The premiere episode of The Amazing Race 9 sent contestants to Brazil, meaning this season’s contestants have already ventured farther outside the U.S. than any did during last season’s mostly-domestic affair. Anxious traveller John had just enough time to overcome his fear of flying before he and his partner, Scott, were eliminated.

The team introductions were supposed to look rugged, as contestants were driven to Colorado’s Red Rocks Amphitheater in the backs of crappy pickup trucks. Nerds David and Lori hoped for some team-specific Roadblocks and Detours this season, as David described his team’s strengths thusly: “She’s really great at card games, and I’m really great at taking tests.”

TAR 9’s first clue instructed teams to take one of three flights to Sao Paolo, Brazil. As teams drove Mercedes sedans to the Denver Airport–the vehicle budget quickly increased from the intro’s pickups–this season’s villain was revealed. Lake, a Southern dentist, instructed his wife, Michelle, to exit the highway so they could find a pay phone and reserve seats on one of the flights.

When they got back on the highway, with Lake now in the driver’s seat, Michelle read the clue aloud. It forbade them from reserving tickets by phone. When she pointed out Lake’s mistake, he admitted that he hadn’t read the whole clue and told Michelle, “That was… partially my fault.” He didn’t say who else could possibly have been to blame. It was probably the anti-dentites.

More of Lake’s true colors came out in the airport. When Michelle fretted about having arrived last, he told her, “Shut the f— up.” As Michelle raced Yolanda to the ticket counter, Lake yelled, “Don’t let that black girl beat you.” Later in the episode, Lake referred Yolanda and Ray as “the black team.”

Although all three flights arrived within 35 minutes of each other, cab driver trouble put six-foot tall sisters Joni and Lisa well behind the pack, as they headed to retrieve a clue at Sao Paulo’s Hotel Unique. John and Scott suffered from similar cabbie problems. Their driver was not only slow; he also bore an eerie resemblance to what John will probably look like in about 10 years.

Bearded pals BJ and Tyler, nicknamed “the hippies” by the other teams, mitigated possible cab problems by having learned some Portuguese phrases on the plane. It was obvious that other teams did not, as half of them thought that the national language of Brazil was Spanish. Joni and Lisa admitted that they’d actually thought Spanish was first language of all non-Americans.

From the hotel, teams had to take another cab to a pedestrian bridge to find their next clue. Although the cluebox was in plain sight, Barry and Fran, the oldest team on the race, spent forty minutes looking for it. They arrived at the bridge in fourth place, but left in eighth.

The bridge clue was a Detour, in which teams had to choose between assembling a motorcycle and taking a helicopter ride to the top of a building in downtown Sao Paolo.

While assembly challenges are often faster for teams with patience and mechanical inclination, bubbly, pink-clad cuties Danielle and Dani arrived at the motorcycle shop with neither–and no one at the shop was willing to help them. Once the duo realized that the only other team at the shop, Fran and Barry, was equally clueless, they headed to the helicopter challenge.

For their second blunder of the day, Fran and Barry spent far too long trying to put the bike together themselves. They then expected Lake and Michelle, who’d arrived after Danielle and Dani had left, to all but put it together for them. As he worked on his bike, Lake told Fran he’d tell her what to do when he was finished.

But Fran didn’t have the prerequisite knowledge that Lake assumed she would. When he told her the spark plug went on the engine, she asked, “Where’s the engine?” Because they’d spent much of the day among the slower teams, Lake and Michelle couldn’t afford to spend too much time micromanaging their competition. So, they left, and Fran and Barry eventually abandoned the bike for the helicopters.

The only other couple to successfully build a motorcycle was Ray and Yolanda. They had the added pressure of being surrounded by a crowd of guys who cheered every time Yolanda bent over. Ray managed to keep his composure and focus on the task, inside of chasing down the catcalling jerks.

The helicopter challenge was relatively easy. After finding a picture of a building in a pilot’s handbook, teams showed the picture to a dispatcher. The dispatcher then assigned the team a helicopter pilot, who flew them to the building. There, they searched a small area for a clue, and then headed back to the airfield.

Eric and Jeremy, who other teams called “the frat guys,” teased their helicopter pilot, Martinez, about the huge number of women he must get with such a cool job. Martinez may have had a better shot with Dani and Danielle than did Eric and Jeremy. When their two teams crossed paths, the girls rebuffed the frat guys’ attempts to flirt.

Being one of the last teams to the airport didn’t stop Joni and Lisa from getting excited. As they ran toward their helicopter, a nervous Joni shrieked, “I’m gonna pee my pants. Oh! I just peed my pants!” Then, as she looked out of the window during takeoff, a camera outside of the helicopter captured her screaming face.

After finishing the Detour, teams made their way to nearby neighborhood where they participated in a local religious ceremony, which involved snakes and candles. After the ceremony, teams received another clue, instructing them to head to this episode’s Pit Stop: a soccer stadium.

Jeremy and Eric were first to arrive. They jumped on the mat and asked host Phil, “What did we win, Philly?” Phil told them that they’d each won $10,000 for finishing in first place. Eric and Jeremy promised to apply the funds toward their goal of working as little as possible.

BJ and Tyler showed up soon afterward to score second place. And the Puertorriqueña mother/daughter squad, Wanda and Desiree, ran a mostly mistake-free leg to grab third.

John and Scott, whose slow cabs got them to the helicopter challenge last, weren’t able to make up any time and were the first team eliminated. John was happy he was able to overcome some of his fears, and Scott said he appreciated “the sharing of the growing of the experience,” which probably meant something.

Leaderboard:
1 – Eric and Jeremy
2 – BJ and Tyler
3 – Wanda and Desiree
4 – Lori and David
5 – Lake and Michelle
6 – Monica and Joseph
7 – Ray and Yolanda
8 – Fran and Barry
9 – Danielle and Dani
10 – Joni and Lois
11 – John and Scott (eliminated)

Next time, Eric and Jeremy again attempt to woo Dani and Danielle, and Fran slips on some rocks.

Bobby’s continued use (and misuse) of the outhouse put him in the doghouse with his tribemates. As a result, he wound up the fifth person eliminated from Survivor: Panama – Exile Island.

The mood at Casaya was tense long before they lost the Immunity Challenge that sent them to Tribal Council. Bruce spent the morning of Day 10 building a rock garden, as Aras, Shane, and Courtney futilely tried to make a fire. Aras asked Bruce for help with the fire, but when Bruce told him to collect more firewood, Aras snapped.

Even though there had already been three people working on the fire, Aras yelled at Bruce for not being the fourth. Bruce explained that, with his rock garden, he was trying to make something for everyone in the tribe to enjoy. But Aras didn’t understand Bruce’s defense and accused him of being selfish. Aras’s suggested that they communicate better in the future. Bruce agreed.

At the Reward Challenge later that day, the starving Survivors of both tribes fought to win some much needed food. Each tribe had a boat anchored just offshore, filled with a bag of beans, a bag of rice, and six large (about arm-length) fish. One tribe member ran to the boat to fetch an item, and tossed it to another tribe member. Each item was tossed from person to person until the final tribe member pitched it into the proper receptacle.

The tribe member at the end of the line was crucial, as the team’s runner couldn’t fetch the next item from the boat until the previous one was in its bin. And the fish couldn’t be thrown into their bin until the head and tail fin were hacked off with a large knife. Bruce put Casaya behind early, as he took over a dozen swings to chop off the first fish’s head, turning the poor thing into chum.

Teammates were allowed to switch places, and Bobby took over as Casaya’s butcher. He found a hidden talent, chopping off body parts with a single stroke. Casaya made up ground on La Mina when Sally needed multiple attempts to catch a fish thrown by Dan. Bobby and Terry each had their final fish on the block at the same time, but Bobby’s hacking efficiency won the challenge for Casaya.

As their reward, Casaya won all of the food they had successfully tossed into their bins, along with spices, cooking oil, and a bottle of wine. La Mina didn’t leave empty-handed; they were allowed to take either their bag of beans or their bag of rice back to camp. They chose the beans.

Casaya sent Terry back to Exile Island for another couple of days. Having already found the hidden Immunity Idol, Terry took the opportunity to rest up before the next challenge. He built a fire and munched on snails and coconut.

Like last week, Terry had a much easier time on Exile Island than his tribemates did at camp. Austin and Nick overindulged in the newly won beans and spent the night in serious gastro-intestinal distress. While Nick didn’t think it was polite to discuss details, his tribemates threw about the phrase “coming out of both ends.”

Things weren’t much better for Casaya, after they returned home with their winnings. Torrential rains had flooded the whole camp, washing away the fire pit and soaking the shelter. Rather than let the fish go to waste, they ate it raw. For Cirie, it was a rude introduction to sashimi.

That night, Bobby and Bruce found their tribemates hogging the dry space in the shelter and headed into the tribe’s outhouse to avoid the rain. Bobby brought the bottle of wine, and he and Bruce polished it off.

When the Courtney noticed the missing bottle the next morning, she confronted Bobby. He confessed that he drank it, but said he wasn’t sorry that he deprived Courtney of her share of the wine.

The tribemates also felt that, out of tribe loyalty, Bobby and Bruce should have spent the night in the shelter with the rest of the tribe — instead of in the same outhouse Bobby had christened with a “deuce” last episode. Bobby apologized to everyone except Courtney, who he called “probably one of the two or three most annoying people on Earth.”

When the two tribes arrived at the Immunity Challenge, Terry was in much better shape than the rest of La Mina. Only half of the challenge was physical, which allowed Austin to rest his aching GI tract. Casaya had to sit two people, and because Danielle and Courtney had sat out of the Reward Challenge, Cirie and Bruce did not participate.

The first half of the challenge required three tribe members to paddle a boat to the locations of four submerged coffins. Competitors dove underwater and untied ropes that held the coffins shut. In each coffin was a three-dimensional puzzle piece, made of connected skulls. Once they were all collected, the pieces were rowed back to shore, where the two remaining tribe members assembled them into a pyramid-shaped puzzle.

La Mina’s Terry, Dan, and Nick quickly gained a lead on Casaya’s Courtney, Danielle, and Aras, who struggled to open their coffins. This gave Sally and Austin time to try plenty of puzzle combinations before Casaya got their pieces to shore. Bobby and Shane were just starting to figure out the puzzle when Sally and Austin finished, and La Mina was spared a trip to Tribal Council.

Immediately upon returning to camp, Aras, Courtney, Shane, and Cirie discussed who should be voted out. While Shane favored eliminating Bobby, Aras persuaded everyone to vote for Bruce. Cirie didn’t care who went home, as long as it wasn’t her.

Shane was worried that Bobby would join with Nick and Austin at the merge. So he coerced Bobby into swearing (on Shane’s son, no less, not that Bobby knows or cares about Shane’s son) that he wouldn’t. In exchange, Shane promised Bobby at least sixth place.

With the decision to eliminate Bruce settled, Courtney commandeered his rock garden for yoga practice. Even though he was totally disgusted that she couldn’t find another spot on the entire beach, Bruce held his tongue.

Danielle, who wasn’t around for the Aras’s initial discussion about that night’s vote, talked with Cirie and Courtney. She convinced them to switch their vote back to Bobby. They all felt that Bobby wasn’t trustworthy, and Courtney thought it would be fun to knock Aras down a peg by changing their votes.

When the women approached Shane about their decision, he scolded Courtney for not telling him before he swore not to eliminate Bobby. He reminded them that he was the one who’d wanted to boot Bobby in the first place. Cirie played peacemaker, telling Shane that they should’ve listened to him then.

It’s clear nobody on Casaya has any idea how well Cirie is playing this game. By remaining involved socially with everyone — and becoming enemies with no one — she’s successfully avoiding being mentioned as a voting target. She’s managed this despite having no alliances, and since almost getting booted out in each of the first two episodes.

At Tribal Council, Jeff asked how the rain had affected Casaya’s camp, prompting Bobby to tell of his night in the outhouse with Bruce. Aras said that Bruce deserved just as much of the blame for drinking the wine as Bobby did. When Bruce asked Aras why no one had said anything earlier to him about it, Aras said, “The onus wasn’t on us to come to you, it was on you to apologize for it!” Aras has no future in criminal justice.

Danielle jumped into the fray, saying that Bruce doesn’t get the respect that he deserves as an older member of the tribe. But Bruce assured Aras that he’d take his comments to heart, and that they’d be hearing a lot more from him whenever there was a problem.

The voting results showed just how fractured the Casaya tribe is. The alliance of women voted for Bobby as they’d agreed, but Shane cast a meaningless vote for Aras. Bobby and Aras both voted for Bruce, who himself cast a vote for Courtney, as payback for defacing his rock garden.

If the three women stick together, they should be able to control who’s eliminated from their tribe until the merge, which should only be an episode or two away, anyhow.

Next week, the Casaya women have Shane in their crosshairs, and a couple of twists (the previews offered no specifics) shake things up for the contestants.

Even though Dancing with the Stars is in between seasons, every Wednesday, we’ll continue to post news updates on the show’s dancers, celebrities, and hosts.

This week, we start with champs Drew and Cheryl, who have been making the talk show rounds since their win on Sunday.

The couple guested on Tuesday’s View, where they were originally scheduled to perform. But Drew wasn’t feeling up to it, as he had pulled a hamstring while preparing for his dance in the DwtS finale. That, after hurting his back a few days earlier in his freestyle routine.

Barbara Walters asked Drew if the DwtS cast is paid to appear. He said that contestants got paid for every week they were on the show, but after elimination, they neither trained nor received compensation.

All of the women on The View were interested in what Drew’s wife, Lea, thought about his sexy routines with Cheryl. While Drew wished he had some good gossip to dish about how his wife had freaked out on him, Lea was always encouraging and never jealous. Cheryl admitted that she was a little nervous about Lea’s reaction at first, but that Lea would often push them to make their performances sexier.

With Lea due to give birth in four weeks, Drew was prepared to leave the show at any point in order to take her to the hospital. When the ladies suggested that his brother Nick could’ve filled in for him, Drew said that certainly would’ve lost them the show.

Also sitting in the studio audience of The View were retired professional dancers Melanie Lapatin and Tony Meredith. They run a studio in New York City and have been giving Barbara Walters lessons (for what, she didn’t say). About a year and a half ago, Melanie was given a makeover on What Not to Wear, and I’m sad to report that she has reverted to wearing all black again. Stacy London, Clinton Kelly, and I are disappointed in you, Melanie.

On Wednesday’s Tony Danza Show, Tony gave Drew a basket of goodies for his new baby, including a toddler-sized tutu and a tiny pair of tap shoes.

Drew told Tony that he’d been sure that he and Stacy (who Tony Danza insisted on calling “the tall girl”) would face off in the final two, since they had consistently earned the highest scores from the judges. But he said the victory over Jerry Rice was especially sweet, as it was payback for several losses that Rice’s 49ers had inflicted upon Drew’s beloved Cincinnati Bengals.

According to Cheryl, Drew’s posture was her biggest challenge, especially because his padded suit jackets made his shoulders look even bulkier. To counter this, the couple sewed strings inside the jacket, so they could tie it to Drew’s belt and keep it from riding up.

Drew said almost all of the celebrities were injured by the end of the season. Despite the strains and sprains, Cheryl said Drew had very few clumsy moments during practice. He only came close to dropping her once, and that was early in their training.

Although he said getting a trophy was nice, Drew jokingly wondered why ABC couldn’t include a car or a watch as part of the prize. The unexpected benefit for Drew was a chance to show the world what a great brother he has, as Nick attended nearly every show.

Other members of the DwtS cast have been chatting up talk show hosts, too.

Monday night’s edition of The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch featured Tom Bergeron, Lisa Rinna, and Harry Hamlin. Harry’s the first celebrity name being suggested for season three, but he hasn’t committed yet.

Tom said that another possibility for season three is David Carradine. This season, Carradine actually trained with Ashly because producers were afraid Master P wouldn’t show up for the first episode. That explains why Carradine was sitting at a table near the judges at the season premiere.

When asked about ABC’s decision to cut out the portion of Thursday’s show where Bruno referred to “Brokeback Mountain: The Musical” in its West Coast feed, Tom criticized the network for making a big deal out of it. He said that Drew’s gesture of covering his rear with his cowboy hat was totally innocent, and perfectly in keeping with Drew’s character.

Lisa discussed how she was cast for the second season, after she had turned down an offer to appear on the first. She ran into one of the show’s producers at a spinning class and confessed to being a “big idiot” for turning down the show. The producers considered her interest genuine, and she was given another shot.

That’s all for now. See you next week, when we’ll have an interview with one of this season’s professional dancers!