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The teams touch down in the land of Yakov Smirnoff and Smirnoff vodka and HSN’s Brook fills the void left by Team Glee by singing, “We’re in Russia and we are ‘Russian’ through traffic.” She is so pleased with her cornball self. The teams react in awe at the history of St. Petersburg with Notre Dame’s Thomas informing us that “people call this city the Venice of the North.” Not content with accepting what Thomas says as fact, I did a quick search and found that quite a few European cities, including St. Petersburg but also, Stockholm, Brussels, and Amsterdam, are dubbed as such. So I guess Thomas is right…sort of, so back to the race.

Team HSN is the first to get to the clue box and find a Detour awaiting them. The two choices are Classical Music or Classic Cinema. The tasks are pretty convoluted and difficult to explain but here goes: For Music, the team has to listen to three gramophone records and then go into a hall where a couple dozen pianists are playing different songs. Not only do they have to correctly identify the song but also in the right order. For Cinema, the team has to go to a studio and sort through thousands of feet of film to find the filmstrip for the short film that is playing on a giant screen at the studio. These are possibly the most challenging tasks the producers have pulled out in a while. Particularly, Music reminds me of the telephone task that caused the Globetrotters to be eliminated last fall.

On paper, I think my choice would be Music. The Cinema task seems like it might trigger flashbacks of Christmas Eve 1997, when my then-girlfriend (now-wife) and I spent about six long hours fixing and untangling the film for the second half of Titanic following a temperamental projector platter system hurling it in the floor. Worst…Christmas Eve…EVER.

Brook & Claire decide to go with Cinema and have a narrow first place lead as father/son Michael & Kevin arrive at the clue box next. Kevin uses his experience making videos (namely for YouTube) to rationalize going with Cinema. We, the viewers, know that such a background will provide no competitive edge. If they read the explanation for each option, Kevin would also know this.

Within minutes, all the teams have retrieved their Detour clue and made their quick decision. Except for Jill & Thomas, who choose Cinema like the previous two teams, everyone else goes with Music. Sadly for no-longer-in-first-place Brook & Claire, their cabbie has no clue where the film studio is, so Michael & Kevin leap frog them. At the sight of the huge pile of film in the middle of the room, Kevin immediately realizes he overstated his qualifications for this task. At home, I am stifling the urge to curse the name of James Cameron and Christie projectors.

At the Music task, Chad describes the scene as "ridiculous" and Mallory exclaims it is "impossible." Both terms would be apt, but I would go with "musical chaos" to best describe the task. Joining these two teams at the task are doctors Nat & Kat and inked up couple Nick & Vicki - all of whom are at a loss for figuring out this task.

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