Amazing Race, Episode 3: A DVR-free update

I'm writing this with a bit of a handicap, since I don't have access to my trusty DVR this week and ergo couldn't rewatch any of Sunday's broadcast. So this will be a wee bit brief. But today's exciting topic: Suspense!

A lot of folks who watch TAR often complain about two things: first, "bunching," wherein the trailing teams catch up to the leading ones due to layovers, sleepovers, required locations being closed, etc. There's pros and cons to this whole thing, and, well, it's such that maybe I'll talk about that another week. But the second complaint is how if Team A is clearly leading and Team B is clearly trailing, and the show then tries to build suspense regarding which team will arrive at a certain location first, Team A pretty much always does anyway.

I guess I can't blame them for trying to build suspense. If they made it obvious who was ahead as the Pit Stop loomed, things would get boring. And we also don't want them to just mess with the order of the editing to the point where they're deliberately misleading viewers as to who is where. So there we are.

In any case, Sunday's episode appeared to have a couple exceptions to this trend. First, we had about six teams at once heading from a Detour to what would be a strange Roadblock involving acted-out wrestling matches. The show turned on the "suspense" music as we watched to see who would emerge from this pack to gain an advantage at the Roadblock. Oddly, it was Toni and Dallas, who I think were about in sixth place leaving the Detour. Now suddenly they're in second?! In fact the order of arrival was quite scrambled, it seemed, compared to when they left the finish of the Detour.

The other exception was this: OK, sure, it seemed like Kelly and Christy weren't *that* far behind Team Geek and ergo unlikely to be eliminated given the latter duo's untimely error. But it was hard to say. Sometimes, you can tell how far behind the last team is racing to a Pit Stop due to how light it is outside. If Team A is in a cab and it's broad sunlight out, and Team B is in a cab and it looks like dusk, well there's your tipoff. But since the key part of this Roadblock occurred inside, it was harder to tell. And other times, you can tell who's ahead by the obviousness of who left an area first. But in this case, we already knew the Nerds were at the Pit Stop. Kelly and Christy were racing against time. Would they make it?

At any rate, this for me made for a more exciting evening. The other main development was the continued portrayal of Nick and Starr as the baddies, this time with emphasis on Starr, who asked (although I wasn't sure if she was serious) Team Michigan to "U-Turn" Kelly and Christy, then debated doing it herself, although Nick got her not to (note he made the decision, or at least was shown doing so). Nick also made nice with the two ladies after a Pit Stop incident: Kelly (or was it Christy, I get them confused) accused Starr of knocking her bra off a windowpane (something like that, again, no DVR to peruse). That seemed pretty weird to accuse someone of -- did Kelly/Christy have much in the way of evidence? Personally I thought it made them look silly.