I know that some of you had to have seen this car wreck of a show. Is Survivor the new "Must See TV", or just filler while Dawson's Creek is in reruns? Who's going to get voted off the island next (Richard, I'm looking at you)? Should annoying host Jeff Probst stick with Rock and Roll Jeopardy? And I am the only one who's already completely hooked after just one episode?

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2000

Answers

It's a total Real World rip-off, like Real World: Nowhere, or something. Yeah I think I'm hooked. It's kinda like Real World meets Gilligan's Island meets Double Dare. I think either Richard or Rudy is getting the boot next, even though I think they both should stay, they're level-headed and not slackers. Even worse, though, is the absolutely blatant Real World rip-off they advertised during Survivor. I mean at least with Survivor they don't get a phat house, the other one it's the exact exact same concept. They're so getting sued.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2000

I have been hearing so much about this show, but I have yet to see any advertisements on tv about it. What time, day, station?

I am fairly convinced that I woul be one of the first to be booted off the island. I think I could survive, but I would be like the biggest ass. The first thing to go would be my civility. I like people, but as soon as I am FORCED to be with them, I become quite certain that they are incompetent and too stupid to breath.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2000

I saw it and felt like one of those people who gawk at horrific car accidents in spite of themselves. What sort of stipulations did you have to meet to get on the island? A personality disorder and a complete absence of dignity? I suppose it was okay until they got into that island totem mumbo jumbo. "You hold the phallus and I'll light the fire that represents your life and we'll all be first year anthropology students who made the mistake of reading H. Rider Haggard's 'She.' Oh, and don't forget to bring marshmellows 'cause we're going to roast them after we give the old girl the heave-ho."

I think every non-Christian religion ought to sue these clowns for ... well, for being so mind-numblingly stupid. It was worse than the British in India. I kept expecting someone to say, "Me Tarzan ... you Out!" And as someone else mentioned, that host? Is it humanly possible to have a more annoying personality? Personally, if I were on the island, I'd have voted for him. Maybe a little cannibalism; something with a plum sauce.

I'm sorry. But it was TV for stupid people and I'm ashamed to say I was a stupid person. I had to watch it. But it felt a lot like those dreams where you're standing naked at the 50 yard line during the Super Bowl. Thank God no one walked in on me while I was watching. It would have been like your Mom walking in and catching you masturbating. Scarred for life!!!

Sorry. Didn't mean to be rude. But I'm terrified that I'll be compelled to watch the next one. I have no shame.

-- Anonymous, June 01, 2000

Okay, I'm convinced that I should watch this now. There's got to be something to fill up the summer, right? I can't imagine who in their right mind would want to be on this show. And if they're going to have a game show host be the mediator, why couldn't they have picked Ben Stein? He'd be great. I'm actually kind of surprised they don't have Puck or Amaya out there being the host -- I wouldn't have thought twice if they'd done that.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2000

They can't have Puck or Amaya as hosts, because after two weeks of eating rats and rocks, they'd flay them, and scoop out their jellied brains with coconut spoons.

Or that could just be me.

I hate to admit it, but I'm already hooked on this show, too. Seriously hooked. I don't usually watch tv in the summer (nothing new on, why bother?) But I tuned in just to see what they'd do with this. It's so viciously over the top!

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2000

You know how we've been talking in this forum about movies and bands we're embarrassed about watching and listening to? Well, I was hanging my head in shame after watching this show. It was awful. It was beyond awful, it was...words escape me. And I have a feeling I will be tuning in next week.

It's a train wreck. It's an auto accident. It's almost as bad as that marrying-a-multimillionaire crap. And I want to see that smirking, lazy Stacey person get voted off the island.

I'm so ashamed.

-- Anonymous, June 02, 2000

I am completely addicted already. I love that crap. I think the show is interesting because there are so many more levels to what these people have to do as opposed to Real World and Road Rules. They need to make people like them as well as need them, but if they look like they might be the winner, they'll get voted off for being too good. It seems like a really tense situation. I was really tensed up just watching every glorious voyeur moment of it.

-- Anonymous, June 03, 2000

Re: Survivor

This site cracks me up.

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2000

More!

I'm addicted to Survivor (even after one episode) and Real World AND Road Rules.. and there's going to be a new version on NBC (or is it ABC) this fall. 6 guys in a house full of video cameras. WHOO. Unfortunately, I've only seen one commercial, so I don't remember the name (or station, I'm stupid, I know), but I do know that I'm tuning in.

I love this "real life" crap- it makes my life seem so much better!

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2000

I think it is the most fetid piece of shit that I've seen on television in a very long time. All of the other TV shows that appeal to the rubbernecker mentality - "World's Most Amazing Highway Explosions" etc. - at the very least are based on real-world events. They may overly hype and dramatize, but they are mildly entertaining.

"Survivor" is so incredibly transparent that one would think it is, in fact, a bunch of hot air. The scenario is grossly concocted. The day-to-day existence of these poor souls is obscenely and obviously dreamt up by develish ghouls known as "writers".

The premise itself is interesting: place a cross-section of Americans into an alien environment where they must return to nature in order to survive. Will they abandon social structures that evolved out of more agrarian or technologically enhanced cultures? Will they reveal epigenetic rules in their behavior? How do they interact with each other and how does that change over time as circumstances become more desperate? That would certainly make interesting television.

But, alas, like a game of Populous gone wrong, the producers of this travesty instead decide to add a variety of phony primitive trappings, turn it into a game show, and devise cruel and pointless activities for the doomed to perform. They hand-picked the people, they devised an entire event sequence, they filled it with bread & circuses, and the created a steaming heap of TV turd.

-- Anonymous, June 05, 2000

Jon, you're a movie critic or something, aren't you? If not, you should be. Seriously.

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

Dude, I have been all over this show before it even started. I have been waiting and waiting for this show to start and I jsut happened to get lucky enough to flip the TV on the other night and catch it on. Now I'm like ultra-in-reality-hooked. I'm all over it.

I do have to agree with Jon though. It looks a bit scripted. Of course, so do Road Rules and Real World, at this point. It's like MTV didn't think it was enough to find the most annoying and twisted people on the planet and throw them all together... they just WEREN'T interesting enough in all of their fuckedupatude. MTV had to write in some more fuckedupness.

Or maybe it is really just proof that when you put people in front of a camera, we'll all act. We're just not all that good at it. (=

As for who's the next to be booted? First of all, I think, if the show is intelligent, they'd have it be someone from the other tribe. And as for the tribe that did the booting on Saturday? They are SOOO stupid. The LAST person I would be voting off would be the Navy Seal. Okay, granted, he wasn't able to start a fire, but *I* don't know how to start a fire, for fuck's sake. I don't give a shit how annoying he is... he was a NAVY FUCKING SEAL, he stays. (=

I'm just still really confused about what they do when it comes down to two people left on the island. How do they vote someone out?

"Oh, no, really... YOU can have the million dollars. I really don't need it."

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

You know what would be fun? If someone would secretly go around decorating the island with small piles of rocks and silly artefacts made of twigs, and making strange noises in the middle of the night.....

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

What happens when there are two left is this: are You ready for this?..It is sick and twisted. The people who were booted off the island vote on the last two, they decide who wins. This must be screwing with karma somehow. It is designed to be a complete head game...no survival skills needed except for the phsychological kind. The ultimate group head fuck. A master manipulators wet dream.

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

The show with the six guys is Big Brother (or maybe just brother) Both shows are from England (I think or somewhere therabouts) and if I am not mistaken it will also be on CBS same as Survivor. ABC has Making the Band on Fri, Survivor is Wed, the Brother will be on Thur and of course Real World on Tue. So near every day of the week taken up with this crap. And yes I watch them all, I cant help it.

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

Lee: Are you serious? Because what happens if it's one person from each tribe that is left? Won't the tribes just vote for their own people? Then there'd still be a tie.

Or is it possible that two people from the same tribe would be the ones that are left?

-- Anonymous, June 06, 2000

i loved it when they played "eye of the tiger". that was the best part for me. i didn't think they were going to play it, as they had played a lot of other songs, but then they did. it was cool. huh? oh, i guess we're talking about different Survivor shows. my bad.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2000

Okay, instead of just being unclear I will be a little more specific.. Beginning in episode seven, the two teams merge. The remaining castaways, now accustomed to thinking of each other as the "other team" or "enemy," will come to live together as individuals. At that point, the challenges become person against person, as opposed to team against team; only the winning individual will receive a reward and/or immunity. Then, when it gets down to the last two, the seven most recently eliminated castaways will return to form the final tribal council and decide who will be the final survivor, the winner of $1,000,000.

Another interesting fact is this. Just because You don't win the one million, doesn't mean that You go away empty-handed. The first one booted off gets $2,500. The runner-up to the million dollar winner gets approximately $100,000. So it really isn't a bad deal one way or another. I could use $2,500...I don't know about You.

It's still a mind fuck.

-- Anonymous, June 07, 2000

I agree with Lee. It's downright diabolical.

As for whether it's a "Road Rules rip-off or the new '...Millionaire'"? It's both! It's an ingeniously evil combination of the two.

It's on CBS (of all stations!) Weds. at 8, I think.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 2000