All Stars!

I've been hoping to see an All-Star edition of The Amazing Race since about, oh, Season 7. And I was pretty pleased with the casting overall. Almost as much for who isn't there than who is. No Hippies. No Jonathan & Victoria. No Lake & Michelle. But the most striking thing is, there's only one team that actually won the race the first time around. And it looks like they deliberately left out all the young, athletic dude teams (see winners, previous) in favor of the aged, the also-ran, the co-ed and the girly. So yes, they are stretching the definition of "All Star" performance-wise, but they made up for it in pairity and potential entertainment value.

I would have boycotted the show if they hadn't brought back Oswald & Danny, a.k.a. my favorite reality contestants on any show ever. Mirna & Charla were another must-have. Rob & Amber are overexposed, but they're legit and I enjoyed watching them the last time around. The one big miss is no Colin & Christie, but I learned from the Internets that Christie is pregnant, so I can't whine about the oversight. I'll just have to imagine what would have happened when Colin's short man complex went head-to-head with Boston Rob's tough guy syndrome. And it looks like we'll get Mirna & Schmirna versus the Beauty Queens as compensation, and I think that will offer some quality conflict.

As for who will win--who knows? With no physically dominant team, it's really anyone's race. Well with one caveat: Kevin & Drew are not going to win. Those guys looked ready to check out on the drive to the Miami airport. Disappointing. Rob & Amber are an obvious pick to take the prize, but maybe they're finally getting burned out on the whole "reality whore" gig and won't bring their A Game. Terry & Ian are sleepers. I'm curious to see if Eric, he of the icky pierced nipples (in honor of which I'm going to call him Nips from now on), can drag his deadweight, "DD" Danielle, to the front of the pack. Something tells me he just might. But if we saw anything last night, it's that these "all star" teams will keep it interesting will all kinds of amateur hour mistakes. And that's what I want to see. The efficient teams can be boring.