The Amazing Race, Continuing to Thrill

I don’t know how The Amazing Race manages it, but each season they continue to be completely thrilling and exciting, changing the rules a little here and there and always having fascinating teams competing. Each season has its team to love, its team to love to hate, and new, exotic locations that never seem to stop educating us on geography and cultures.

The Amazing Race, now in its twelfth season, pits teams against each other as they race around the world. Host Phil Keoghan is one of the best reality TV hosts in the business, as he’s knowledgeable, warm, and friendly. He’s been known to tear up a little with an elimination, such as when he watched Charlie and Myrna be eliminated during their first season, and he’s known to get a little upset, such as when he witnessed Jonathan being verbally abusive to Victoria and even pushing her around a little. He looked like he would like to have a go at Jonathan himself.

Although it always starts and ends in the United States, The Amazing Race hits as many countries as it can during each race, usually a different one with each episode. They’ve been to all the major ones, such as Mexico, Korea, India, Germany, as well as the smaller unknown countries, such as Kuala Lumpur and Burkina Faso. Each country has a language and culture to learn. Those teams that start out knowing at least Spanish seem to have an immediate advantage, and those that can add on French pick up even more bonus points. Culturally, the show teaches both the racers and the viewers a thing or two, as all the challenges are everyday tasks from that country, whether it’s bungee jumping, eating ostrich eggs, or scale a building, avoiding kung fu experts.

The Amazing Race even tried a family version of the show once, and while it wasn’t as widely well-received as the regular version, it still had everything we look for in the show, with interesting locations (although they were all in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico), teamwork, alliance, and strategy. Last season was an All-Star version with some of our most favorite teams coming back to try it again, and somehow it just made us love some teams and love to hate other teams even more.

One of the most exciting shows on television, The Amazing Race is showing no signs of slowing down. While they scared us a little this past fall by not putting the show on the schedule originally, once other new shows failed, and with the pending writers’ strike hanging in the balance, the show was added back to the schedule as if CBS were apologizing to the fans for their oversight. I don’t think they’ll be making that mistake again for quite some time.

With four aired episodes so far, all the excitement is still there, with challenges of milking camels, riding bikes on a wire over a ravine, and hosting whole rooms of furniture up an apartment building using nothing but rope and an intricate series of knots. They’ve already traveled to Ireland, Amsterdam, and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Surprising everyone, the team we knew we’d love to hate, Ari and Staella, were eliminated the first week, after karma literally bit them in the ass in the way of an ornery goat after they stole another team’s cab. The nicer teams seemed to leave during the following weeks, with Kate and Pat, Marianna and Julia, and this week Lorena and Jason after being U-Turned by Shana and Jennifer. Definitely the most interesting team this season is the Gothic Couple, Kynt and Vyxsin. They alone would be interesting enough to watch for an entire hour.

I have no idea where they will go next, either with the series, or the locations in The Amazing Race, but I can’t wait to find out.

Comments about The Amazing Race? Contact me at LauraBelle@sofachip.com

For more information on The Amazing Race, see SirLinksalot: The Amazing Race.