Review: The Amazing Race - All Stars

In case you haven't noticed by now, I am a reality TV junkie. I'll take my fix anyway I can get it, so what better way to spend a Sunday evening than to watch the premiere of The Amazing Race - All Stars?

For starters, my favorite race team of all time is competing: Charla and Mirna. Yes, Mirna's voice can shatter glass with her screams of "hurry Charla, muy rapido Charla" and Charla has to carry the team through every task, but by golly they knew how to race. Plus, it appears this time around that Charla AND Mirna will be participating in the road blocks and detours, not just Charla.

So 11 teams are competing, ranging anywhere from The Guidos of Season 1, to notoriously lucky Uchenna and Joyce from that season where I didn't really like any teams after the first few weeks. There is even a new superteam: an Alpha male from an Alpha male team and a pretty blond girl from a pretty blond girl team. I don't know who they are or why I should like them, but they're the only new team on the race. Also, Romber, of winning only one of (now) six reality shows they have appeared on together, and their one win (Amber on Survivor - All Stars) was by default, since they somehow managed to be the final 2. It will be great to see them lose again.

Here's all you need to know about this season: it's not the Family Edition; therefore, it's a good show again. The end.

Oh, and Phil is the best working host in reality TV.

The actual best host: award winning news reporter Anderson Cooper for his wonderful work on the painfully short lived US version of The Mole. The best part: playing along at home to try and find and decipher the hidden clues that reveal who is The Mole. The second best part: Kathy Griffen in a bathing suit comparing herself to the School Marm in a soft-core porn film set in a sorority (note: season does not include Phil, was first All Stars and featured a Baldwin, a supermodel, and a whole slew of B-List and worse celebrities). The third best part: Silly Silly costumes. And the fourth: burning everyone's possessions for failing an early mission. Did I mention Anderson Cooper? He made that show work. If it started now with him as the host, it would last much longer than two real seasons, the second of which was bumped back to a midsummer replacement after airing the first four episodes at the start of sweeps month. Good times. Good times.