The basketball-delayed broadcast of “The Amazing Race” Sunday was amazing for entirely different reason: It started right off the bat with an apology.
“Parts of last Sunday’s episode, filmed in Vietnam, were insensitive to a group that is very important to us: Our nation’s veterans,” it began, read in Phil Koeghan’s familiar voice.
That rather surprising episode, as chronicled here last week, seemed to forget that a war was fought and lost there by Americans 40 years ago. Communist youth sang the joys of Socialism under a portrait of Ho Chi Mihn in Hanoi as if to rub it in and one of the stops for a clue was a city park built around a downed B-52. Still, nobody mentioned the war or that somebody’s uncle could have died in that crash.
“We want to apologize to veterans– particularly those who served in Vietnam – as well as to their families and any viewers who were offended by the broadcast,” the message continued. “All of us here have the most profound respect for the men and women who fight for our country.”
Fox News had made a big deal about the episode, but they like to make big deals about a lot of things. Still, apology over, the teams flew as far away from Vietnam as they could get — 6,000 miles to Africa.
And if you’re in the critical mode, it was two for two for the Ugly Americans tour of continents, landing in a place where sweet lovable Bushmen dressed in their very brief native togs guided them through the jungle and made them set chicken traps.
You almost expected that the last one to the pit stop would instead be thrown in a big open fire kettle for some cannibal soup, as in an old, racist Warner Brothers cartoon. But it didn’t quite get that bad.
The first task was to leave Vietnam, but all the teams had was the name of a city, not a country. And the guy at the Hanoi travel agency wouldn’t let people in unless they said the right country. Somehow, the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park on the edge of the Kalihari desert didn’t ring a lot of bells with people. So they ran to hotels to scour the internet or borrowed passerby’s smartphones.
Poor Southern Chuck and Wynona, who finished last again last week, were left to guess aloud. And because they’re from the South, the banjo music began to play behind them as they rattled off wrong answers: “Kenya? Australia? Turkey? Bangladesh? Paraguay?” before they got to the one they still mispronounced as “Bonswana.”
They all got on the same plane to Muan, Botswana, but had to scramble to sign up for one of three small charter planes to the bush. It’s not clear how they got all spread out and some, like the hockey playing brothers Bates and Anthony, who had been finishing in the middle of the pack, were suddenly first, and Pam and Winnie, who were just talking about getting up a rhythm after finishing first last week, were last.
On one of the small planes, other contestants (and not just the show’s producers) were making fun of Chuck and Wynona after he looked out of the window on the savanna below and exclaimed, “This is where ‘The Lion King’ was made!” Half kidding, we assume.
Still, Winnie had to ask, “You know that’s a cartoon, right?”
On the ground they got in one of a fleet of flashy American SUVs (how they got there is probably a more interesting story than what unfolded on the episode), and they drove to an area where the bushmen met them, first assisting them to dig up a scorpion and put it in a bottle, and later, either to start a fire with sticks (a common thing on “Survivor”) or to set a trap for a grouse.
In short, not a lot of elaborate challenges this week.
The American racers didn’t have to do much scorpion handling; they mostly just dug and squirmed, but none more than Joey, who just about squealed. In the translated words of one bushman, “He was very afraid.”
Max seemed best suited for the task since he was the only one who thought to bring a glove. But he didn’t find his scorpion particularly quickly. Once more it was Chuck and Wynona coming in last; her scorpion wasn’t coming out of the ground too quickly either.
From there, it was a run down the path to the fire or fowl detour. Most, perhaps fooled by “Survivor” seasons past, went for the fire making, but Bates and Anthony were the only two who actually succeeded. Bates learned early that it was all in the elephant dung. As it often is.
Only latecomers Pam and Winnie and Chuck and Wynona went for the chicken traps; Pam joked it was probably something Chuck did on a daily basis back home. Then Chuck said in the very next segment that, yes, he grew up setting such traps every day in high school.
Both teams did well, though, and Pam and Winnie, after running last for most of the day, ended up second at the pit stop; Chuck and Wynona had their best finish ever at third, coming after two earlier last place finishes.
All the others who tried fire gave up and went over to do the traps and it was only a matter of luck that Joey and Meghan finished fourth, country singers Caroline and Jennifer fifth and roller derby moms Mona and Beth sixth.
Editing made it appear as if the moms who took off the wrong way down the road would end up in a foot race with Max and Katie, who couldn’t get the hang of the trap building. But it was the newlyweds who ended up at the mat last, in an episode where they revealed that Katie was no dumb blonde, but actually had a phD they were keeping quiet about.
Good news for them: It was another non-elimination stop, and for the third time in six weeks, a team failed to be eliminated at the mat (nobody was cut last week when Dave and Connor dropped out for medical reasons).
It all increases the chances for an actual elimination next week, just as the African stereotypes increased the chances for another apology. But no more elephant dung.