Tuesday nights are officially booked

I thought the two-hour premier was a fine return to form for The Amazing Race. Not just from the unwatchable monstrosity that was The Amazing Race: Family Edition, but from the lackluster seasons that preceded it, too. My big complaint was that the casting had become quite tame, and it was hard to tell the teams apart because so many were young, white, blandly attractive "dating couples." So I was happy to see the mishmash of folks they brought together this time. Hippies! Nerds! Psychos! More like the classic seasons of TAR that hooked me on this show years ago. And it was great to see the teams being forced to navigate such a huge foreign city right off the bat. Anyway, so much happens and there are so many people running around in the early episodes I always have a hard time getting much of a read on the teams. And it takes a few eliminations before I start feeling like I really care who loses. But here are a few observations:

• It's not always obvious which Detour task will be more time consuming. But as soon as I heard that tonight's choice was between BUILDING a frickin' MOTORCYCLE and flying in a helicopter, I thought the right choice was obvious. Come on--unless you're a mechanic, you're a fool to even try messing with an engine. So I don't have a lot of confidence in the long-term viability of the teams that chose that one.
• I usually don't root for racers who shriek a lot. And when garden-variety shrieking is augmented with shrieking to Jesus for help and shrieking to no one in particular about how she's gonna pee her pants, it's pretty much settled that I'm not rooting for the Glamazons to stay on my TV for long.
  
• The Cute Older Couple is a stock element of this show. And the couple's stock line is that they're going to use their wisdom and experience to gain an edge on those foolish young 'uns. The Cute Older Couple then proceeds to make mistake after bonehead mistake as they fall far behind their younger, stronger, less dumb competition. It happens so often you'd almost think it's scripted. Fran and Barry, thanks for playing along. Sheesh.