Word: burnette
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...felt it my reportorial duty to chat with a cross-section of candidates, and yet I knew I had neither the time nor the tolerance toward the emotionally disturbed to speak to all 2,000. So I took my cue from "Survivor" producer Mark Burnett and tried to interview just 16 competitors who were trying to prove they could survive a Hollywood audition. However I was to find that, like watching the "Survivor" program itself, or eating semi-rancid potato chips when one is starving, it's hard to stop...
There is gambling in Casablanca; there is corruption in Chinatown; and there may be something fishy on Survivor too. A suit filed in San Francisco County Superior Court by ex-Survivor contestant STACEY STILLMAN claims show producer Mark Burnett "improperly abused his relationships with the contestants" by persuading Sean Kenniff and Dirk Been to vote her, rather than ex-Navy SEAL Rudy Boesch, off the island. Similar charges were leveled last year in The Stingray, a book about the show by investigative reporter Peter Lance. Stillman, seeking unspecified damages, says a letter from Been to Burnett exists to support...
...Then it was about, well, you know - Jerri and Colby, massaging each other in the tent while the Burnett squad tried to drum up a lady-and-the-tiger dynamic between the cowboy and the movie star. Didn't seem to fit - she's the predator, and in it for the hoochie, and she'll find plenty of people to throw overboard before she parts with the strong, good-looking fella. That betrayal's at least eight weeks away...
...1950s scandals, as befits a simpler time, involved simpler skulduggery. It was cut-and-dried: contestants were given answers and were ordered to win or to lose. Stillman's claim, even if proven, shows something much fuzzier. We're not talking about Mark Burnett and Jeff Probst dumping out the ceremonial conga drum and stuffing it with "STACEY" ballots in their own handwriting. The notion is that producers indirectly - through pleading? Coaxing? Leading interview questions? - caused contestants to change their minds. Which led them to vote differently. Which led to contestants' being voted off in a different order. Which...
...change is what Burnett calls "the 17th character": the outback. The inland site, chosen for its varied terrain--rocky outcroppings, dramatic waterfalls--in many ways makes Pulau Tiga look like St. Kitts, says Burnett. Infested with spiders, venomous snakes and crocodiles, it offered little cover, exposing contestants to torrential rains, nighttime cold and 100[degree] heat (and the shoot lasted 42 days this time, not 39). "The physical suffering was far greater than anything you've seen," Burnett claims. "It makes you want to cry for them...