‘Amazing Race’ still going strong

Ten seasons, five years, 22 winners, hundreds of discarded clue envelopes, and "The Amazing Race" has two more 20-something male winners.

As friends Tyler and James crossed "The Amazing Race 10"'s finish line, they became the show's fifth team of guys in their 20s or early 30s to win the race. Models and former drug addicts, as they reminded us nearly every episode, the two weren't always in first place as teams traveled around the world to four different continents, but they came in first when it mattered most.

Close behind them were Rob and Kimberly, the couple with the relationship that everyone (except them) knows is dysfunctional. Despite screaming at each another in between quasi-tender moments, Rob and Kimberly stayed at the top of the pack, placing first twice and third seven times. But even though they were on the same flight from Paris to New York as Tyler and James, a cab driver without an E-Z Pass or an idea of where they were going ensured they couldn't beat the other team to the finish line.

Lyn and Karlyn, who made race history by being the first all-female team to make it to the final leg, were all but left behind in France, unable to get on the same flight back to the States as their four competitors. Still, they didn't give up.

"I've starved so much on this race, I'm not even the fat lady, so ain't singing," Lyn said.

World travel makes for drama
Despite being five years and 10 seasons old, "The Amazing Race" isn't singing yet, either. The competitive reality series first debuted in 2001 about one week before Sept. 11, and after that day, a reality show about often-annoying Americans racing and flying around the world didn't exactly seem like escapist fare.

However, the show's generally good-natured approach to competition, incredible cinematography, and engaging premise helped its popularity grow over time. That continued until the eighth season, when ratings began to slip. That season featured families of four racing primarily around the United States, not around the world.

Yet in a television world where nearly every show seems to be a copy of a copy before it, "The Amazing Race" remains the only adrenaline-fueled action/adventure reality series that television has given us. Other shows have moments of action ("The Contender" has its boxing matches, for example) or thrilling locations (the Anderson Cooper-hosted "The Mole"), and many offer competitions for prizes ("Survivor," among many others).

But unlike series that leave the core of the drama to come from their casts, "The Amazing Race" is largely dramatic due to its non-stop action from start to finish. Its distinct format — the result of a bet between executive producers and husband/wife team Bertram Van Munster and Elise Doganieri — leaves the drama primarily up to the locations, and the locations' effect on the teams. That produces plenty of interpersonal conflict, but the series is powered by the fact that it's a race, not a war between people.

Despite that solid premise, and even after returning to form after its eight-season stumble, much of the race feels familiar after 10 seasons: the frantic scramble for airline tickets, the bickering couples, the desperate taxi rides, the pulse-increasing music, two strong younger guys crossing the finish line first.

The cast always changes, but often the teams seem all too familiar.

Every season, the producers make small but sometimes significant changes to the race itself to try to keep things fresh. That doesn't always work, but during this 10th season, there were two major changes, and both dulled the steadily increasing interpersonal conflict-based drama in favor of the actual race.

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