Phil Keoghan Describes How ‘The Amazing Race’ Produced Season 33 Amid Pandemic (Exclusive)

The Amazing Race will officially return for Season 33 on Wednesday, Jan. 5 on CBS. The season was unlike any other though, as filming was suspended in February 2020 around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the show was able to resume filming this past summer. Ahead of the premiere, PopCulture.com spoke with The Amazing Race‘s host Phil Keoghan, who shared how they were able to make Season 33 happen. 

According to Keoghan, there was much discussion about when and how they would be able to complete Season 33. Above all, the production team wanted to make sure that they could keep the cast and crew safe when they did return. Of course, the host said that The Amazing Race had its own set of unique challenges because of how they travel to various locations around the world — a feat all the more difficult amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 

Due to the pandemic, the production implemented a major change — the introduction of The Amazing Race plane. Keoghan recalled that the plane was actually photographed by fans and that it has been “a bit of a game-changer and it did help facilitate getting a group of people who were … all in our Amazing Race bubble [to] ensure that we could move from country to country safely as far as the air transportation went.” As for whether The Amazing Race will incorporate these changes on a more permanent basis, Keoghan said that they’ll “adjust accordingly.” He continued: “And that’s what we did with the return of this season and, going forward, and I do believe we’ll be doing more Amazing Races soon. We’ve shown that we can do it now during a pandemic, so I’ve no doubt that we’ll be doing more.”

Season 33 will pick up right where it left off following the production shutdown. When asked whether there was a possibility that the show might move on with a new group of contestants, there was no question in Keoghan’s mind that they would finish what they started. “I think it would’ve been a disservice to those who had sacrificed so much, in the beginning, to just clear the slate and start again. So, I was very excited to know that we were going to pick up where we left off. To me, that was the right thing to do,” the host said. “I think you get that story of, ‘What’s happened to you? What have you been through?’ A hunger and a desire for people to be like, ‘We got knocked down, all of us got knocked down by what happened, but we’ve picked ourselves back up, we’re going to finish this and we’re going to finish it together.’”

The Amazing Race airs on CBS on Wednesday night at 8 p.m. ET and will stream on Paramount+. For a trial subscription to Paramount+, click here.