I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I'm going to watch "Dr. Phil's Romance Rescue" tonight (8 p.m., Ch. 2).

In the spirit of those who can't help look when they pass a horrific accident, I'm drawn to the thought of Dr. Phil dispensing his overbearing, know-it-all "wisdom" to Jonathan Baker and Victoria Fuller, whose train wreck of a relationship enlivened the most recent edition of "Amazing Race."

Jonathan consistently screamed at, bullied and occasionally shoved his wife. Victoria whined and moaned and cried about Jonathan's behavior (and most everything else), but then quickly forgave him for his obnoxious behavior.

They seemed perfect for each other — a match made in hell.

And Dr. Phil is going to straighten them out. Then he's going to bring peace to the Middle East, bring our troops home from Iraq and cure cancer.

I'm a little worried, though. Three such insufferable people on the screen at the same time might make my TV explode.

Or my head.

MY IMMEDIATE REACTION to last week's season finale of "The Amazing Race" when Freddy and Kendra won was — I'm never going to watch this show again.

Having cooled off a bit, I can see at least one good thing about the insensitive, possibly racist Kendra and the dopey Freddy winning — at least it proves the competition isn't fixed. If it was, ultra-nice, deserving Kris and John would've won.

Not that there haven't been a lot of insufferable people on every edition of "The Amazing Race" (and a higher-than-usual proportion of them this time), but Kendra's comments about those "ghetto" countries in Africa — she complained about how "wretched" and "disgusting" Senegal was, adding, "And they just keep breeding and breeding!" — were pretty bad.

But when the course took the racers to a former prison/embarkation point from which the slaves were sent to the Western Hemisphere and Kendra expressed the opinion that she could understand why so many of them left such a vile, "ghetto" country, well, is it any wonder that Internet message boards started referring to her as KKKendra?

The million bucks Freddy and Kendra won will buy a lot of things. But it won't buy Kendra back her reputation.

"SURVIVOR" MEETS "AMAZING RACE" the next time around. Amber Brkich and Rob Mariano — who not only finished first and second in "Survivor: All Stars" but fell in love and got engaged — will be one of the teams racing around the world when the next edition of "Race" premieres on March 1.

I'll be rooting for them.

---

E-mail: pierce@desnews.com