A New Season of TAR

CBS’s theme for reality shows must be “Let’s see how bitchy we can make the women.” The Amazing Race debuted last night and it was pretty good but I was amazed at how confrontational all the women in the man-woman pairs were. If the current trend continues, it’ll become really easy to handicap the teams.

My observations so far:

1) Hollywood Couple – They have strength and youth. They fight a little less than some of the other couples but they were in first place for most of the leg so that’s not saying much. Still, I would expect to see them around for a little while.

2) Long Distance Daters – This team could be really good. They weren’t developed at all so I think they’ll stay around for a while. Distance relationships depend on communication and good communication usually means a team doing really well. I would place this team high in my standings.

3) Mormon Sisters – After one episode, this is the team I would pick for the everyone likes and finishes 4th team. They seem to work well and feed off each other. They are also not alike so they’ll compensate for each other’s faults as opposed to the twins of last season.

4) Engaged Models – This team will last a little while but I’d expect a breakdown when things get bad. Communication is a clear problem as demonstrated by the age gap. I suspect this team will have to work out a lot of things after the race.

5) Screamer and Wife – Easily the most hateable team in the early going. This team will flame out and crash hard before too long. The guy should just hope that his wife doesn’t divorce him after the race.

6) Wrestlers – The guy is likable. But his wife clearly wears the pants. She berates him constantly and he just takes it mostly. Sort of an opposite of Colin and Christy last season. They’ll go far if they can stop bickering for a little while.

7) Hellboy and Girlfriend – This team might have a chance if it wasn’t for the fact that they are an ex-couple. Throwing yourself into the pressure cooker that is TAR is not the way to get back together. Tension will shred this team before too many legs is my bet.

8) Queens Girls – They don’t know how to read a map, but they recovered fairly well. They made up some time after the late start. If they can hold it together, they should make a few more legs before time catches up to them.

9) Grandparents – A little more forceful than previous older couples I’ve seen and that makes them entertaining, but I suspect that they won’t last much longer than one or two more legs. They can claim feeling the youth all they want, but attrition will take its toll and catch up to them.

10) Dad and Daughter – Parent/child teams never do well. The dad seems to be my type of guy with his attitude but I don’t know if that’s good enough to stay long in the race. When you’re complaining about your daughter running all the time in a race, you know that you’re not the overall favorite to win the whole thing.

11) Brooklyn Jews – I liked this team and I wish they had managed to stay longer. They had a good repore and seemed fairly smart. They just never quite got the sense of urgency that you need. After losing so much time in the water, they needed to take a highway where they could pile on speed, not look for shortcuts. But they’re history and we can say no more about them.

It could be a good season. I’ll need some more development before I start pegging down teams that I like and want to root for.