The Amazing Race 31 premieres April 17th

Cafe Society
1

The new season comes back on April 17th. This year the theme is returning reality TV stars, with five returning from past seasons of The Amazing Race, 3 from Survivor, and 3 from Big Brother.

I know the Amazing Race fandom on this site has dropped off a lot from the glory days (of ten years ago!) but some of you might remember a user named Zut’s excellent Taxi Assessment’s where they ranked each contestant and gave their thoughts on their success. As that’s been gone for a long time I thought I’d give my hand at it.

These are my earliest pre-Race assessments. I’ve based this on player’s past performances and their bios on CBS’s website. Fair warning: I have not seen Big Brother, Survivor:Gabon or Caramoan (Corinne) or Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X (Chris and Bret). So for those teams I’m basing my rankings off of a little research of their seasons, youtube, and bios. But if you think I’ve overestimated or underestimated anyone feel free to let me know! Also, I know there are supposedly spoilers out there but I haven’t looked them up, so all Taxi Assessments are based only on my very fallible opinions.

With that said, let’s jump into:
Taxi Assessment (Inspired by Zut)

Stuck in the Desert and Officially Detained- or, Philiminated with extreme prejudice.
No one yet- The race has not yet started… but people will be joining here all too soon…

Flat Tire- or, not likely to get anywhere soon.
No one yet- none of the teams strike me as already weak, or having too many flaws to potentially make it all the way. After the premiere, it will be easier to judge if someone just doesn’t have what the Race takes.

Stopping for Gas- or, not broken-down, exactly, but not a good sign.
Corinne & Eliza (Survivor: Gabon and Caramoan; Survivor: Vanuatu and Micronesia): This is an interesting pairing as they have never actually competed together in any reality TV show. Rachel and Elissa Reilly also have not competed together, but they at least have a sister relationship. Corinne and Eliza are good friends through the Survivor commonality, but their friendship has not been tested by fire. Corinne is well known for (and brags on her official TAR 31 bio) being a “bitch” and Eliza, while more generally well-intentioned can also be quite difficult to work with. If they can turn that outwards towards the other racers, it can be an effective tool, but if it goes inwards it can stall their game. The reason I’m placing them a little lower is that physically they are not the strongest- Eliza famously almost starved on Vanuatu and Corinne never won a single individual challenge in her Survivor history. Certainly willing to bump them up if they perform well in the premiere.

Nicole & Victor (Big Brother 16 and 18; Big Brother 18): We’ve seen a number of Big Brother couples on the Race before. Some, like Alison & Donny, just fight infinitely and crash immediately. Others work together for the most part and have a lot more success (Jordan & Jeff, Cody & Jessica). The question here is which group will Nicole and Victor fall into. Supposedly Nicole is stronger at Big Brother’s social game (which doesn’t translate a lot into TAR) while Victor is bad socially but a challenge beast (which absolutely does translate). If their relationship is strong, Victor’s physical skills could get them far, and having good teamwork can get them the rest of the way. If not… not so much. The fact they got engaged very shortly after the race, and their relationship seems generally healthy makes me suspect they will fall into the latter camp, but that’s definitely up in the air.

Rupert & Laura (Survivor: Pearl Islands, All-Stars, Heroes vs. Villains, and Blood vs. Water; Survivor: Blood vs. Water): These two definitely have the advantage of a strong relationship, which can be a huge boon in this game. Rupert is also probably the most famous of all the contestants, and we have seen goodwill be a big factor both among other contestants and especially among strangers in other countries. I would bet that Rupert is the only person in this cast that random people on the street worldwide might recognize (not as much as in the 2000s, but you never know). But two things concern me about their overall potential. Firstly, their physicality. Rupert was a physical monster in his early seasons, but as he’s gotten older he’s slown down a bit. Still strong but not the beast he once was. Laura was never great at challenges. Also, Rupert is the oldest contestant in the game. 54 is far from old, but he is definitely at a disadvantage over 20 and 30-somethings. Still, people his age and even a decade+ older have dominated in the Race before, so I’m willing to be proven wrong!

**“Rapido! Por Favor?”- **or, making meaningless ineffectual comments from the back seat, but in no immediate danger.
*Becca & Floyd (The Amazing Race 29): *Team Fun back and ready for action. These two definitely were highlights in their original season, and they come back with the big advantage of actually being friends and not strangers this time around. Their uniquely goofy, optimistic approach to the Race definitely is a strength, especially in a season that I suspect will (with so many reality TV stars) have a lot of pessimisism and infighting. The main reason I’m giving them a middle of the pack start is that they aren’t the physically strongest team out there, and they had a very slow start in TAR 29. Also people tend to ignore the fact that Becca has a long fuse, but when her temper goes off it tends to be explosive. Hopefully that stays quiet, but it could potentially be destructive to their long-term game. Weirdly enough Floyd is the only player in the Race who thinks the Racers will not be the strongest overall; he said he is most worried about the Castaways from Survivor.

Tyler & Korey (The Amazing Race 28): I was initially going to place this team a little lower, as their strength always seemed to lie in their social skills, and not quite as much in their physical prowess. I’m not sure how this seasons is going to play out, but I suspect the social game isn’t going to be as important as it was in the season of 100% YouTubers, who live for that kind of thing. That said I’ve been looking them up and it looks like both of them have been *working out * for this season, so maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss! Either way, they have the advantage of experience in the race, but at the same time, if I had to pick one Race team that might get surpassed by Survivors and Big Brothers, I’d have put my money on Tyler and Korey.

Janelle & Britney (Big Brother 6, All-Stars, and 14; Big Brother 12 and 14): The big question for this duo is how their relationship together is going to be. From my understanding, Janelle is a challenge beast on Big Brother, and while Britney isn’t known for that, is no wimp either. That can translate really really well for them in the Race. However, both of them seem to definitely play into the drama aspects of Big Brother, and on TAR you won’t be interacting with the other teams as much as with your partner. If they turn to infighting it could blow them out of the water, and as they apparerntly weren’t able to work together due to trust issues on BB 14, they don’t have a lot of experience in that kind of pressure-cooker relationship. On the other hand, if that doesn’t become a factor for them, I could see them doing quite well. I’m placing them here above Corinne and Eliza because physically theyare the strongest of the all-female teams, which is a big plus in this game.

Rachel & Elissa (Big Brother 12 and 13, The Amazing Race 20 and The Amazing Race All-Stars; Big Brother 15): I’m SUPER fascinated to see what happens with this team. Rachel, as much as I can’t stand her, has earned her spot in Amazing Race All-Stars, as she did consistently excellent despite massive amounts of drama, and never were eliminated in either of their seasons. She and Elissa have a big advantage over the other non-Race teams just due to her experience and success in the Race. Of course, will having no Brendon be a strength or a weakness? Supposedly the two sisters are very close, but they are also very similar in personality. Brendon and Rachel’s relationship may have been toxic but somehow that toxicity pushed them to Race success and even forged them close together. Undeniably they were very close, and Rachel drew a lot of strength from him (and him from her). Will the two sisters be able to succeed? I think Rachel’s strength will be a big leg up, but it could really go in either direction. I do notice her bio warns that she hopes her sister will listen to her experience- which would be smart of Elissa’s part.

Chris & Bret (Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X): Chris and Bret were strong alliance members on Survivor. So they have the relationship and the experience in tough situations to stick it out. The Amazing Race tests friendships, but I’ll admit not as much as Survivor. They stuck together through that so this should be quite doable. The questions is how will their strengths translate to the Race. Supposedly Bret was a strong social player but quite inept at immunity challenges, which could be quite a disadvantage here. Chris on the other hand was seen as strong both socially and physically. As I haven’t really seen them in action, I think that a middle of the road guess is a just one, and whether they succeed or fail is equally possible.

**
In the Passing Lane**- or, ahead of the pack, but not quite comfortably.
Art & JJ (The Amazing Race 20): OK, Art and JJ are not the two-most loved teams in Amazing Race history. But despite their aggressiveness, boorishness, massive egos, and abilities to piss off even their closest friends and allies, they also are damn good racers. I think their physical achievements tend to get overlooked as Major Dave and Rachel broke TAR records in season 20, meaning that in any other season Art and JJ would have dominated. But, these guys have an average position placement of 2.25, the fifth best in Race history. Plus they never scored lower than 4th place in any leg in season 20. Sure, they might be cocky but they can usually back it up. Their biggest weakness however is getting rattled- when Dave and Rachel and Team Brenchel managed to get under their skin they did seem to make some bad choices and that was the stretch of the game where they struggled the most. So if they can get past that I think they can play strong.

Colin & Christie (The Amazing Race 5): Not gonna lie. I’m a big Colin and Christie fan. So my bias is definitely at work in placing them higher in this ranking. But Colin and Christie undeniably are some of the most influential racers of all time. The strategic and intense approach they took to the Race pushed them to break records that would stand for years, and to be one of the most dominant teams of the early Amazinf Race. The big question is: with how much TAR has changed, will they still have what it takes? Airport strategy and such is less important now, and the social game is a lot more influential. I for one think they have the strong stuff but I’m willing to admit that it may be their strengths are no longer as important to the modern Race. I’m putting them here tentatively but if the premiere shows they are struggling they might get a downgrade.
*
Leo & Jamal (The Amazing Race 23, The Amazing Race: All-Stars):* Might be controversial, as these two are not generally the most popular, but the camera-smoozing crazy duo have earned this spot. The Afghanimals did excellently on both their seasons, getting an average placing in each of 3.73. They know how to race, they’ve done it more than anyone this season except Rachel Reilly, and they also know how to improve. They are one of the *only * teams in Race history who came back for a second season and clearly identified the mistakes they had made previously and changed their gameplay accordingly. That kind of adaptability shows they can do well in the Race, and if they keep it up it can serve them well in round three.

Cruisin’ with Earl- or, drivin’ on the shoulder, takin’ shortcuts, and generally kickin’ butt.
No one yet–this ranking needs to be earned.

2

Nice, thanks for the heads-up.

The structure of BB14 was four teams of 4: one returning vet as a coach and 3 first-time players that the coaches picked in a schoolyard pick at the start of the season.

The four vets were Britney & Dan (who teamed up until Dan got Britney evicted with his “funeral”) and Janelle & Boogie, who also teamed up. Britney and Janelle never fought or had trust issues; they just happened to start out (and end up) on opposing teams. By the time the teams concept was dropped, alliances were already set. IIRC, Janelle was one of Britney’s BB heroes, so I don’t foresee any lingering issues from BB14 for them.

Britney is probably my favorite CBS reality star from any of their shows, so I’m excited.

3

Question. Has this contest switched to a World Rally Championship/Tour De France-style format where everyone begins each stage at either the same time or at predetermined regular intervals (preferably the former since there are relatively few contestants), and the winner is the team with the lowest overall time for all the stages?

I’ve given some thought to this exciting but badly flawed (or badly flawed but exciting, if you prefer) show, the things I liked, the things I disliked, what made them so likable or dislikable, and what exactly it would take to bring me back. And here’s what I keep coming back to…if this contest did nothing more than to adopt a sensible format that’s proven its worth in many serious sporting competitions, that would, in a single stroke, fix everything. You can still have the big drama of the host meeting with each team in turn and telling them their positions. You can still have anudda-wun-bi-da-dus based on slowest overall time. You can still have bitter rivals bickering and jostling and getting in each other’s way. You can still have wrong turns and misinterpreted clues and missed stops and frantic homestretch dashes. Literally the only things a proper format would take out are huge leads being unfairly evaporated and dumb luck being such a big factor.

Longshot, I know, but a man’s gotta dream.

4

ShaynePC thanks for the heads-up. I’m not excited about another TAR full of former reality show contestants (they’ve done something like this before, right?) but I’ll probably watch anyway. Also, thanks for stepping up and taking a shot at the Taxi Assessment. I do miss zut’s presence in these threads.

DKW I’ve had the same idea, that they should do it more like the TDF where the winner is based on total time rather than just winning a leg. Elimination could be the team with the highest overall time at the end of the leg, rather than just whoever comes in last. I guess the only downside would be if you had a really dominant team that made the outcome obvious long before the final leg. But there are ways to get around that too, like have the top three teams compete in a two-leg final, or something.

5

Other than the obnoxious Rachel Reilly (and her almost-as-obnoxious sister), this sounds like a good season.

6

Not looking forward to either Rachel or Rupert.

BTW, this season started last June, so if they go someplace like Iceland or Scandinavia, there is going to be a lot of daylight I don’t have any spoilers.

7

Holy crap I didn’t notice that in the OP the first time through. That may be reason enough not to watch it after all. Maybe I’ll just monitor the thread and see if she gets bounced early.

(Has there ever been a Big Brother contestant on TAR that wasn’t completely unlikable? I can’t think of any…)

8

IMO Jeff and Jordan are not completely unlikable.

Certainly not as unlikable as Rachel.

9

I loved Cody and Jessica on TAR even though I didn’t particularly like them on BB. On BB, they were basically arrogant dicks, but then everyone else in the house became legit gradeschool bullies with them – like way over the line – which made them sympathetic by contrast. Then on TAR without the extremely toxicity of the BB house they seemed fine, like (highly competent) normal people, and that appealed to me as a redemption story. (They aren’t dicks anymore, wow!) It helped that I was also rooting for the teams they were friends with.

Jeff and Jordan are adorable wherever they are.

I can’t stand Rachel Reilly. The only time she was even moderately tolerable to me was when she was paired with Jordan after Jeff and Brendan were evicted on BB13.

10

Th majority of legs feature some sort of bunching (same flights, something that not’s open) early on, so everyone usually starts on the same level.

11

So did anyone watch the premiere last night? I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I’m glad the Race is back. ShaynePC’s ranking seem amazingly accurate, especially we haven’t seen most of these people race before. With the major exception of Art & JJ of course, who were hit by the rarely seen “Racer simply cannot complete the Roadblock” elimination.

But the Afghanimals (who I’m rooting for) and Colin & Christie seem like they’ll be comfortably at the head of the pack all season.

12

Yeah I watched almost in real time; just late enough to skip commercials. I’d forgotten how much I love TAR. What’s it been, like 16 months or something since last season’s finale?

My favorite thing with reality shows like this are the challenges, and TAR is essentially one giant 60-minute challenge every episode. So good.

My #1 team by a mile is Britney and Janelle from BB. They were the second ones to head to the final mountain climb thing, right behind the Afghanimals, but then got lost and arrived at the climb in 7th place. Britney was right up the thing, and Janelle picked a chocolate shoe on her first try, so in terms of challenges at least they’re looking solid so far.

I don’t really care about any of the Survivor teams. Rupert cracked me up with the “I don’t even know what to do…” as they went to commercial break, but it feels like the Survivor people consider themselves above the other two shows. Survivor is a bigger show, yes, but it seems petty. Let’s face it: Everyone on the show (except maybe Tyler) is a complete nobody. Thinking you’re a “bigger star” first requires you be a star. I could be reading more into it than is there, though.

Speaking of Tyler, he has more subscribers to his youtube channel (8 million, they said?) than this season will have viewers. If it’s back to Wednesdays instead of Friday purgatory, I’m hoping for as high as 6 million. Over 5 at least.

Victor and Nicole from BB have already started being cringeworthy to me. Nicole sure was on her seasons (super whiny, and nasally when whining), but Victor was okay. But then on subsequent reality shows Victor’s gotten worse, probably because of hooking up with Nicole. (I saw him on a season of MTV’s The Challenge. Super douchey.)

After Britney & Janelle, my #2 rooting interest is against Rachel and Elissa. In an ideal world, Elissa would do great at everything and Rachel will fail a task to get them eliminated.

Loving team fun despite not liking them much (but not disliking either) last time.

13

I definitely got that same vibe, as Corinne and Eliza were assessing the other contestants. Of course, the race rapidly put them in their place.

As a long-time TAR viewer, I am pleased that Colin and Christie are still monster racers. And they’re good-humored enough to joke about their infamous meltdown. I want to see them go far, if not win the race altogether.

14

I did not expect Rupert to scoot up the mountain like that.

15

Since I don’t have a good enough memory to remember who is from where, I’ll share this tip thst I noticed (that the producers might abandon at any time):
The team names are color-keyed to their previous shows.
Big Brother is blue, Amazing Race is yellow, Survivor green.

16

Especially after watching Art (or was it JJ?) struggle to get up. It was an odd challenge, some teams had a lot of trouble and others just got right up there. Was there some kind of trick to getting up that some teams just weren’t seeing? (There were some places along the way where the fabric looked bunched up, but I couldn’t tell if they were supposed to be actual hand-holds or just places where the fabric was fastened down.)

17

Seemed to me like the handholds were clear and obvious once you noticed them, making the challenge the equivalent of like a 10- or 20-foot long set of monkey bars. Doable for any reasonably capable adult. (Read as: Any adult who would sign up for a reality show with dopey physical challenges.)

He saw and used the handholds, but was just physically incapable of doing it.

18

Pretty much everyone was playing up the inter-show rivalry, it’s going to be the running theme this season to keep expecting inane questions from Phil about it (on par with the blind date season I’m sure). It’s probably just amplified by the fact that Corrine/Eliza are huge assholes and Rupert is very much a tribal type.

But yeah, despite Art and JJ’s early exit, I fully expect the Race veterans to dominate. All their teams are pretty solid. I wasn’t surprised at all by Rupert & Laura’s struggles (Rupert’s a sore loser and not exactly physically dominant), and I totally agreed with whomever made the comment about Rachel previously being carried by her husband, so replacing him with her sister doesn’t bode well for their chances.

19

When Rachel said something like “…and this time I get to race with my bestie, my sister!”, I sort of snorted to myself and said “So your husband’s smart enough to not sign up for a third lap with your insane ass then”.

At the moment, my picks are Leo and Jamal or Becca and Floyd. Tentatively, if they can hit a difficulty and not have a meltdown, Colin and Christie - that they can joke now about “my ox is broken” may be a good sign - but whether they can hold that cool when the shit’s hit the fan is another question.

Rachel likewise joked about her meltdowns, but she’ll have one the moment things stop going their way. Tyler and Korey were pretty solid on their last appearance, and may be able to keep that up and improve on it with experience.

Corinne and Eliza seem to have come to the point of needing to rapidly reassess their initial assessment of how much of an edge their Survivor experience gives them - not much, really, because they’re only still in the race because Rupert and Laura spent most of the episode getting lost, and Art and JJ failed miserably (was that injury at the final roadblock?)

Nicole and Victor - I don’t know US Big Brother but if he’s a challenge beast, that’ll help them. Ditto Janelle and Britney, if they can work together.

20

It looked like the challenge was easiest on the first try when your suit was dry. Once you fell down once, it got harder to hold on with wet sleeves and pants. It was smart of Leo to realize he needed to dry his suit to climb up, but a lot of the teams seemed to go up easily on the first try. Could have been editing, though.