‘The Amazing Race: Australia vs. New Zealand’: Watch the introduction now!

No matter what version of “The Amazing Race” you are watching, one thing is the same: The theme song, and the exotic locales flashing by while you get little snapshots of all the teams taking part.

For the season on Seven Monday entitled “The Amazing Race: Australia vs. New Zealand,” you get to see that all over again with ten new teams. The crew this time around is interesting, at least in that you’ve got beauty queens, at least one bodybuilder, parent / child teams, and then you’re throwing in there the fact that these are two separate countries who will most likely have a built-in rivalry based on that alone. Everyone wants to say that their respective country won … at least at first. We imagine that by the time we are a few episodes into this season, that’s no longer going to matter as much as personal relationships.

The one thing we’re bummed out about here is simply that there are only ten teams. Maybe that means a shorter season, or more non-elimination legs. We’re just bummed about the idea of less of anything with this show, given that season 2 of “The Amazing Race Australia” was fantastic, in between having a pair of true villains in Paul & Steve and great underdog winners in cops Shane & Andrew. In general, this version of the show has gotten so much right, we have so much higher expectations for it than even what we have in the U.S. now.

What do you think about the teams for this season, and do you wish there were more of them taking part? Let us know your thoughts with a comment, and we’ll have our review of the first episode up during the week. You can also sign up now to get some other updates on all we cover via our newsletter.

Photo: Seven