"The Amazing Race:" You could get exhausted just watching; just imagine competing in it - also, Your Mayor is invited to attend the New York Reality TV School so he can help bring quality Television to its knees (as if TV needs any more problems)

There's a compelling reason, or three, or four, maybe five, that no other reality competition series has ever beaten "The Amazing Race" at the Emmys: Spectacular production values (amazing images of globe-trotting scenery), frenetic pacing (they could probably eke out several more episodes per cycle and still have it be riveting), non-mean-spirited depictions of the participants (rather than have strangers get up in one another's faces for "good television," the show focuses on the long-standing relationships between team members, either for comic or poignant effect) and it's just a really fun and exciting game.

I don't watch many reality shows willingly, and I don't watch "Amazing Race" all the time, but if it's on and I'm in front of a TV, I will happily watch it.

(Spoiler alert: Here's the route that contestants will traverse this entire season of "The Amazing Race." But it's really not all that much a spoiler, since CBS willingly provided it.)

The show does have one itsy-bitsy problem: They're recycling the relationships between team members. Once again, we have a couple in crisis (Ken and Tina, who are separated after Ken cheated on Tina - here's betting he hooked up with someone who doesn't nag him anywhere near as incessantly as Tina does in Sunday's premiere); goofy frat brothers (Andrew and Dan, who way overestimate the power that belonging to a fraternity has in terms of seducing women unless rufies are involved); a brother-sister team that are skeekily far closer than any brother and sister you've ever encountered (Nick and Starr); a parent-adult-child team that decorum prevents too much further psychological excavation (Toni and Dallas); the long-distance couple (Aja and Ty); the geek (as opposed to the aforementioned Greek) buddies (Mark and Bill, comic-book geeks who look a little like at least half the gay couple in "The Sarah Silverman Program"); the sistahs-are-doing-it-for-themselves couples (Marissa and Brooke, Southern belles who declare that they're "into fashion," though they wear unflattering couture; and Kelly and Christy, friends who both went through nasty divorces and can barely contain their contempt for differently abled individuals anatomically speaking); and couples who have been dating for a real long time (Anthony and Stephanie) and a very short time (Terrence and Sarah).

To mix things up (sort of), they add an old hippie couple (Anita and Arthur) who are also beekeepers and owners of the last tie-dyed T-shirts remaining in captivity and who conspired to steal Arlo Guthrie's hair.

So anyway, all involved head to Brazil and scurry around (another great thing about this show is how it demonstrates that corporate attorneys have not overrun the cultures of foreign lands - there still exist on the planet ill-advised tourist attractions that look totally fun but even more totally dangerous) until that fatal moment where the host announces: "We interrupt the frenetic, coke-addled pacing to bring the show to an abject crawl in order to present some utterly belabored product placement for an online travel service."

And still: Even that awful moment doesn't sink the show. "The Amazing Race" remains, startlingly enough, pretty amazing.

- "The Amazing Race:" 8 p.m. Sunday, CBS (Channel 2).

(One final aside: I ragged, wryly, to my mind, on the New York Reality TV School just one blog post ago; its founder, Robert Galinsky, has good-naturedly offered me full tuition into one of his classes. Which I totally intend to accept next time I visit NYC, so that I can learn how to get on "The Amazing Race" and get an all-expenses-paid round-the-world trip. All I have to do now is find someone who can stand me enough to be my other team member, and I'm golden.)