Except for the infuriating non-ending where we discovered it was all for nothing.

Sort of like a great movie that takes a great big dump on itself in the last five minutes, defiles the whole experience you just enjoyed.

Don't you warn all your friends to avoid movies like that?

So how can I keep recommending this show?

How many times do we have to ask this: How can such a great show continue to commit such an obvious fatal crime against itself? (Personally, I last asked it this morning.)

What's so hard about recruiting a few more teams?

What is the matter with these people?

. . . and Survivors and particularly Apprentices?

More on that later. Scribbled a bunch of notes on it last week, but not allowed to pull the whole thing together until I get a bit more of my work done.

But isn't it appalling how weak the competition is this year?

Feel free to chime in, and I'll try to get the piece together in a few days.

But I still enjoying the hell out of all three shows this season, aside from the occasional dull episode, like last week's Race.

And aside from the ongoing annoyance of the Race's non-elim round. Can you believe a show this good has still failed to fix a flaw that gaping? I mention it here, because tonight looks like a prime candidate for screwing us at the end.

They really mar the climax of their season that way. At this point, almost every episode is marred either by the ugly memory of last one refusing to end or the current one threatening to.

Refusing to end, that's the problem. What the producers don't seem to get is that one hour of the show does not constitute an episode. One furious run from elimination to elimination, in our minds, that's an episode, that's what we tune in for, whether it lasts one hour presented on one evening, or stretches over an entire month--which, thank God, they have spared us.

Tuning in for half an episode? Sorry. The show is good, it's not that good.