Amazing Race 22, Episode 1

Hello Race! Happy to see your sexy self again!

Does anyone else think it's okay to cull the herd a bit before getting really into knowing the teams? I always feel on the first episode as if I'm constantly trying to keep everyone straight, and can't pay much attention to exactly what's going on. Luckily, I think the producers have the same trouble, because with so many people, they can only really do two tasks the whole episode.

Is there really any reason at all to lie about what you do for a living on this show? Unless you are a "Reality Show Producer Who Thinks Up Tasks For Other People To Do", I'm not so sure any occupation gives you an advantage over any other. And as for the whole "we don't want people to think we dont' deserve the money" thing, it's not "Survivor", no one decides who gets the money. Besides, if it was a "deserving" thing, then they should only let homeless people participate on this.

As much as I loved the sky-diving thing, because WOW that place is beautiful! tasks like that don't really do much to shuffle the order. Unless, of course, you get someone who freaks out and won't go, which isn't likely on the first leg of the race. (Can you imagine? "I'm not doing that!" right out of the gate? Your partner would kill you, and there wouldn't be a jury who would convict.)

Why on earth do they cast so many young couples where she's all drooling to get married and he's all "things are fine the way they are" and they go on the race to see if their relationship will work? Because this dynamic is as unpleasant as it is unoriginal, and it would make me terribly sad to think that this is the overwhelming majority of twenty-somethings these days.

I spend more than my fair share of time on the "interwebs", as my mother calls it, and I've never heard of the so-called "YouTube phenomenoms". Which, considering his mugging and screeching and grandstanding for the cameras, might be good if it stayed that way. I mean, they've dubbed themselves "Team Cute" for crying out loud....that sort of douchebaggery shouldn't even be allowed by a just society.

I felt sort of bad for the firefighters until they made their "we're never going to live down the fact that we were beaten by two blonde girls" remark. Because being beaten by two brunettes would be totally okay.

I get that to have your child diagnosed with cancer must be all kinds of awful, and to see them suffer through the treatments would be horrible as well. But man, if that dad cries every time he talks about his son, it's going to be a very long season.

So far, I have no favorite team, but Team Newlywed is decidedly my least favorite team. She actually seems proud of the fact that she has few friends back home, (her bridesmaids from three weeks ago must have been delighted to hear that!) and he's enchanted by her ability to fake being nice to lesser mortals. I'm so glad they found each other.

Why did no one enlist the dog's help in digging up the sandcastles? I'll bet he'd have smoked that task. When he wasn't peeing on the sandcastles, of course.

Favorite Line of the Night: From one Hockey brother to another: "Do you have my teeth?"

Until next week!