ShareThisFor its 14th season, "The Amazing Race" has plotted a course for 11 teams to go 40,000 miles and through nine countries in 22 days.
The agenda is one of the most ambitious in "Race's" history. The show launches its new season at 8 p.m. EST Sunday on CBS.
In a first, teams will enter Romania and Siberia.
Challenges will have teams leaping the world's second-tallest bungee tower. They'll also be braving bone-chilling temperatures of Siberia and enduring the heat of India.
During one event in Interlaken, Switzerland, teams must take part in a "cheese race" in which they carry wheels of cheese up and down a slope.
This "Race" is pulling out all the stops.
"We have extreme climates, intense roadblocks and less time in airports," says executive producer Bertram van Munster.
Teams include brothers who are stuntmen, flight attendants, a brother and sister who are Harvard lawyers, a feature-film actor/producer and his father, a pair of ex-National Football League cheerleaders and a deaf contestant with his mother.
"Race" is, apparently, the TV industry's gold standard for reality programming. It has won the Outstanding Reality Competition Emmy for the past six years.
Other highlights for the week of Feb. 15 to 21 (all times EST; listings subject to change; check local listings):
SUNDAY
-- "Eastbound and Down" (10:30 p.m., HBO). Think of it as "Curb Your Enthusiasm" with a twang.
MONDAY
-- "Spectacular!" (8 p.m., Nickelodeon). A cash-strapped rocker faces his own ego in this musical-romantic comedy.
-- "Right America Feeling Wronged" (8 p.m., HBO). More than 58 million Americans voted for John McCain, and they haven't gotten over it.
TUESDAY
-- "American Idol" (8 p.m., Fox). Folks in the top 36 are now up for elimination.
WEDNESDAY
-- "Lost" (9 p.m., ABC). Will the smoke monster ever get his own episode?
THURSDAY
-- "Being Erica" (10 p.m., SoapNet). A woman goes back in time to confront everything that's gone wrong.
FRIDAY
-- "Mistresses" (8 p.m., BBC America). Not-so-desperate wives cheat. Some have fun; others don't.
SATURDAY
-- "Taking Chance" (8 p.m., HBO). In this moving tale, Kevin Bacon plays a military man who volunteers to escort a soldier's body home.
(E-mail Terry Morrow of The Knoxville News-Sentinel in Tennessee at morrow2(at)knews.com.)
TV HILIGHTS
