Word: survivors
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...wasn't that some kind of cool car? Yes, the Vexin' Texan kept right on ridin' in the penultimate week of "Survivor II" (but don't panic - there'll be an extra week of Doritos and Budweiser commercials when CBS sops up the last bit of ratings with the homecoming-themed "Back from the Outback" in two weeks!). For outracing his tribemates through a sort of Greatest Hits obstacle course (I think these guys are running out of new ideas, aside from putting Probst in blue this week), he got a Brand New Pontiac Aztec, With a Tent That Goes...
Reality-show hosts are half devil, half angel, tempter and comforter. (Think Jeff Probst offering starving Survivors extra vittles in exchange for their tent.) Not so Anne Robinson of The Weakest Link (NBC, Mondays, 8 p.m. E.T.), a British import game show with a Survivor twist: players vote each other off. The dour, sarcastic host dismisses losers with a curt "You are the weakest link. Goodbye." (Thanks to NBC's weeks-long ad blitz, it may be the first TV catchphrase Americans have got sick of before its show even aired). But there's an integrity to her evil-Regis...
...very rules of a game make it immoral? Susan Sarandon thinks so. The statement-minded actress condescended to guest-star on NBC's Friends because, she said, its rival Survivor is a game that "[rewards] behavior that shouldn't be rewarded." Unlike the more wholesome chess (which rewards sacrificing the weak to protect the important) or Monopoly (which rewards price gouging)? Hard fought as it is--as in pretty much any game, there's only one winner--Survivor is also based on social precepts most people try to teach their toddlers. Play well with others: Survivor is not kind...
...look for moral uplift in Boot Camp (Fox, Wednesdays, 9 p.m. E.T.), a military-training Survivor look-alike that prompted a lawsuit from CBS (since swiping hit concepts is unheard-of in the TV business). But while it is derivative and goofy--the screaming "drill instructors" put the "camp" in Boot Camp--it also shows a kind of olive-drab heart. Its major structural difference from Survivor is the most telling: the "recruits" conduct grueling reward challenges, not in teams, but as one unit. It's the most literal example of a widespread reality-show theme: that ordinary folk (including...
...rolling on completed movie scripts. TV too would be fine--for now. The rest of this season's comedies and dramas have been shot, while news and reality shows would be exempt. But even though networks have stockpiled some shows, be prepared for a fall season heavy on newsmagazines, Survivor clones, TV movies (now being shot and banked) and recycled theatrical releases...