Season 13 of The Amazing Race has been added to CBS’s fall lineup. Like past seasons, the show will consist of eleven teams of two—these duos will be given numerous different mental and physical challenges around the world. From filleting fish to successfully mastering yoga positions, the challenges prove to be difficult for many and those teams that lag behind slowly get eliminated. The first team to cross the finish line is declared the winner of The Amazing Race and receives a 100 million dollar prize. -Kate Rogan

Is it really amazing?
Not in the sense that the Mississippi River is amazing. Not even in the sense that apple croissants from Bread & Chocolate at Grand and Victoria are amazing. However, there's an argument to be made that it is amazingly non-annoying compared to 90 percent of reality-show fare.

The Guy With the Difficult-to-Identify Accent
Phil Keoghan, late of the Travel Channel, is the host. You don't actually see Phil more than two or three times an episode -- he used to mostly appear at the end to deliver the bad news to the team that's eliminated, making him sort of the reality-show Grim Reaper, but in the second season he started greeting all of the teams at the end, cutting off the first-season tradition of having the contestants informed of their placement by a local greeter. The accent, incidentally, is reportedly from New Zealand.

Why Phil's Not as Annoying as Jeff Probst or Julie Chen
We see him less often. Also, he's cute. Also, he has an attractive accent. And frankly, just not being Jeff Probst or Julie Chen is a big help.

Joe and Bill: These life partners alienated the audience and the other contestants with their matching outfits and wicked, wicked ways, but no one can deny their traveling skills. Your designated villains.

Frank and Margarita: Separated parents of a young daughter. He's blustery and aggressive and she tends to roll her eyes at him a lot. They're good, solid players who rarely screw up.

Matt and Ana: This married couple started the race by acting rude and seeming not to be overly bright, and they stayed that way -- right up until they departed at the end of the very first episode.

Nancy and Emily: Mother and daughter. The show called them "Conservative Mother and Adventurous Daughter," but that dynamic seemed a little off. They're cute, and I think everyone who has a mother admires the fact that they get closer during the race, rather than growing to hate each other.

Rob and Brennan: They're lawyers, but don't hold that against them. They're a trifle too pretty, but they played the game like Unstoppable Robots of Pure Efficiency, and it paid off big-time.

Dave and Margaretta: Brought on as the token "older" people, Dave and Margaretta have been married 40 years. They're so nice, you'll want to bring them home.

Lenny and Karyn: Yeah, they're the "Dating Couple." But by the end of the race, they were the "Formerly Dating Couple." She yells a lot, and he lollygags a lot.

Drew and Kevin: These former fraternity brothers are bald and pudgy and unquestionably the most entertaining people on the trip. They insult and adore each other. They are Captain One-Liner and His First Mate.

Paul and Amie: This engaged couple has a serious bickering problem, but they were competent enough to get from one place to another without too much trouble.

Kim and Leslie: This pair of teachers (I have no idea, and cannot imagine, what they teach) and roommates had a tendency to wander a bit aimlessly. A bit too aimlessly, in fact.

Pat and Brenda: These "working moms" are good friends. They earned some affection from the crowd just by not being irritating.

Tara and Wil: They're separated, probably because they can't stand each other. They were married once, though, most likely because nobody else would put up with either one of them. She looks like Woodstock Barbie, and he looks like the brother who was kicked out of the Baldwin family for being ugly and badly dressed.

Chris and Alex: They're bouncers, and you can identify them by their syrup-thick Boston accents. Nice arms, though. Alex is the darker-haired one. Chris is the tall one.

Shola and Doyin: Twins. If you're trying to tell them apart, Shola has the earring -- good luck and God bless. Early on, a crippling fear of heights was a hindrance, but they were a physically strong and clearly intelligent team.

Hope and Norm: A lovely couple eliminated at the end of the second episode. Thick, thick Tennessee accents. They loved each other. Awww, we hardly knew ye.

Cyndi and Russell: Married pastors from Minnesota, they're very peppy and positive, and they see (unsurprisingly) the hand of God in lots of places where I might not.

Peggy and Claire: They called themselves the "Gutsy Grannies," and IÂ…did not. You have to give them credit for taking on something like this in their sixties, but they didn't seem to have quite the attitude necessary.

Mary and Peach: Mary is an athletic go-getter who drags the reluctant Peach around like a little red wagon. Peach seemed to be getting a little more game as she went along, but a case of the ick derailed them in the end.

Danny and Oswald: They are so not a couple. Really. They call themselves "absolutely fabulous," and I really can't argue with that description. Danny's the squattier one with the glasses, and Oswald is the tall one who looks sort of slick and eternally youthful, like the lost member of Menudo. (And aren't they all pretty much lost now, except Ricky Martin?)

Deidre and Hillary: The mother-daughter team had a poor first leg and was eliminated, but they were fun while they lasted. Sigh.

Blake and Paige: Brother and sister. I can never decide whether they're sort of squarely cool or whether they're just cheeseballs. They're fairly good competitors, though, and rebounded nicely from some early setbacks, including Blake losing their money. Do not look directly at Blake's teeth. If you want to view them, make a pinhole in a piece of black paper and look at them through that.

Gary and Dave: Gary is the one who looks like Woody Allen and constantly tries to be funny. Dave is the bald one who tries slightly less strenuously, but is equally not funny. Feh.

Gerard and Ken: They're brothers, they're bald, and the producers sold them to us as opposites on the basis of things like Ken being liberal and Gerard being conservative, Ken being gay and Gerard being straight, and so forth. They're really not that opposite-ish -- they're good racers, they get along well, and they're silly, which we like. Ken is the bigger one, Gerard is the littler one.

Derek and Drew: They're brothers, too. They're twins. And models. They're doing the tall/dark/gorgeous thing. And there are weird naked pictures of them on the internet. Do not email me and ask me where these pictures are.

Tramel and Talicia: Brother and sister, they called themselves TnT, and blew up in the second episode after an unfortunate encounter with a WaveRunner. It was a shame. They were funny.

Teri and Ian: They've been married for twenty-one years. He wears a hat that looks like the one Pepe Le Pew wore when he ran off to join the French Foreign Legion. They are very, very mean to each other. He yells a lot. Yuck.

Dennis and Andrew: Father and son. They were sold on a whole thing about conflict they had over Andrew being a gay cheerleader and Dennis being a strict Southern Baptist and so forth. As it turned out, they were really just trying to get to know each other, like a lot of college-age guys and their dads. They left in the third episode, falling victim to bad airport karma.

Heather and Eve: Recent Harvard Law School graduates, they had matching peach tank tops and matching long hair. They didn't like to work too hard, and sometimes tried to make things a little easier by crying. They were eliminated in the fourth episode, when they pretended that a clue that said "walk to the pit stop" meant "take a taxi." The resulting penalty knocked them out.

Michael and Kathy: They had a long-distance relationship that they were trying to test out in person by running the race together. He talked like an aging hep cat, and she rarely talked at all. In the fifth episode, after filling their diesel vehicle with unleaded, they were eliminated.

Flo and Zach: They're friends. Supposedly, there is sexual tension between them, though we have never seen it. Mostly, she whines, and he tries to figure out how to keep her functioning. He has big crazy frizzy hair, and he tames it with weird headbands not often seen on men.

Aaron and Arianne: They're your "Will and Grace" team, supposedly. They are best friends, but they're just not that funny. They were the organizers of the HugeTiny alliance that included Flo and Zach and Michael and Kathy, Heather and Eve, and sometimes Jill and John Vito. She is substantially tougher than he is.

Jill and John Vito: They're dating. Her brother was his best friend, and died on September 11th in the World Trade Center. To everyone's credit, they haven't mentioned it since the first ten minutes of the season. He's the hugest and she's the tiniest of the HugeTinies. He has monstrous big arms, and she looks like a wee little blonde thing. She is, in fact, the toughest person in the entire race, bar none. How tough is Jill? Jill eats rocks for breakfast.

Andre and Damon: They're best friends. Andre is a cop, Damon is a fireman. They tend to do fairly well with navigating and physical tasks, but don't seem so good at figuring out clues or working the airport.

Gina and Sylvia: No one warned them that they shouldn't name themselves, so they were the self-titled "soccer moms." After van problems and a generally difficult first leg, they were the first team eliminated. It's a tough job, but somebody has to do it.

Debra and Steve: Self-described as "fat, forty, and fun," they ran into a little trouble in the Alps and went out in the first episode. Seemed nice enough, though.

Chris and Amanda: They swore, they yelled at each other, she did little Snoopy dances...they were really beginning to grow on some of us, but they got bounced in the second leg.

Russell and Cindy: She thought maybe they were dating. He was pretty sure they weren't. She was better off that way, not that she seemed to know it.

Steve and Josh: Father and son, they suffered a mysterious defeat after disappearing off the map in France and showing up in the dark of night.

Steve and Dave: The air traffic controllers showed up with an upbeat attitude and no shortage of fat jokes, but a determination to do the entire race without so much as trotting eventually caught up with them.

Monica and Sheree: Both of these best friends were married to NFL players, and they put up a good battle. India did them in, however, as it will do from time to time.

Tian and Jaree: Friends and models. They fought, they made up, they got dirty, they got eliminated. Just when some of us were starting to like them better, too.

Millie and Chuck: Some were fascinated by the fact that they were virgins; some were fascinated by the fact that they had apparently found a way to have their senses of humor surgically removed. After refusing to sleep at pit stops to the point where they were literally at risk of passing out in the middle of a leg, they were finally eliminated.

Kelly and Jon: He's an ass, she's catty...they're engaged, so it somehow works for them. They don't like Millie at all, but if you ask them to come up with something other than her lip-mole to make fun of, you can watch them scratch their heads for quite a while.

Al and Jon: They're both clowns. Actual circus clowns. They raced very well and efficiently, but they went out after an airport mishap in Korea.

David and Jeff: Who? Seriously, it took some of us about five episodes to fully accept the fact that these bland surfer boys were in the race, considering that they appeared to have no discernible personalities whatsoever. They emerged as sort of lovable bumblers, however, and that has helped somewhat.

Chip and Reichen: They're married, they're very pretty, and they really don't like it when you butt in front of them in line. Sympathetic to the less fortunate and friendly to orangutans, they have fans in both the deep and shallow ends of the pool.

Dennis and Erika ("once engaged")

Alison and Donny ("reality fame-ho and long-suffering boyfriend")

Jim and Marsha ("bleeding father and impatient daughter")

Bob and Joyce ("surprisingly grumpy old man with friendly girlfriend of a certain age")

Marshall and Lance ("unfunny brothers")

Charla and Mirna ("dwarf and harpy")

Kami and Karli ("or possibly vice versa")

Linda and Karen ("steeeee-rike!")

Brandon and Nicole ("non-bald models")

Colin and Christie ("broken ox and harping enabler")

Chip and Kim ("slowest and most lovable winners ever").

Avi and Joe ("New York Jews in Iceland")

Meredith and Maria ("non-stick driving friends")

Lena and Kristy ("unlucky Mormons")

Don and Mary Jean ("old married couple acting like one")

Gus and Hera ("beer-liking father and daughter once beaned on the head")

Jonathan and Victoria ("try to forget they were on")

Adam and Rebecca ("dysfunctional crazy-ass weirdos")

Freddy and Kendra ("impromptu diplomats")

Kris and Jon ("nice, pretty, smart")

Lori and Bolo ("hi-YAH!")

Hayden and Aaron ("dating actors, like Brad and Jen, but with more cleavage and less facial hair").

Ryan and Chuck ("Ah concur")

Megan and Heidi (blonde on blonde)

Debbie and Bianca ("Andes? Is that the ocean?")

Patrick and Susan (overbearing mother and whiny son)

Ray and Deana (horse-kicking on-and-off "couple")

Brian and Greg (adorable brothers)

Lynn and Alex (more "mean" than "funny")

Meredith and Gretchen (able to leap tall buildings despite arthritic hips)

Rob and Amber (controversy in, controversy out)

Ron and Kelly (least affectionate dating couple ever);

Uchenna and Joyce (bald, beautiful, awesome).

The Schroeders (New Orleans, led by blowhard dad)

The Linzes (three fratty brothers and their long-suffering sister)

The Bransens (three blondes and their nifty pop)

The Blacks (two adorable moppets and their parents)

The Gaghans (blonde bad-ass moppet, snarky brotherly moppet, and their hot parents)

The Weavers (BOOOOO!)

The Rogerses (family led by another blowhard dad, with improbably awesome son)

The Godlewskis (four squabbling, noisy sisters)

The Aiellos (a father and his three entertaining sons-in-law)

The Paolo family (hollering parents and their two hollering boys).

John and Scott (one weird friend, one normal friend)

Lisa and Joni (occasionally incontinent and very tall sisters)

Wanda and Desiree (adorable mother and daughter)

Danielle and Dani (it said "PINK" on their asses)

Dave and Lori (romantic nerds)

Ray and Yolanda (long-distance couple)

Lake and Michelle (conservative dentist and Roadblock-shunning wife)

Fran and Barry (unsociable older couple)

Joseph and Monica (pretty dating couple, of which certain other seasons would have featured four or five exact replicas)

BJ and Tyler (adorable hippies -- or insufferable hippies, depending on your point of view)

Eric and Jeremy (just friends!).

Season 1
In the end, right at the last minute, it was Rob and Brennan who took home the million.

Season 2
Chris and Alex, very narrowly beating Wil and Tara, in a triumph of...well, slightly less evil over evil.

Season 3
Flo and Zach. Our heads still hurt when we think about it.

Season 4
Chip and Reichen edged out Jon and Kelly at the finish line, which proved...something.

Season 5
Shockingly, someone likable won: Chip and Kim beat out Colin and Christie in a race to the finish.

Season 6
Freddy, Kendra, and Kendra's boobs.

Season 7
Uchenna and Joyce pulled it out at the last minute over Rob and Amber.

Season 8
The Linzes, because God hates the Weavers.

Season 9
BJ and Tyler, who probably still haven't showered since their victory.

The Producer
Jerry Bruckheimer is the executive producer of The Amazing Race. He has, in the past, also produced or co-produced a variety of overblown Hollywood movies, including but not limited to Coyote Ugly, Days of Thunder, The Rock, Remember the Titans, and Armageddon. You get the idea. It's all about (1) saving the world; (2) becoming a man; and (3) belly buttons. He also produces C.S.I.

The Crew
The teams travel with two crew guys each. This is why, from time to time, you will catch references to the fact that when teams book flights, each team actually has to book four tickets, not two. If there's not space for your crew, you can't go.

Season 12
12-1 Donkeys Have Souls, Too (11.04.07)
12-2 I've Become the Archie Bunker of the Home (11.11.07)
12-3 Please, Lord, Give Me Milk (11.18.07)
12-4 Let's Name Our Chicken Phil (11.25.07)
12-5 We've Really Burned Bridges, For Sure (12.02.07)
12-6 Cherry on Top of the Sundae That's Already Melted (12.09.07)
12-7 This Is Forever, Now (12.23.07)
12-8 Honestly, They Have Witch Powers or Something! (12.30.07)
12-9 I Just Hope He Doesn't Croak on Us (01.06.08)
12-10 Sorry, Guys, I'm Not Happy to See You (01.13.08)
12-11 The Final Push (01.20.08)

Phil Keoghan (host)

Season 12
Kynt & Vyxsin (Dating Goths)
Jennifer & Nathan (Dating)
Ronald & Christina (Father/Daughter)
Shana & Jennifer (Friends)
Azaria & Hendekea (Brother/Sister)
Lorena & Jason (Dating)
Nicolas & Donald (Grandson/Grandfather)
Ari & Staella (Best Friends)
Marianna & Julia (Sisters)
Rachel & TK (Dating for almost one year)
Kate & Pat (Married Ministers)