Race begins again, sans blind dating

Off and running -- Set your VCRs. The 27th Season of The Amazing Race debuts Friday, Sept. 25.

Mom (Denise), Son (James)

After the gimicky Season 26, which saw a mix of perviously dating couples competing along side some blind daters, the casting is far more familiar to veteran race watchers.

Included are a mother/son duo, some former NFL cheerleaders, two cousins, two brothers, some best friends, a married couple and a pair of television news personalities. 

As is the new norm, the ages tilt young, the oldest racer (the mom) just over the half-century mark at 51. 

Hard to say who's wacky, who's wise, who will get along, who won't. We'll see.

Let's hope for more fireworks than were in evidence last season, which, you may recall, had some tense moments early on, especially those generated by the bickering blind daters Blair and Hayley, he a doctor, she a nurse.

Blair and Hayley

By the finale all the couples were focused so laser-like on the $1 million that they didn't have much time to quarrel or quip.

Alas, the likable team of truckstop lovers, Mike and Rochelle, got the heave-ho midway through the finale (technically, the end of Episode 11).

The race ended with the cool and relaxed blind-daters Laura and Tyler

Tyer and Laura

shooting a selfie as they crossed the finish line first. (Let's hope selfies are out this time around.  They got old fast in 26.)

The blind-dating lawyers Jelani and Jenny were second, they early on having decided that love would't be in the cards, but so what.

The former spatters Blair and Hayley took third. They probably deserved a better fate if only for being interesting.

Eleven teams start Season 27, one of which will be eliminated in the first episode unless there's a deviation from the usual.

If things follow form, the ten entrants in our pool will then chose their Racing teams.

The reversal-of-fortune logic of this pool dictates that the first eliminated poolsters from last season, the always crafty Team Showers, gets to pick first. They're followed by Team Boston and so on all the way to Allison Chanler, who backed the winners last season.