History Series / TheAmazingRace

* DifficultySpike: The Race intentionally tries to make the tasks start off relatively easy; but they get more and more difficult as the season goes on (Partly because a lot of difficult tasks early-on would be hell on the editors.) However, generally a third of the way through the season there's a notable difficulty spike.

* SlowAndSteadyWinsTheRace: This has become an increasingly popular strategy. Nowadays teams don’t necessarily care about winning individual legs unless there’s a game-based prize like an express pass. A lot of teams who win individual legs don’t even end up taking the prizes because they end up paying half the value in taxes. A team who wins a lot of legs gets a lot of vacations they don’t want to pay for. All that matters is being consistent and getting yourself into the final three to give yourself a shot at the prize. Kisha & Jen and Colin & Christie who’d win returnee seasons both say that this was the lesson that they learned the first go around. It’s better to pace yourself and not run out of steam at the end so you can win the last leg.

* ProductionThrowbac: Due to seasons 33&34 being filmed during the COVID-19 padnemic and having more limited travel options, self-driving was brought back to being more in line with how much they were doing it in the earlier seasons.

* ProductPlacement: Season 6 would ''really'' like you to know they're sponsored by Isuzu. Early on, it almost became an occurrence OnceAnEpisode for the host to mention the prize was the money and two Isuzus.

* BaitAndSwitch: Leg 5 had a Detour labelled Fall or Find, the description of Fall told teams they'd plunge off the Burj Khalifa. That along with only 2 spots being reserved per team made Fall sound like the easier task. Turns out the Detour involved playing a video game simulation of plunging down the Burj Khalifa then each answering a set of questions after playing. Due to the limited space if you got even one wrong you were sent to the back of the line and had to wait to play again.

* EverythingsBetterWithLlamas: The first leg Detour involved guiding llamas.

* EverythingsBetterWithLlamas: A detour had one.

* EverythingsBetterWithLlamas: The leg 10 Speed Bump involved teams typing out a llama loan form.

* '''Yield'''/'''U-Turn''' -- Introduced in Season 5, the Yield allowed one team to hinder the progress of another, forcing them to wait for approximately 30 minutes before they were able to continue. Come Season 12, it was replaced by the U-Turn, which is placed immediately before or after a Detour and forces the targeted team to complete both Detour tasks. Season 17 later modified this into the Double U-Turn, where ''two'' teams can each hinder a group behind them. Other variations include the Blind (or [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Blind Double]]) U-Turn (seen occasionally starting in Season 14), where the team(s) using it can remain anonymous; and the Must Vote U-Turn, which forces all the teams to vote at the beginning of the leg for who should be U-Turned at the upcoming Detour. It was brought back for season 32 but with a twist of finding a ten or twenty minute timer in leg two and then being able to use it once throughout the season.

In 2020, the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic halted the many versions of the show from filming, as the world suffered from global spread of the disease and made it unsafe to travel and saw many countries cracking down on who could come and go. The American version had filmed two legs in the UK and Sweden in February before production halted and everyone was sent home. Van Munster has said they’re planning on just returning the cast and picking back up where they left off when it’s safe to resume production. The Australian version was the first one to resume production (due to the country's relative success in stopping the flow of the virus via lockdowns and travel restrictions) but stuck to a domestic only route. The US version resumed production in September 2021. They decided to pick off where they left off but changed the route to stay mostly in Mediterranean Europe since it has high vaccination rates and good enough weather to keep the race outside as much as possible.

* SpotlightStealingSquad: Season 14 with taking 5 of the 11 cast spots (plus first alternate Steve & Linda, who finished 10th originally), leaving only six cast spots for the other five seasons, including zero representatives from Season 13, and only a 6th place team from Season 17 (though the two best candidates from Season 17, Nat & Kat won the race, disqualifying them for ''Unfinished Business'', and Claire got pregnant). Bertram Van Munster called 14 a "very unique season" in order to justify this overcasting (with an tiny addition of Season 14 Alum Jodi being a casting director). [[{{Irony}} Ironically, 4 of the 5 teams cast from that season were eliminated in the bottom 4 places]], Amanda & Kris were halted by a U-Turn again, Mel & Mike were forced out of the running due to medical concerns, Jaime & Cara were foiled by a Roadblock in China, and Margie & Luke suffered an extremely shocking elimination when Luke choked on the Roadblock in India. But then Kisha & Jen turned around and won the whole thing.

** The opening leg required teams to find an elderly Chinese woman working an abacus. In addition to many Racers mispronouncing the word "abacus" several teams walked right past her more than once.

* NoSenseOfDirections: Due to being filmed during Covid-19, mainly set in Australia and the ridiculous high amount of legs, Season 5 has a lot of legs they had to self-drive, some even spanning 100km between 2 challenges. This causes instances where teams dropped placements due to this.

* ProductPlacement: Season 6 would *really* like you to know they're sponsored by Isuzu. Early on, it almost became an occurrence OnceAnEpisode for the host to mention the prize was the money and two Isuzus.

* Boring,ButPractical: Despite that the season had one of the most "average" routes ever, it did increase the difficulty.

* SchmuckBait: The Austria Detour was a choice between "Long Hard Walk" or "Quick and Easy Meal". Three teams took the bait, a task which was nearly impossible to complete since it required both teams to finish a meal full of meat within a strict time limit. On top of that, failure essentially meant you had to do the other option since it's not like you can eat any more the second time.

* RealityShowGenreBlindness: All of Season 1's Final 3 teams were blindsided by the FinalExamFinale flag Roadblock in the finale leg, despite it being similar to a rather notable task in US Season 9's finale. The teams even admitted to not bothering to take note of the flags, and struggled enough that ''any'' team who had bothered to take notes (a common strategy in the US metagame) probably would have easily won the race.

* ProductPlacement: China Rush with Hilton. While it's manageable enough as they are prizes for leg wins, in the later stages of Season 3 pops up Hilton teddy bears for some reason.

* BaitAndSwitch: The third season started as normal, with grant raising his arm to start the race, only to then put his arm down as take the teams off to a tug of war challenge between the two countries.

** When the second leg of [=AvNZ=] visited Cambodia, the greeter, though a different woman, was dressed the same as the greeter from [[Characters/TheAmazingRace15 US Season 15]], leg 4[[note]]The same episode where Zev & Justin lost a passport[[/note]].

* SequelEscalation: Australia 4 was produced by a new channel and it felt that way. Australia 5 changed the stakes ''a lot'' to the point some fans claimed they were trying to do too much at once by adding an abundance of twists, and having a whopping 16 teams and 24 legs.

* FailureMontage: This was done during the Sports Broadcasting Roadblock in the first episode of Season 3. It got so bad that one of the task judges (the host of the sports show) did a HeadDesk while the rest of the production crew of the sports show were {{Corpsing}}.

* ''The Amazing Race Australia'': A race around the world open to Australian citizens, with a grand prize of A$250 thousand (approximately US$229 thousand). Two seasons aired, and after taking a year off and switching production companies, a third season, subtitled "Australia vs. New Zealand" aired in 2014. A fourth season premiered on Network Ten in 2019, with Beau Ryan hosting.

* LaterInstallmentWeirdness: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, season 33 will be the first season to use a chartered plane for travel instead of flying commercially.

** After the group of five alliance steamrolled its way to the top five spots in season 32 via excessive answer sharing (the only other big alliance group came in season 10 but it was with the back of the pack teams), the production team has promised they’re going to change the rules once they’re able to get 33 back into production.

* BrickJoke: [[note]]On the part of the editors.[[/note]] At the beginning of the German leg, there was a puzzle regarding UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan's "[[UsefulNotes/ColdWar Tear Down This Wall]]" speech. Max was the first to the puzzle and had (incorrectly) guessed UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy as the speechmaker [[note]]and further established his and Katie's VillainCred by stating that Radio/RushLimbaugh "[[AcceptableTargets would be upset with him]]" for getting a question on Reagan wrong[[/note]]. Guess what ''other'' American President turned out to be the password to the Roadblock later on?[[note]]Not a ChekhovsGag as only one team had this experience, at least on-screen.[[/note]]

* DickDastardlyStopsToCheat: Mark & Michael committed this in Season 14, Episode 7. One option in that episode's Detour is transportation by rickshaw with air pumps provided in the case of a flat tire. Mark & Michael hide the pumps which they get penalized for when they arrive at the Pit Stop. If that isn't bad enough, they are assessed another time penalty for following a taxi along the way. As a result, they miss out on a trip to Hawaii when a team checks in just before their penalty times out.

* BlackGalOnWhiteGuyDrama: Brian & Ericka from Season 15 revealed their was some controversy in their family about their inter-racial relationship. Unlike most media examples, the white male Brian was the one who was actually portrayed as a victim of racism by Ericka's mother. Though the other teams and most of the viewers, didn't bat an eye at their relationship, this revelation from Ericka serves as a reminder that any stigma surrounding interracial marriages often affects the white partner as much as it does the POC partner.

* TheDayTheMusicLied: Happens when a team realizes they've made a mistake, generally accompanied by a RecordNeedleScratch or, alternately, a [[FanNickname Gong of Stupidity]] for particularly bone-headed moves.

* AnInsert: Showing off clue packets and other items involved in tasks. [[FanNickname Known as "Exposition Hands" by the fans.]]

** Averted in Leg 11 of Season 19, which had a task based on the comic ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' and aired at about the time [[WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfTintin a movie adaptation]] hit theaters, but no reference was made to the movie at all; Tintin was presented as merely a Belgian cultural icon.

* ProductPlacement: Subverted. The 11th leg had a task based on the comic ''Franchise/{{Tintin}}'' and aired at about the time [[WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfTintin a movie adaptation]] hit theaters, but no reference was made to the movie at all; Tintin was presented as merely a Belgian cultural icon.