Did you watch the Season 35 premiere of The Amazing Race? Well, slipped inside all the unscrambled phrases and sword dancing were some rule changes, one of which is related to how contestants book flights. More specifically, contestants will return to booking their own flights this season, and I have a lot of mixed feelings about what that means for the show and the likelihood that it’ll affect the final outcome.
For the majority of The Amazing Race’s incredible run, the show has required contestants on most legs to book their own flights. That means they either need to go to a travel agency or the airport, depending on the rules of the specific challenge, and work to find the fastest way to get to the next destination. This might mean choosing between a direct flight that gets there later or a flight with a layover and gate change that should, if all goes well, arrive a little sooner. It also means often relying no travel agents, who may or may not be fully competent.
During the pandemic, however, the show, in an effort to keep everyone as safe as possible, started chartering flights for all the contestants every time they needed to change cities. The executive producers ranted and raved about the change at the time, as it pushed the teams back into one large group in between each leg, which consistently created closer finishes. Because it seemingly penalized the better teams who would be forced back to the middle of the pack, however, the change was divisive among fans.
Because of the added drama element and the ease of transporting everyone involved in production at the same time as the contestants, I thought the show would keep the chartered flights for good. I even wrote about how I suspected they’d stick with it and had mixed feelings about it. Well, I was wrong. Now booking flights is back, and I still have mixed feelings. Let me explain why.
Anytime I’m watching a competition show, I want to see the best person or team win. Every now and again, I’ll hate a contestant or a team’s guts, despite their success, and root against them, but in general, if you dominated the season, I’d like to see you finish the story and win. That’s just how I’m wired as a person, but whether or not chartered flights helps or hurts the best team is a complicated question that’s a mix of luck and skill.
On the one hand, being able to get out ahead of other teams is the easiest way to dominate The Amazing Race, and the easiest way to get ahead of other teams is to beat them to the airport and jump on earlier flights (or work with other teams, which the show frowns on). So, for example, if one team finishes the detours and roadblocks within a city in two hours and the other teams take three hours, there’s a chance that first team can get to the airport and jump on a flight that’s about to take off. The other teams, despite only being an hour behind, might end up on a flight that leaves four hours later, and suddenly, that first team has a massive lead to start knocking off the next set of challenges. That’s how, in earlier seasons, you could see a team cruise to easy victories multiple legs in a row.
The Amazing Race was always good about making sure they’d throw in the occasional challenge where a physical location didn’t open until a certain time of the day, which would force everyone back together, but those delays didn’t happen every single leg. So, earning a lead was really, really valuable, often for a prolonged period of time, but since flights don’t always take off or land when they’re expected to, teams flying at different times always added a huge element of chance. The history of The Amazing Race is filled with teams that got on a flight hours earlier than their competitors and through various delays or mechanical issues, somehow landed later. The outcome of entire seasons have shifted thanks to unexpected airport issues (or bad travel agents), and that really sucks for the team that did everything right, except find favor with the travel gods.
So, on the other hand, contestants all flying together removed that element of chance. Yes, it didn’t allow the best teams to separate themselves from the pack, but it did allow the best teams to go into every single leg with a fair chance to dominate again. They couldn’t run up the score, but taxi issues aside, it also made it way less likely they’d go home simply because they experienced a bout of horrendous travel luck.
Also, as a viewer, the producers aren’t wrong that a more congested pack of teams often produces a closer and more exciting finish. As much as I like to see the best team win the overall season, I still do want to see some element of drama and real racing. Teams being separated by many hours often removes tension and nerves from the challenges. You can’t replace the emotions of a player watching others arrive to a roadblock or detour after them and finish before them. It’s a special kind of reality competition panic that’s great viewing for those of us at home.
So, I don’t know. I’m not going to call contestants booking their own flights again a good change or a bad thing. It’s a change that will likely produce some positive outcomes and some not so positive outcomes. It’s likely we’ll see one very good team get screwed over by an unfortunate, completely out of their control travel situation and go home too early. It’s also likely we’ll see some teams consistently separate themselves from the pack and win legs by many hours, maybe even multiple legs in a row by many hours. The change could lead to a better season or it could lead to a worse season. We’ll just have to wait and see.
You can catch The Amazing Race, now with longer, super-sized episodes, on Wednesday nights after Survivor on CBS. Or you can watch it through various streaming options, which we outline in our How To Watch The Amazing Race guide. Either way, expect to see a much fuller picture of what's going on thanks to those longer episodes.
