TV Week TV Week

“The Amazing Race” begins its 22nd season Sunday on CBS.

By Kate O’Hare © Zap2it

The 23rd season of CBS’ competitive reality show “The Amazing Race” is already in production as the 22nd season prepares to launch on Sunday, Feb. 17. Despite crisscrossing the globe for more than a decade, the show has still not run out of cool things to do or cool places to do them in - or cool people.

This year’s diverse lineup of two-person teams includes twin Chicago brothers who are both husbands, fathers and OB/GYNs; pro hockey players from North Carolina; roller-derby moms from Colorado; father-son cancer survivors from Salt Lake City; pals and country singers, one descended from Daniel Boone and the other descended from John Wayne; and Los Angeles friends who are both hosts of their own YouTube channels.

Spouses and producing partners Bertram van Munster and Elise Doganieri take a break during a photo shoot at the “Amazing Race” headquarters, which shares an office building with an airline in El Segundo, Calif., just south of LAX. It’s a rare chilly and rainy day in Southern California, pleasing van Munster, who says it reminds him of the East Coast.

He and Doganieri then discuss how this year’s global adventure begins.

“We start here in Los Angeles at the (Griffith) Observatory,” van Munster says. “They have to get in cars, and there’s two ways out. One way is blocked, and the other one, you go straight out. Of course, four or five people are going to drive straight into the blocked street.”

Then, after braving Los Angeles traffic to catch a plane, the contestants head off to Bora