Word: drilling
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...According to the lawsuit, "Boot Camp" producers LMNO pitched CBS on the show last June, with one twist: The drill sergeants - those real-life Marine "save the drama for yer mama" guys with the big hats - would do the voting...
...sounded a little too, well, different. According to the suit, Fox promptly hired Scott Messick, a producer of the original "Survivor," as executive producer of "Boot Camp." (Yes, the suit does accuse Messick of illegally divulging trade secrets, and names him as a defendant.) And the voting off by drill sergeants - the one thing besides the military setting that might have made the show different and refreshing, not to mention more realistic - was one of the first things to go. Contestants would vote each other off. That was what worked for CBS. That was what "Boot Camp" would...
...judge watch the tapes. This lawsuit gets at a bigger Reality TV issue: Who is the most exciting TV enemy - man, nature or authority? In the two shows' current forms, Jeff Probst and the drill sergeants match up (thematically, if not physically) as authority-figure facilitators. Both deliver the rules, make life plenty lousy for the contestants, and stir up a little conflict along the way. Nature, be it the Outback or Parris Island, heaps on some abuse, and certainly the setting is the biggest difference between the two. But the real damage - the voting off - is done...
...While they wrestled the crippled plane, the crew had a familiar drill to follow: the "classified destruction plan," which assigns each crew member a sensitive part of the plane to demolish. Some of the steps - erasing computer hard drives that recorded the day's mission - were manageable even if the plane's violent rocking kept the crew strapped into their seats. But the most sophisticated eavesdropping gear was supposed to be destroyed in order to be saved, smashed with hammers and hatchets or stuffed into weighted bags and dumped out of the plane's cargo doors. Once the plane managed...
...time news of the harrowing collision became public, a similar drill was being repeated in Washington and Beijing. Some on the front lines of the U.S.-China relationship were trying to save it, while others in the back seemed intent on blowing it up. Neither country was able to manage a clear response for days. In both there are hard-liners, who seemed to miss the days of cold war chest thumping, arrayed against accommodationists, who value, among other peace dividends, the $116 billion in annual trade. It was in the interest of both to let the other side know...