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Categories The Amazing Race 5 | The Amazing Race 7

Two early Amazing Race seasons—and Charla & Mirna!—are now on Netflix

Two early Amazing Race seasons—and Charla & Mirna!—are now on Netflix
Charla and Mirna carry a slab of meat in Uruguay on The Amazing Race 5's first episode
Date published | Discussion 5 comments

Two of The Amazing Race’s earliest and best seasons have joined Netflix, bringing some great 18-year-old reality TV to the world’s most-popular streaming service.

Netflix recently dropped Survivor from its library, having licensed two seasons per year for the past two years. So, I’d bet these two seasons will be on Netflix for a year, and possibly then be replaced by two other TAR seasons.

Among the classic teams that are now watchable on Netflix are:

  • cousins Charla and Mirna
  • bowling moms Linda and Karen
  • married couples Uchenna and Joyce, and Chip and Kim
  • boyfriends Lynn and Alex

There were also CBS crossovers:

  • Survivor’s Rob and Amber
  • Big Brother’s Alison and her boyfriend Donny
Survivor's Rob and Amber on The Amazing Race 7 episode 8
Survivor’s Rob and Amber on The Amazing Race 7 episode 8

If you want to watch old seasons of The Amazing Race, there are plenty of options.

Alas, they’re inconsistent, which appears to be Paramount Global’s streaming strategy: be confusing and annoying, selling some rights to other companies while treating users of Paramount+ badly.

As of today, here’s where you can find Amazing Race seasons:

And now, there’s one more option:

Netflix’s Amazing Race seasons

Phil Keoghan in Amazing Race 5's second episode, which aired in 2005
Phil Keoghan in Amazing Race 5’s second episode, which aired in 2005

Two of The Amazing Race seasons that are already streaming have joined Netflix:

  • The Amazing Race 5, from 2004, which includes some of the most memorable teams in the show’s history: cousins Charla and Mirna, dating couple Colin and Christie, spouses Chip and Kim
  • The Amazing Race 7, from 2005, which featured Survivor’s Rob and Amber,

Both of these seasons are among the many that are on DVD (TAR5 and TAR7), with commentary from cast and crew.

These early seasons include airport drama, teams begging for money from strangers while in a race for $1 million, and other elements that were such a key part of early seasons but that I do not miss.

While Netflix didn’t announce these seasons being added to their library in their monthly list of shows, both are also included with Netflix’s brand-new Netflix With Ads plan, otherwise known as the Netflix Needs More Money plan—which I guess makes more sense than Twitter’s new “I just spent $44 billion on this and have no idea what the fuck I’m doing so why don’t you all pay me $8 a month” plan.

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About the author

  • Andy Dehnart

    Andy Dehnart is the creator of reality blurred and a writer and teacher who obsessively and critically covers reality TV and unscripted entertainment, focusing on how it’s made and what it means.

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Happy discussing!

Anthony

Tuesday 8th of November 2022

Apparently all seasons are coming to Paramount + on November 15.

Andy Dehnart

Wednesday 9th of November 2022

Yes, though oddly, Paramount+'s list says Amazing Race seasons 1 to 22 will be there as of Nov. 15. Does that mean 22 to 34 are going away? I just don't understand why they'd include 1 to 10 in that range and not 23 to 34.

Patrick

Tuesday 8th of November 2022

These are 2 incredible seasons! At the start of COVID I re-watched S1-10, and oh wow I forget how different and stellar the show used to be. It was more of a docuseries that just happened to have a gameshow going on in the background. This is early reality TV before it became hyper-produced and before people truly understood what it was. Ah, the good ol' days...

Robert Karp

Tuesday 8th of November 2022

@Patrick, I'm with you on the "hyper-produced" and before the cast became younger and better looking, and aspiring actors or "influencers". Ugh.

Robert Karp

Saturday 5th of November 2022

The begging for money I can live without. However, airport drama was a good thing. It added an element of planning and strategy to the race which is now missing. This season has culminated with a trend that also affects Survivor, boring episodes which are reliant on tedious and uninteresting tasks and/or puzzles.

The current season of TAR is go from one location to another (often beautiful scenic areas) and then do stupid tasks. All these tasks could have been in The Mole. I have not been able to watch an entire episode of either TAR or Survivor without fast forwarding though parts of it.

Watch seasons 1 & 2 of TAR to see an exciting and fun race. I get it now is totally different from 20 years ago as far as health, safety and security. But I do miss all the "drama" of actual transportation.