Follow Up – The Amazing Race – Season 17

The Amazing Race – CBS – Season 17 – USA / Seven – 7:30pm Thursday – AUS

The Amazing Race is back on Channel 7 and in case you missed the first episode a woman copped a watermelon to the face and it was hilarious. Don’t worry though, they’ll replay it a couple of times for you in extra slow mo because even the producers can’t believe how lucky they got when they captured that on film – a watermelon to the face! Comedy gold! Anyway, other than The Watermelon Face team there are ten other teams racing around the world in an effort to win a million dollars, so how do they stack up against previous years?

The enjoyment of The Amazing Race runs in the opposite direction to Survivor. While Survivor gets better the closer to the end we are, The Race is better at the beginning while you’re still picking which couples to root for, which to boo, and which to ignore completely. However, the possibility of The Amazing Race having a good season relies too heavily on who makes it past the half way point. Season 16 had a great final five. Three teams to root for, a dumb team to laugh at, and a bitchy team to hate. However, an instantly awesome team like the Cowboys only comes along every four seasons or so which means we’re stuck with a bunch of folks who remind us of folks we’ve seen in previous seasons.

Once again we get a blonde and her boyfriend with Jill & Thomas, who are as boring as any couple named Jill & Thomas ought to be. Just to double down on douchey blonde/bland combos we also get Chad & Stephanie. The only real difference between the two couples seems to be that Stephanie has short hair. Other than that expect only one of them to make it to the final five to fill in the spot of ‘team to hate’.

Speaking of ‘teams to hate’; there are a pair of blonde bitches in the form of Katie & Rachel who are just made to be the villains in something like this. These aren’t the fun, dumb, cheerleaders of seasons past; these are the nasty, evil, volleyballers of Season 17. There seem to be a lot of all female teams this year, and the most irritating of them all have to be Home Shopping Network hosts Brook & Claire. Brook (or is it Claire?) is the sort of overconfident “I can sell anything! Go me! I kissed an Englishman in a tractor to get directions!” type that you hope meets an early demise after failing a round block in Dehli or some place, but you get the sneaky suspicion will be around for a while to haunt your dreams. Then again Claire (or is it Brook?) was smacked by a watermelon in the face and the longer these two stick around the more likely we’ll get to see that clip replayed.

Nat & Kat are a pair of doctors who have rhyming names and come from that school of women who seem awkward just being outside in the open. They’re reasonably happy most of the time though which makes them far less repulsive to watch on screen than Katie & Rachel. They do, however, ooze easily into the role of ‘oh, I totally forgot you were even on this show’ alongside other snooze-team, Andie & Jenna. Andie & Jenna are a mother/daughter team that exist because the mother gave up the daughter for adoption and they’ve only just been reunited. This is just as boring as it sounds and their lack of knowledge of each other just leads to overly nice conversations with no sparks whatsoever. This show works best when the couples bounce off each other in a way that you don’t get from people who have only just met.

The “good” teams, or the teams that only exist to give us an underdog to cheer for, include “internet sensations” Michael & Kevin, an Asian father son team who look like they should be a lot of fun but just aren’t at this point. Also not living up to the title of ‘goofy best friends who have a sense of humour about themselves’ are Connor & Jonathan, the A-capella group members who are far too wimpy for their own good. Everybody loves a good geek but these guys look like they’ll piss themselves every time an African approaches their cab.

Even the couple who, on paper, sound the most enjoyable Ron & Tony – I mean, they’re gay AND black, come on that’s Amazing Race gold – were eliminated in the first episode. Who are we left to cheer for? Nick & Vicki? The tattooed dimwits who seem like really nice folks but are under the misimpression that ‘battlements’ are people?

The only couple that have offered up the sort of laughs that make them my team to get behind are Gary & Mallory. Mallory’s a pageant girl/cartoon-bubble-of-energy-ready-to-explode-at-any-minute, and her dad Gary just kind of plods along behind her as she nearly dies from excitement. Hopefully a few of the other teams come out of their shell and reveal their true colours, whether they be horrid or hilarious, because at the moment they’re all kind of blending into one.

Not that we need to worry about The Amazing Race not being fun to watch as the soundtrack never stops for a second to give us time to think about what’s actually going on. I swear half the excitement on that show comes from a well timed ‘dun na dun na dun na’ and a ‘gong’ when somebody does something right or a ‘rattle’ when they do something wrong. It’s like reality TV for toddlers – here’s a musical queue to let you know how to feel at this very moment! No matter how manipulative it is The Amazing Race is still buckets of fun. Let’s hope this season lives up to last season or at least pray that an All-Stars season is just around the corner so we can get those Cowboys back.