After a long wait, The Amazing Race is almost ready to return to TV, and we’ve just learned about a big change coming to Season 37. It's yet another challenge twists the show has been experimenting with in recent seasons, but if I’m being honest, I’m a lot more stoked about this one than another one.
What Is The Fork In The Road Twist?
Imagine if The Amazing Race were more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, meaning there were multiple directions instead of one path a team could take in the actual travel portion of the journey. The show in the past has often employed the use of continuation legs, and gives choices when it comes to Detours.
Now, in Season 37, things are changing again as part of what host Phil Keoghan previously called a "reset." It's already one of the best reality shows on TV, but even great shows need to spice things up every now and again, and this time teams will be pushed into something the show is calling the Fork in the Road, which means they will be given an opportunity to choose one of two paths, both presumably with pros and cons. Keoghan said this of the twist:
Imagine you get to a fork in the road… the direction you choose could have major consequences on whether you are eliminated or not, and whether you actually do well or not. It’s a bit of a change from things that we’ve normally done before, but hey, this is Season 37 and it is a season of surprises.
Phil Keoghan said the twist is gonna be pretty epic in an interview with TV Line, because at the end of each of the forks two teams will be eliminated. He said the season heading to the 2025 TV schedule next month will definitely be “a season of surprises," and I can’t wait for the jaw-dropping fun:
You’re going to see a few jaws dropping throughout the season because people are like, ‘Wait, what?’
I don’t know exactly how it will play out on the small screen, but from the description I really like this twist. There’s always been an element of chance with TAR. Sometimes there are multiple flights contestants can end up on which can give them a time advantage. Or sometimes people will get to challenges early only to find out they need to wait overnight in order to compete.
Having the fork in the road twist will doubtless mean some teams might make poor choices that ultimately lead to elimination, but I do think it will jazz up the journey quite a bit, and do so in an unusual way. Plus, if it doesn't work, it's not something the reality series has to stick with long-term.
The Amazing Race Twist I Was Less Enamored With
Twists on TAR have ranged from flight changes to mask requirements and more in recent seasons. A few seasons ago, Phil Keoghan announced there would be no elimination legs. It's been a thread that continued through Season 35, Season 36 and will presumably continue in Season 37.
Showrunner Elise Doganieri previously said at Paleyfest 2023 that they will not be coming back, because viewers (allegedly) prefer to see an elimination at the end of each episode.
People really wanted to see that elimination at the end of an episode,” she said. “The non-elimination is wonderful for the contestant because they’re safe, but, for the viewer, everyone’s racing to get to Phil, and the fear of being eliminated is there every single time. It really keeps the energy up in every episode.
I mean, I've watched The Amazing Race since Season 1, and I absolutely beg to differ. Yes, having the non-elimination leg occasionally meant a team that didn't deserve to hang on would hang on for a few more weeks. It did happen, and that could be annoying. Oppositely, periodically, there are episodes of Race where it's super obvious one team is way further behind than the other teams, and leaving the non-elimination leg as an option meant there were still stakes when those episodes happened.
Maybe the team wouldn't be eliminated, and maybe they would. That's more interesting to watch than knowing a losing team is 100% going home or having the show have to fake an edit to make it seem close when it's obvious it's not.
The only thing losing the non-elimination leg does from my point of view is saves the show money, because if someone is being eliminated every episode, they don't have to plan extra episodes. Meanwhile, this new Fork in the Road twist is basically the opposite of the non-elimination leg, because two teams will be eliminated, and that means one less episode the show will have to produce, also presumably saving money. I'm still excited about seeing how it plays out, but I'm just saying, I hope the show is choosing these twists for the right reasons.
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