Word: burnett
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...much depends on a raw cow's brain. At least it does if you are Mark Burnett, executive producer of Survivor and Survivor: The Australian Outback, with a rich deal to produce Survivors 3 and 4 for CBS and a big, fat secret to guard--the outcome of a game that drew almost 52 million viewers for its finale last August. On that secret rest millions of dollars and the fortunes of a network. So pose him an innocent question--Is it true the S2 contestants ate raw cow's brains?--and you will get a stone-faced...
...solution and bring down the house of cards. ("Raw cow's brain? Yes...it all fits! The winner is Colby!") Last year rabid fans scoured video stills and images swiped from CBS computers to glean clues, some accurate, some not, about which Survivor would next get booted. But Burnett played the would-be spoilers like a baby grand, impishly editing footage and planting red-herring files at the official website to flummox them. At the S2 location, besieged by journalists spying from the air and infiltrators trying to break in on the ground, 25 guards, some on horseback, some wearing...
...spoils: the series is a brilliantly conceived marketing device used to promote the CBS schedule, from Bryant's Early Show to Dave's Late Show, and it has advertising built right into the content. Control, if indirectly, of network programming: as a rash of new reality TV (a term Burnett disdains) arrives, S2 lands like an 800-lb. kangaroo to battle NBC's venerable "Must-See TV" lineup. And control of the audience. Until the debut, Burnett and company plan to tease you to death about S2 and make you like...
...challenge facing Burnett and crew is a bit like getting ready to do the second season of The Sopranos, except this time the original cast is gone, the whole world is trying to steal your ideas--oh, and this time you have to move to Moscow and make the show about the Russian Mafia. On S2, which bows in after the Super Bowl Jan. 28, before moving to Thursdays at 8 p.m. E.T., some things remain familiar: 16 people still arrive in a remote setting with minimal supplies, divide into two tribes (Kucha and Ogakor--that's "kangaroo" and "crocodile...
...weekly reality-based show, I thought, than to relive my favorite moments all over again with the official companion book, Survivor: The Ultimate Game? Unfortunately, this text has only left me thirsting even more for the next season in the Australian Outback. The book, written by Executive Producer Mark Burnett and long-time adventure writer Martin Dugard, fails miserably to recapture the conflicts, competition and connivances that made the television series irresistible. Hastily written while Burnett was still on the island, it reads more like the overdramatic diary of a junior high school girl armed with a thesaurus and without...