The Amazing Race is going Hollywood and for the first time ever, 13 teams will start the journey of a lifetime at Los Angeles’ very famous white-lettered sign.

Season 35 is set to premiere Wednesday, Sept. 27 at 9:30/8:30c with its first 90-minute entry of the season. (Every episode will, in fact, be super-sized.) The new cast (see photos below) includes a Deaf dad and his son (Rob and Corey), a pair of college besties (Malaina and Andrea), two young veterans (Liam and Yeremi) and more. The show’s new globetrotters will endure a 23,800-mile adventure around the world and visit a new country, Slovenia, known for its beautiful landscape and dramatic scenery. There, teams will fly in a gravity defying glider, 2,000 feet over Lake Bled, cross-country ski indoors and climb 1,110 steps to the top of Planica’s tallest ski jump.

Other locations for the season include Thailand, India, Germany, Sweden, Ireland and Washington state, and by the end of the trek, one team will be awarded the $1 million prize.

The racers are in for plenty of surprises this season when a former team serves as judges at the end of the first Roadblock which sees team members cross a perilous tightrope stretched in between two rooftops. The show is also returning to commercial traveling, and will once again have no non-elimination legs. Plus, the Express Pass is back (!) and a twist on the infamous U-Turn will shake things up and make this season of the Race more competitive than ever.

Jocelyn Chao (49, Grocery Store Manager) and Victor Limary (49, Grocery Store Manager)
Married from Albuquerque, N.M.

Liam Hykel (23, Navy Veteran) and Yeremi Hykel (24, Marine Corps Veteran)
Brothers from Cheyenne, Wyo., and San Marcos, Texas

Malaina Hatcher (45, Tax Examiner Technician) and Andrea Simpson (44, Director of Credit Management)
Best friends from Philadelphia, Pa.

Joe Moskowitz (35, Head of Business Development for a Commercial Real Estate Tech Platform) and Ian Todd (40, Sr. Director of New Business for a Marketing Tech Start-Up)
Engaged from New York, N.Y.

Steve Cargile (54, Residential/Commercial Paint Contractor) and Anna Leigh Wilson (28, Speech Pathologist, Private Flight Attendant, Influencer)
Father and daughter from Petty, Texas, and Royse City, Texas

Morgan Franklin (31, Marketing Executive) and Lena Franklin (29, Marketing Executive)
Sisters from Brooklyn, N.Y., and Los Angeles, Calif.

Ashlie Martin (38, Hospitality Account Manager) and Todd Martin (38, Special Education Teacher)
Married from Chino, Calif.

Robbin Tomich (41, Stay-at-Home Mom) and Chelsea Day (41, Stay-at-Home Mom)
Childhood best friends from Kirkland, Wash., and Shoreline, Wash.

Greg Franklin (25, Software Developer) and John Franklin (27, Product Manager)
Brothers from New York, N.Y., and Mountain View, Calif.

Rob McArthur (48, Teaching Assistant and Assistant Football Coach) and Corey McArthur (25, Senior Manager of Client Strategy and Analytics)
Father and son from Riverside, Calif., and New York, N.Y.

Joel Strasser (42, Auto Claims Training Specialist) and Garrett Smith (43, Delivery Driver)
Best Friends from Kuna, Idaho, and Meridian, Idaho

Elizabeth Rivera (52, Retired Lieutenant) and Iliana Rivera (27, Entrepreneur)
Mother and daughter from Tampa, Fla.

Alexandra Lichtor (34, Consultant) and Sheridan Lichtor (29, Consultant)
Siblings from Chicago, Ill.

This was actually filmed after what will become season 36. I guess for this season they knew they needed 90 minutes episode to air after the 90 minute Survivor. So it seems the next season to air will be back to 60 minute episodes unless they decide they need to go back and pad them out to 90 minutes.

From what I read, season 36 was already edited into 60 minute episodes. They decided to shoot a new season for the new 90 minute format than reedit 36.

Didn't know about the 90 minute episodes. That will be interesting.

Bring on the game!

Both Survivor and The Amazing Race are going to be 90 minutes this season.

I also read recently in an interview with Phil and the producers that they are bringing back teams booking their own flights (the chartered flight option used during COVID was thought to make things too predictable and less exciting to watch), there will be no non-elimination legs, they are bringing back the U-turn and other 'fun surprises'

This is one of my all time favorite shows. I would be happy if each episode was 2 hours. But as always it depends on casting of teams. In the past 10 seasons of Survivor since CBS went 'woke' with diversity quotas the show has suffered greatly. I just hope Amazing Race doesn't fall into that same trap! Don't choose teams based on diversity and quotas. Choose people who will actually be fun and interesting to watch!

All CBS reality shows have diversity quotas now even The Amazing Race. https://www.realityblurred.com/reali...rsity-promise/ I think the last two seasons of the Amazing Race have been some of the best of the series after the diversity promise was started.

Yes and we will have our forum game too!

awesome, looking forward to it.

All good news, unless the “no non-elimination legs” continues to just mean “keep racing” followed by a bunch up as it did last season.

I kind of fell off on this show after the COVID disrupted season. But, I'd like to get back on it and now that the whole world is back open, it should hopefully be close to a normal season.

Hope they bring back the FF.

I don't give a crap about casting. 'Woke' is the most overused term ever. I never really cared about the contestants in this (and outside of Rob/Amber I could never name one from previous seasons on recollection). I just like seeing the locales and the interesting challenges.

90 minute episodes will feel too long. I've actually been watching a few random older seasons over the summer (the first one I didn't remember who won, the second one I remembered all three of the top 3), and it's interesting to recall how much of the episode runtime was taken up by flight maneuvering that usually didn't mean a thing on end placement. Some of the episodes it's easily a full third of the runtime.

They will, but with the writers strike, I fully expected it. They need to fill. Even with writers, this is the only show (outside of sports and 60 Minutes) I watch on CBS.

I think ninety minutes episodes are good thing, at least in the first half of the season. With TAR, it seems like a lot of teams and challenges get shorted.

But I think that the ninety minute run-time might be too long once they start eliminating teams and get it whittled down to six or seven. When they're down to four or five teams, even the one-hour run time seems padded a lot of times.

Season 35 premieres tonight in case anyone forgot.

I real can't stay up at night to watch it so will be still be on Paramount Plus like the last one?

Yes it will.

This was a return to the pre-COVID race, no more charter flights or private driver cars.

It made for a fun return with the teams focusing on efficient travel time again. I felt bad for that one couple whose husband screamed to wait during the Thai massage. They endured 45 minutes of that thanks to the reset rule. The right team got eliminated since the brother just seemed out of the loop.

Nice to see Derek and Claire handing out clue envelope to the cast.

I think the team that had to restart the event got shafted. Previous teams said no and stop and wait and they kept going.

I don't understand how the two women who used the Fast Forward and ate the bugs didn't end up as Team number 1???

Wasn't the Fast Forward supposed to take them directly to the mat with Phil? What a waste if they used it and didn't even need to. I'm assuming that is the only Fast Forward for the season because I think previous seasons only had one. So I guess they burned that up early.

Do they have to use the Express Pass right after winning it? Or can they hold on to it for a later time when they really need it. I was assuming it was the second situation. I don't specifically remember them doing the Road Blocks, but there could've been a quick shot of one getting a massage.

Has there ever been a more passive challenge before? Just take a 30 minute massage (well, except for the dumbass who goofed around and had to do it twice). Editing can play tricks, but it gave the impression the swords challenge took much longer.

They didn't use the fast-forward, they just won it. Doing the challenge ate up some time. They can use it to skip an event in a future episode.

Yeah, they ate the plate of bugs and earned an express pass, but they still had to complete the same tasks the other teams did on that leg.

They could have used the pass to skip a task, but didn't.

As far as I know, the express pass is good for the rest of the race, though they might not let them use it on the final leg.