Cleveland buddies add to diversity in 'Amazing Race'

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Cleveland buddies add to diversity in 'Amazing Race'
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Mark Dawidziak
Plain Dealer Television Critic

"The Amazing Race" likes to position itself as the thinking-person's reality show. It's a reality series that actually can be enjoyed, guilt-free, by viewers who don't like reality series.

What gives it the edge? To cut to the chase: It's a little smarter, a little less cutthroat and a whole lot better packaged than most of the reality competitions you find bottom-feeding their way across the TV landscape. And not so amazingly, "The Amazing Race" has four Emmys to show for its considerable efforts.

Hardly resting on those Emmy laurels, "The Amazing Race" is shaking things up a bit for its 10th CBS edition, which begins with a special 90-minute episode at 8:30 p.m. Sunday on WOIO Channel 19.

"You may think you know this race and how to play the game," "Amazing Race" host Phil Keoghan tells his 12 two-person teams in Sunday's opener. "But I'm here to tell you that, in this race, there will be surprises you never expected."

One of the teams listening to this warning is from Cleveland. Bilal Abdul-Mani, 37, a medical-supply technician, is competing for the $1 million grand prize with his best friend, Sa'eed Rudolph, 39, a power lineman. In a season stressing diversity, this is the first Muslim team participating in "The Amazing Race."

Our first glimpse of Abdul-Mani and Rudolph Sunday night is as they disembark from the sea plane carrying them to the starting line in Seattle.

"We're Muslims," Abdul-Mani says. "We're Americans. We're fathers. We're friends. Our religion comes first in reference to the race. There's no question, we will pull over and take five minutes and pray."

The best friends from Cleveland "have spent years bonding over their love of food, Browns football and their shared Islamic faith."

Their competition certainly represents a wide range of ethnic, religious and geographic backgrounds. The other teams are: a Kentucky coal miner and his wife; male models from Los Angeles; an Indian-American couple from Florida; a gay couple from New York; cheerleaders from South Carolina; single mothers from Alabama; a Rhode Island businessman and his daughter, a speech pathologist who recently told him she is a lesbian; beauty queens from New York and California; an amputee and her boyfriend, who designs clinical prosthetics; a Los Angeles bartender and his girlfriend, who works in public relations; and brothers of Asian descent from San Francisco.

The 10th "Amazing Race" will cover 40,000 miles, taking the surviving teams from Seattle to China, Kuwait, Mongolia, Madagascar and Vietnam. In Sunday's opener, the teams must rush to rental cars and get to the airport. There are two flights scheduled for Beijing. But there's only room for six teams on the first flight, which leaves an hour earlier than the second. Let the race begin.



The competition has a long way and many twists to go, so it's not giving anything away to reveal that, speeding to the airport, Abdul-Mani and Rudolph start out in first place. Anyone who has watched previous editions of "The Amazing Race" knows this means nothing.

"I'm very aggressive," says Abdul-Mani, who takes the wheel as they race to the airport. "He's a somewhat passive guy, which is good, because we've got to have that blend."

So half of the field will get to Beijing with about an hour advantage. It would spoil the fun to reveal much more, but merely to whet your appetite for what's ahead, let me serve up the idea of a food challenge in China.


"I'm from Cleveland, Ohio," Abdul-Mani says with a laugh. "What do I know about chopsticks?"

There are two major destination points in Sunday's premiere. The second is the Great Wall of China.

And here's the first surprise Keoghan said would be waiting for them: At each destination, the last-place team is eliminated. That's right. When "The Amazing Race" settles into its new regular time period, 8-9 p.m. Sundays, on Sept. 24, it will be missing two teams.

How do the Cleveland guys fare? Well, it's an impeachable offense for a TV critic to even suggest which teams are sent packing. You'll just need to make the trip to Beijing and the Great Wall to discover the identity of the eliminated duos.

It's a thrilling ride, and that's because the magic of "The Amazing Race" is in the editing. Moving at a breathless pace, each episode slyly juxtaposes race footage with comments and byplay from the participants. In the expert ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ hands of these crafty editors, a drive to the airport thunders across the screen like a life-and- death chariot race.

You need to remind yourself every once in a while, "Hey, they're just looking for the airport's rental lot. This isn't Charlton Heston in danger of flipping a chariot in 'Ben Hur.' "

The producers cleverly suck you in, though, wowing you along the way with exotic locations and magnificent scenery. The panoramas stun you while the personalities intrigue you. That's what always has made this "Race" so amazing.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
mdawidziak@plaind.com, 216-999-4249

www.cleveland.com