Mika and Canaan, at a remarkably less stressful point during the race. (CBS)

At the heart of almost any reality competition, it seems, is fear and the ability to overcome it. Heck, there was a whole show based on it — who could forget Fear Factor?

(Certainly not the contestants — have any of those guys been able to look at a cockroach and not think, “I ate one of THOSE?”)

The Amazing Race has made sure to include fear among their challenges — whether it’s water or animals or, my big one, heights. It’s a classic — and it always seems to lead to a classic battle between one’s fear and one’s desire to win $1 million.

In Mika’s case, fear won out.

Mika, the cute, curly-haired Christian country singer from Nashville, had to confront her fear of high places before. She had to reach the top of the world’s tallest building, Burj Dubai, to get a clue.

But at the top of a very tall waterslide, Mika’s fear got the better of her. Hanging onto sixth place, she and her boyfriend, Canaan, reached the top of a six-story slide on one of Dubai’s man-made islands, and she immediately began to fret her situation. Add to that — Mika also doesn’t like water.

(By the way, this isn’t Mika’s first reality rodeo. She was in the cast of Fox’s short-lived docu-drama Nashville as one of several hopefuls trying to make it in country music. Decided less fear involved.)

Now, considering it ended up being a 45-minute-long battle for them, the show’s edit may not have ended up favorably for Canaan. However, from what we saw, Canaan didn’t handle the situation well at all, even coming close to pushing Mika down the slide at one point against her will.

Like I said, this isn’t the first time contestants have had to face fear head on for this show. Last season, sisters Kisha and Jen had to overcome their fear of water to complete a challenge involving diving. Unlike Canaan, the sisters calmly reasoned things out and finished the task.

It became such a problem for Mika that the team in last at that point, Globetrotters Big Easy and Flight Time, caught up, which added a time limit to Mika’s conundrum. She and Canaan had to be down the slide in two minutes or the Globies would be allowed to go.

Now, to this point, Big Easy and Flight Time have been painted as nice guys during the race — helpful and acting as the basketball ambassadors Globetrotters are expected to be.

Globetrotter Big Easy gets himself through the water any way he can. (CBS)

(Not to mention hilarious — as in an earlier challenge, Big Easy has to navigate an inflatable raft to a waiting yacht. He eschewed his oars, using his big arms to get him there, as Flight Time yelled, “Do it for the hood!” Which in turn led fellow competitors Sam and Dan to yell “Do it for the suburbs!”)

Here however, their competitive nature came to the fore, telling Mika “It’s OK if you don’t want to do it!” and “We’ll walk you down if you don’t want to go!”

For me, this isn’t really trash-talking. This is simply a couple of guys doing what they can to win a million dollars, which is really the goal. Even if Canaan thought one of them was “a piece of crap” when Mika wouldn’t budge and the time ran out.

Other highlights:

• Quote of the night, possibly of the year, came when Matt & Greg (aka Pinky & the Brain) found out their task involved hookahs — Arabian water pipes. Matt said he knew what it was, explaining it to his father. Greg responded, “Oh yeah. We used to call it something else.”

• The simplest decisions can sometimes make all the difference, such as when brothers Sam and Dan decided to stow a $2 calculator from Wal-Mart in their gear. It came in very handy when they had to put enough gold on a scale to reach $500,000 worth — and it also brought together once more a key alliance as poker players Maria and Tiffany teamed up to help them.

• Brian and ex-Miss America Ericka have proven one of the most entertaining and pleasant couples, but the rough edges began to show in the hookah-building challenge. (Come to think of it, those same edges showed in eventual round winners Cheyne and Meghan.) However, in Brian and Ericka’s case, it may become too much when the show heads to the Netherlands next week.

Finally, this week on Elimination Station, Zev and Justin finally arrive, and enjoy the taste of chicken feet, and then Mika and Canaan show up:

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