Amidst all the Survivor-mania that has endlessly inundated this country in the last few months, has anyone bothered to ask just what those 16 castaways survived anyway? While the media characterized the CBS hit show as some sort of voyeuristic Lord of the Flies, every time I happened to flip it on, all I saw was Gervase lazily coasting on a raft, Colleen and Greg sneaking away for a little late-night romp-around, or Rudy being a crotchety, old man. Surviving? Sorry, but that’s what most people call a vacation. In fact, the cast of Gilligan’s Island probably had a rougher time of it; frankly I’d much rather be stranded on a resort island smack dab in the middle of the South Pacific than stuck in some TV studio in the heart of Los Angeles.
So after enduring 39 days of hell that included stepping around video camera wires and walking around naked on a beach, Richard “The Snake” Hatch beat out his competitors to take home a million bucks and a car. Did he deserve it? For back-stabbing, conniving, and deceiving. . . sure. For, surviving. . .I think not.
Survivor II (The Empire Strikes Back) will no doubt capture as many Nielsen ratings as the first one did. But it’ll be hard pressed to surpass the drama that has been the last four years in the life of cyclist Lance Armstrong