Phil Keoghan Teases Surprises for Amazing Race Season 37: 1st Look

Host Phil Keoghan is promising that The Amazing Race will be “back in full force” with season 37 — and will include a surprise in every episode.

“Amazing Race is always a season of surprises because literally every time they read a clue, they never know what is happening, where they’re going, what they’re doing. But this season we decided that we would make the surprises, maybe a little more jaw-dropping than before,” Keoghan, 57, exclusively told Us Weekly ahead of the competition series’ March 5 premiere. “Like every single episode has something unique and different about it.”

In Us’ exclusive first look at season 37, Keoghan delivered the same promise to the 14 teams ready to take on the race around the world.

“This season there are more surprises than ever before,” Keoghan said in the clip.

The longtime host teased to Us that some “favorite elements” of the show would return, like the iconic UTurn and Fast Forward. While gearing up for season 37, Keoghan told Us he did a “deep dive” after the previous season to see what the fans love the most about the Amazing Race.

“I think it’s important to sort of stay connected with the audience and know that they love self-driving,” he said. “They love the chaos of travel. They love when the teams are having to make strategic decisions. So we’re constantly trying to address what it is the fans want and something must be working. Because here we are 37 seasons in.”

In addition to listening to viewer feedback, The Amazing Race is also bringing some new twists like the Fork in the Road.

“[The Fork in the Road twist] is literally something we’ve never done before, where the teams can go in either direction and they have to make a really strategic choice of running two different parallel races,” Keoghan explained. “[It’s different from a detour where it’s just a single challenge, but more of, of literally getting to a fork in the road and choosing to go one way or the other. And then there’s limited options depending on when you get there.”

Keoghan teased that “there’s a lot of strategy involved” with the racers as they decided which path they took to the pit stop.

While the contestants are hit with The Fork in the Road surprise during the season premiere, Keoghan shared that wasn’t the only twist thrown the competitor’s way — and that his personal favorite will pop up later in the series.

“There’s a few really pivotal moments strategy-wise with another element that we’re bringing in. We’ve also added in one that’s my favorite, that’s sort of, like, in the middle of the race when stuff gets a little bit more cutthroat,” he teased to Us. “The deeper you go into the race, the more teams that get eliminated, there’s less room for error.”

As for how the teams feel about the constant surprises? Well, Ernest Cato — who is racing alongside his daughter, Bridget Cato — quipped in Us’ exclusive first look clip that “this season of surprises is going to give you a heart attack.”

The Amazing Race premieres on CBS on Wednesday, March 5, at 9:30 p.m. ET.