As ‘The Amazing Race 29’ wait continues, so let’s profile five (early-season) teams who need to return

Given that it’s been a few weeks now since “The Amazing Race” was confirmed be starting back this April, we thought now would be a good time to get a little more chatter going on the show as we move forward into what is an exceptionally-quiet time for all things TV.

Today, the primary question that we’re asking is a simple one: If there ever was a need to bring teams back, which ones should come back? Let’s make it clear that for the most part, we strongly dislike returning-player seasons for this show, but we do think they could be fun in the event that you brought some of the right people back. We’re going to do a few of these articles over the coming weeks, but this time around in particular, we’re looking more at five teams from the first ten seasons of the show.

Rob & Brennan (season 1) – We’re now sure they are amazing television, but at the same time bringing back the original winners of the show is almost a no-brainer since it’d be the perfect way to go full-circle with the series. “Survivor” has brought back many people from the first season despite them not being electric entertainment, so why not here? At least they’re likable.

Ken & Gerard (season 3) – They were snarky, funny, and incredibly real, which is one of the reasons why they were just a shining light in the early seasons of the show. We could see them coming back and being fan favorites, or coming back and being super-devious. Either way, we’d love it.

Jon & Al (season 4) – We loved the clowns back when this first aired — from top to bottom, this may actually be one of our favorite seasons of the show aside from a final three that was relatively boring. Sure, these guys were hams, but they’re clowns! What do you expect? Plus, we need these guys to turn around the perception of clowns as creepy people who hide in the woods.

Tian & Jaree (season 4) – We’d say that for the most part, the show in its early seasons struggled to cast interesting, competitive all-female teams with a chance at winning. They’ve since corrected it, and even with these two friends / models, they weren’t all that competitive. They were just entertaining and complained extensively. To us, the bowling moms and Dustin & Candice were probably the two most dominant all-female teams from the earlier seasons, but the latter team has already returned and the former was invisible a good chunk of their season.

Colin & Christie (season 5) – There are many cases of people who were in romantic relationships on the show and no longer are, and that kind of rules them out — therefore, it’s kind of ironic that one of the most famous arguing-couple teams (“my ox is broken!”) are still going strong so many years after the show. Love them or hate them, but they made for incredible television in the early years.

Some other names we thought about here were Chip & Kim from season 5 (one of the first unexpected winning teams in the show’s history), BJ & Tyler from season 9 (we like them more than many superfans, but you can’t put them and the clowns on the same season), and Gus & Hera from season 6 (mostly just because we liked them). We wanted to consider Nancy & Emily from the first season, but sadly Nancy past away a few years ago following a battle with ALS.

For some other news on “The Amazing Race,” head over to this link — we’ll be back next week to look at seasons 11-20. (Photo: CBS.)