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The Amazing Race Host Phil Keoghan Previews The Season 27 Premiere
http://parade.com/425836/joshwigler/the-amazing-race-host-phil-keoghan-previews-the-season-27-premiere/ The Amazing Race Host Phil Keoghan Previews The Season 27 Premiere
September 25, 2015 – 11:49 AM –
By Josh Wigler
After twenty-six seasons racing around the world, Phil Keoghan is bringing everyone back to where it all started for Season 27.
In the new edition of The Amazing Race, premiering on September 25, eleven new teams of racers will find themselves following in the footsteps of the original competition, revisiting iconic locations from the very first season.
But that won’t be the case for everyone. The race hits the ground running right in front of a live audience in Venice Beach, with each team heading straight from California to Brazil, where one pair will be eliminated, not quite 24 hours after they started. And Jack Bauer thought he had bad days.
I spoke with Phil Keoghan about what we can expect from the coming race, the season one call backs, his thoughts on Amazing Race 26’s dating twist now that it’s over, what we’ll see in the premiere episode, and his thoughts on a few of the new season’s teams.
What should The Amazing Race fans look forward to this season?
The same thing that keeps people coming back, season after season: Great teams and great new destinations. That seems to be a winning formula! It’s always fresh. You never see the same things on The Amazing Race. However, we are visiting some of our iconic locations from season one — you’ll see those appear as stars throughout this season. They’re peppered throughout the season. I know some of the original Amazing Race fans will get a kick out of that.
We’re going back to Victoria Falls, for instance, we’re going back to the Taj Mahal, and we’re going back to the Arc de Triomphe. Those are three pretty iconic spots, and they were all in season one.
How did the idea to revisit season one locations come about?
We just started thinking, “Why don’t we go back to this country? Why don’t we do this, why don’t we do that?” Some places are just so iconic and such wonders of the world, some of the most famous buildings in the world, something that’s so special that it’s okay after 15 years to go back and take another look.
What was the experience like for you, revisiting these locations after all these seasons away?
I have actually been back to some of those locations since season one with my other adventures and with other travels. For some reason, I seem to keep ending up at the Arc de Triomphe. I shot a rollerblading piece at the Arc de Triomphe in, gosh, must have been 2004. I’ve been back there for the Tour de France three or four times. I shot a documentary retracing the 1928 Tour de France and I shot around the Arc de Triomphe. So that particular structure, I almost feel like I live there. [Laughs] It was great to go back and remember it from an Amazing Race perspective.
The new season follows on the heels of Amazing Race 26, which featured dating couples versus blind dating couples. How do you feel about how that season turned out?
It was great. Fans loved it. It was nice to do something different. We weren’t successful necessarily in matching up love! But we were successful in creating great teams and TV.
Were you surprised by how well the blind dating couples performed?
I was very surprised. None of us saw that happening. In fact, there were some fans who went so far as to say, “How can you do that to the teams? They’re at a disadvantage!” So it definitely surprised us and it surprised the fans. Who would have guessed the last three teams would all be blind date teams? It was crazy. It was a fun thing to do and a fun thing to try.
Tell us how the new season begins.
What I loved about what we did this season, and I would like to do it every season, is we had a live start at Venice Beach, where we invited fans to come out. That was a real highlight for me this season, just to have the energy of our fans and former Amazing Racers there at the starting line. So many starts we’ve done where we’re secluded and in the middle of nowhere. No one knows what we’re doing, no one is around us — there’s no audience. It’s kind of like doing a stage show where there’s no audience feedback. In this particular situation, they’re on a stage, but not just a stage. There’s a huge crowd reacting to who they are and what they’re saying. There’s a lot of yelling out and connecting. It works out not just for hyping up the teams but hyping up all of us as well. We got a real kick out of it.
It’s amazing how much stuff is in this first episode. First of all, from the start, you’ll see some former Amazing Racers lined up, including the very first winners of The Amazing Race. Rob and Brennan are standing right there. It’s so cool. I still have a connection with them, going back to season one. To have them come out and support the show and still be such big fans of the show speaks to the experience that everybody has on the show. A lot of the ex-Racers still want to be connected with the greater Amazing Race family. I think it speaks to what the show is about. All of these fans were at the starting line, sending live video from their phones to friends around the world. There’s this amazing live energy at the start of the show. In my opinion, it’s the best energy we’ve ever had.
