The Amazing Race (US)

Filmed across a month in August and September 2002, Season 3 covered about 41,000 miles, four continents and thirteen legs, with twelve countries new to the series - the biggest single expansion of the show's map to that point. The route ran the Florida Everglades, Mexico City's Angel of Independence and the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan, Cozumel, England, Dunnottar Castle in Scotland, the Torre de Belém in Lisbon, Spain, the tanneries of Fez, Munich's Angel of Peace, the Olympic venues at Innsbruck, the Rheinfall and Lake Geneva, the Petronas Towers, Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City - the franchise's first visit to Vietnam - then Hawaii and Seattle. Structurally it is a conventional season with two non-elimination legs and no new mechanics, which is part of why it divides people: what it has instead is a cast that fan rankings repeatedly single out, including Flo & Zach, Ken & Gerard, Teri & Ian, John Vito & Jill, Derek & Drew, Heather & Eve, Aaron & Arianne and Andre & Damon. Rotten Tomatoes archived no contemporaneous critic reviews at all for this season, so the published evidence base is unusually thin.

Filmed over four weeks in early 2003 and run as a summer season, Season 4 covered roughly 44,000 miles and four continents. The route is one of the show's more architecturally pleasing: Dodger Stadium, the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, Cortina d'Ampezzo, the Venetian Lagoon, the Vienna sewers made famous by The Third Man and Schönbrunn Palace, the Bugatti circuit at Le Mans, Amsterdam's canals and windmills, Mumbai's Film City and the Dhobi Ghat, the houseboats of Alleppey, Kota Kinabalu and the Sepilok orangutan sanctuary and Gomantong Caves in Borneo, Gyeongbokgung Palace in Seoul, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, then a finish in Phoenix. The Netherlands and South Korea were both series debuts. No new mechanics were introduced; it is a pure execution season, and Looper's note that nine different teams won a leg gives a sense of how open the field stayed. Cast members include Reichen & Chip, Millie & Chuck, Kelly & Jon, David & Jeff, Tian & Jaree, Monica & Sheree, Steve & Dave, Amanda & Chris, Russell & Cindy and Debra & Steve.

The first crossover season, and the one that proved reality-TV celebrity could be imported wholesale: Survivor's Rob Mariano and Amber Brkich raced as a couple, and the season was built and marketed around them. The route ran about 40,000 miles across five continents and ten countries - Lima, Cusco and Písac, Santiago, Mendoza, Buenos Aires and Tigre, Johannesburg and Soweto, Gaborone and the Makgadikgadi Pans, Lucknow and Jodhpur, Istanbul, Jamaica and San Juan, finishing in south Florida. Peru, Chile, Botswana, Turkey, Jamaica and Puerto Rico were all series debuts. The one rule change was brutal: the non-elimination penalty was expanded so a penalised team surrendered not just its money but its bags and all possessions except passports and the clothes it was wearing. Critics split precisely on the crossover - Melanie McFarland of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer called using returning players "at once one of the smartest and most cynical tactics in reality television," while Andy Dehnart complained it "denied us the chance to meet two new people." Cast includes Rob & Amber, Uchenna & Joyce, Ron & Kelly, Meredith & Gretchen, Lynn & Alex, Ray & Deana, Susan & Patrick, Megan & Heidi and Brian & Greg.

The most aggressively engineered season of the era, and the one where the producers' appetite for new mechanics first outran the audience's. Season 10 introduced the Intersection, which forces two teams to pair up and complete tasks jointly until told otherwise; the show's first double elimination inside a single leg; and a "marked for elimination" penalty that hit the previous leg's last-place team with a thirty-minute delay at the next Pit Stop unless they finished first. The route covered around 40,000 miles and thirteen countries, six of them new - Beijing and the Great Wall, Ulaanbaatar and Gorkhi-Terelj, Hanoi and Hạ Long Bay, Chennai and Mamallapuram, Kuwait City, Grand Baie in Mauritius, Antananarivo, Helsinki and Ylöjärvi, Kyiv, Ouarzazate, Barcelona and France, running from Seattle to New York's Hudson Valley. Phil Keoghan was briefly detained in Ukraine over visa paperwork and still beat the leading teams to the mat. The cast was the most demographically varied the show had assembled and drew specific praise for it: Dustin & Kandice, Rob & Kimberly, Erwin & Godwin, Lyn & Karlyn, David & Mary, Tyler & James, Peter & Sarah, Tom & Terry, Vipul & Arti, Bilal & Sa'eed and Duke & Lauren.

The franchise's first returnee season, filmed over four weeks in late 2006 and covering roughly 45,000 miles across six continents and nine countries - Cotopaxi National Park, the Atacama Desert, Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego, Maputo and Bilene, Zanzibar's Stone Town, Warsaw and Kraków with a sombre leg at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Kuala Lumpur and the Batu Caves, Hong Kong and Macau, then Guam and Hawaii. Ecuador, Mozambique, Poland, Macau and Guam were series debuts. The casting brief was explicitly about memorability rather than track record - Phil Keoghan personally submitted fifteen names and ten were taken - and the omissions caused a public row, with alumni including Chip & Kim and BJ & Tyler complaining about being left out, while Colin & Christie declined for a pregnancy and Flo declined because her original season "brought out the worst in her." It also launched Elimination Station, the web series sequestering departed racers in Acapulco, and was the last season to use the Yield for years. The field: Rob & Amber, Charla & Mirna, Uchenna & Joyce, Joe & Bill, Kevin & Drew, Oswald & Danny, Teri & Ian, John Vito & Jill, David & Mary, Dustin & Kandice and Eric & Danielle.

Structurally one of the most consequential seasons the show has ever run, because two mechanics that are still fixtures debuted here: the U-Turn, which lets one team force another to complete both halves of a Detour, and the Speed Bump, an extra task imposed on the previous leg's saved team. Filmed over three weeks in July 2007, the route was the shortest in years at around 30,000 miles across four continents and ten countries - starting at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles and finishing in Girdwood, Alaska, by way of the Aran Islands and Clifden, Amsterdam and Durgerdam, Ouagadougou, Bingo and Yako in Burkina Faso, Vilnius and Rumšiškės, Dubrovnik, Empoli, Vinci and Florence, Mumbai, Osaka and Kishiwada, and Taipei. It was originally slated as a mid-season replacement and moved up to November after CBS cancelled Viva Laughlin, landing squarely in the window when the writers' strike had made unscripted programming unusually valuable. Cast members include Kynt & Vyxsin, Ronald & Christina, TK & Rachel, Nicolas & Donald, Azaria & Hendekea, Jennifer & Nathan, Shana & Jennifer, Lorena & Jason, Kate & Pat, Ari & Staella and Marianna & Julia.

Commissioned partly as replacement programming for the schedule holes left by the 2007-08 writers' strike, Season 13 was filmed in April and May 2008 and ran about 40,000 miles across five continents and eight countries, with Bolivia, Cambodia and Kazakhstan all new to the series. From Los Angeles the route went to Salvador and Fortaleza, La Paz and El Alto, Auckland and Tauranga, Siem Reap for Angkor Wat and the Bayon, Delhi, Almaty, Moscow, and a finish in Portland. It introduced no new mechanics, carrying the U-Turn, Speed Bump and two Fast Forwards over from the previous season, and Looper's sharpest observation is that it was the first season in which a U-Turn was available but never actually used - which tells you the temperature of the racing. Critics found the cast unusually agreeable: Matt Norris at CinemaBlend wrote that "the teams are not as polarizing as years before … the show did a good job casting this year." The teams include Nick & Starr, Ken & Tina, Toni & Dallas, Terence & Sarah, Andrew & Dan, Mark & Bill, Aja & Ty, Kelly & Christy, Anita & Arthur and Marisa & Brooke.

The most twist-forward season of the era, and the one whose reputation swings hardest depending on who you ask. Two devices debuted: a Starting Line task with an immediate elimination attached, sending a team home before the race properly began, and the Switchback, which restages a famous task from an earlier season - here the notorious hay-bale search. Filmed in 21 days across 25,000 miles, three continents and nine countries, the route took in Tokyo Tower and Shibuya Crossing, Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta, Phnom Penh and Wat Phnom, Dubai's Burj and Palm Jumeirah, Groningen and Zoutkamp, Stockholm's Gröna Lund, and first-ever visits to Tallinn and Prague, finishing in Las Vegas with Wayne Newton pointing the way. Phil Keoghan cycled across the United States in spring 2009 for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, holding auditions as he went. The cast leans heavily on personalities the franchise kept reusing: Zev & Justin, the Harlem Globetrotters Flight Time & Big Easy, Meghan & Cheyne, Brian & Ericka, Sam & Dan, Gary & Matt, poker players Maria & Tiffany, Mika & Canaan, Eric & Lisa, Lance & Keri and Marcy & Ron.

The second returnee season, built specifically from teams the producers felt had left something on the table, and drawn overwhelmingly from the recent past - five of the eleven came from Season 14 alone, with the rest from Seasons 12, 15, 16 and 17. It is a landmark on the production side: the first season of The Amazing Race shot and broadcast in high definition, after years in standard definition because HD gear was too expensive and too fragile for the way the show films. Because every racer was experienced, producers deliberately hardened the tasks and added no-rest legs where teams carried straight on from the mat, plus an automatic U-Turn penalty for finishing last. Across roughly 40,000 miles, five continents and twelve legs the route ran Sydney and Broken Hill, Tokyo, Kamakura and Yokosuka, Kunming, Lijiang and the Shilin stone forest, Kolkata and Varanasi, an Alpine run through Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland, and Brazil, finishing in the Florida Keys. The field: Kisha & Jen, Jet & Cord, Zev & Justin, Flight Time & Big Easy, Margie & Luke, Gary & Mallory, Mel & Mike, Ron & Christina, Kent & Vyxsin, Amanda & Kris and Jaime & Cara.

Filmed over three weeks in mid-2011 and covering more than 35,000 miles across four continents, Season 19 introduced two new penalties: the Hazard, a burden imposed on whichever team finished last in the starting-line task, and the franchise's first formally designated Double Elimination Leg, which struck as early as Leg 2. The route took in the Taipei Confucius Temple, Borobudur on a first visit to Indonesia, the floating village of Koh Panyi in Thailand, Lake Malawi, Copenhagen's Church of Our Saviour and Legoland Billund on a first visit to Denmark, Germany, the European Parliament and the Atomium in Brussels on a first visit to Belgium, the Netherlands and Panama, starting from the Hsi Lai Temple in California. A monsoon forced producers to abandon a planned Laos leg and build an extra Thai one instead. The cast leans on athletes and reality-TV alumni: Survivor's Ethan Zohn and Jenna Morasca raced together, alongside snowboarders Andy & Tommy, Amani & Marcus, Ernie & Cindy, Bill & Cathi, sailors Laurence & Zac, Justin & Jennifer, Kaylani & Lisa, Liz & Marie, Jeremy & Sandy and Ron & Bill.

Season 22 covered around 30,000 miles and ten countries across five continents - French Polynesia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Botswana, Switzerland, Germany, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England - running from Los Angeles to a finish in Washington, D.C. It opened on a Bora Bora beach in what is one of the most visually striking starting lines in the show's history. Its structural contribution is the Double Express Pass: the winners of the first leg received two passes rather than one, and were obliged to hand the second to a rival team before the end of Leg 4, injecting an early diplomatic problem into a game that normally has none. The cast mixed professional hockey-playing brothers Bates and Anthony Battaglia, early-era YouTube personalities Joey Graceffa and Meghan Camarena, country singers Caroline Cutbirth and Jennifer Kuhle, and father-and-son team Dave and Connor O'Leary. Filmed November-December 2012. The finale carried a dedication to David Gene Gibbs, a camera operator killed in an unrelated helicopter crash while filming for Discovery.

Season 27 is the show operating in pure default mode - over 34,000 miles, ten countries and five continents, from Los Angeles through Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires and San Antonio de Areco, on to Livingstone and Victoria Falls, then Paris, Rotterdam, The Hague, Kraków, Delhi, Agra, Hong Kong and Macau before a finish in Southampton, New York. It delivered the franchise's first visit to Zimbabwe. Two rule tweaks distinguish it: an Express Pass that had to be handed to another team after its owner used it, and a U-Turn relocated to sit right at the Detour decision point, forcing a faster and more brutal choice. The cast leaned heavily on media professionals - dating KEYT-TV news reporters Kelsey Gerckens and Joey Buttitta, engaged couple Justin Scheman and Diana Bishop, dating paparazzi Logan Fazio and Chris Gordon, former NFL cheerleaders Tiffany Torres and Krista DeBono, brothers and former dance-crew contestants Ernest Phillips and Jin Lao Greer, and mother-and-son pair Denise Williams and James Earl Corley. Filmed June-July 2015.

Season 30 is the one where the broadcast shape changed as much as the game did: CBS burned it off in eight weekly broadcasts covering twelve legs, with two double-length episodes running two legs back-to-back, so it moves at a noticeably faster clip than its neighbours. The route took in ten countries - Iceland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Morocco, France, the Czech Republic, Zimbabwe, Bahrain, Thailand and Hong Kong - from New York City to a finish in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the franchise's first visit to Bahrain. Two significant twists debuted. The Head-to-Head put two teams in direct head-on competition where one had to beat the other to move on, and for the first time the show swapped partners, making teams run most of a leg with someone else's teammate. The cast was stacked with athletes and competitors: Big Brother 19 pair Cody Nickson and Jessica Graf, professional skiers Kristi Leskinen and Jen Hudak, IndyCar drivers Conor Daly and Alexander Rossi, former NBA players Cedric Ceballos and Shawn Marion, and competitive eaters Joey Chestnut and Tim Janus. Filmed October 2017.

Structurally the most extraordinary season the show has produced. Filming began on 22 February 2020 and was suspended on 28 February after three legs in England and Scotland, when the crew reached Sweden and executive producer Bertram van Munster judged the pandemic too dangerous to continue. The race resumed 19 months later, on 19 September 2021, in St. Gallen, Switzerland - so the season visibly changes era partway through, from a pre-pandemic London to a masked, tested, radically re-engineered 2021 race. The rebuilt route dropped planned legs in Sweden, Austria, Italy, Vietnam, Thailand, South America and Nepal for low-infection countries, covering Switzerland, France, Greece and Portugal before a Los Angeles finish, roughly 22,000 miles. Commercial aviation gave way to a chartered Boeing 757 with four COVID testing teams aboard, teams departed in staggered groups by previous finishing order, and tasks were redesigned around outdoor activity. Four original teams could not return and two teams already out of the race were brought back. The cast included Kim and Penn Holderness, exoneree Ryan W. Ferguson, Thalys train attack heroes Spencer Stone and Anthony Sadler, Buffalo "Singing Cops" Michael Norwood and Moe Badger, and Love Island couple Caro Viehweg and Ray Gantt.

Season 34 opened in Munich - the first time the American series ever began outside the United States - and ran eight countries through Germany, Austria, Italy, Jordan, France, Spain and Iceland to a finish in Nashville, including the franchise's first visit to Jordan and a leg at Petra. It still carried pandemic-era machinery: contestants had to be vaccinated, COVID protocols remained in force, and all international travel went by chartered plane rather than commercial flights, which removes the airport-scramble sequences that traditionally generate a lot of the show's tension. Two format changes matter. The Scramble debuted, letting teams complete a set of tasks in any order they chose. More drastically, this was the first season with an elimination in every single leg - no non-elimination legs at all - which raises the stakes but also strips out the Speed Bump and the comeback arc. Twelve teams started, including Big Brother 23 couple Derek Xiao and Claire Rehfuss, former NFL head coach Rex Ryan, and former Los Angeles Rams cheerleader Quinton Peron. Filmed May-June 2022.

Season 35 is where the show's modern shape locked in: it was the first season built on 90-minute episodes, giving each leg substantially more room, and it expanded the field to thirteen teams. Crucially it also reversed the pandemic-era retreat, returning to commercial flights instead of charters and restoring the airport gambling that had been missing for several seasons. The route ran 23,800 miles and nine countries across three continents - Thailand, Vietnam, India, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Sweden and Ireland, from Los Angeles to a finish in Dublin - with the franchise's first visit to Slovenia and a memorable stretch in the Postojna caves. Several dormant mechanics came back: the Express Pass, unused since Season 29, and the U-Turn, unused since Season 32, while the U-Turn Vote shifted to a private, blind ballot and the Scramble moved from the opening leg to the final one. The cast included computer-scientist brothers Greg and John Franklin, best friends Joel Strasser and Garrett Smith, and father-and-son team Rob and Corey McArthur. Filmed June-July 2023.

Season 37 fielded fourteen teams, the largest cast in the American edition's history, and marketed itself as a season of surprises with a game-changing twist in nearly every episode. Three were new: the Fork in the Road, splitting the field onto parallel routes with separate eliminations; the Driver's Seat, handing one team the power to set the workload for everyone else; and Valet Roulette, a blind draw between manual and automatic vehicles. Around those it stacked returning mechanics unusually densely - a double-elimination leg, the Intersection, the Live U-Turn Vote, the Fast Forward, the Double U-Turn, a non-elimination leg, the Head-to-Head and the Scramble. The 29,000-mile route crossed three continents through Hong Kong, Osaka, Kyoto and Minoh in Japan, Bali and wider Indonesia, Dubai, Sofia and rural Bulgaria, Naples, Strasbourg, Germany and Portugal, ending in Miami. Filmed May-June 2024, with the final leg delayed by South Florida flooding that June. Teams included gamer best friends Carson McCalley and Jack Dodge, siblings Han and Holden Nguyen, married parents Jonathan and Ana Towns, parents-of-eight Scott and Lori Thompson, and married Las Vegas performers Brett and Mark Romain. The finale was dedicated to longtime producer Jack Walworth.