You know what's amazing about The Amazing Race? It's amazing the thing is still on after 28 seasons and still finding safe places to go where Americans are welcome.
The reality-adventure series returns to CBS at 9 p.m. today for Season 29. Note the new day and time (the series hasn't been on Thursdays since Season 4). That's not all that's new. Keep reading.
New Zealand native Phil Keoghan, 49, is once again our host (he's also a producer), as he has been ever since the series debuted on Sept. 5, 2001. It's Keoghan's low-key presentation that has greatly contributed to the show winning 10 prime-time Emmys for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program -- seven in a row between 2003 and 2009.
Race also won in 2011, 2012 and 2014. NBC's The Voice has won the past two years.
Only breaking TV's Top 25 three times, Race never has had as many viewers as other reality shows. For example, the recent season premiere of The Voice tallied 15.03 million viewers. That's far more than The Amazing Race series high of 11.93 million viewers in 2010.
As with many aging programs, The Amazing Race has been losing ratings since 2013 and pulled in 7.56 million viewers last season, a slight rise over 2015. That was still good enough for CBS to keep it on the air.
Why the longevity? Unlike, say, Survivor, where one jungle and beach looks pretty much like another, Race whisks viewers to places they'd never visit themselves. And viewers love to live vicariously through the teams.
Where has the show gone? Outside the United States, it has been to China the most -- 13 times. France is the top destination in Europe (10 times), followed by Germany (nine). Argentina heads the South American list with six visits, and it has been three times each for Africa's Morocco, South Africa and Tanzania.
Forty-one countries, from Azerbaijan and Burkina Faso (look it up) to Mongolia and Zimbabwe, have been visited a single time.
There's just something fascinating about watching the contestants -- husbands and wives, siblings, parents and children -- navigating foreign lands, performing challenges and scrambling for planes, trains and automobiles just to make it to that leg's finish line ahead of the other teams.
And it's always heartbreaking to watch the stoic Keoghan inform the stragglers, "Azaria and Hendekea, you are the last team to arrive." Then there's the weekly tense moment of silent, anticipatory drama as the team hopes against hope that this was one of the two non-elimination legs.
But if it's not, Keoghan says, "And I'm very sorry to tell you that you have been eliminated from the race."
Some hug and cry, but most have the satisfaction of having given it their all and experienced a little adventure along the way.
Ah, but there's plenty of motivation to soldier on when the going gets tough. A cool $1 million grand prize awaits the winners
For Season 29, The Amazing Race is trying something different to keep things fresh. For the first time, 22 complete strangers will be paired into 11 teams after meeting one another at the starting line.
In tonight's episode, the racers will first compete in a challenge that will determine the order for picking a teammate. The choosing will be based on nothing more than first impressions.
"For years, fans have suggested we line up complete strangers and match them up at the starting line to see what would happen," Keoghan said in a CBS news release. "These newbie racers begin with no pre-existing relationships or emotional baggage, and the excitement of traveling around the world to complete dozens of gut-busting, mind-blowing challenges quickly ignites tension."
Season 29 contestants include a model, two Realtors, a lawyer, three cops and a female firefighter, a business recruiter, three jocks, a female drill sergeant, former Navy corpsman with a prosthetic leg, a military mom, a college drum major, an auctioneer, butcher, two Wall Street types, a yarn artist and a surgical consultant.
They will race through nine countries and 17 cities and cover 36,000 miles. There will be good deeds done in Tanzania, sky diving in Norway and bungee jumping in Greece. The contest begins in Los Angeles and heads first to Panama.
The TV Column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Email:
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Weekend on 03/30/2017