you, and you pushed them. In the long run, it made for a compelling season.

Jesse: They are great competitors and they pushed us. I think the outcome would have been the same but I’m still not sure because they pushed us to exceed even our capabilities.

Gino: We ran the Race to finish first. We figured that if we won some Legs and some trips then at least we’d had the experience. But other teams were racing just not to finish last, and that’s a huge difference.

Was there a time or a Leg where you guys said to one another, ‘I think we might actually win this?’
Jesse: We knew each other’s strengths and that we could physically do it. There was that Leg in Chile where we came in second-last that was a wake-up call. We realized that we really needed to push from them on.

What are some tips you’d give people who are auditioning for Season 4?
Jesse: For the audition tape, just be yourself. Don’t go jumping out of planes and doing crazy things. Sit in front of the camera and talk about yourself and who you are.

Gino: They don’t want to know if you can jump out of a plane. Don’t put your dog in there, that’s not who you are.

Jesse: And for the Race, build a relationship with your taxi driver in case you run into a situation where somebody might steal your taxi. We finished that challenge and ran out to Nick and Matt’s taxi and the driver didn’t really care for them, so he had no problem taking us. He offered to take us and we weren’t going to turn that down. A relationship with a taxi driver can really help you because they want you to win.

Gino: I think you need to figure out who you are as a team. Are you in it for the experience or are you in it to win? If you’re in it to win, you have to simplify things and break it down. It’s overwhelming if you look at the whole Race. You have to split it up into Legs and each task. You can’t let outside factors get in.

Will you try out for Season 4 of The Amazing Race? If so, let us know what sets you apart from other potential Racers in the comments below.

 

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