The Amazing Race Television Program

Phil Keoghan, he of the arched eyebrow and host of Emmy Award-winning "The Amazing Race," is a self-acknowledged creature of extremes. For his day job, the 41-year-old New Zealand native logs more than 400,000 air miles per year, mostly as he crisscrosses the globe with the CBS show's $1-million prize and adventure-hungry contestants. But that's nothing really.

WE'RE on a first-name basis with them: Tyra is fierce, and Ty wipes tears even as he swings a hammer. Their accessories are iconic: Howie's got models with briefcases, and Jeff presides over fifth-graders. And then there are those signature lines: Padma doles a gentle blow ("Please pack your knives and go"), while Heidi's kiss-off is less than sweet ("You're out."

Award shows are routinely derided as nothing more than popularity contests. That cannot be said about the Emmy winner for outstanding reality competition, which -- yet again -- went to CBS' "The Amazing Race." The race-around-the-globe reality series, while certainly respectable in the ratings, is no match for much of its reality show competitors, most notably, Fox's "American Idol" -- television's most popular show (not to mention ABC's "Dancing With the Stars").

ASTONISHINGLY resilient and successful, "The Amazing Race" has won the Emmy for outstanding reality competition for five years running, beating out sometimes better competition such as "Project Runway" and "American Idol." What it has that its rivals lack is a sense of wonder, an almost naive ambition to widen the perspectives of its participants and its viewers too. Its scope is far broader than that of any other reality competition or, for that matter, most scripted shows.

The family edition didn't work so well. But in the end, for Emmy voters anyway, the race was still amazing. CBS' world-trotting reality marathon, "The Amazing Race," picked up its fourth consecutive Emmy on Sunday. Though it has won the best reality-competition Emmy every year since the category was created in 2003, it was the underdog this year because its family edition repelled fans in the fall and CBS' schedule swapping in the following cycle led some viewers to abandon it.

CBS' Emmy-winning reality show, "The Amazing Race," has seen its share of eclectic contestants come and go over the series' 13 seasons: beauty pageant winners and bickering married couples, jock siblings and even little people. But this winter's installment marks the first time that "Race" has included a "Hollywood star" in its contestant ranks -- even if that famous face hardly counts as a household name.

They're savvy, they're determined and now: They're off! Trailing a cloud of road dust and Emmy glamour (as last season's outstanding reality-competition program), "The Amazing Race 5" gets underway on CBS with a special 90-minute premiere on Tuesday. As in previous years, the competition sends 11 two-member teams, each with a preexisting relationship, on a high-intensity race around the world for a $1-million prize.

When contestants on CBS' Emmy-winning reality competition series "The Amazing Race" sally forth on their globetrotting adventures, they retrace the steps of series co-creators Bertram van Munster and his wife and business partner, Elise Doganieri. The program on Tuesday features expanded scenes and unaired footage from the first six episodes of the unscripted series' current incarnation, "The Amazing Race 6."