I saw that no thread had been started yet. The new season kicks off this Sunday Feb 23 with 11 teams of returning "all-stars".

I was checking my dvr to make certain I had the show set up for recording the entire season, and I was noticing the description for the first episode and it said something like "...and one team doesn't make it to the starting line.." This makes it sound like what they did back in S15 when they had a challenge before they went to the airport and eliminated a team right away (Eric & Lisa) but I think its a red-herring. Race rumors have been rampant for a long time that scheduled team of Bopper and Mark did not actually race together, but instead Mallory (of Gary and) replaced Bopper, and this was done at the starting line. I guess we'll see.

The 11 teams include:

Three peaters:
-Globe Trotters
-Margie and Luke
-Cowboys
-Mallory (if rumors are true)

Two-timers
-Brenchal
-Afghanimals
-Twinees
-Mark (other half of Bopper)
-Dave and Connor (father son cancer survivors)
-John & Jessica
-Joey & Meghan (u-tubers)
-Caroline & Jennifer (country singers)

I have to say, probably one of the few times that I've gone into a season with extremely low expectations. There are very few teams on this list that I like or even think deserve to be there.

There is absolutely no reason to bring back teams for a 3rd time, especially these three teams, all of which have made final 3 once and didn't get the job done.

Then you have the really annoying group consisting of Brenchel, Afghanimals, Twinnees and the U-tubers.

Then there is the forgettable team, the Country Singers. I couldn't remember them, much less that they finished 4th in their original season.

I guess the rest would kind of be the sob story teams, for how they exited. Boppery (Mallory) and Mark, Dave & Conner with the dad rupturing his tendon or whatever that was, and John-Jessica getting eliminated with the Express Pass in their back pockets.

Its really hard to get behind any of these teams. The Cowboys/Trotters seem to be like the Rupert-Boston Rob of Survivor. Lets just keep bringing them back and hopefully eventually one of them will finally win and we can be done with them.

I would have really liked to have seen Andy-Tommy (snowboarders from S19) back, or Abby-Ryan from S21 or even Art & JJ, and am really surprised the Chippendales aren't back. Honestly, all my teams would have been probably S9 and earlier, but if they were only going to pick from the last 6 seasons, they could have done better.


I guess my default pick to win would be John and Jessica. Despite the bone-headed move on John's part, to first switch detour tasks and to then not use the EP at the roadblock resulting in elimination, they were one of the more interesting teams that season and had potential. Dave and Connor had the great backstory, being dual cancer survivors, but I didn't really find myself caring about them too much.

So....The World is waiting.. Travel safe.. Good luck..Go!!