“The world is waiting,” Phil Keoghan used to say at the start of every Amazing Race, but even he could not have anticipated the wait for Amazing Race’s 33rd season — stopped in mid-race nearly two years ago by the SARS CoV-2 coronavirus, later dubbed COVID-19.

Keoghan and Amazing Race producers Elise Doganieri and Bertram van Munster waited it out, even when the long wait seemed a fool’s errand — a life-saving vaccine, followed by a deadly variant, followed by another variant, followed by booster vaccines, followed by an even more transmissible variant — and yet, in the end, the wait paid off. This past Wednesday The Amazing Race returned to home viewers, slightly retooled and considerably more world-wise.

After 20 years and 32 trips around the world, more than 600 “Racers” have tested their mettle against the clock, airline schedules and the capriciousness of fate and ill timing. Over the years The Amazing Race raced across 90 countries, but there were times in the past year when it must have seemed as if just one more country might prove a bridge too far.

And yet, here we are — 11 new teams embarked on the journey of a lifetime, and in the end one team made it all the way through to first place. The milestone season that began in February, 2020 finally crossed the finish line and made it onto the air in January, 2022. In a teleconference call from his backyard garden in New Zealand, Keoghan — looking no worse for wear — joking referred to the 18-month hiatus as the longest pit stop in the show’s history. It was no accident that one of this season’s early pitstops was in London’s Natural History Museum, beneath the gargantuan skeleton of a blue whale, not far from the marble bust of Charles Darwin and next door to the stately home of the Royal Geographical Society, founded in 1830 bySir Francis Beaufort and the ill-fated polar explorer Sir John Franklin.

Freezing to death in polar ice was the furthest thing from Keoghan’s mind when the 33rd season of Amazing Race resumed; he was simply happy to get the Race running again.

“When we started 20 years ago, it was mind-blowing,” Keoghan recalled. “I'll always be thankful to Bertram and Elise for coming up with a great idea that fit right in with my passion for travel and people. I would never have believed that we would still be here 20 years later, with a show that feels as fresh as the day we started. It's never the same. I think if I was doing a studio show, and I was going in and doing the same thing over and over again, rinsing and repeating the same formula over and over again, I would definitely have gone stale on the idea.

“But Amazing Race has never felt that way. Honestly, it feels maybe more relevant today than it was even 20 years ago. It was groundbreaking 20 years ago, and I think it continues to push boundaries all these years later. I love being a part of something that seems to have has resonated with the audience. And those audiences seemed absolutely desperate for us to get back. They have been waiting for the world, and thankfully we're able to give it to them again.”

That’s not to say running The Amazing Race in the age of COVID was easy.

“You live, you learn, you adapt, and you try to make the best of the situation,” Keoghan said quietly. “I think what we've tried to do is embrace the changes and find a way to use use them to our advantage.

“We just rolled with the challenges of shooting during COVID. And as Elise said, we managed to get everybody back safely, which has been our number one priority from day one, and still is today.”

Running The Amazing Race in the age of COVID had its compensations. The production chartered its own plane, for one, a Boeing 757. No more squabbles at airline counters over seating availability. With the airline industry in utter chaos — it still is — using their own plane eliminated the need to work around cancelled flights. It’s taken away one of Amazing Race’s more familiar elements — teams scrambling to be on the first available flights and vault to the front of the line — but there were practicalities involved.

“It was comfortable,” Keoghan admitted. “We didn't have to stand in long lines, all those things you don't see on the show, but are very taxing on all of us. We didn't have to deal with that, so that was kind of … yeah, it was a welcome change.”

In the end, any season of The Amazing Race — even a COVID-affected season — comes down to the teams in the Race.

“Casting has done a fantastic job over the years of just having really dynamic, memorable teams,” Keoghan said. “And ultimately, if we don't have good teams, we don't have a good show.

“No matter how good the challenges are, no matter how well we shoot it, no matter what we do, if we don't have good teams, we don't have a show.”

The Amazing Race’s 33rd race around the world is airing Wednesdays on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.