Time for the Grand Finale and our last review to be posted! After weeding through 120 different episodes, we have come to the last one in this project at last. Luckily, we decided to save one of the best episode ever for last. This episode is really memorable to me and will always be my all time favorite episodes. This episode gets a lot attention and positive feedback from Legends fans too, so it is a great way to close this project out. Here is the very last review.
JOHN SUTTER AND THE MAP TO THE LOST GOLD MINE
(Credit to "Purple Parrots Fan" for providing the images to be used for this review!)
MOAT: 9/10
The six teams had to cross this moat by using an Aztec foot board. The first player on each team had to paddle across without holding onto the paddle board at all. Once they were on the other side, then their partners had to pull the foot board back and place their feet onto the board and cross by using the ropes over the head. The first four teams that make it across will get a chance to go onto the next round. This moat was both relatively quick and exciting, and much better than the other moats from this day. The Blue Barracudas, Red Jaguars, and Purple Parrots all came close when it came to hitting their pedestals. The idea for this moat was pretty good compared to the other Season 1 moats that used the simple old ropes to cross.
LEGEND: 7/10
Long ago, on a river in Northern California, the owner of a mill saw something shiny in the water and saw that it was gold. That lucky man was John Sutter. Within 9 months, over 10,000 other prospectors came to California from all over the world to pan for gold. Some of them went around South American in creaky old ships, with their food filled with bugs, and their ships wrecked in terrible storms. Others took a shorter route through Panama, battling their way through swamps and jungles and over the mountains to Panama City, where they hopped a ship to California. Some even went by wagon train through Indian territory and Death Valley. By 1850, almost all of the gold was gone. Unfortunately, John Sutter died because he lost his secret map to the Lost Gold Mine. This was a very interesting legend, but what on earth is the Lost Gold Mine? The legend never even talks about the Lost Gold Mine until the very end. Hell, there was hardly any talk about John Sutter either. But I always thought the Wild West stories were always interesting on
Legends of the Hidden Temple. Also, I liked how the legend talked about the different ways that the men traveled to California to find the gold.
STEPS OF KNOWLEDGE: 6/10
This was a close Steps of Knowledge round, but it was ruined by multiple wrong answers by the Purple Parrots and Red Jaguars. Not only were these incorrect answers blatantly easy, but these teams acted like little kids when getting a wrong example.
For example, the Purple Parrots kept stomping and flailing their arms around when they got a wrong answer. Furthmore, there were some questions that were literally not answered at all by the teams. So there were a lot of questions thrown out in this round. It should also be noted that the Steps of Knowledge "ring in" sound effects sounded really high pitched and off key. That kind of quirk only happened in the S1,L2 episodes, so it was fixed by the next production day. Other than that, the question variety was interesting and related to the legend quite well. And the Blue Barracudas dominance and Silver Snake comeback saved this round from being a lost cause.
TEMPLE GAMES: 8/10
(Credits to "Purple Parrots Fan" for her contribution to this section)
The temple games featured solid competition all throughout, and featured some very clever commentary from Kirk. I also liked the set of games used in this episode. It used a different variety of games instead of the same tired "climb soapy ramp" and "transfer objects across soapy field" games. In the first game, Damian and Brooke had to climb through the dragon tunnels, and collect gold on the other side. It was a neck and neck game, but the game was declared a tie. Both players had collected 5 pieces of gold. Although this was a miscount on Kirk's part, Brooke of the Silver Snakes actually collected 5 pieces of gold, not the 4 Kirk counted. So the game should've been 5-4 Silver. In the second game, Jennifer and Perry had to grab a bag of gold, climb up the shaft, and place the bag on top. During this game, Kirk comments on how "the Snakes don't have any feet!"
Referring to the Silver Snakes' team logo/animal, though barracudas/fish don't have feet either. So wouldn't that sort of thing apply to the Blue Barracudas as well? Anyways, this game also ended in a tie, tying up the pendant score 1-1 going into the final game. In the third game, the teams had to slide down a soapy chute and grab pieces of gold along the side of the slide. At the end of the game, the Blue Barracudas beat the Silver Snakes 16-10, giving them the full pendant, and earning them a trip to the temple with 2 pendants!
Or a Kirk called it, "The sixteen are going to the temple!"
TEMPLE RUN: 10/10
This temple win has all of the qualities of a great win - strong team performance, funny Kirk Fogg lines, enthusiasm from the players and Kirk, and memorableness all around. Jennifer and Damian were a great team and scored one of the strongest team victories of the first season and the history of the show. Jennifer's original strategy was to beeline for the Tomb of the Ancient Kings, similar to Bobby's oath in "Shaka Zulu". Damian chose to go in first and he blazed through the bottom floor of the temple! Unfortunately, he was taken out in his third room with 2:34 on the clock. Jennifer swiftly took over, and continued along her planned path to where Damian's taken out. Her plan of entering the Spider's Lair failed, but that didn't faze her as she simply entered the Heart Room and took a different route. In the Room of the Golden Idols, she met her last temple guard and gave her Pendant to him. She tried pushing down on one of the Golden Idols, but gave up as she realized that they were useless.
In the Shrine, Jennifer did have a little trouble assembling the Silver Monkey as she knocked down a couple of pieces of it. But she recovered quickly from it and entered the Torch Room where she unnecessarily tried placing a torch on the pedestal in front of the room. After realizing that she could take the Mine Shaft elevator, she descends all the way to the bottom floor and grabs John Sutter's Map with a little over 50 seconds left! As she blazes through "Jennifer's Pit" and out of the temple, she trips on some random piece of tarp near the temple gates but quickly recovers from it.
She managers to score a victory in the end with 16 seconds left on the clock!
Overall, this was an exciting and solid temple run all around. Jennifer and Damian were both fast and strong in the temple, even if their performance wasn't 100% perfect. Even the best temple runners like Olivia-Emma, Ty, Jarrid, and Missy had their moments. Some people like to over-analyze Jennifer's performance in the temple, but when we get down to it, she did a very solid job for a very early Season 1 temple runner. Plus, Kirk's enthusiasm and Fogg-Ups galore make this run very memorable. And the trip at the end was the icing on the cake. Taking into account of all the stuff mentioned above, this temple run deserves the perfect score it gets.
FINAL VERDICT: 8/10
(Credits to "Purple Parrots Fan" for her contribution to this section)
Overall, John Sutter was a fantastic episode from beginning to end. And it was filled with all sort of memorable quotes and Fogg Ups. From the temple game miscounts, to the "Snakes don't have feet!" comment, to the memorable temple run commentary. The temple run was excellent, as both Jennifer and Damian were great players and knew what they were doing for the moat part. It was also memorable for Jennifer's slip on the floor at the end. What was the tarp on the floor doing doing there anyways? People tend to give this run undeserved criticism just because Jennifer made a few small mistakes, and just because of their "direct path" plan. How people call Bobby from Shaka Zulu a better player than Jennifer is beyond me. This was a fantastic team and they deserved to win. This episode was amazing from beginning to end, and its early Season 1 quirks make it that much more memorable. I definitely recommend this episode to anyone. You'll be missing out on a lot if you skip this episode.
Topic: Legends Episode Ranking System - COMPLETE (Read 87344 times)
