Looking beyond ‘The Amazing Race 29,’ should there be another ‘All-Stars’ in the future?
What we’ve decided to do when it comes to writing about “The Amazing Race” at present is this: Given that CBS is putting season 29 in a holding pattern, we’re going to publish new articles and ideas for the series every Friday in hopes that one day, it’ll conjure up some good news.
With that, we’re going to look beyond season 29 into the future of the franchise, provided there is one, for this article. If season 30 happens, should it be an All-Star season? Or, should there ever be another All-Star season regardless of how long the show lasts?
Do we think that there are some iconic teams who we love to watch with this show? Absolutely. The past few seasons have some standouts like Tyler & Korey, Justin & Diana, Kym & Alli, and the gone-far-too-soon Ernest & Jin. These are people we’d love to see play again either from competition or entertainment reasons. Sometimes seeing teams get a second chance can be wonderful since they didn’t get the outcome you wanted the first time around, and it’s an opportunity to try to change things around.
Now that we’ve said all of that, we’re increasingly convinced that All-Stars for this show just doesn’t work that well. Think back to season 24, widely regarded by many as one of the worst seasons in recent memory. You had teams racing for the third time, a winning team in Dave & Connor who seemed to take massive amounts of umbrage over teams thinking they were a threat (Dave, as he pointed out many times, was old), and a lot of people in general playing more to the cameras.
Inherently, one of the problems with All-Stars on this show is that you have so many more players, with there being at least 22 people on every season if not more. The structure of the Race makes it harder to get to know everyone as individuals as opposed to a “Survivor,” so you’re left more for the most part with all-star archetypes more so than people.
Another issue is that some of the entertainment value that comes from watching the race revolves around seeing whether or not some of these relationships can sustain a stressful trip around the world. With returning teams, you already know what happens in the end. There’s less drama there, and you get the sense going in that they are more equipped and far more self-awareness. Self-awareness is often the enemy of good reality TV, since you suddenly have people trying to force a narrative as opposed to letting things play out naturally.
With all of this in mind, maybe we’d be okay with one more All-Star season before the end of the series just so that we can pay tribute to some of either the best or most-entertaining teams out there, but we don’t want it to be a regular occurrence at all. Maybe once every ten seasons at most. This show’s strength is with all-new teams, and drifting away from that is a mistake. If they start to pair up returning teams against newbies. We may need to mail a box of our tears straight to host Phil Keoghan.
What do you think: Should there ever be another All-Star season? Share below. Also, head over here to check out some more of our recent Friday “Amazing Race” coverage. (Photo: CBS.)
Martin Pal
November 5, 2016 @ 6:29 pm
Not a fan of returning players on ANY reality series. There are way too many more interesting people in the world to discover than to bring back more of the same.
Matt Carter
November 5, 2016 @ 9:12 pm
I’m all right with it on a show like Survivor, but only if there are all returning players and there’s a relatively level playing field. To me that’s different because I view it as a game of strategy, and I feel the Race as more of a story about an experience.
Stephen Harrison
November 5, 2016 @ 2:51 am
True, S24 was one of the worst seasons of all time (disregarding Family Edition), but we have to remember that S18, Unfinished Business, was one of the best seasons of all time in my opinion. I think one of the core things about an all-star season is a good cast. They need to bring back older people, like in S24 with the third-time players! Yes, it would be fun to have some recents, but the dedicated fans are looking for the older people like Brook and Claire and Andy and Tommy and Nick and Starr! This is what Survivor does and that’s why I think Survivor has become more succesful than The Amazing Race!
1LOSTFan
November 5, 2016 @ 1:35 am
“NOOOOOOOOOOO!” – as Michael Scott would say.
The producers would not be honoring anyone before S12 because they pretend strongly that the show started in 2009, 2001. This new returnee season would not be celebrating the history of the show. I have zero faith in the producers to come up with a good product. They have lost all trust.
This is a real quote from Bertram in 2011 when promoting S18 about no pre-S12 representation , “If we’re digging too far back, people might not even remember who they were”, he truly doesn’t think of the old-school fans. All we would’ve is the same teams over again (Cowboys, Globetrotters, Luke) and I don’t want to see them ever again on the show.
Matt Carter
November 5, 2016 @ 2:15 am
The thing they need to remember is that honoring core fans matter. If Survivor had same strategy, we wouldn’t have got Kelly on Cambodia or Gervase on Blood v. Water. Even though not all racers may be memorable, you have to bring back diverse contestants from all seasons if you’re going to go in that direction.
1LOSTFan
November 5, 2016 @ 6:36 am
Honestly, I think it’s a zero percent that they would bring anyone back from the early seasons. Aside from token references recently, production does not really care. Why else would they would title S24 as another All-Stars when one occurred already? It’s just a shame.