Amazing Race (US) chartered a plane to resume filming safely

During COVID most shows wrapped themselves into strictly-controlled bubbles so that they could film safely.

But what do you do when your show is The Amazing Race?

Season 33 had to halt filming after just 3 legs were in the can in early 2020, sending cast and crew home and waiting some 18 months to resume.

The season will finally premiere in the USA in early January. Having left off in Glasgow, Scotland, it returns via Zurich, Switzerland with host Phil Keoghan saying, “Welcome back to The Amazing Race… before we were so rudely interrupted…”

Producers tell Variety they even chartered a 757 jet, complete with TAR logo on the side, shuttled contestants and crew from place to place without having to enter crowded airports.

“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,” Elise Doganieri says. “It created a close race every single time that plane landed in the next city… I think you’re going really like the way the show plays out with this plane. It might be the wave of the future, but I don’t know if it’ll be affordable for a global trip.”

“I picked a route that was mostly in remote areas or small cities,” Bertram van Munster says. “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.”

“Some of the best TV we get is when these contestants self-drive,” Doganieri says. “Nothing makes these contestants more crazier than when they have to figure out how to get somewhere without a GPS device. So there will not be any taxis, there will not be any public transportation with other people. But we definitely have some buses and shuttles and different means of transportation. And we also stayed out of those places that we felt were going to be filled with people that weren’t tested. So everybody that worked on our crew, every judge, every person that you’ll see around the contestants has been tested and vaccinated. 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.”

You can read more on how the show addressed COVID challenges here.