Rebel Prince

Last night I caught an episode of Airline UK (Mondays, 10:30 p.m.), the original British series on which A&E’s Airline is based. (Not to be confused with BBC’s Airport, a different series entirely.) A&E rebranded the series “UK” and re-recorded the narrative soundtrack, but to me what makes it marginally more watchable than its American counterpart is the foreign setting itself. Sure, it’s basically the same formula, following often frustrated passengers and the airline employees (here, easyJet) who have to deal with them. But whereas Airline was tedious because of its familiarity (LAX and Midway, ho-hum), Airline UK is interesting because everything’s just a little bit different, like the European destinations. In the episode I watched, a traffic accident on the M1 caused a few passengers, including one especially irate woman, to miss their Nice-bound flight, which was eventually diverted to Lyon; weather conditions kept it from approaching their destination, and the plane was running out of fuel. Meanwhile one woman headed for Amsterdam realized her passport had been forgotten at home in a locked file box, and only she had the key, so she called her brother to bring the whole box to the airport. Once upon a time, I wanted to work for an airline—I even applied for a ticket-counter job at SFO several years ago, and I still like to think I’d be excellent in any kind of customer-service position—but as these programs show, there are good days, and then there are days from hell.

In other travel TV news, one of my favorite shows, The Amazing Race, is back for a fifth season, starting Tue., July 6 at 9:30 p.m. (CBS). Yay, finally! Teams will be introduced on the official website on Fri., June 4.

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Sunday’s Post includes a rant by local high-school senior Sarah Ball about her unsatisfying experience as a prospective freshman (“pro fro”) at Stanford’s Admit Weekend (“This Pro-Fro’s a No-Go: How Not To Woo Me to Your University”). When I was a senior, I didn’t attend the full weekend at Stanford; I visited just for a day. (If I remember correctly, my high-school musical had a rehearsal or performance that Saturday night, and anyway Stanford was close enough to Daly City that I had visited other times for me to feel sufficiently familiar with the place.) But back to the Post piece, I’m not rushing to defend my alma mater here for its own sake, ‘cause if she had a bad experience, then of course she has a right to complain; it just seems she was set against it from the very beginning.

I guess it’s all about expectations. Granted, Admit Weekend is a sales pitch at root, but I took the cheesy activities in stride, knowing that this was only one part of the whole, “a brief opportunity to get a glimpse into a few of the things any campus had to offer,” as fellow alum Ben writes on Beaverhausen. Maybe my view is different from Sarah’s partly because I had less at stake? Once I had my admittance letters I was mostly sure I was going to pick Stanford, whereas I can understand if you’re flying across the country to visit a university that you’re not sure about, one that you “applied to on a whim,” you’re bound to be more critical or dismissive, or both. (She eventually chose Duke.)

[Update (14 May): The Stanford Daily has since published two responses, one from Robin Mamlet, dean of admission and financial aid, and the other from freshman Yamanda Wright, who was Sarah’s host.]

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