After the relatively poorly-received Season 4 concluded, The Amazing Race entered what would stand as the longest hiatus in the show’s history for a good 15 years, all the way up until we recently had to wait 14 months between Seasons 30 and 31. For a full eleven months, from August 2003 until July 2004, there was no Amazing Race, and the show was in definite danger of cancellation. People simply thought that the show had already exhausted its potential for interesting television, with Season 4 having been perceived to be too stale, and if some decisions had gone differently, it could have ended up being yet another short-lived TV experiment.

But CBS gave it another chance, and Season 5 wound up being a success. Some might even call it a staggering success. It was popular to the point that CBS quickly decided to film two more seasons, and Seasons 5-7 all aired within the same year – the only time there has ever been that much TAR in that short of an amount of time. It revitalized a dying series, and is one of the reasons why the show is alive to this day. This wouldn’t be the only time that the show seemed to be in danger of cancellation (the post-Season 28 period being the most recent example), but it was the first.

To this day, Season 5 is one of the most popular seasons of TAR. Go pretty much anywhere online that talks about TAR and you’ll see fans saying that Season 5 is one of the best seasons, if not the best season. And yet… I never got the love. Oh sure, I think Season 5 is a solid season, but I’ve never found it to be that great – more of a solidly average season for me. I went into this rewatch wondering if it would change my mind, if I’d see the light and start singing the praises of Season 5 – but no such revelation came. I believe some fans have said that Season 5 “just works” for them, or to put it another way, just clicks. And it just doesn’t quite click for me.

Let’s see if I can do a good job of explaining why while delving into the season, shall we?

A Marathon Route

Season 5 has the claim to fame of having the single longest racecourse of any season of TAR. While traveling the world, the top teams ended up clocking 72,000 miles! (By contrast, recent (as of 2019) seasons of TAR typically run somewhere between about 20,000 and 40,000 miles total.) It’s also one of only two seasons to have visited all six populated continents (assuming you count Oceania as a continent, rather than solely Australia, in which case no season has visited six continents), leaving out only the hostile Antarctica (which I would dearly love to see featured on TAR sometime, but accept that it probably never will). We spend three episodes in South America before going to a one-leg layover in Europe, after which we go to Africa for three legs, then four legs of Asia with a leg of Oceania in the middle, capping it off with the final leg in North America. Season 5 also visited a whopping eight new countries (not including the quick stop in Kenya), with only India and New Zealand making repeat appearances.

Looking at this route, one might expect (and I certainly did) that while watching the season, it would stick out as being exceptionally good. But while I was watching, it simply… didn’t. With the significant exception of the two legs in Egypt (which we’ll get to in a bit), most of the route felt relatively mundane. I don’t know, perhaps it was partially just my frame of mind while I was watching the episodes, but it just didn’t feel as epic as I expected it to. Certainly the extra-long route and vast number of new countries don’t make the season worse – they’re just not as significant as I was hoping to see.

What does count as a strike against the season is that only in legs 3, 10, and the first half of 11 is there self-drive for a significant portion in the leg. A couple of others have self-drive to start the leg off but have most of the transportation by other means instead.

Egypt!

There is one major exception to the route not feeling that remarkable to me, and that is the case of the two legs in Egypt. As of Season 31, this is the only time that the U.S. edition of TAR visits the country of Egypt – and what a visit it is! I’ll admit to start that I’m a huge sucker for ancient Egyptian monuments; pretty much all things ancient Egypt have been a particular interest of mine for many years. As a result, I find the fact that the Race goes not only to Egypt, but to the Giza Plateau in particular, to be incredibly cool. Come on, the freaking SPHINX was a Pit Stop! And to start the next leg, teams go down a shaft into the Great Pyramid?!? This is the coolest destination that the Race has ever been to, in my opinion, and always will be. The first Egypt leg, where teams spend the entire latter half on the Giza Plateau, is at least a strong contender for my favorite episode of all time.

Not only do we get almost an entire leg of Giza all-told, but the rest of the time in Egypt includes visits to several other ancient temples as well. And in addition to the cool locations, the legs are fairly well-designed as well. During these two episodes, I think Season 5 truly does cross the line and become an epic season for a time. If the rest of the season could give me the same feeling that they do, then I would probably understand the hype, and regard it as the best season; as it is, the other locations just can’t hold it up the same way Egypt does. Oh well…

Hard-Racing Strategies, As Seen This Season

One thing that I’ve seen mentioned about this season several times in the past is that sees racing strategy kicked up a notch. I’m not sure exactly how true this is – the Race on the whole doesn’t have room for a ton of strategy, and at present I’m having trouble thinking of any particular cases of strategy in future seasons that can be traced back to this season. However, it is undeniably true that certain racers, most notably Mirna and Colin, really pull out the stops during this race and use all the strategies at their disposal to race hard.

Charla & Mirna make use of Charla’s small stature to elicit help from others, who as they note will take pity on them since they perceive Charla to be helpless. This helps them to a strong finish in the second leg, and they turn that into more strong finishes in legs 3 and 5 by utilizing what may well be their greatest strength: airport savviness. Last season we saw Millie & Chuck succeed by searching in the wee hours for a better flight than the one they had; Charla & Mirna successfully duplicate that strategy in the fifth leg to take a comfortable second-place lead in Egypt, after previously having managed to finagle tickets on one of the best flights in the third leg. Successful use of these strategies (as well as some luck) got them their strong finishes during the season, but they’re small potatoes compared to Colin & Christie’s heavy racing.

It’s not obvious early on as they begin the race with weak finishes, but even at the beginning of the Race Colin is playing at a higher level than most of the competition, as he either already knows or has recently learned Spanish and is able to communicate with locals for directions. Unfortunately for him and Christie, some of those directions end up being wrong which sets them back early on, but starting in the third leg they’re able to not only replicate Charla & Mirna’s airport successes but surpass them in the rest of the Race, leading to their becoming the dominant team during the season. They pass the cousins up in the Argentinian mountains to win the third leg, are able to secure a better flight into Russia, and then coast far ahead by finding a very early flight to Egypt in the fifth leg. Even though their hefty lead from this leg doesn’t stick, the combination of their lead, airport savvy, and generally strong racing keeps them in the front of the pack all the way through the middle of the eleventh leg, where a Yield puts them in a bit of a tailspin for a couple of legs.

But it’s not just Spanish knowledge and airport savvy where Colin & Christie show their prowess – they also display a very smart approach to the social side of the race during the early going. With the exception of Mirna & Charla, they’re friendly to the other teams and share their information freely, rather than being all secretive with their knowledge. I think this is a solid strategy, as it builds goodwill, prevents a spirit of distrust, and while it may sometimes prevent them from building a big lead, it doesn’t open up opportunities for the other teams to pass them. Because of their savvy social play (and Mirna’s scorched-earth approach), they end up with most of the teams on their side early on. Unfortunately for Colin & Christie, they ultimately do end up with the other teams turning against them – partially because Colin’s increased intensity leads them to believe that they wouldn’t be willing to offer them much help, and partially because all of the strong finishes that they’re putting up make the other teams see them (probably correctly) as the biggest threats in the Race. Ultimately it’s very hard to simultaneously race very well and have the other teams on your side as well.

Chip & Kim get to talk about their strategy of building up Colin’s ego, but I feel like we don’t really see them do much in this direction at all, and it’s more of just Chip & Kim talking up a strategy. The last really distinct strategy we see is that of a team checking baggage and not taking all of their belongings with them through the final destination city, and here’s where I need to address a point I’ve previously seen brought up about Colin & Christie being strategic pioneers in this regard. It’s true that this is a creative approach that might sometimes pay off, but the case for Colin & Christie as masterminds because of this is weakened by two facts: Brandon & Nicole took this approach as well (and it’s not revealed whether they were copying it or not), and the strategy ended up working against Colin & Christie by preventing them from switching to a better flight, potentially costing them the Race. I have a hard time giving them too much credit for it when it ended up being their undoing. (On the other hand, they most certainly do get credit for the strategy of calling ahead to have the taxi ready right away. Smart idea.)

On the whole, I won’t deny that this season saw some hard racing and strategic play, and some of what was done on it inspired future racers. However, I think it’s bit of a stretch to say that it’s a major step forward in the development of TAR strategy, especially when some of the strategy (like Colin’s social strategy) isn’t widely emulated afterwards.

Addendum after blogging through Season 9: In retrospect, I may have undersold the strategic impact of Season 5 somewhat. In particular, while I still maintain that most of the strategies displayed on this season (like Colin & Christie’s social strategy) aren’t widely used after this season, it did really put one significant strategic tool on the map – the airport scramble. It may have first showed up prior to Season 5, but this was the first time that it was widely used, and future seasons will utilize this strategy more and more as scrounging for better flights is the order of the day in airport episodes. So I was initially a bit too hard on Season 5 as a strategically important season, as it did popularize one of the biggest strategies that TAR has, thanks especially to Colin and Mirna.

Headline-Making Teams

As is especially evident in the last section, discussion of the events of Season 5 is nearly impossible without bringing up two specific teams: Colin & Christie and Charla & Mirna. And I think that the big difference of opinion about Season 5 between myself and the majority of online fans rests on this fact; most online fans consider to be one or both of these teams to be fantastic aspects to the season, while I simply do not.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that either team is a terrible part of the season either. As you’ll see in the team rankings in a bit, I think that both definitely add to the season as a whole, and neither is a terrible team that drags down the season. However, I don’t think that either takes it up into the ranks of the great seasons either. Some say that Charla & Mirna are the most important team in franchise history and an amazing source of entertainment: I say that their extreme nature is too much at times, not the greatest at the other times, and a team that was only in for 7/13 episodes is being oversold if they’re billed as the reason for the Race’s resurgence with this season. Some say that Colin & Christie are top-tier villains and their meltdowns are great entertainment; I don’t get the entertainment from the meltdowns, find half of them to be instead awkward/uncomfortable/nasty, and the rest of the time just can’t see them as ideal villains (especially with my wife commenting that they’re still likeable on the whole).

On a similar note, I’ve seen many people note that one reason why Season 5 is so amazing is because Chip & Kim vs. Colin & Christie is a perfect hero/villain showdown. In addition to Colin & Christie being flawed as villains, however, Chip & Kim have their own dip into the dark side at the end of the race, as they clearly betray and wound their former allies in Colin & Christie in Leg 11 before outright lying to Brandon & Nicole about a clue in the next leg. They comment during this time that the gloves are off, it’s no more Mr. Nice Chip, and this not only diminishes their likability but also hurts the image of them as the heroes, in my opinion. It’s interesting that editors chose to include all of this swerve into Serious Mode for Chip & Kim, given that I find that it makes the ending a bit less perfect (although I still love Chip & Kim and am glad that they won). Perhaps I am alone in finding this role reversal near the end strange. I don’t know.

Format Changes in Season 5

As I’ve mentioned in the past, for the first four seasons the Race was essentially static. Of course the route and cast was different each time, but the basic structure remained almost completely the same, with the only shake-ups being the expansion to twelve teams for Season 3 and 4, and the altered NEL structure for Season 3.

This all changes in Season 5, as producers no doubt felt the need to spice things up to make the show more popular, and for the rest of the Race’s history up until now, format changes will be an extremely common occurrence. There is no stretch of more than three seasons without some new twist or alteration made to the racecourse, and while many of those changes will end up being minor ones, some others will have a much bigger impact. With the advent of format changes for the Race, I will start including a section on each season’s post (much like Logan/Supacoowacky has at the beginning of his season runs) where I go over and discuss all of the format changes. For Season 5:

The Fast Forward is downgraded from appearing in every non-final 3 leg to only appearing twice in the entire Race. If you’ve read my posts for Seasons 1-4, you know that I think this is a terrible change, as from this point on, rather than a meaningful strategic tool, the Fast Forward is simply a gimmick. Take a look at Episode 5 for the basic Fast Forward strategy from now on: if you know you’re in first place, you go for it, because there’s absolutely no reason to hold back on it with only one other appearing during the season. Thus, the first place team gets further ahead. If you know you’re not in first place, you ignore it since the first place team will have taken it already.

Of course, production tries to make it more interesting by usually placing the Fast Forward right after a big equalizer, like in the India leg. Admittedly it works a little better this way, but still is just a first-place-for-the-leg lottery, with the only reason not to try it being that somebody else will beat you to it, that only appears once or twice per season. Certainly not as interesting as what we had before.

The other change with the Fast Forward that we see, which comes as a direct result of its new “lottery” status, is that from this point on most Fast Forward challenges will be either rather difficult/lengthy to complete (the one in Egypt was probably meant to be this way, although it’s hard to tell since Colin & Christie were so far ahead), or else force the teams to do something that they normally would NOT want to do (like the head-shaving one in India this season). There will be exceptions, but this trend will largely continue, generally leaning towards unpleasant/scary tasks, whenever the Fast Forward appears. For now it will still come twice per season, but eventually it will decline even further…

The introduction of a penalty for coming in last on a non-elimination leg. This was a sorely needed move for the show. Before this point, in most non-elimination legs, if you came in last, what did that lose you? Nothing! There were a few times (like the Malaysian NEL in Season 4) where a team was set behind the others and ended up behind for the entire leg, but usually they just ended up catching up at an equalizer and being none the worse for it. There needs to be some incentive to avoid coming in last even when you know it’s going to be a non-elimination – remember the end of Season 2, Leg 6, where Chris & Alex didn’t even bother racing to the mat because they knew coming in last wouldn’t matter? Season 5 finally addressed this issue.

So what about the actual penalty they chose? The “Phil takes all your money” penalty, known colloquially among some fans as “Mugged for Elimination”? I’ve seen arguments in its favor, but I personally am not a fan of it for two main reasons: 1) Far too often, it doesn’t end up noticeably slowing a team down. Looking at this season, Linda & Karen were slowed down at the beginning of the leg, but still able to catch a flight with the other teams. Kami & Karli had plenty of time to raise funds while waiting for the Route Marker to open, and Brandon & Nicole and Colin & Christie were able to do their begging before even leaving the Pit Stop! Money woes can certainly impact Race episodes, but I feel like that’s a bit too hit-and-miss of problem to try and provoke like this, and the penalty too often doesn’t feel impactful enough. 2) It forces teams to beg locals/tourists for money. Remember how Linda & Karen didn’t even feel good asking locals for money, so they just hit up the tourists? Not only is having to beg for money for the Race no doubt extremely humiliating, but it ends up making teams take money from uninvolved parties, simply so that they can continue on with the TV show’s filming. No doubt several people who were begged from saw the TV cameras and figured that teams didn’t really need money. Ultimately, it’s the “crowdfunding” nature of this penalty that turns me against it.

The Yield is introduced. During the first four seasons, there really wasn’t any way to directly oppose another team except for blocking doors. You could help other teams instead of them, you could give false information, but if they were on the right track and not listening to you then there wasn’t anything you could do about it. Enter the Yield. From now on, teams will get a chance to directly inhibit each other. What do I think of it? In some ways I disapprove – it deviates from what the Race really feels like it should be by allowing teams to forcibly detain each other, and it’s obviously a grab by production for extra drama between teams – but on the whole I’m fine with it. The extra drama is actually pretty good most of the time, and the Yield isn’t so game-breaking as to be a tool of instant elimination. If I had started watching at Season 1 and then seen the Yield when it first showed up, I might not like it, but as it is, having jumped on the TAR train long after the Yield became a thing, I don’t mind it at all.

During this season, the Yield was present on every leg of the race (or at least the first eleven), but only used once, at the very end. Why? No doubt partially because of “fair play” concerns, as some teams would have considered it to be playing dirty, but also because at least some teams determined, correctly in my opinion, that it just isn’t worth using in most situations. Why piss off a team when you’re in no danger of being eliminated to them? In a post-Race interview, Bob said that he and Joyce would have only used their yield if they knew that they were in second-to-last, and knew who was behind them, and my suspicion is that most teams had similar strategies. When the Yield finally did come out, it was to target the team that was considered to be the biggest threat to win it all – and it would’ve worked had the leg not been non-elimination. I think the Yield strategy that we saw this season was solid, even if it did result in the Yield having little impact on most of the race…

The cast is reduced back to eleven teams. I prefer twelve, but I can see why budget/editorial constraints would convince production to scale things back.

The earliest non-elimination leg we’ve seen up to this point shows up. As time goes on, non-eliminations will get pushed even earlier in the Race, but at this point we had never seen one happen at final seven. This, combined with a double non-elimination at final five and the first ever lack of an NEL at final 3, contributed to making the non-elimination legs rather unpredictable for this season. I approve of any efforts to make the NELs less predictable. As I mentioned, we also had no Final 3 non-elimination leg for the first time – which, given those legs’ track records, is a good thing indeed. They’re not gone for good, though.

A New Age for TAR

In my Season 4 blog post, I mentioned that it marks the end of an age for TAR. Obviously, that means that Season 5 marks the beginning of a new age. For the next stretch of seasons, we’ll be in what I consider to be the “classic” age of The Amazing Race. This is where the Race experienced a true surge up in popularity, and indeed viewership reached its zenith during this time (although we’re still far away from where it began to truly drop off). The show’s presentation format remains almost completely the same throughout this period, before being changed up shortly after it ends. Certain Race elements exist only during this period, before eventually being replaced by what will come to be considered the staples. Overall, while this period certainly has its share of worse seasons, many superfans look back fondly on it as a golden age of sorts for the Race.

This stretch, combined with the first “age” of Seasons 1-4, will make up what I consider to be the first “era” of The Amazing Race. There’s still a lot of common elements between the two “ages” which will disappear once this era ends…

Certain Types of Challenges: Good or Not?

Season 5 sees a couple of types of challenges, which can cause serious issues for some teams in trying to complete them, featured multiple times. These challenges will continue to appear as the series goes on (although they will also eventually more or less die out), and have their share of critics, so I thought that it would be appropriate to discuss them here.

The first type is the “eat a large quantity of food” challenge, as seen this season in the caviar and ostrich egg Roadblocks. We’ve seen eating challenges before (Chinese food in Season 1, octopi in Season 4), but those were more challenges in terms of having nastier-looking food, as opposed to simply having to eat a lot. This is the first time that we see the challenge largely come from the amount of food. Personally, I love these challenges. The fact that they give some teams such a hard time completing them is a big plus in my book, and while you could argue that a team like Chip & Kim have an inherent advantage over a team like Kami & Karli, I will counter-argue that teams are supposed to have inherent strengths and weaknesses at different aspects of the Race, and that these challenges are fair regardless – perhaps not pleasant, but not unfair. For me, the extreme difficulty that some have in completing these challenges, combined with the fact that they’re not ridiculously contrived challenges, makes them winners in my book. Plus, whenever somebody like Chip comes along and annihilates the challenges, it’s a lot of fun. I get the arguments of those who dislike these challenges, but I heartily disagree, and in this season in particular those two are among my favorite challenges of the season.

The other type of challenge is the dreaded “needle-in-a-haystack” challenge, exemplified this season by the chocolate shop Roadblock, the dig for a scarab Roadblock, and to a lesser degree the ox Detour. These are the challenges where a team is searching for a clue or other item, but in a large area where false leads are in abundance. Because there is no way to tell where the clue/item will be just from looking and there’s no pattern, these challenges rely on luck to complete – pick a spot, start looking, and hope you get lucky! Because of this factor, which largely diminishes the role that a team’s skill has in actually advancing past the challenge, needle-in-a-haystack challenges tend to be more divisive in the TAR community, with many fans not liking their luck-based nature.

However, I will go on the record as enjoying these challenges as well. My reasoning? Well, in most cases, I’m a sucker for challenges that can shuffle the teams’ placements around a lot, and few challenges can do so as well as needle-in-a-haystack challenges. It can be easy to see a team fall from the lead into the back of the pack (as happened to Marshall & Lance in leg 3 this time), or conversely jump from last place to a decent position. Furthermore, I don’t consider these challenges to be unfair. The actual action taken in trying to find the clue/object (in these cases, biting into a chocolate or digging in the sand) is almost never a factor in how long the challenge really takes to complete, and all teams have the exact same goal. True, a team that’s further behind can sometimes suffer because there’s less clues/items to find once some teams have completed the task, but I don’t think that that’s a huge factor.

I can certainly understand the point of view of people who dislike needle-in-a-haystack challenges, and I don’t love them, but I still like them and think they’re a perfectly fine option for producers to include in a leg.

After a long rabbit trail of general TAR discussion, time to snap back to Season 5 in particular.

This Season Is Not Bad

I feel like this post was rather heavy on the negatives of Season 5, and light on the positives, and that could be construed as me thinking that this season is bad. I absolutely do not think so; it’s just that since I go against the grain of considering this season to be the best of all time, I felt like I had to address the various reasons that I’ve seen people give for its supposed supremacy, and that gives the post a more negative tone. Moreover, I didn’t dedicate any sections to positive aspects of the season except for Egypt because I don’t feel like there are any HUGE positives that really stick out and merit a bunch of discussion. There are some cool bits that I’ll discuss below, but on the whole there’s nothing in particular that I love about this season.

But again, that doesn’t mean that this season is bad. It’s a very solid season of The Amazing Race; no huge problems, decent teams, decent legs, and so forth.

Summary

Things that I didn’t like about this season:

-Stunt casting begins here with a thoroughly unlikable team.

-Fast Forward is killed off as a meaningful strategic tool.

-The Yield is largely underwhelming in its debut. Sure, it becomes very relevant in Leg 11, but for the first ten episodes the total lack of usage gives a feeling of “why is this a thing?”

-A lot of legs are simply not that memorable to me.

-Chip & Kim start behaving mildly villainously at the end, messing up their hero storyline.

-All the payment disputes are interesting but also uncomfortable.

-A weak ending that some could say was unfair given Chip & Kim’s lateness to the Canadian airport gave them an advantage.

-I don’t think the two biggest teams are all that great.

-Lack of many major positive points.

Things I liked about this season:

-Giza

-Giza

-GIZA

-FREAKING GIZA

-The rest of the Egyptian legs

-Longest route of any U.S. season is a cool distinction.

-Quite a few episodes with good airport scenes.

-Solid cast overall.

-Chip & Kim are great winners.

-Knee-related storylines during the first half of the season.

-At the midway point of the season, every team is somewhat likable. (Colin & Christie don’t really descend until the beginning of Leg 8.)

-No more free rides at non-eliminations.

-NEL placement is spiced up. This is the first season to skip the pointless NEL at final 3. It’s not gone for good, but having the penultimate leg be elimination in this season is decidedly an improvement.

-Some good eating challenges.

-Lack of major problems.

Leg Rankings

13) Leg 13: El Nido, Philippines – Dallas, US (Yes, I put the finale in last place. Tasks in Canada are okay and Chip in the maple leaf hat is great, but making teams fly elsewhere midway through is always a bummer as it screams “equalizer”. An interesting twist of fate makes for a compelling airport scramble, but when all is said and done Chip & Kim fly into Texas with the lead and the others are unable to catch them, making for a weak finish to the season. There’s only so much the editors can do when there is no catching up that actually happens. Stockyard final challenge is okay but not particularly great.)

12) Leg 8: Lake Manyara, Tanzania – Margham, UAE (This leg is really most memorable for Colin’s meltdown and near-arrest, which is compelling television but also extremely uncomfortable at times. And after that point, there’s little interest. Despite all the drama teams get equalized at the first Route Marker, and from there it’s a couple of taxi rides and a Detour that’s okay but doesn’t allow for any major gaining or losing of ground. Very short leg on the whole after the Route Marker opens.)

11) Leg 3: San Antonio de Areco – San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina (What a mouthful. Good airport scene to begin the leg, but at the cost of Jim & Marsha falling far behind the rest of the pack. We begin to see how Mirna causes her and Charla’s lack of allies. Chocolate shop Roadblock is okay and there is self-drive to the mountain, but most of the leg after the planes land is really unmemorable to me, especially with the highly generic Detour. Only really memorable moments are the chocolate shop in general, “Bitch!”, and the unusually-placed Pit Stop. Just not that strong of an episode compared to most of them.)

10) Leg 12: Pasay – El Nido, Philippines (Yes, the scene where Colin catches up and passes Karen on the ascender is amazing, but in my opinion it doesn’t rescue this leg from the lacklustre rest of it. A very short-feeling leg as teams take a charter flight then just boat around the bay, with two short tasks, the Roadblock, and then the Pit Stop. Charter flight does give added impact to the previous leg, but it doesn’t seem like there was any real way for the teams behind to make up the 45 minutes unless the flag-guessing had gone quite differently. Too small of a leg.)

9) Leg 2: Punta Ballena, Uruguay – San Antonio de Areco, Argentina (Foam club is okay but not amazing. Teams get equalized going to Argentina, but the confusion caused about Evita’s actual gravesite helps make up for it. Detour seems like a good one at first, but Tango turns out to be much faster and almost all teams go for it, which drags things down. A quick Roadblock and carriage ride to the Pit Stop offers barely any opportunity for comebacks or chokes at the end of the leg, which means that the results ultimately come down to who took the slowest bus to that location. While getting rid of Allison & Donny is welcome, it’s still not a great way to end the leg.)

8) Leg 9: Margham, UAE – Kolkata, India (Leg starts out strong, with multiple teams making screwups and having to turn back, and Chip & Kim falling slightly behind but quickly catching up. The bricks Roadblock, head shaving Fast Forward, and subsequent race for the train continue the trend, as Linda & Karen miss a train, Kami & Karli fall far behind at the bricks, and Brandon & Nicole waste a bunch of time finding out that the FF is something they don’t want to do anyway. However, post-train ride the leg is quite uninteresting. Detour is unremarkable and pretty unmemorable except for Chip sitting back and letting Kim do the work, and then it’s just the Pit Stop. Bricks isn’t exactly a super-memorable challenge either, other than the oft-repeated clip of Colin yelling.)

7) Leg 7: Luxor, Egypt – Lake Manyara, Tanzania (A bit of airport drama, and charter flights to keep the teams separate, makes for a decent start. Brandon, Nicole, and the twins find a much worse bus than the other teams to set them back and make for some interesting times, although the end of that little sequence isn’t fun with the ill will. The Detour option that everybody ends up doing is decent and allows some more shuffling, and the unaired Season 1 Episode 1 Roadblock returns for another good eating challenge. A solid leg overall, but just doesn’t have the memorability or big enough scale to make it higher on this list.)

6) Leg 11: Paengora, New Zealand – Pasay, Philippines (The start of the leg and watching all the teams tackle the Roadblock in scattered fashion works quite well, well enough that I can forgive the plane equalizer that comes afterwards. Still enough time in the Philippines for things to be interesting too, as the jeepney decorating is easier for some teams, the Yield is finally deployed, and the scattered jumps from bus to taxi en route to the Pit Stop shake things up even more. Despite Colin’s meltdown, though, I think the Detour was pretty weak (the other teams did it right and had no problems) and would have liked to see somebody attempt to herd the ducks. Now THAT would’ve been fun.)

5) Leg 10: Kolkata, India – Paengora, New Zealand (Good leg. Five teams arrive in New Zealand on four flights, but the self-drive gets some teams lost so that Linda & Karen have a chance to come back from behind. Chip’s Yield shenanigans are a lot of fun. That’s not a ton of praise, but the good stuff here really is enough to balance out the fact that one Detour option is markedly faster than the other and the Roadblock does not allow for comebacks. It’s all about the travel this leg, baby! That said, the Zorb is also a fun little challenge to include.)

4) Leg 1: Santa Monica, US – Punta Ballena, Uruguay (A good way to start the season. Jim gets nailed in the knee right off the bat for escalated tension before the first flight, and him and Marsha finishing tenth make for a great comeback story. Teams continue to make hare-brained choices with departure tickets. Between the trouble of spotting the clue box at the dock and transportation issues, teams from the second departure time catch up by the meat challenge. Meat challenge is meh but fine. Detour is an interesting choice, but nobody failing at Chips devalues it somewhat. Two teams completely miss the Detour clue for an even more interesting finish. Extra-length episodes ensures that it’s not too rushed. A memorable premiere on the whole.)

3) Leg 4: San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina – Pushkin, Russia (The snow in Russia’s debut feels very appropriate. A giant airport scramble that staggers teams a bunch. Drinking vodka off a sword is a fun challenge idea even if the hockey alternative is boring. The caviar is a great Roadblock that shuffles teams around a lot, showcases how our two finalist couples react to intense struggles, and lets Chip show off his eating prowess. Not much else to actually say about the leg, but I liked it a lot.)

2) Leg 6: Giza – Luxor, Egypt (Going way down into the Great Pyramid is the coolest way to start a leg ever. More Egyptian temples as we continue through the leg to keep the coolness of being in Egypt at the forefront. Seeing the big separations between teams at the beginning of the leg is cool even if they all get equalized. Detour is okay but not amazing. Scarab Roadblock (how did none of the teams know what a scarab was?!?!?) is good, pushing Linda & Karen very hard but not mattering for them since Marshall & Lance have fallen so far behind. I rate this leg so high because the fact that we’re still in Egypt propels it up, if not so high as the previous leg, and because the defeat of Marshall & Lance is quite interesting to watch unfold during the leg.)

1) Leg 5: Pushkin, Russia – Giza, Egypt (Egypt! Giza! THE SPHINX AS A PIT STOP! The search for the painting in Russia is a good way to start the leg, and two teams finagle better flights than the others for a lead going in – much better than a team getting stuck far behind the others. Fast Forward is inconsequential, but seeing Colin & Christie with such a big lead is its own brand of interesting. Once we get to Giza, the ambience of the area propels my viewing experience to new heights, and the tasks are inspired as well. The Osiris shaft is so-so, but the puzzle and map is a cool concept that works pretty well, and pulling the stones across the sandy field is a great challenge to highlight the location. Linda & Karen and Kami & Karli fall far behind despite being tied up to start the leg – not an easy leg for the teams to get through! Did I mention that the Pit Stop is THE FREAKING SPHINX?!?)

Team Rankings

Since putting out my Season 4 blog post, I’ve finally put my finger on how to describe what I’m ranking the teams based on. I think the best way to define a ranking here is “How much net ‘good stuff’ a team adds to the season.” ‘Good stuff’ is still a somewhat nebulous term, but includes interesting storylines, fun or interesting moments, and rootability. By contrast, ‘bad stuff’ like unpleasantness or bad moments can detract from a team’s ranking. This also explains why longer-lived teams naturally tend to place higher, since they have that many more episodes to contribute good stuff. Diluting the good stuff with a lot of episodes doesn’t inherently detract from my ranking, although it may make the good stuff of a shorter-lived team stand out more.

With that all being said, I had a particularly hard time with this season’s team rankings – in particular, ranking the second- to sixth-place teams (in terms of Race placement) against each other proved to be quite difficult. Quantifying the “good stuff” wasn’t easy to do in this case! It didn’t help that in most of the cases I don’t think the team was all that great anyway. But here’s what I ended up with?

11) Allison & Donny (A team that comes in ready to go arguing with each other, insulting each other, and in general being jerks? Not to mention the fact that Allison is a Big Brother import? Thank goodness they went out so early. My memory had previously been that Allison was the nasty one on the team, but on a rewatch Donny is possibly even worse.)

10) Dennis & Ericka (They had a decent little storyarc of repeatedly getting in trouble because Dennis was trying to be a nice guy. However, even within the premiere, it feels like a bit of an afterthought, what with missed clues, knee wounds, and the like. If they can’t stand out in their only episode then they’re certainly not season standouts.)

9) Bob & Joyce (A very nice and likable team. Joyce has a fun energy to her and Bob makes a good counterpoint. The problem is that they don’t get much content, and nothing that they do during the Race is memorable. That and the fact that they’re only in for four legs severely limits their impact on the season.)

8) Marshall & Lance (The Pizza Bros have obvious negative aspects – mainly the way they go happily insulting and hating on others. “Bitch!” “Useless foreigners.” “I hate her soooo much!” However, as characters they’re somewhat redeemed by their interesting arc where Marshall’s knees gradually deteriorate until they’re no longer able to come close to competing with the other teams, and become the first team to quit the race. It’s not enough to propel them to being good characters, but it’s something. Their Leg 2 Roadblock performance was also fun.)

7) Brandon & Nicole (They’re usually decently likable, and have some good moments sprinkled in their thirteen episodes, but not a ton. The early-season storyline of them allying with teams, only to unwittingly alienate them, was interesting but rather short-lived. Editors liked to make a joke out of their Christianity, which I didn’t find particularly amusing. They did have a nasty moment in Tanzania with the bus driver, and a couple of other little fits from Nicole, but they also get enough other interesting moments (like Nicole’s struggles at the caviar Roadblock) to merit a placement above the Pizza Bros. They also make a good third contending team to have at the end; prior to the arrival in Texas they were mostly treated as legit contenders.)

6) Jim & Marsha (I don’t like Marsha very much; it all started with her being unnecessarily antagonistic towards Charla & Mirna, but she’s also clearly trying to steer all of both the teams’ decisions and narratives, and it kinda rubs me the wrong way. That said, Jim makes up for it. His tough-as-nails yet classy attitude is very endearing and make this a team for me to root for. The whole saga of Jim’s leg is fascinating, and the way that he just brushes it off at all times (“Nobody’s ever died from pain.”) makes it that much better. They don’t have as much in their other two legs (hence why they’re down here), but are still good scrappy underdogs to root for.)

5) Kami & Karli (A very oddball team, most notable for holding the record for most legs finishing in last place or next-to-last place. They tended to either make mistakes, or just fall behind anyway. That said, they’re a definite presence throughout their time on the season, mostly likable, their mistakes provide some good moments, and their relationship with Chip is a good storyline.)

4) Charla & Mirna (Hello, polarizing teams! Charla gets fawned over by producers a bit too much during the season (three second place finishes is good, but not that good) but takes a good attitude towards the race and earns her successes. Meanwhile Mirna is just so extreme. They start the race without allies for who knows what reason, but end up with only one ally because Mirna’s been alienating everybody else. Some teams legitimately wrong them, but she’s willing to blow any sort of perceived slight out of proportion and consider it an attack against them. They have some nice/fun moments, but also some that are bizarre in a way that I don’t enjoy, and Mirna definitely goes over the line at times (especially when talking about Colin). There’s just so much that Charla & Mirna do during the season that it makes them difficult for me to rank. I don’t love any of their stuff, but also don’t really hate any of it, and ultimately I don’t mind them during their seven episodes, so I’m willing to give them a decently high rank over less prominent teams.)

3) Colin & Christie (I really didn’t like this team before; after a rewatch, I’ve softened on them considerably but still don’t think they’re that great. Colin & Christie are defined by their intense yet adept racing, which certainly makes them interesting from the perspective of race results, as they fight their way to the front many times. They also show a weakness in their palates, allowing Chip to sneak a couple more wins away from them. There’s also Colin’s intensity, but it doesn’t really come through in a way that really adds much to their characters for me. He’s super serious when they’re checking in, but it doesn’t really cross any lines of humor for me, and his meltdowns aren’t that great from my perspective either (and the case of the Tanzanian taxi driver is a downright shameful moment for him, where any humor is canceled out by how crappily he’s treating the locals). For me, the only significant factor going for Colin & Christie is their position as the juggernauts and team to beat for the season, and to a lesser extent their arc of getting knocked back in Leg 11 only to gradually fight their way back in. It’s a well-filled, solidly-defined role, enough to put them in front of the less-defined and less-significant teams, but it’s not enough to make them a great team in my estimation.)

2) Linda & Karen (The scrappy underdogs of the season, Linda & Karen are not the best at travel, which puts them frequently in the back of the pack, but soldier through and are a fun and likable team in the meantime. They (especially Karen) are a bit too willing at times to give up and succumb to despair, which ends up costing them the race, but that doesn’t consume their characters. Linda especially has a lot of energy which makes their successes more fun and their hard times more interesting, plus they’re a less athletic, down-to-earth sort of team which increases their appeal. They don’t have much in the way of specific memorable moments, but unlike Bob & Joyce they’re still very present in the episodes and their lack of moments is made up for by the general Linda & Karen experience. A great addition to the season.)

1) Chip & Kim (Chip is wonderful. He’s a ton of fun throughout the season. He tends to say things with funny inflections, he gives us some truly oddball expressions (mostly when addressing Kim), and he’s just such a big hearty fun personality that you can’t help but love him. He happily talks about how much they’ve messed up. After the tussle with the twins in the second leg, he demonstrates his friendliness towards them in an endearing fashion, culminating in a hilarious Yield psyche that he immediately regrets. Oh, and he’s a champion eater. Kim isn’t quite the big personality that Chip is, but she’s fun in her own right and can make a good counter to him sometimes. Chip & Kim are easily the most likable team through most of the season and the biggest competitors to Colin & Christie. It’s too bad that they get so serious in the last three legs, because they become much less enjoyable and it tampers with the perception of their overall characters, not to mention the fact that they definitely start to stray away from being the heroes. But even with their weak ending, Chip & Kim are a great team and my favorite winners through this point in TAR history.)

Conclusion

Updated season rankings:

1) Season 3

2) Season 1

3) Season 5

4) Season 2

5) Season 4

Many people love Season 5. Even my wife said that it’s her favorite season so far (mostly because she liked all of the top five teams). But all of the aspects that so many others love just don’t work so well for me. I don’t think that Charla & Mirna or Colin & Christie are that great. The route just doesn’t feel that epic to me. The showdown between Chip & Kim and Colin & Christie isn’t that amazing to me. As a result, for me Season 5 is nowhere near being the best season of all time. But I do think it’s a very solid season. As I’ve said, there are no glaring flaws. By my reckoning, it overall ends up as a mid-tier season (and mid-tier is still a good place to be).

I consider Seasons 1 and 3 to be on a higher tier than the other three, so they remain at the top of my rankings. Season 5 may have a weak finale, but the entire ending sequence for Season 4 was much weaker and it doesn’t rise to as great heights, keeping it in last for the time being. I compare Season 5 most closely to Season 2, and while it was a tight decision to make and I was considering putting Season 2 higher for having more interesting teams (to me), ultimately the Egypt legs tip the balance in favor of Season 5. The Giza episode truly does reach heights that few, if any, other episodes reach, and that was enough in my book.

I don’t plan to do any in-depth posts for this season. Up next, we go from one of the most popular early seasons to one of the least popular. Season 6 has its share of critics, including myself, but also a section of fans who maintain that it’s rated too poorly. Will I see what those fans see on this viewing? We’ll find out… sometime.