Entertainment

‘Naked and Afraid’ contestants battle elements, and each other

Richard Hatch eat your heart out! Remember the first season of “Survivor” with awful, lazy tub Richard-the-Hatcher, who spent most of his time sitting around naked, hatching wicked schemes until he won the $1 million first prize?

He was unforgettably greedy and naked, sure. But who in their right mind would attempt to survive totally naked with nothing but one other naked person in an environment so hostile that it is infested with the most deadly snake in the world — for free? Plenty of survivalists and nudists, that’s who.

This Sunday night, Discovery Channel takes it all off while putting other survivor-type shows to shame — literally — with a new reality series, “Naked And Afraid.

Each week two strangers — male and female —must survive for 21 days without clothing, food, water and, did I mention, “clothing?” The payoff? Not dying.

On the first riveting episode, two wilderness-survival specialists, Kim Shelton, 22, of Minneapolis and Shane Lewis, 40, of Connecticut are dropped into the mean jungles of Costa Rica, the country with the most bio-diversity of any other, with at least 130 species of snakes.

The two strangers meet when they are already naked, and Kim is smart enough to say, “Should we check each other out and get that over with?” Yes, because from then on, they don’t even notice each other’s pixillated body parts.

Each person is allowed one personal item. Kim chooses a machete and Shane a fire-starter thing.

It starts badly and doesn’t end much better. Before they even arrive, the show’s producer gets bitten by a deadly fer-de-lance snake and nearly dies. In fact, to remove the venom, his leg has to be cut open and a 5-inch- wide, foot-long hunk of his flesh removed.

Tough-guy loner Shane hates everyone in their 20s, and doesn’t fare much better with women. Kim, who has been trained in keeping the peace at her job at a survivalist summer camp, manages to manage the beast. Meantime, they starve as it rains relentlessly, and they build a shelter. Both are in danger of hypothermia, but Kim manages somehow — they don’t explain how — to weave a covering for her lady parts. Shane uses leaves once in a while.

He nearly dies when he falls off a tree, and then cries and whines. She nearly dies when she gets severe food poisoning after sharing a meal of turtle which she catches and cooks. She doesn’t whine or cry.

They are followed by a small camera crew, we’re told, who will only step in if they really look like they are about to buy the farm — or in this case, lose it in the jungle.

He is pretty annoying and she is pretty adaptable. I hate that at the end, the survivalist judges give him higher marks than they do her. At the end they win nothing, but do lose weight. He loses 45 pounds off his already lean frame and she loses 26 pounds. Damn! Even when you’re starving in the jungle, men lose faster than women!

It’s interesting, weird, enjoyable and not like anything you’ve ever seen on TV before. Did I mention they don’t have clothing?