Word: survivor
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...without risk of spoiling the show for anyone: Gervase was the islander who, through several supposed breaches of security and common sense at CBS, was revealed as the winner of the million bucks. A few weeks ago, a hacker announced that he had cracked the area of the official "Survivor" web site that contained the photos - a head shot marked with a red "X" - that identify contestants voted off the island. The site had an "X" for everyone except Gervase. Two weeks ago, more astonishing evidence: Sharp-eyed watchers noticed, in the opening minutes of an episode, a scene from...
Then came the Final Four scene. Then a colleague told me a friend at CBS told him - in close confidence, of course - that Gervase was the one. And then there was the Greg debacle: CBS posted an article at the "Survivor" site a couple of Wednesdays back that announced the irritating coconut-phone wielder as the victim of that night's council. Which, praise God, he was. Clearly this didn't bode well - a blatant and idiotic mistake...
...time I thought it was a pretty pathetic attempt to whitewash a screwup. Now I live in a Lynchian universe of confusion and conspiracy theories. "Survivor" is a great game, but it's nothing compared with the one CBS is playing with our heads...
...easy to see why, when you look at what they are watching: "Survivor" and other examples of so-called "reality TV." Americans want to watch real people in real situations (or at least ones that allow them to suspend their disbelief), finding their way without a script to solutions that are never entirely predictable. Compare that with the cheesy four-day infomercials put on by two parties doing their best to look just like each other - just what is the difference between a "Compassionate Conservative" and a "New Democrat," anyway? - and it's obvious why only C-SPAN junkies...
...Survivor," contestants must engage in alliances and pacts, canvass support, lobby and horse-trade. Corny as its Trader Vic's-meets-"Lord of the Flies" aesthetic may be, the Tribal Council shows "delegates" forced to weigh which individuals are most indispensable to their "party" before casting their votes in a ballot whose outcome can, at the last moment, defy all predictions. In other words, "Survivor" represents real, unscripted politics, whose Darwinian ethic shows humans at their best and worst...