Thread:UnderdogFan28/@comment-4742462-20151204023419/@comment-26910203-20151212011703

@ThomasVeggieDramaFan, yeah I'm not really a fan of those episodes.

The best thing about My Way or Zimbabwe was Dwayne and Junior hands down. Their storyline throughout the episode was somewhat amusing and it was interesting to see Junior by himself and interacting with some of the other contestants (I'm glad they squashed the crush on Carrie too). Dwayne going to the ends of the earth for his son was both heartwarming and realistic and it gave him some good development. Other than that though this episode was kind of disappointing I wasn't really too invested in the challenges in this one and the other characters they chose to mainly focus on were either bland or annoying (I can say I did not like the Daters in this episode). MacArthur had a sort of funny moment with the Rhino. The biggest problem lies with the Ice Dancers being able to go back to Hawaii to get rid of the curse and then make it to Zimbabwe before the other teams had finished their challenges. I understand they're the antagonists but they had to be able to think of something..anything else for the Dancers to get rid of their curse. And if not, they should have made the team's flights to Zimbabwe delayed or something. The cliffhanger on Nemma from episode 11 was also dropped in this episode which was rather awkward.

New Beijinging was pretty meh to some it up, the challenges were meh, the humor was meh, the action was meh, the interactions (both inter-team and separate team) were meh too. I appreciated the continuation of the TV Pros and Sisters (even if it was a bit awkward) but the other things weren't that great. It's nice that they tried to give the Rockers some focus and this was their best episode (I found them to be forgetable with the exception of this episode and Ridonc and Roll) but...the motivation through choco oink thing was just kind of, bleh. In terms of humor, the episode relied on gross and dark humor and the eating challenge...is one I saw directly in the Amazing Race. Compared to other episodes that focused on them, this episode probably contained the most bland Carrie and Devin and Josee was borderline insane here (she was never this bad to her partner before).

Lord of the Ring Toss was another sort of meh episode, I'll start with the good things. I liked the Best Friends and Goths interactions here at least. Daters boomeranged themselves (everybody hates this part but I thought the buildup too it was actually well done even if it was somewhat obvious) Now for the so-so or bad things. The Ice Dancers and Surfers conflict/resoultion came across as more annoying than heartwarming(?). The Cadets were equally annoying this episode with Sanders struggling so much (probably to make it more surprising later on when she steps up to the plate but still...) The Sisters and Pros really did nothing of mention here (which I guess wouldn't be too much of an issue if there were more teams).

These non-elimination episodes all felt surprisngly useless and unnecessary.