CBS The season 33 cast of 'The Amazing Race.'
Season 33 of “The Amazing Race” premieres on Wednesday, January 5, 2022, at 8 p.m. Eastern time on CBS and Paramount Plus.
Eleven teams of two will embark on the ultimate race around the world in the hopes of winning $1 million. It’s going to be a very unique season seeing as the show had the longest pit stop in its history when production halted due to COVID-19 in 2020. Two teams had already been eliminated when the nine remaining teams were sent back home from Glasgow, Scotland.
When production for season 33 resumed in 2021, two of the remaining teams were unable to continue on with the show. How did the show address the missing contestants?
“I don’t want to give too much away, but we did figure out how to do it without having more non-eliminations,” executive producer Elise Donanieri said during a press event (via Gold Derby). “We figured out how to extend a leg, things like that. We were very creative. So you will still have the same energy.”
Here’s everything we know about season 33 in advance of the premiere.
How Will the New Season Be Different?
“The Amazing Race” is a difficult show to film during an ongoing global pandemic. It involves world travel which poses far greater risks than a show that’s filmed in a studio.
In an interview with Variety, executive producers Bertram van Munster and Elise Doganieri explained some of the protocols they adopted to keep the cast and crew safe. For starters, the contestants visited fewer countries than they have in past seasons. Season 33 took the competitors to The United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, Greece, Portugal, and The United States. For reference, contestants visited eleven different countries in season 32.
“I picked a route that was mostly in remote areas or small cities,” executive producer Bertram van Munster told Variety. “We looked very carefully so we could do two or three shows in a country, which we normally don’t do. These were all handpicked areas where they had the least amount of COVID, where we had freedom to go into a lot of areas where there’s nobody there.”
Season 33 contestants also used a private jet rather than public transportation and only interacted with locals who had been tested and vaccinated.
Season 33 Winner’s Predictions
The rest of this article contains light spoilers. Do not keep reading if you do not want to read spoilers.
When “The Amazing Race 33” resumed filming in 2021, two of the remaining teams were unable to come back. Which two teams dropped out of the competition? One likely possibility is Caro Viehweg and Ray Gantt, a couple who met during their time on the dating show “Love Island.”
It seems unlikely that Caro and Ray would want to finish the competition together since the pair broke up in 2020. Caro addressed the breakup in a 2020 YouTube video. Although it’s likely that Caro and Ray are one of the teams who dropped out, it’s also possible that they were one of the two teams eliminated before production halted in 2020.
In an Instagram post promoting the show, contestant Spencer Stone tagged at least one contestant from every team except for father-daughter duo Natalia and Arun Kumar. Is it possible that Spencer doesn’t have as close of a bond with Natalia and Arun because they left the competition early? We predict that Natalia and Arun may have been one of the first two teams eliminated this season.
Our three top picks to win this season are Ryan Ferguson & Dusty Harris, Moe Badger & Michael Norwood, and Kim & Penn Holderness. Meet the full season 33 cast here.
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