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Previously on The Amazing Race… um, we really can’t remember the last time we saw The Amazing Race. Presumably, it was sometime in late May of 2016. That season was a strong one, featuring Internet celebrities who were almost universally likable and fun. So what does CBS do to celebrate?

They push off The Amazing Race for almost a full year, moving it to Thursday nights and the 10 p.m. time slot. For a long time, we weren’t really sure if The Amazing Race would come back at all. Phil Keoghan would occasionally issue hopeful Tweets, and eventually we got the word that it would return. It doesn’t seem like CBS is enthusiastic about supporting the series, though. It’s slotted into the Training Day slot, a show that received low ratings and was dealing with tragedy in the wake of star Bill Paxton’s death.

This season features a new gimmick, which is sort of similar to the blind date concept a couple of seasons ago. None of the players this season know each other, but there isn’t the “love” concept that that season pretended to have. Not that it couldn’t happen, of course.

Before the players pick their partners, we start with an individual challenge (for the first time on the show). The players have to search out a backpack with a tag featuring the Panamanian flag. The shop with the backpacks is somewhere in the streets of L.A. Some of the players don’t do well with directions, but Scott, a recruiting manager, lives in Los Angeles and confidently points a couple of his fellow players the correct way. Then, he talks about himself a lot. A LOT. He points out his educational achievements and then explains away all of his shortcomings with, “I am a gay redhead.” Is that a thing? We didn’t know that was a thing.

Our early favorite contestant this season is Redmond, a Navy Corpsman with the Marines who lost his leg after stepping on an IED in Afghanistan. He has a wonderful attitude but what we instantly love about him is his sense of humor. On his real leg, he has a tattoo that says “I’m with stumpy” pointing to his prosthetic. Five minutes in and Redmond is one of the most likable contestants ever.

We’re going to skip most of the individual introductions for now, because we’d end up writing 3,000 words about the first five minutes. The one noteworthy thing is that a tall, muscular woman named Jessie becomes angry when she goes the wrong way. She follows the directions of a smaller but equally muscular woman before realizing they’re going the wrong way. She aggressively snaps, “I shouldn’t have followed her. My first mistake.” If the producers meddle, the odds of them being teammates just increased by a factor of 50.

Most of the players successfully track down a bag with a flag, and we’re particularly impressed with Floyd, a college drum major. He specifically studied all the flags of the world before coming on The Amazing Race.

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