The Amazing Race 8 – reality blurred

Padma slams Top Chef product integration (“shit”), Phil Keoghan regrets family Amazing Race; Gordon Ramsay wants aftercare

Randy Jackson, Gordon Ramsay, Tom Bergeron, Phil Keoghan, Heidi Klum, and Padma Lakshmi had a completely fascinating hour-long discussion about reality TV with The Hollywood Reporter. The full video is below, but highlights include Top Chef‘s host calling its product placement “shit” and The Amazing Race‘s host dissing the family season. Highlights from their conversation: …

Phil Keoghan thought TAR 8 sucked; CBS exec says the season wasn’t “particularly successful”

Last season of The Amazing Race, we all know, pretty much sucked harder than something that sucks really hard. As it turns out, one of the people involved with the show agrees with fans who disliked the family season, which basically stayed inside the continental United States for most of the race. Host Phil Keoghan …

Linz kids giving half their prize to their parents, splitting the rest with siblings

The Linz family may have amused us with their occasional (okay, frequent) stupidity, but they’re proving that their niceness trumps all. They ran the race and had fun with it, and now they plan to give most of their $600,000 prize (the after-tax take-home amount) to their family. Half will go to their parents, and …

Amazing Race 8 finale down 31 percent from last season’s finale in key demographic

The least surprising news of the week is that CBS’ Amazing Race 8 was not quite a ratings hit. Among viewers 18 to 49, the people advertisers drool over, the finale dropped 31 percent compared to the finale of Amazing Race 7, the season with Rob and Amber. Overall, the show “averaged a 4.2 overnight …

Weavers did not complete the puzzle Roadblock; Bransens win the online challenge

The Amazing Race 8 did not end last night. Oh no. It continued online today with a special runner-up challenge. Host Phil Keoghan, in his tight pants, told the second-place Bransen family and the third-place Weaver family that they would both compete for a GMC Yukon XL, the same SUVs that were used during the …

Linzes win The Amazing Race 8, which is finally, mercifully over

And it is over. Eleven weeks after getting our Amazing Race love crushed in the vice that was this family edition, the race finally ended after two more (relatively) lame hours. Although this season has been an utter disappointment, the casting saved it. Nearly all of the families provided us with amusement, even as they …

Amazing Race 8 concludes tonight (yay!)

Thank you, Jesus, for tonight, The Amazing Race 8 concludes starting at 9 p.m. ET. The two-hour finale will be followed by a six-minute competition that will air online only. At the end of the lamest season of the show yet, three families remain: The Linzes, The Bransens, and The Weavers. Earlier this year, the …