Amazing Race 15 (8pm, CBS) - Contestants begin their journey
tonight in Los Angeles, but soon find themselves in Tokyo trying to survive a Japanese game show. Lots of great teams this year, but one stands out for me: two Harlem Globetrotters.

The Simpsons (8pm, Fox) - It's season 21 for our favorite Springfield family, and tonight's debut was co-written by Seth Rogen.
Rogen also lends his voice to the trainer getting Homer ready for his super hero movie role. Look for lots of big name guest stars this season, such as Sarah Silverman and Anne Hathaway.

Cleveland Show (8:30, Fox) - A "Family Guy" spinoff from Seth McFarlane and Mike Henry about a divorced father who returns to his hometown and romances his first love, who now has children of her own. Fox also debuts "Family Man," and "American Dad" tonight.

Desperate Housewives (9pm, ABC) - A "beloved character" is
attacked in tonight's premiere, and much of season 6 will focus on solving the question of whodunnit. There's a mysterious new couple on the block, played by Drea de Matteo ("Sopranos") and Jeffrey Nordling ("24"). The show will also immediately reveal who was at the altar with Mike in last year's finale -- Susan or Katherine?

Dexter (9pm, Showtime)
- Season 4 opens with Dexter in full Family Man mode. He's married now with two stepchildren and a new baby. The only problem is he's still dicing up bad guys in his spare time. Keith Carradine returns as Agent Frank Lundy get Dexter's help in tracking a new serial killer called The Trinity Killer, because he kills in threes. A mind-blowingly creepy John Lithgow plays Trinity.

Californication (10pm, Showtime) - Hank is up to his old nasty tricks this season, and has expanded his tom-catting territory to academia.  

Cold Case (10pm, CBS) - For the seventh season debut, the team is investigating the 1966 murder of a young woman aboard a luxury ocean liner.

Brothers & Sisters (10pm, ABC) - Another season, another medical crisis for an unnamed member of the Walker family. Also, this season, Kitty and Robert try to save their marriage, and Sarah has a fling with "Dancing with the Stars" and "Sex in the City" French hottie Gilles Marini. And Nora and Holly will fight a lot, of course.

There's also some great stuff airing tonight in non-premiere news...

The Primetime Emmy Awards were announced today.

And once again, "Friday Night Lights" and, specifically, Connie Britton, were spurned.

And NOTHING for "The Shield" the greatest cop drama EVER?!

We don't know what the problem is but Happiness is not happy.

You can find all the nominees here.

Below are our thoughts on the major categories.

Let us know what you think.

Jen,

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.

Your sister Kisha was awfully nice, but I hope at the viewing party with your friends and family last night you got not only seriously clowned, but I hope too that a long line was formed, that you were made to walk that line, and that each person on that line gave you a firm hard slap to the back of your head. You earned that.

Mike & Mel, the popular father and son team from Amazing Race, had a really great interview on Fresh Air with Terry Gross last week. They talk about the reality show, but they also get into activism, politics, and filmmaking.

Unfortunately, the duo (Mike is an acclaimed screenwriter -- "Chuck & Buck," "School of Rock"; Mel is his gay rights activist dad) was eliminated from the competition in late March.

Listen to the NPR broadcast here.

After our country music award sponsored break from 'Race', I have to momentarily delay us another week by jumping ahead to next week because of the preview, in which the first deaf contestant Luke goes at it with black athletic sister Jen, apparently signing the word for 'rhymes with witch'.

1. Oh snap. There's a sign for that?!

2. How did he KNOW she called him that?

In the past, the U-turn was an underused device on "The Amazing Race."

It was deemed too cruel, a thing used only under imminent threat.

But that barrier has been broken.

Margie & Luke aren't as sweet as they look. More on that later.

After
leaving the pitstop near Vlad the Impaler's house in Transylvania, the 8 teams are headed for Siberia by way of Moscow. They get a monetary note with the clue -- they are to head to a hydroelectric dam depicted on the note.

Mel & Mike, the gay dad and son, are the first to leave. Mike describes his dad as "part Woody Allen, part Billy Graham with a splash of Judy Garland," which he sees as a formula for success. I'm not sure how intimidating a neurotic Jewish evangelical druggie torch singer can be, but it's a great image, no?

After a rest in Salzburg, the next stop is Bucharest, Romania, where we
learned that the first clue will be found at the gymnastics center
where Nadia Comaneci trained.

The first to leave is the overachieving sibling team, Tammy and Victor. Tammy talks of Victor's intelligence; he has a fine mind, she admits. But she also notes his reluctance to admit he's wrong. Thus Tammy provides the narrative arc for this Tammy/Victor episode.

Mr. Fine Mind has a smart idea right away; he suggests they get their plane tickets before they get on the train.

Our Guy Luke, aka the show's first deaf contestant, says he doesn't want to rely on his mother Margie for communication. He wants to know what the other teams are saying. It makes me wonder why he never learned to lip read. Will this experience change that?

It's week 2 of the latest race around the world for a million dollars and we start sort of where we left off: marveling at the show's first deaf contestant.

I still think the group is too big to call everyone by name, but the first deaf contestant has a Triangle connection. (Three reality shows with Triangle connections, WHOO-HOO!) He went to A.B. Combs Elementary in Raleigh.

So his name is Luke. And before we even really start the show there's a bit of a tribute to him. He's observant, one person says. His mother is the bionic woman, another marvels. They are a team to be reckoned with, says a third. Later, Luke's mom reveals that when he was younger some people would call him "retarded" and "slow." I hope that wasn't here.

The teams are leaving Switzerland and heading to Munich, Germany. On the way, the overachieving sister and brother wonder if they can unprogram their years of big brother/little sister dynamic. Well, of course not.

Yippee, 'The Amazing Race"is back. Now I can have exotic staycations!

The mix of teams is familiar with a few interesting characteristics thrown in. It's too early to care about names, so we'll proceed with just their labels:

The obligatory blonde team. This time they're flight attendants who think because they are blonde they can practically get away with murder in foreign lands. This is not the first time a blonde team has expressed that kind of sentiment. Do blondes really think they are that
desirable or is it just a defensive move against charges of dumbness?

The overachieving siblings. This time they're Harvard lawyers, although there's a nine-year age difference, so they don't seem unnaturally close.

The mother & son. The son is deaf and doesn't read lips, so he'll have to rely on his mother, which is a pretty typical mother/son relationship, no?

It's the end of the race and the last contestants are: tooclose,
cheerleading siblings Nick & Starr; reconciling couple Ken &
"stop looking at my eyebrows" Tina; and those hapless frat boys Andrew
& Dan.

You'd have to say Nick & Starr, who have pretty much dominated,
are the favorites. But that's not what the frat boys think. "If people
think we are chicken feed for Nick & Starr and Ken & Tina, they
are mistaken," Andrew or Dan says.

Well, hello, I'm Mistaken. Call me Misty for short.