The Amazing Race: The Amazing Race

January 7, 2022 1:40 PM - Season 33 (Full Season)

The first three legs of season 33 of The Amazing Race were filmed in February 2020... and then production was shut down due to COVID. The Race resumed 17 months later.

As of this posting, the first two legs have aired in a double-length episode. Phil mentions the long break in production right up front in the first episode.

Parade Magazine article about the adjustments and changes made during and after the suspension. No spoilers regarding specific outcomes for teams, but it does mention the locations visited during the race.

This season's teams are (in order of appearance in opening credits; descriptions in quotation marks are those on screen):

• Arun & Natalia ("Father/Daughter")
• Taylor & Isaiah ("YouTube Sensations"; married)
• Connie & Sam ("Married")
• Anthony & Spencer ("Childhood Friends"; two of the passengers who subdued the attacker in the 2015 Thalys train attack, and played themselves in The 15:17 to Paris)
• Raquel & Cayla ("Flight Attendants")
• Michael & Moe ("Singing Police Officers")
• Lulu & Lala ("Twins/Radio Hosts")
• Ryan & Dusty ("Best Friends"; Ryan was incarcerated for 10 years for murder before his conviction was overturned)
• Caro & Ray ("Dating"; met on Season 1 of Love Island)
• Akbar & Sheri ("Married Educators")
• Kim & Penn ("Internet Personalities"; married)

posted by DevilsAdvocate (6 comments total)

There's been little to no discussion of recent seasons of TAR on FanFare, but I thought there might be some interest here due to the unusual circumstances, especially starting with leg 4, which will be after the production shutdown, and with some significant changes.

Some comments on the first two legs:

- Contestants started from their homes, rather than from a common starting line. I assume that either there was some difference in the teams' start times, to allow for different travel times/flight availability to London; or, probably more likely, teams were held somewhere in London until all teams arrived. The show doesn't elaborate on that, but I'd have been interested to know a little more.

- Always nice to see some LGBT+ representation on TAR (in this case, Taylor & Isaiah); less nice that it's almost always the "G" in LGBT+. It seems that nearly every season of TAR in recent years have included one or more cis gay men, sometimes as a couple, sometimes as one member of a team (platonic friends, mother/son...). I think there's been one openly lesbian couple in the history of TAR, and I can't recall the show ever having had an openly trans or non-binary contestant.

- Penn and Ray together vastly overthinking the mail sorting roadblock! Even after Anthony confirms that yes, it's really that easy, they're still mistrustful. I get the mistrust a little bit, because we've seen teams in previous seasons outright lie to delay other teams, but c'mon. Ultimately it didn't hurt their finish in leg 2 much, but that could've been a critical error. Although since they're all in the same location I guess they do at least have a good idea where they stood in relation to other teams.

- The cake decorating detour was made easier by being set up where the teams could all see each other. Maybe that was unavoidable, but it would've been more interesting if teams couldn't see each other's work there. A few early teams misidentified the UK and Norway as EU members, but once one team gets France & Germany right the rest can just copy them.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:10 PM on January 7, 2022

I was surprised that so many teams picked intricate designs instead of the simple German flag that didn't require any piping skills. The second leg felt really short. The last teams left the pitstop around 9:30 and then were doing the last task 3 hours later.
posted by obol at 3:09 PM on January 7, 2022 [2 favorites]

Can't wait to see which teams are back after the break, and how they fill in the gaps!
posted by wenestvedt at 10:57 AM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]

As noted at the end of leg 3, the hiatus was 19 months, not 17 as I put in the FPP. This was a basic math error on my part, miscalculating the time between February 2020 and September 2021.

Sorry to see some of the teams not return after the hiatus, as the missing teams included a couple of my favorites. Makes sense to bring back the eliminated teams to fill in, although it's not promising that the two previously eliminated teams were the last two, even after they had built up a lead over Akbar & Sheri.

I can't feel too bad for Michael & Moe, due to their unforced error at the detour. ("We don't know which end of the belt we're supposed to start from. We realize we don't know which end of the belt to start from, and that it will cost us a lot of time if we guess wrong. But still, let's just guess rather than making sure we do it correctly the first time.")
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:35 AM on January 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

I mean, as police they wear an equipment belt every day, right? So that tells you which edge is down, and then just run the story from the buckle to the tip. I was banging my forehead watching them!!

--

Separately, time seems to be weird on Episode 3. I mean, we watched the clouds come in suddenly on the mountaintop, but it just rained all day during the roadblocks. Were Michael & Moe working for 15 minutes or hours? I couldn't even tell. The flag-bearers practiced for a few minutes or all afternoon. I couldn't tell! Only the gradually-more-bedraggled Swiss man & girl at the finish line showed any change over time.
posted by wenestvedt at 11:09 AM on January 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

I just finished watching the first three episodes. I missed this show! It is my favorite escape and I think I have watched every season, although it kinda pains me to admit it.

I thought I was going to hate Kim and Penn- ugh, Internet personalities?- but I really do not. Not feeling terrifically hopeful for Arun and Natalia in what appears to be a season heavily invested in self-driving.

Kinda impressed by the timing here- looks like they slid in a narrow window when vaccines were still pretty much a guarantee. Those were good times.
posted by charmedimsure at 11:23 PM on February 12, 2022 [1 favorite]