Denise and I keep up with The Amazing Race quite regularly. It plays to our voyeuristic interests, we get to watch for interesting places, and it’s not just a bunch of people sitting around on an island or in a house. Until recently, I had never really checked out their web site.
When I did, I decided to take a look at the leaderboard for this season. As I looked at the leaderboard, it occurred to me that perhaps particular teams are being written off a bit early. The image below shows a chart of the race, with a vertical column for each stage and a horizontal line for each team. Click the image for a larger version with more information and details (about 120K).
In the image, you’ll see that the bottom four teams have been eliminated, so their lines stop at their final episode. The top three teams go all the way to the end of the chart. Those lines make sense. But those middle four teams stop prior to the finale.
Did CBS give away the final three teams? Are they hoping someone stumbles across it and thinks that, but they’re just lying about it? I don’t know. There are other issues. The teams of Kami and Karli and Linda and Karen stop on the same episode (next week). Then two weeks eliminate a team each, and then there are four episodes plus the finish without an elimination. So it may mean nothing.
I just find it interesting that it’s being displayed the way that it is. Shouldn’t the remaining seven teams all have boxes through to the end of the race, since they all could potentially make it there (as far as we know)?
The rows represent places, not teams. Once a team is eliminated, of course, they are fixed in a row. But the rest of the teams can move up and down to new rows after each leg. The grey shaded background merely indicates how far any given team would have progressed in the race if it were in the place indicated by that row.
Episode 6 does seem a little unusual – it looks like two teams will be eliminated, or maybe one team has to leave the game for some other reason. But that is certainly a possibility, given that they are adding new twists this year.
As for the top three going until the end, this is normaly – the last three teams are usually not eliminated at all for the remainder of the series. They simply compete until someone gets to the final endpoint.
So in a sense, they are giving away some of what is going to happen in each episode, but “who” is still up for grabs.
You can see how things played out similarly in past years here, here, and here.
Excellent interpretation, Peter. You could very well be correct. Still odd that there are so many stages/episodes at the end without elimination, but could very well be interesting. Thanks for the insight!
After actually looking at (and playing with) the provided links, I see your point, Peter – though I find that episode 6 is strange. Wonder if maybe the two last place teams will be so far behind that they can’t hope to catch up, so they are removed? If they miss the wrong flight, they could easily end up 12 hours or more behind, and that might be unrecoverable. I also think it odd that there appear to be so many non-elimination rounds near the end.
At the pace they are going, I wonder if they’re going to get all the way around the world, then the remaining three teams are going to do it again during those episodes, just jockeying for position. I noticed that the mileage is much higher this season – 72,000 compared to 44,000 or something in the last season. If nothing else, it should eliminate or reduce the problem with one team getting stuck by a missed flight.