Amazing Race: Family Edition starts tonight

Just a quick heads-up for those of you who haven't jumped in on The Amazing Race, tonight would be a good time to get hooked. It's the premiere of the "Family Edition" season, in which family teams of four (as opposed to adult teams of two) compete in a race around the globe. I haven't even really scoped out the web site for this season, but I'm sure it's going to be a good time. The Amazing Race has long been the most sophisticated and cerebral of these so-called "reality" shows (what was wrong with the term "game show," I'd like to know?), which is why it keeps winning Emmy awards.

I'm a little worried about keeping the teams straight – it's bad enough to keep track of twenty-odd people at the beginning of each season, never mind double that number – but I know that the weaker teams will quickly fall by the wayside and by the end I'll be familiar with them all. Perhaps too familiar. Kind of like those road trips in the station wagon when I was a kid. I may need a Magic Slate and some Planter's Cheez Balls.