I hope it's ok to start a new thread on this, as it was mentioned here and discussed further by FarmBoy in the thread about the TV Guide article. I thought that this spoiler could use its own thread, since it came up in a thread about something else. Lock this if you need to, IceCat.

The background spoiler still holds up with this week's philimination of Debbie and Bianca. They have the same seaside background on their official team portrait on the CBS website as Ryan/Chuck and Megan/Heidi had. (http://www.cbs.com/primetime/amazing_race7/teams/)

Whadda y'all think? Now that three in a row have fit the pattern, that makes me take a lot more notice. Someone who know something about probability ought to figure out what the chances are that it's just coincidence that the first three eliminees have the same background, when there are three different backgrounds in use. (is it maybe 1/27?) It might not be looking too good for Susan/Patrick and Ray/Deana.

I also am starting to wonder if there's some significance in the fact that five teams have the seaside background, while the mountains and sunset are used in three pictures each. Why wouldn't they have done four/four/three to make it more evenly distributed? Does it have something to do with non-elimination legs? How many are there this season? I'm probably reading too much into that, but at first I thought it was reading too much to think that the backgrounds could show the general order of elimination.