A lot of The Amazing Race's new COVID-era rules were "just common sense stuff," insisted longtime host Phil Keoghan. Vaccines were required for the cast and crew, as was mask-wearing during most travel. Testing was frequent and social distancing a must, as was a sense of teamwork that had everyone leaning into each and every protocol. "If you've got one person in a production who gets a little lackadaisical and who decides, 'Oh, what does it matter if I just step outside the parameters and not follow protocol?' That one person can have such a detrimental effect on the rest of the production," noted Keoghan. "And so people took that very seriously on the race, which I'm really proud of."With four different COVID-swabbing teams traveling with the group, "We did have testing around the clock," co-creator and executive producer Elise Doganieri told Variety. Plus some strict no-sightseeing rules for production. "So literally, you're not going out to dinner," she continued. "The crew on your down day, you're just staying in your room."
While the world was, indeed, still waiting for the seven returning teams (two pairs had to drop out during the nearly 19-month layover), in order to travel safe production got very selective with the pit stops. "A lot of fans said, 'If it's so dangerous to go around the world and travel, why don't you just do the show in the United States?'" Keoghan shared. And each time the native New Zealander gave the same response: "Well, going to certain states in the United States was more dangerous than going to some places in the world."In fact, with their carefully curated trek through Europe, which included Switzerland, the French island of Corsica, Greece and Portugal, "If you speak to the cast, they will say, 'I felt safer being on this race in a foreign land than I have felt in my own state in America,'" said Keoghan. "And they're right."
Tasked with plotting a new course following their first three episodes in the United Kingdom, "I picked a route that was mostly in remote areas or small cities," co-creator and executive producer Bertram van Munster told Variety. "We looked very carefully so we could do two or three shows in a country, which we normally don't do. These were all handpicked areas where they had the least amount of COVID, where we had freedom to go into a lot of areas where there's nobody there."That meticulousness made it possible for contestants to still very much experience the promised race around the world. "You have to be more methodical about where people go," explained Keoghan. (As in, don't count on watching racers squeeze their way through the crowded streets of Kolkata.)Still, he continued, "there are public places where you can have distance. It just meant that we didn't want to put people in a congested place where you're suddenly surrounded by thousands of people in a very confined space. We just took that part of it out."
Also Phileminated: Hours spent in airports scrambling for the fastest possible flight. To eradicate the greatest risk of exposure, racers and production flew together on a chartered 757. "It actually opened up a whole new world for us of how to do this in a very different way, but still have the same feel and energy," Doganieri explained to Variety. "It created a close race every single time that plane landed in the next city."
There's a reason Keoghan advised contestants "For God's sake, use your time wisely and become the next [Formula One World Champion Max] Verstappen or Lewis Hamilton and learn how to drive a damn car, will you?" ahead of the shutdown. Because, yes, the enhanced safety of racers driving themselves means viewers will have more opportunities to wonder why the f--k no one knows how to drive a stick shift or read a map. "There is some driving. And there is some disastrous driving," admitted Keoghan. "When we say to people, 'Do you know how to drive a stick?' and they say, 'Yes,' what they really mean is, 'No, I have no clue.' The Amazing Race, I can tell you this, has replaced more clutches and burned out more clutches than any other reality show. Period. Bar none."
That's not to say other forms of transportation have been eliminated from the race. "Well, we could take public transportation like taxis, but it would just mean that we would need to know that that taxi driver didn't have COVID," explained Keoghan. "You're taking out some of the randomness."In other words, anyone that came within breathing distance of contestants or crew had their nose swabbed and arm jabbed. "Everybody that worked on our crew, every judge, every person that you'll see around the contestants has been tested and vaccinated," Doganieri insisted to Variety. "That was just part of our strict protocol rules, but it will feel and look like The Amazing Race. You really won't feel any different from what you're seeing."