After 30 days and more than 30,000 miles, season 19 of The Amazing Race has come to an end. And, thankfully, the win wasn’t determined by a bad cab driver … but it was close (at least by the editing).
It was fun to see Jeremy & Sandy’s and Ernie & Cindy’s reaction to the final location, Atlanta. I kept wondering why they were so unhappy to go there, and then they reminded us all that Marcus & Amani live in Atlanta. It was here that I thought it was actually more fair to everyone to have to travel by cab since Marcus & Amani probably knew the area pretty well. Turns out, they really didn’t know the specific locations on the last leg … not that it really mattered.
The first task, landing a plane in a flight simulator, probably would have freaked me out as much as it did Marcus. I’m not a good flyer, so doing that would have been tough. Jeremy whizzed right through it, and Ernie got it on the second try. Poor Marcus effectively took himself out of the race on this challenge because he could not land that plane for the life of him. I would say it took at least ten tries before he and Amani finally got back into the race, but by then it was too late.
Surprisingly, Ernie & Cindy slid past Jeremy & Sandy on the way to the next location, the former residence known as The Dump. Jeremy & Sandy seemed to not understand the words “former residence” and ended up at a large furniture store called The Dump. Who knew? (Probably the producers, hoping there would be some such mix-up.) While they searched through the store for a clue box, Ernie & Cindy found the house (where Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone With the Wind), and even though Ernie chose to do the Road Block (typing the clue on an old typewriter with out a 1 key), they still managed to keep ahead of the others. They were out of there before Jeremy & Sandy arrived, but it seemed pretty close. It was at this point that Marcus finally landed his plane safely.
Ernie & Cindy had to figure out the cryptic clue, 44 – 715 – 74, which pertained to Hank Aaron‘s record setting home run and the location of a tribute to that feat, Turner Field. With the help of a hotel desk clerk and the internet, they figured it out and were on their way, while Sandy finally finished typing their clue. At Turner Field, Cindy chose to re-map their course around the world on a giant map using rope and carabiners, while Ernie stayed on the ground giving instructions … except Cindy just flew through it without much help and they were off to the Finish Line at Swan House.
Jeremy & Sandy caught up a bit, missed one location on the map but fixed it quickly and the race nearly did come down to a cab driver. Ernie & Cindy’s driver was using a GPS, but he kept missing the turns, causing the GPS to say that dreaded word, “Recalculating.” It seemed like Jeremy & Sandy were right on their tail at this point, but Ernie & Cindy overcame whatever difficulties they faced during the race, and won the million dollars. Phil had plenty of time to chat with them about the journey before Jeremy & Sandy arrived in second, so they probably weren’t as close as the editing suggested. Poor Marcus & Amani came in third on their home turf (did they even do the map?). In the end, I think it was a good win because this is the first time I can remember a team saying they wanted to use the money to help others. I hope Ernie & Cindy follow through on that promise. Congratulations to them and everyone else for running a good race.
Next season, however, may have a lot of drama as word has leaked that one team running the race is no stranger to CBS reality programming. Big Brother fans, brace yourselves because the dreaded “Brenchel” is running the race. UGH. I was hoping we were done with them after their second go-round on BB this year. I’m still waiting for CBS to pony up the money and a timeslot for their wedding, a la Rob & Amber. If I have any suggestion for CBS as to how to fix both The Amazing Race and Survivor, it’s to only air one season of each show per year. Let The Amazing Race play in the fall, and Survivor in the spring in the same time slot. That way, each show has time to really cast people and plan out good challenges. With shooting two seasons per year, they just don’t have time to put together really intriguing casts and challenges, and in the case of The Amazing Race, they only get a season-by-season renewal so they have even less time to plan (which inevitably leads to them dipping into the CBS reality talent pool for contestants). Give us one great season of each show per year and maybe the viewers will stop griping about how boring the shows are and how tired we are of seeing the same people bouncing around from show to show. Just a thought.
Clacked by Chuck Duncan 
on Dec 11, 2011 @ 23:02 EST5EDT
Informative article — Keep in mind not everyone is “Dreading” to see the return of Brenchel as their fan base has exponentially imploded since they first come on the scene.
I found this to be a relatively boring finale compared to other years. Given the breadth of choices for tasks in the Atlanta metro area they could easily have spent two hours there, especially if they threw in a task or two out of the metro like over at Stone Mountain or Lake Lanier. The flight simulator was quite a task, but the typing was rather lame & unlike previous years the ‘race retrospective’ task ended up being easy. I would have liked to have seen how Marcus & Amani fared on that but the race was a done deal by then.
I find the races where they have celebrity runners from other reality shows to be tiresome. But at least it’s less tiresome than that family edition several years ago.