The sights change. The challenges change. The mix of contestants changes. While The Amazing Race is known for sometimes repeating successful challenges and often repeating the types of challenges contestants face, Phil Keoghan opened up about the “huge advantage” the longtime CBS series has over other shows in the space, and while I’ve never seen it put so succinctly, I agree it’s the magic bean that has grown the show’s success from the ground up..
The Amazing Race is heading into its 37th season when it returns to the TV schedule in 2025. While the show has gone from two cycles in its peak to one a year in more recent years, it’s still immensely popular and a staple for a large swathe of television viewers across platforms. Keoghan recently spoke about the show’s longevity, calling it a “testament to consistency” and also explaining to Gold Derby the “huge advantage” the series has over most reality shows.
It’s a testament to the team. It’s a testament to consistency. I think that’s one of the hardest things to do. A lot of reality shows have come and gone because some don’t have that ability to sustain over a long period of time. With our show, I feel like we do have a huge advantage in the fact that we can actually put something fresh and original up every year, every season.
The closest thing to Amazing Race probably used to be Survivor, but while Survivor has added new “twists” (both good and bad) in recent years, it also has a more homogenous cast (in some ways) than it used to and has stopped switching locations globally for filming, instead typically going to Fiji. Because it is so much less contained, The Amazing Race probably has the most moving parts to pull off of any reality series (that I can think of at least) and that forces constant innovation.
As part of the list of 2024 Emmy nominations, Keoghan also said that landing awards nods helps them to understand where they are as players in the reality game. This year it landed its 21st Emmy nod. It beat it’s own previous record for most nods in the reality category. That’s how the show knows it’s still in the zeitgeist.
It’s almost like that’s our measure of ‘Are we still hitting the mark?’ And are we still part of people’s reality television-watching, so it’s something that we never get blasé about because we’re striving to be there with the best shows and there are some good ones out there. And I think for us to still be in the mix is pretty awesome.
The overall tone and vibe of The Amazing Race has changed across its decades on the air. We’ve gotten away from some of the more dramatic reality personalities of early seasons and there have been myriad changes to the way the game is played as time has gone on. New challenges crop up, as there’s been a big complaint about teams working together in recent Race seasons.
But I think the important thing to note is that Phil Keoghan and the Amazing Race team are never stagnant, and that has produced a consistently exciting show for more than 20 years. With a little luck, they’ll be a lot more where that came from.