The twelthh season of The Amazing Race premiered on Nov. 4 on CBS. The latest season follows the same formula pitting eleven teams on an allout around-the-world race.
The show debuts in CBS's midseason schedule in a Sunday night primetime slot. The reason for the delayed premiere may possibly be due to the show's decline since the 2005 Amazing Race: Family Edition.
For those unfamiliar with The Amazing Race's format, a number of teams travel around the world, completing exciting tasks in exotic locations throughout the world. Teams must also follow clues to find the next place they are supposed to go to, with the last team arriving to the pit stop at the end of the show facing the possibility of being eliminated.
The winners of each leg of the race are given some sort of prize package, usually a trip to a location similar to the one they are currently in accompanied on-screen by extensive ads from Travelocity. The winners of the final leg, which as this point in the game only has three teams left, walk away with a grand prize of $1 million.
The characters on this season are as extroverted and quirky as ever. Notable personalities include a pair of lesbian ministers (Kate and Pat), two Gothic young adults (Kynt and Vyxsin), and recently dating hippies (TK and Rachel).
The show also returns the classic archetypal characters of blonde bombshells (Shana and Jennifer), quarrelling boyfriend and girlfriend (Nathan and Jennifer), and trying-to-reconcile sisters (Maria and Julianna).
The show seems to capitalize on the different character's personalities, whether they fit together perfectly or contrast in an explosive manner. The latter is what keeps the show entertaining, watching a seemingly calm daughter (Christina) buckle under the pressure of her overbearing father (Ronald), seeing best friends breakdown as they have trouble forcing a donkey uphill to obtain their next clue (Ari and Staella), or seeing wrong turns on the road cause and emotional uproar in the car (Lorena and Jason). All these aforementioned scenarios just came in the first two episodes, indicating the upcoming season will be as stressful on contestants, and entertaining for us as ever.
2008 Woodie Awards