Analysis and Comparison of Temple Run Contestants

[The Red Jaguars]

He was incompetent. Next.

Well, that surely is the most likely option. But it baffles me when a team sweeps the temple games, but then goes onto put a piss poor performance in the temple. Like the "Grandy Nanny", "Stone Head", "Oracle Bowl", and "Frederick Douglass" team.

[Purple Parrots Fan]

Oracle Bowl didn't sweep the temple games. They won the temple games 2-1.

As far as Tony in Medusa's Lair goes, I think it was a little of both frustration and incompetence.

[PurpleParrot319]

Well, here's why I call him incompetent. I don't care how hard an objective is, but it should NOT take you more than a minute to complete just one room. Look at how Lost Love Letter's Whitney did with four snakes. She owned it. To top it all off, Tony goes into the Storeroom and punches those pots poorly. Punches like that would send the key flying out of the temple or into a good hiding spot in the room or temple. It might have been out of frustration, but that's not how the Storeroom should be done. Incompetent player in my mind.

[The Red Jaguars]

Yeah, the whole taking a over whole a minute to complete a room should never happen while in the temple. But in Tony's case, I feel that putting four snakes into Medusa's Head was a poor design on the producers part. But then again, Whitney from "Captain John Smith" did not have as much trouble as Tony did like you mentioned. But she still took a lot of time in the room though just because it was a pain to get all four of those snakes in there. This is one of those rare instances where I think the producers really overdid it. Its not as bad as other situations like Katie from "Clovis the First" and Kelly from "Montezuma" taking around a minute or more to complete their rooms. There is no excuse on their parts because those rooms were around for a while and no contestant took as long as they did. But the King's Storeroom pot thing does make him look like an idiot. It definitely was not efficient in anyway.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

Well, here's why I call him incompetent. I don't care how hard an objective is, but it should NOT take you more than a minute to complete just one room. Look at how Lost Love Letter's Whitney did with four snakes. She owned it. To top it all off, Tony goes into the Storeroom and punches those pots poorly. Punches like that would send the key flying out of the temple or into a good hiding spot in the room or temple. It might have been out of frustration, but that's not how the Storeroom should be done. Incompetent player in my mind.

I applaud you for finally commenting in this thread in a polite way, and you back up your statement with observations from the show. And what's more, I agree with your criteria.

While I agree with TRJ that the producers kind of overdid it with four snakes, the snakes were placed in the order that they were supposed to be placed in Medusa's head. Tony mixed them all up in his hands, which made it even more difficult to correctly place them. But even so, taking a minute in a room is pretty inexcusable. And another over-one-minute example: Veronica's climbing in the Pit from "Bifocal Monocle" was countered by every other Season Three episode where the team was forced to climb (even Lauren from "Dried Apple Half" got up the wall more quickly!).

I'd also like to point out Tony's sit-down-and-scootch-along-the-floor feet-first approach for moving between the Pit and the Throne Room, as well as Medusa's Lair and the King's Storeroom. I'm pretty sure that technique was less optimal than the typical crawling maneuver most other contestants used.

[PurpleParrot319]

I applaud you for finally commenting in this thread in a polite way, and you back up your statement with observations from the show. And what's more, I agree with your criteria.

Why did you have to go there? Seriously. You're acting like I'm a bad person when I'm not. Don't ever reply to my comments saying they were polite or whatever, because that's going off topic and is borderline trolling, trying to get me to respond the wrong way. Just stop, I don't like it. This is frustrating to me honestly.

[The Red Jaguars]

Okay, let's not try to drag ourselves into this argument again. We were doing so good the past couple of pages without the fighting and this topic was made to avoid this. Maybe if you take this to a PM, it might be easier to resolve.

To get back on topic, I have to say that at times that I feel that Lauren from "William Tell" and Dana were justified for screaming at their partners. Brett was just so slow in the temple and Jason was screwing around the Room of the Ancient Warriors. Although, that still doesn't excuse their poor performance for a short time in the temple. I mean come on now, how does it take a whole minute just to the King's Storeroom with all the rooms cleared? I think TMH was right when he said that Lauren "fails as a human being". Dana messed up also, but she had little time anyways whereas Lauren could've tried to add some progress onto her path.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

I applaud you for finally commenting in this thread in a polite way, and you back up your statement with observations from the show. And what's more, I agree with your criteria.

Why did you have to go there? Seriously. You're acting like I'm a bad person when I'm not. Don't ever reply to my comments saying they were polite or whatever, because that's going off topic and is borderline trolling, trying to get me to respond the wrong way. Just stop, I don't like it. This is frustrating to me honestly.

I was not being sarcastic in my statement; I was being wholeheartedly sincere. I was recognizing the fact that that your comment was the first time in this thread where you elaborated more on your opinion. And I was hoping that in stating my appreciation, that it would provoke you to continue to elaborate in even more discussion in the future.

[The Red Jaguars]

And before I leave, I want to add one more. I have to say that I have some "sympathy" towards Lisa from "Alhambra". Yes, she screwed up her temple run and didn't make any progress with a lot of time on the clock. But I think the Tomb of the Ancient Kings mishap with the golden doors kind of confused her and messed her up. I mean she made it to the Tomb of the Ancient Kings with about 2:00 minutes on the clock, and she even tries the keypad to the Shrine. So its not like she didn't know that she had to go up. She probably could've reached the Keys if she didn't get confused in that room. Not that it was excusable for backtracking all the way to the Cave, but at least she tried going forward in the temple.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

Okay, let's not try to drag ourselves into this argument again. We were doing so good the past couple of pages without the fighting and this topic was made to avoid this. Maybe if you take this to a PM, it might be easier to resolve.

To get back on topic, I have to say that at times that I feel that Lauren from "William Tell" and Dana were justified for screaming at their partners. Brett was just so slow in the temple and Jason was screwing around the Room of the Ancient Warriors. Although, that still doesn't excuse their poor performance for a short time in the temple. I mean come on now, how does it take a whole minute just to the King's Storeroom with all the rooms cleared? I think TMH was right when he said that Lauren "fails as a human being". Dana messed up also, but she had little time anyways whereas Lauren could've tried to add some progress onto her path.

I must say, though, that a minute to reach the Tomb of the Headless Kings, and then to have to complete that objective, the Jesters' Court, the Dark Forest, and the Shrine of the Silver Monkey (at least) would have been pretty near impossible. I agree that Lauren should have cleared more than two rooms in one minute, but I doubt that any contestant would have gotten anywhere near the Dried Apple Half in the time she had.

[The Red Jaguars]

Well, I wouldn't have expected her to make it to the Dark Forest either. Completing the Headless Kings objective would've done something at least. But the path was so tough anyways. Same for the other paths that day like "Ivan the Terrible" and "Hans Holbein". I wonder what the producers were thinking? Although Elisa and Travis showed that a good team effort could almost win it all even with a tough layout.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

And before I leave, I want to add one more. I have to say that I have some "sympathy" towards Lisa from "Alhambra". Yes, she screwed up her temple run and didn't make any progress with a lot of time on the clock. But I think the Tomb of the Ancient Kings mishap with the golden doors kind of confused her and messed her up. I mean she made it to the Tomb of the Ancient Kings with about 2:00 minutes on the clock, and she even tries the keypad to the Shrine. So its not like she didn't know that she had to go up. She probably could've reached the Keys if she didn't get confused in that room. Not that it was excusable for backtracking all the way to the Cave, but at least she tried going forward in the temple.

I posted a photo somewhere in one of the threads regarding the Tomb of Ancient Kings in this episode. Four of the five golden doors were open before Lisa even entered the room: all three along the back wall and the one that was used to enter the Tomb of Ancient Kings. She did, indeed, try the key on the magnet to gain access to the Shrine of the Silver Monkey, so she did have some idea of what to do. I think she just got very confused with the rest of the doors being ajar. I still believe that it was somewhat foolish of her to try to go all the way back to the gate, but she did have better success at the Wall Climb than Tia ("Golden Cricket Cage of Khan"). So all in all, Lisa had some "redeeming" qualities to make her come across as a better contestant than Tia, at least in my opinion.

[PurpleParrot4Life]

Well, I wouldn't have expected her to make it to the Dark Forest either. Completing the Headless Kings objective would've done something at least. But the path was so tough anyways. Same for the other paths that day like "Ivan the Terrible" and "Hans Holbein". I wonder what the producers were thinking? Although Elisa and Travis showed that a good team effort could almost win it all even with a tough layout.

I honestly don't know why the producers decided to give such grueling paths for that day. The best explanations I can conjure up are:
1. They didn't want to expend too much money on the bigger prizes, so they installed those long, grueling paths to guarantee that only the very best teams got the grand prizes. (Although, in my opinion, the "Discarded Seal" team truly did show one of the best team efforts in the show's history, and they still came shy of reaching the artifact.)
2. They wanted to force the teams to go through every room, so that viewers could see all of the rooms "in action."

[The Red Jaguars]

Well, I wouldn't have expected her to make it to the Dark Forest either. Completing the Headless Kings objective would've done something at least. But the path was so tough anyways. Same for the other paths that day like "Ivan the Terrible" and "Hans Holbein". I wonder what the producers were thinking? Although Elisa and Travis showed that a good team effort could almost win it all even with a tough layout.

I honestly don't know why the producers decided to give such grueling paths for that day. The best explanations I can conjure up are:
1. They didn't want to expend too much money on the bigger prizes, so they installed those long, grueling paths to guarantee that only the very best teams got the grand prizes. (Although, in my opinion, the "Discarded Seal" team truly did show one of the best team efforts in the show's history, and they still came shy of reaching the artifact.)
2. They wanted to force the teams to go through every room, so that viewers could see all of the rooms "in action."

Interesting theory, but I don't think that would've been a reason because it would seem unfair to expect  12 or 13 year old at the end of the day to run enter every room of the most grueling version of the temple in three minutes. But then again, Travis and Elisa almost managed to do it. And I agree, they were one of the best losing teams on the show and one of the best teams period. Travis and Elisa were basically flawless in the temple like swinging back to the platform, trying all available shortcuts, handling the rooms in good time, and running fast on both of their parts in general. I was especially surprised to see Elisa to haul ass all the way where Travis was left off. I didn't think she had it in her! I think Leah and Matthew from "Belle Boyd" was another team that was almost flawless in the temple, except they took longer paths when they didn't needed to.

And yeah, Lisa was definitely better than Tia and probably Kim from "Lost Hammer" too. But that doesn't say much though I guess.

[The Red Jaguars]

And here is another set of players that we never really compared or talked about on this forum - Jeremy and Erika from " " and Shannon and Adam from "The Collar of Davy Crockett"?

Who do you think was more undeserving in their win? 

I mean the "" train kids were first in every round of the temple and won the temple run altogether, which was only accomplished one other time in "Billy the Kid". Meanwhile, the "Davy Crockett" kids finished fourth in the moat and won only their last temple game before going to the temple.

And the temple run themselves were a little similar. Except Adam and Shannon got stuck with one extra room on their layout, and they had to encounter a couple of more room objectives like the Treasury of the Golden Orbs and Observatory. Not to mention, the Room of Fallen Columns was more difficult to navigate through compared to the Heart Room.

Both layouts were simple, yet the teams still finished with less than 30 seconds on the clock. Both the girls in the temple were fast for the most part, but Jeremy and Adam were so slow. I say Adam was a little slower than Jeremy though because he made no attempt to speed up at all, even when grabbing the Raccoon Collar. Meanwhile, Jeremy at least sped up after picking up the Silk Ladder at least. But then again, he slowed at the bottom of the steps for that stupid celebration.

Here is my opinion:

If we are talking about the temple run alone, I think " " was more undeserving because they hard a more simpler layout than the "Davy Crockett" kids and still took a long time to get the Silk Ladder out. But if we are taking the whole episode into perspective, then I would say that the "Davy Crockett" kids were more undeserving because they barely scraped by the whole episode. But really, both wins were unimpressive.