The Amazing Race is back with its special 35th season! This time, they’ve added some new things while keeping some old favorites. The biggest change is that the episodes will now be 90 minutes long for the whole season, along with Survivor 45. This means the season we’re watching isn’t exactly the 35th one they filmed. CBS wanted longer episodes, so the show’s creators took a new route and planned to make each leg exciting and full of content.
The creators, Bertram van Munster and Elise Doganieri, explained that these longer episodes let us see more of the cities we visit, the people, and the culture, and learn more about the contestants and their relationships with each other.
In the first episode, teams will have a challenging task right away: walking on a tightrope over the famous Biltmore Hotel. But they won’t be alone; well-known past racers will be there to judge their performance. After that, they will travel to Asia. What’s interesting is that, after a while of not being able to due to COVID, the show is now using regular commercial flights again. They’re no longer using the special plane they used in seasons 33 and 34.
Season 35 has more exciting things from the past too! They’re bringing back two important elements: the Express Pass and the U-Turn. The Express Pass lets a team skip a task, like a challenge or a task on the road. The U-Turn lets one or two teams make another team do both parts of a challenge. These things have caused a lot of drama and strategy in recent seasons of the show.
Just like the season before, season 35 of The Amazing Race is keeping some things from the time when COVID was a concern. There won’t be any legs where no one gets eliminated. To make this work with the longer episodes, they’re having a huge 13 teams compete this season. This is the most teams ever in any American Amazing Race season. All 13 teams are excited to travel to places like Thailand, India, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, and even a new country for the show, Slovenia. The race will end in Washington, back in the United States.
Take a look at the pictures below to learn more about the 13 teams in the competition this season. Before the race started, Parade.com did interviews with the teams. The new season of The Amazing Race will begin on September 27 at 9:30 p.m. ET on CBS.