The Amazing Race Season 33 was compelling even before the pandemic hit

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"The Amazing Race 33 will be a season like no other, thanks to the 1.5 year gap in the middle of the season, and the changes that followed," says Andy Dehnart. "But the big surprise is that before the pandemic shut down production, it was already a very different season. I thought I’d accidentally started watching Big Brother, because we met the teams in their homes, pretending to be surprised when they got a message saying they were on The Amazing Race, in case they missed the giant clue: the camera crews standing there filming them." He adds: "I’m watching this season with a renewed sense of appreciation for what it takes to produce the series, because of this, and remembered that back in season one, after the start in Central Park, the crew suddenly realized that the teams were ahead of them. I also wondered if perhaps it was cheaper to start this way than to assemble the cast and crew in an American city and just immediately fly them somewhere else. The more I thought about it, I vastly prefer this to what happened during season 31’s premiere: multiple challenges that became meaningless because of the first-flight equalizer."