Personal Dork Assistant

The Not-So-Amazing Ending

This season of The Amazing Race had managed to keep my interest a bit longer than the previous versions. The production was tight, the characters were interesting without being too annoying, and the travel scenes are always fun. I had been watching recorded episodes and was almost caught up to the broadcast episodes as the season finale approached. The Amazing Race has grown into a stable rating-winner over the years, but it's certainly no American Idol. So I figured I could safely keep up with the news headlines without worrying about seeing the winner posted as front-page news before I watched the finale.

And there I was, browsing through the RSS headline feeds on NetNewsWire when I see:

Look away if you don't want to know...

‘Fantasticks’ Star is ‘Amazing Race’ Winner

Try to remember the kind of December when you were watching the finale of the CBS reality series “The Amazing Race,” and thought one of its champions looked familiar: sure enough, Nick Spangler, who was a winner of the show’s $1 million prize on Sunday night, is a star of the current Off-Broadway production of “The Fantasticks,” in which he plays Matt.

The winner, spoiled by the New York Times ArtBeat blog, of all things. So much for watching that last episode. The other main revelation in the article and interview was that Mr. Spangler has a serious girlfriend. Not that I've got much of a gay-dar, but a guy with blinding white teeth, loves musicals, and is all touch-feeley with his sister... what was I suppose to think?