Stayed up late tonight to watch the last episode of The Amazing Race. For the first time since, oh, the original late-60's Star Trek, I watched a series from start to finish and found it terribly entertaining. The characters were good, but the premise was even better. Race against teams where plotting against each other was shown time after time to NOT WORK. Paying close attention to details, reading instructions carefully and using good traveller sense was the way to win. Watching the show also gave the viewer a whirlwind tour of the famous sights of Brazil, South Africa, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand.

Some of these real-time, real-people "competition" shows focus on building alliances and rely on the other contestants deciding who is going to be eliminated. On The Amazing Race, it was all about getting to the finish line first. One incident even accentuated the need for teams to be respectful of each other. One of the more ruthless teams had lost a piece of crucial information and other teams had a copy of the required info. Neither of the two remaining teams would share their info with the first team. Also, the more ruthless team made an attempt to deliberately sabotage another team. The attempt ended up backfiring and cost the perpetrators victory in that segment of the race.

After watching that show, Jenn and I tuned into some late-night trailer trash TV called Elimidate. The premise of this show was that one guy (in this episode it was a guy) took four potential suitors on a date, asking three of them to leave, one by one, on the course of the date. My gosh, what has society lowered itself to? Are people really THIS desperate for a date? I was appalled at more than a few things.

• the chauvinistic manner of the guy (who was obviously reveling in the attention of the four women)
  
• the cruelty of the guy to the women, fawning over each of them, in turn, ignoring the others while he nuzzled with the particular chosen one of the moment
  
• the degrading, embarrassing questions that he put to each of them about their past sexual encounters and preferences
  
• the fact that the women were willing to put up with the creep
  
• what the women would do or say to remain part of the "date"

One of the activities in determining who would be ousted from the little menage-a-cinq was the guy asking each of them in his best macho-dude-swagger, "What would you do, how far would you go to finish this date with me?"

I was waiting for one of them to say, "I'd put up with being seen with you in public and make myself look like a lonely, desperate trouser leech," but it never happened.

I guess I'm just not open-minded enough to watch post-midnight TV.