Your suspicions are correct: The final episode of a season of "The Amazing Race," for example, has been filmed months before the first episode airs, and the filming takes weeks, not months.

It makes sense, of course. Episodes air once a week because that's how TV generally works, but there's no reason to stick to that in the filming. Indeed, the pace of life for an "Amazing Race" contestant is notoriously hectic -- it is a race, after all -- and though they'd relish a week-long break between events, they just don't get it.

As for when filming finishes, that's a trickier problem. The producers want to know how everything ends before they start editing episodes, but it causes a major problem in that there are dozens of people -- contestants and crew -- who know how the show will end and have to keep it a secret for months.

Dave and Connor O'Leary, winners of the most recent season, finished filming (and thus won the race) on Dec. 6. The season (the show's 24th) didn't even premiere until Feb. 23, and their triumph didn't become public until May 18.

"It was hard to keep that locked inside for so long," Connor told the "Salt Lake Tribune" in his native Utah. The paper was interviewing him the day after the finale aired, once he could finally talk about it.

The necessary secrecy causes other problems as well, such as what to do with the people who don't win. When contestants are eliminated, they are all housed together, sequestered like a jury, rather than being allowed to go home. Otherwise, an early return would give away the fact that they didn't win.

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