I don’t know about you (well, yes, I do), but I’m so over “Survivor” – in whatever incarnation they come up with –
that I can’t bear one more minute of cellulite-free, bikini-wearing, bartending writer with too much time on his/her hands and too many alliances on their minds.
True, I wasn’t a big fan of the original “Survivor.” But I did eventually warm to it. I even got to tolerate Jeff Probst and his idiot bush jacket and hat that make him look like he knocked over an Outback Steakhouse.
I don’t think it will happen with this much-talked-about latest edition.
Clearly, I’m alone because it was No. 2 last week in the Neilsen ratings.
My problem is that the latest version, “Survivor: Panama – Exile Island,” is so convoluted that even the name is complicated.
In this edition, they started with four teams – older women, older men, younger women and younger men. The fact that one of the older women was 35, and one of the older men was 34 shows you just what TV considers over-the- hill on a desert island.
Tonight, the four teams are combined into two teams with team members being picked in a school yard call-out. (That method stunk in first grade, and it stinks now, by the way.)
The one guy who is not picked has to be exiled temporarily for several days alone to Exile Island – another phony-baloney ruse by the producers to make the show look scary.
I mean, how alone can you be with a camera crew along to capture your loneliness?
And if you got, say, bitten by a giant lizard or something, it’s not like there wouldn’t be anyone around to suck out the poison.
Of course, this edition has the usual cast of character types – including the incredibly annoying guy who is purely hateful. This time it’s Shane Powers (who has a name like this in real life?), the “older man” of 34.
By his fifth day, he’s already crying and whining. He misses his son, he’s thirsty, he’s hungry, he’s never been so miserable or so bored by the menial tasks he’s forced to do.
Well, for God’s sake, why didn’t you go to Club Med instead? What did you think you were getting into when you applied to “Survivor?”
You want scary? Go sing for Simon Cowell.
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“Survivor: Panama – Exile Island”
[*] (One star)
Tonight at 8 on CBS