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Live blog
2007-05-07 02:00:00
Welcome to TARBloob's live blog of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" finale.Refresh often for the latest "live blog" update!!!----6:09 p.m. Testing 1-2-1-2... Golf is over, thankfully, No delays for the TAR finale. Watching "CBS Evening News" now and its terrible tornado reports out of the Midwest and Mid-South. More such storms are expected tonight. I love TAR as much as anyone but have no wish to see complaints about any pre-emptions out there tonight. Saving lives is more important.----7:32 p.m. I'm formally opening up the live blog now. "The Amazing Race" is a very hard show to live blog due to its fast pace, quick cut editing. For the second finale in a row though, I'll give it my best shot.----7:39 p.m. It looks like "60 Minutes" is doing a rerun story to lead-in to TAR, during a sweeps month no less. I'm heard that woman curse about the artist Jackson Pollock before, I know I've heard it.----7:52 p.m. One more promo on CBS network a minute ago for the TAR11 finale. I always ...
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Live blog link
2007-05-07 00:25:00
Tonight's TARBloob live blog is linked here.
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"The Amazing Race: All-Stars" finale tonight
2007-05-06 06:29:00
----It has been an up and down two and a half months of televised action for "The Amazing Race : All-Stars ." Reality television stars Rob and Amber dominated the early stages of the race before their shocking fourth leg elimination. Longtime friends Oswald and Danny seemed to perform the best during the race's middle legs. Ultimately though, beauty queens Dustin and Kandice, daters Eric and Danielle and cousins Charla and Mirna were left to vie on tonight's broadcast for the title as champions of "The Amazing Race " and winners of a shared $1 million prize.The finale will air in the normal Sunday 8 p.m. EDT/PDT timeslot on CBS and Canada's CTV for the normal one hour length. The audience levels have been as up and down as some of the racing performances but hopefully, tonight's more than unusual finale will provide a more than usual viewership.----
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Poll results: Week 11, Leg 12
2007-05-06 06:17:00
----Multiple polls will be posted at approximately 9 p.m. EDT following the East Coast airing of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars."TARBloob pollWhat grade do you give to this week's episode of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars"? (episode 11 - Apr. 29, 2007)A (excellent) (7)58%B (good) (3)25%C (fair) (1)8%D (poor) (0)0%F (failure) (1)8%Total Votes: 12----
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The finalists we wanted, the finalists we got...
2007-05-06 02:56:00
----By the time the championship round comes around in a typical major sports league, one's own favorite team has usually already been eliminated from consideration. True fans of a sport can usually find a way though to support one of the remaining teams in the championship game or series even if only out of a greater disdain for that team's remaining opposition. So it goes for more than a few "Amazing Race" fans just hours away from the championship leg telecast of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars". Most hardcore TAR fans would have been thrilled to see spouses Uchenna & Joyce, friends Oswald & Danny and/or the most unlikely David & Mary in TAR11's final leg. A sizable minority of fans would have appreciated Rob and Amber making the final. We will not see any of those teams of course on this weekend's final All-Stars airing except on the sidelines to cheer on the actual returning finalists.Instead, we have a choice as fans to support either beauty queens Dustin & Kandice, daters Er...
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Live blog on finale Sunday
2007-05-05 14:35:00
----Assuming a mystery server doesn't get blown out someplace, TARBloob will do a totally unofficial live blog of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" finale this Sunday evening.I actually did a live blog of "The Amazing Race 10" finale late last fall but it came out as more of a straight play-by-play than I would have liked. Sunday's live blog will hopefully include more in the way of commentary and analysis. Most of the play by play will be left to my recap later in the week.My plan is to show for the live blog at about 7:30 p.m. EDT so we might actually get a partial live blog of "60 Minutes" while I'm warming up my typing fingers.Obviously, the live blog should be considered as SPOILERS for West Coast and international audiences who will see the TAR11 finale delayed from the original CBS East Coast feed. Otherwise, I will NOT place SPOILERS (including episode preview material) on the live blog.The "TARBloob live blog page" is linked here and near the top of the left sidebar, "Posts...
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TAR11 finale: Youth to be served
2007-05-04 23:12:00
----The three finalist teams on "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" are noteworthy not just in their female skew as noted earlier this week (5 of the 6 remaining racers are women) but in their youthful skew.Unlike some more recent regular runs of the series, the All-Stars run was cast to include a significant number of older contestants up to the middle-aged teams of Joe & Bill and Teri & Ian.With the final elimination of Oswald and Danny from TAR11 though, we are left with three relatively youthful teams. Beauty queens Dustin & Kandice are each 25, according to CBS.com. Daters Eric and Danielle are 28 and 23 respectively while cousins Charla and Mirna clock in as the closest contestants left to being "gray hairs" at age 30 each. As someone who just jumped involuntarily into my late 30s last week, the oh so young lineup for the TAR11 finale is more than a little disconcerting.----
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TAR Geekout II!
2007-05-04 01:09:00
----Welcome to my latest attempt to statistically quantify "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" based on this run's track record. The first measure is an old favorite of mine, the "Leg Percentile Average".I'll let a modified explanation from last February stand to explain the LPA.In mathematics, percentile refers simply to what percentage of the rest of the population one exceeds in a given measurement. Let's use a hypothetical example of how percentile is used to generate the LPA.- A team called the Betas starts off finishing 4th out of 11 in the first leg which means it beat out 7 of 10 opposing teams to make the 70th percentile. - The Betas finish fourth again the next leg but this time out of 10 teams because of the previous leg's elimination, so the Betas end up bettering 6 out of 9 opposing teams to reach the (rounded off) 67th percentile.- In the third leg, the team tanks to finish last, beats nobody of course and gets eliminated for a 0th percentile leg mark.My Leg Percentile A...

CBS names new programming director
2007-05-03 22:49:00
----Noriko Gee has been officially named the director of program planning and scheduling at CBS network. Gee had been the manager of program planning and scheduling, don't ask me to explain what the difference is with the two titles except that her new position probably allows for a bigger paycheck.What's interesting is that CBS gives Gee partial credit for the move last year of "The Amazing Race" and "Without a Trace" to Sunday nights, a collective move that increased the Sunday night demo ratings. The indication that CBS considers that TAR move to Sundays to be a positive for Gee bodes well both for the future of "The Amazing Race" and a future run in its current timeslot.----Relevant link: The Hollywood Reporter, CBS via The Futon Critic
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CW cancels "Gilmore Girls"
2007-05-03 22:06:00
----In the "other TV" column, the CW network has cancelled "Gilmore Girls " after seven seasons, six of which aired on the former WB network. The final Gilmore episode will air Tuesday, May 15.It's my belief as stated on rec.arts.tv that the CW network should dump most of its longtime programming, Top Model and Smackdown excepted. Having a lineup dominated by veteran shows cuts against the CW theme of being youthful and vigorous. The new network needs to relaunch this fall with new programming that the CW can call its own. ----Relevant links: The CW
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Week eleven: Oswald & Danny
2007-05-03 16:52:00
----As noted in my original recaplette for the week, the course layout for the leg 12 in Guam of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" did not allow much of an opportunity for teams to build long time gaps. Such a gap would have been needed for friends Oswald and Danny to make the finale as the team was required to either finish in first place or more than 30 minutes ahead of another team to stay in the race.As it turned out of course, Oswald and Danny didn't finish ahead of anyone on the penultimate leg even without factoring in the "mark of elimination." The friends took what would be an obvious elimination from All-Stars.----Equalizations worked both for and against the team. Oswald and Danny were equalized in the positive way by barely making a connecting plane from Tokyo to Guam after missing the first flight out of Hong Kong. The friends were then the first to leave Guam's airport driving to the U.S. Air Force base only to discover that the needed military escorts to access the base...
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Week eleven: Charla & Mirna
2007-05-03 15:29:00
----Char la and Mirna had a not so great penultimate leg of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" but the cousins still did just enough to assure a top three team finish, the only thing they needed to do to make the finale.The leg 12 setup did not work out well for Charla and Mirna. The cousins just missed the first ferry to Hong Kong from Macau though that disadvantage would be equalized out on the flight to Guam anyway. More importantly, the Detour choices were either the absolutely impossible for this team ("engine care") or the hopelessly time consuming ("care package"). Since washing the elevated B-52 engine pod would have been problematic to say the least for a team with a height challenged racer, Charla and Mirna really had no choice but to go on the "care package" Detour task. Packing the care box didn't take long but the time lost performing a simulated box drop from an Air Force plane dropped the team into last place. There was no way around the problem at that stage though except...
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Week eleven: Eric & Danielle
2007-05-03 14:53:00
----Daters Eric and Dani elle managed a second place finish on the next to last leg of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars", their first finish since early race among the top half of competing racers. Ironically though, Eric and Danielle really did not run their best race leg.The flight to Guam and early bomber washing Detour were innocuous enough. Eric and Danielle couldn't match the team coordination of Dustin and Kandice but were still able to complete the Detour in a close second place. Where the team's effort derailed for a time was on the Roadblock, a Roadblock that Danielle was required to complete. Danielle really didn't have a problem with the physicality of the task but an encounter with "spiders" and later problems finding the landing zone (the second set of coordinates) with her GPS, broke her down emotionally.Fortunately for the daters, the two other trailing teams encountered their own problems. Once Danielle's error pushing the buttons of the GPS was corrected, she was ab...
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Week eleven: Dustin & Kandice
2007-05-03 14:18:00
----The beauty queens Dustin and Kandice had another successful outing, avoiding any negative repercussions from their previous Yield machinations to easily win the next to last "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" leg. ----While any attempts at shortcuts were squelched by military supervision, Dustin and Kandice still won the leg easily as honest competitors.After making the same flight out to Guam as other teams, Dustin and Kandice (with the help of a military escort) were the first to reach the Detour clue at the top of the Air Force base tower. Any attempts to "charm" a military inspector into grading their subsequent work cleaning the B-52 engine pod on the curve were pointless but Dustin and Kandice still completed the task honestly before the other racers. From there, an uneventful ride to Guam's U.S. Naval Base led to Dustin being the only racer to navigate the pilot retrieval Roadblock without any apparent errors. The subsequent victory of the next to last leg, Dustin and Kandice...
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TAR 11.11 recap: All salute
2007-05-03 03:55:00
----START TIMES1) Dustin & Kandice (2:15 a.m.)2) Charla & Mirna (2:50 a.m., 0:35 behind)3) Eric & Danielle (3:06 a.m., 0:51 behind)4) Oswald & Danny (4:37 a.m., 2:22 behind)CHINAThe remaining (still) four teams on "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" were directed to fly from China to Guam, a U.S. territory in the South Pacific. Beauty queens Dustin & Kandice took the 3 a.m. ferry back to Hong Kong. Cousins Charla & Mirna just missed out on the first ferry, dropping to take the 4 a.m. ferry with Eric & Danielle. Friends Oswald & Danny were left with the later 6 a.m. ferry.The top three teams all made reservations for an airline flight departing Hong Kong at 9:05 a.m., with a Tokyo connection to arrive in Guam at 9:50 p.m. Oswald and Danny later made Hong Kong airport, only to find the flight unavailable to them. Oswald & Danny booked a later flight departing Hong Kong at 10:15 a.m. but with the same Tokyo to Guam connection. With under five minutes left, the friends successfully boarded th...
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Politicians out of step with reality (TV)
2007-05-02 21:52:00
----As part of a series of articles chronicling the personal tastes of presidential candidates, each major candidate was asked by Associated Press to name his/her favorite reality show.Here are the responses:----DEMOCRATSDelaware Sen. Joe Biden: "Don't have one." New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton: "American Idol." Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd: "'American Idol,' which I say often reminds me of running for president sometimes." Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards: College basketball. Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich: C-SPAN coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives. No time for other TV. Illinois Sen. Barack Obama: "Other than the U.S. Senate on C-SPAN? I don't watch them too often." New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson: "Fox News."----REPUBLICANSKansas Sen. Sam Brownback: "None this season; too busy. Last season it was 'The Amazing Race.'" Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani: Baseball. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: "Nashville Star," USA Network's country music competition....
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META: Blog update
2007-05-02 15:28:00
----The latest full episode recap for "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" and weekly team by team analyses will be posted later today. Thanks to all of you who are connecting or reconnecting with TARBloob, through our newly improved position on the Google search engine.----
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TAR rating confirmed best in month-plus
2007-05-02 15:07:00
----The confirmed age 18-49 demo rating for the next to last "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" episode is now a 3.1, the best demo rating in over a month for the series. The new mark is another upgrade over the originally reported 3.0 for last Sunday's airing.TAR finale episodes usually get a ratings boost, so TAR11's rating should bump up into the mid 3s for next Sunday's conclusion. This blogger wouldn't have originally been satisifed when the season started with demo ratings in the low to mid 3s but after the slump of the past month, any improvement should be taken as a positive.----Relevant link: CBS via The Futon Critic
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Ratings improve for next to last All-Stars
2007-04-30 19:30:00
----"The Amazing Race: All-Stars " improved to a 3.0 prelim Nielsen demo rating, up from last week's 2.7 preliminary mark among age 18-49 viewers. TAR finished in third place in the time slot behind "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and two episodes of "The Simpsons."TAR11's rating is more impressive than one would guess in that it outscored both its lead-in "60 Minutes" (1.9 for a highly promoted interview) and lead-out "Cold Case" (2.7). The overall TAR audience recovered to approximately 9.5 million viewers.No matter how many reality shows that CBS has in development, the network will not cancel a veteran reality series that can draw what "The Amazing Race" drew last night under the circumstances.----Relevant links: Media Life Magazine, PIFeedback.com
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TAR 11.11: Oswald & Danny eliminated
2007-04-30 03:44:00
----There really weren't any major controversies on this next to last leg of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars," hosted by the United States military in Guam. Racers being closely supervised by America's best for most of the leg prevented any possible race shenanigans. The military theme was a commendable one but didn't necessarily make for the most interesting racing. ----Dustin and Kandice ran another virtually mistake free leg, to win yet another race leg by a significant margin. With no opportunity for hijinks, the beauty queens proved themselves as legitimately solid racers in excelling at the Roadblock and Detour tasks. I wish that they would realize for their final race leg that the low road tactics just aren't necessary for them and probably never were necessary.----Eric and Danielle had some of the feared internal bickering but hardly enough to threaten either their relationship or standing in the race. The B-52 washing Detour suited the physical team though Danielle's sque...
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Post-episode thoughts online
2007-04-30 03:43:00
----My post-episode thoughts for the latest episode of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" are now linked here. The post contains SPOILERS for the episode if you haven't seen the episode yet.A reminder, the latest "grade the episode" poll is up on the left sidebar.----
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TAR 11.11 (leg 12) results
2007-04-30 03:02:00
----Episode #11, Leg #12 results - Fort Soledad, Guam.1. Dustin & Kandice2. Eric & Danielle3. Charla & Mirna4. Oswald & Danny (ELIMINATED)----
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Oswald & Danny results compilation
2007-04-30 03:01:00
----RELATIONSHIP: Best friendsLeg #1 result: 2ND place out of 11 (Quito, Ecuador)Leg #2 result: 2ND place out of 10 (Valley of the Dead, Chile)Leg #3 result: 5TH place out of 9 (Petrohue, Chile)Leg #4 result: 1ST* place out of 8 (Mastil de A.R.A. General Belgrano, Argentina)Leg #5 result: 4TH place out of 7 (Maputo, Mozambique)Leg #6 result: 2ND place out of 7 (Zanzibar, Tanzania)Leg #7 result: 2ND place out of 6 (Warsaw, Poland)Leg #8 result: 1ST** place out of 6 (Krakow, Poland)Leg #9 result: 4TH place out of 5 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)Leg #10 result: 1ST*** place out of 4 (Hong Kong, China)Leg #11 result: 4TH place out of 4 (Macau, China) NOT ELIMINATEDLeg #12 result: 4TH place out of 4 (Fort Soledad, Guam) ELIMINATED* - won vacation to Maui island, Hawaii** - tied with Uchenna & Joyce, used Fast Forward with Uchenna & Joyce*** - used Fast Forward, won trip to Hong Kong, China----
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Dustin & Kandice results compilation
2007-04-30 03:01:00
RELATIONSHIP: Beauty queensLeg #1 result: 6TH place out of 11 (Quito, Ecuador)Leg #2 result: 6TH place out of 10 (Valley of the Dead, Chile)Leg #3 result: 4TH place out of 9 (Petrohue, Chile)Leg #4 result: 5TH place out of 8 (Mastil de A.R.A. General Belgrano, Argentina)Leg #5 result: 2ND place out of 7 (Maputo, Mozambique)Leg #6 result: 4TH place out of 7 (Zanzibar, Tanzania)Leg #7 result: 1ST* place out of 6 (Warsaw, Poland)Leg #8 result: 3RD place out of 6 (Krakow, Poland)Leg #9 result: 1ST** place out of 5 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)Leg #10 result: 2ND place out of 4 (Hong Kong, China)Leg #11 result: 1ST*** place out of 4 (Macau, China)Leg #12 result: 1ST**** place out of 4 (Fort Soledad, Guam)* - won resort vacation to St. Lucia** - won retro scooters*** - won wave runners**** - won all-terrain vehicles----
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Charla & Mirna results compilation
2007-04-30 03:01:00
----RELATIONSHIP: CousinsLeg #1 result: 8TH place out of 11 (Quito, Ecuador)Leg #2 result: 8TH place out of 10 (Valley of the Dead, Chile)Leg #3 result: 8TH place out of 9 (Petrohue, Chile)Leg #4 result: 7TH place out of 8 (Mastil de A.R.A. General Belgrano, Argentina)Leg #5 result: 1ST* place out of 7 (Maputo, Mozambique)Leg #6 result: 1ST** place out of 7 (Zanzibar, Tanzania)Leg #7 result: 4TH place out of 6 (Warsaw, Poland)Leg #8 result: 4TH place out of 6 (Krakow, Poland)Leg #9 result: 2ND place out of 5 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)Leg #10 result: 3RD place out of 4 (Hong Kong, China)Leg #11 result: 2ND place out of 4 (Macau, China)Leg #12 result: 3RD place out of 4 (Fort Soledad, Guam)* - won resort vacation to Aruba** -won catamarans----
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Eric & Danielle results compilation
2007-04-30 03:01:00
----RELATIONSHIP: DatingLeg #1 result: 4TH place out of 11 (Quito, Ecuador)Leg #2 result: 4TH place out of 10 (Valley of the Dead, Chile)Leg #3 result: 3RD place out of 9 (Petrohue, Chile)Leg #4 result: 2ND place out of 8 (Mastil de A.R.A. General Belgrano, Argentina)Leg #5 result: 6TH place out of 7 (Maputo, Mozambique)Leg #6 result: 5TH place out of 7 (Zanzibar, Tanzania)Leg #7 result: 5TH place out of 6 (Warsaw, Poland)Leg #8 result: 5TH place out of 6 (Krakow, Poland)Leg #9 result: 3RD place out of 5 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)Leg #10 result: 4TH place out of 4 (Hong Kong, China) NOT ELIMINATEDLeg #11 result: 3RD* place out of 4 (Macau, China)Leg #12 result: 2ND place out of 4 (Fort Soledad, Guam)* - arrived at Pit Stop 2nd, knocked down to 3rd place by "mark of elimination" penalty----
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Post-episode thoughts upcoming
2007-04-30 03:00:00
----The usual post-episode thoughts about the latest "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" episode will be up within the hour. In the meantime, the "grade the episode" poll for this week's episode is up on the left sidebar.And yes, I will live blog "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" finale next week. It should be an interesting experience to live blog a finale for a second time.----
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Final elimination night
2007-04-30 02:00:00
----One remaining team will finally be eliminated on tonight's penultimate (next to last) episode of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars" to set up the three team finale.----The obvious early candidate for elimination would be the team already under the mark of elimination, Oswald and Danny. The friends had their worst leg of the race by far in last week's leg eleven, badly faltering on the Detour and violating their own ethical standard on the Yield to even remain competitive. Oswald and Danny will have to regain their bearings, both in terms of race ethics and race skills to make the finale. Those two may just psych themselves out of TAR if they attempt another low road tactic. ----Dustin and Kandice on the other hand are fully comfortable with low road tactics, if not entirely successful with them. It's become hard to imagine an "Amazing Race" leg though without the beauty queens because they don't ever go away. Aside from the TAR10 finale leg, we've seen Dustin and Kandice over al...
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Poll results, week 11-10
2007-04-29 14:18:00
TARBloob pollWhat grade do you give to this week's episode of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars"? (episode 10 - Apr. 22, 2007)A (excellent) (6)75%B (good) (1)12%C (fair) (0)0%D (poor) (1)12%F (failure) (0)0%Total Votes: 8
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CBS promising an elimination
2007-04-28 19:35:00
----CBS is promising that a team will absolutely, positively be eliminated on this weekend's episode of "The Amazing Race: All-Stars."The network means it... for realz, this time. :) No jerking the TAR fandom around for what would be the third week in a row. There will be an elimination with "metaphorical" blood on the streets and everything. And that's why we watch the show, to see other teams get bounced off the show. (rolls eyes)----Of course, it isn't any kind of spoiler to say that there will be an elimination, it is just simple mathematics. The upcoming episode is the last remaining episode before the finale. The final episode can only be run with three teams so one of the currently showcased four teams simply must be eliminated on this Sunday's broadcast.----
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