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from June 6, 2000 |
Ron Miller |
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Next Time, Let's Get It Right!
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Update: Ratings be damned! They're still doing it all wrong!
By RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
Okay, the ratings were pretty spectacular for the first season
of CBS' "Survivor," but once you've seen those people
on THAT desert island, who wants to go there again?
For some silly reason, CBS now thinks we're going to come rushing back to see a new batch of castaways they've stranded in the Australian outback. Just to make sure we don't miss this grand opportunity, "Survivor II" will premiere right after the Super Bowl on Sunday, Jan. 28. Then the series will move to Thursday nights at 8 to take on NBC's "Friends."
Once again we're supposed
to be panting to see the new gang of "survivors" try
to stay alive long enough to claim the $1 million prize for being
the one who out-survives all the others, but this time in a desert
setting.
Sorry, I've been there and done that. It was in 1971 in Nick
Roeg's movie called "Walkabout." In that one, there
were only two contestants: A little boy (Roeg's son, Luc) and
his gorgeous teenage sister (Jenny Agutter). They got out with
the help of an aborigine (David Gulpilil). Nobody got a million
bucks, but nobody had to eat rat meat either.
I don't know how the "outback" locale for "Survivor II" grabs you, but it sounds pretty boring to me. Watching people get thirsty is a real snooze. Worse yet, you can be sure somebody's going to wind up drinking his or her own wee-wee. I'll pass on that as after dinner entertainment.
I doubt if they'll be able to work in any Crocodile Dundee sort of characters because I don't think you find many crocs in the desert. And CBS probably has dispatched a couple hundred network pages out to shoo the aborigines away from the site. Help from friendly natives is not in the "Survivor" tradition.
Actually, CBS may be messing around with human nature a bit too much this time. Remember how human society degenerated in the Aussie desert in all those "Mad Max" pictures? After a few weeks, the contestants will probably be hungry enough to go after kangaroos for the cookpot, even though I think that's illegal over there. They'll probably end up tying a few wallabies down, mate, but will have to pay out all their winnings in fines.
I suspect some soft drink sponsor demanded a desert locale so everybody at home would get desperately thirsty for one hour each week and become orgasmic when the soft drink commercial comes on.
Personally, I'm in favor of doing another remote jungle island, but CBS needs to really get creative when it comes to picking the castaways and lining up the hazards they have to survive. I want to see genuine dangers this time. Don't you already suspect CBS sent some flunky in to plant a few harmless snakes on that last island? Don't you wonder if they maybe set up free screenings of "Everybody Loves Raymond" for all the cannibals on nearby islands, just to keep them from showing up and gobbling some of the more attractive castaways?
Amyway, CBS already has committed to doing at least two more "Survivor" series after this one is finished. Obviously, there have to be new directions taken. Here are my suggestions for future editions, each of them guaranteed to make the first two look like Girl Scout camporees:
THE ALL ACTION STAR SURVIVAL
SHOW
Make their own network superstar, Chuck Norris of "Walker,
Texas Ranger," one of the castaways and fill up the rest
of the roster with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone,
Jean Claude Van Damme, Jackie Chan, Wesley Snipes, Steven Seagall
and all the other current Hollywood male action stars. Let them
fight it out, so we can finally know who the real men are among
them. They could even bring back that fat guy from "Martial
Arts" and see if he can't lose a few pounds.
THE CASTAWAY CUTIES SURVIVAL
SHOW
Put some Hollywood hunk like Matt Damon on the island with nothing
but supermodels, starlets, porno queens and centerfold girls
for companions. It would be interesting to see how long he could
hold his end up, in a manner of speaking. This would make Fox's
"Temptation Island" look like "The Richard Simmons
Show."
THE DIET, HEALTH AND EXERCISE
SURVIVAL SHOW
I'm thinking what a treat it would be to put all those late-night
infomercial fitness and health people on an island with nothing
but their Stairmasters and diet supplements to keep them company.
You know, Suzanne Somers and the whole gang. I'd throw in Sarah
"The Duchess" Ferguson, Monica Lewinsky and, okay,
Richard Simmons, too.
THE 'WHERE'S GWYNETH' SURVIVAL
SHOW
How about landing Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow on the
island a day ahead of time, stripping her down to her undies
and giving her 24 hours to find a good hiding place before landing
the boat loaded with all the guys she's ever dated in Hollywood?
THE 'LORD OF THE FLIES'
HOLLYWOOD SITCOM KIDS SURVIVAL SHOW
In this version, CBS rounds up all the obnoxious sitcom kids
currently on TV, including that brat Hallie Isenberg who's always
pretending she's Aretha Franklin. Then the network arms them
with slingshots and sends them out to track down and punish the
show's "adult" host, Gary Coleman.
THE 'PAYBACK MIKE TYSON'
SURVIVOR SHOW
For this show, trouble-prone ex-heavyweight champ Mike Tyson
would be fitted with giant 100-pound foam boxing gloves and placed
on an island with every woman who ever filed any kind of charges
against him. The women would be armed with the same implements
used by Australian sheep ranchers to turn rams into lambs.
THE 'MOST DANGEROUS GAME'
SURVIVAL SHOW
CBS could maroon all the worst people currently on TV or radio,
like talk show hosts Jerry Springer and Sally Jesse Raphael,
"Judge Judy" and all the other TV "judges,"
Dr. Laura Schlesinger and almost everybody with a show on the
Fox News Network. Then CBS could lease the island to Charlton
Heston and the NRA, issue them paint-pellet guns and offer a
bounty for the most "kills."
THE 'BLUE LAGOON' RETRO
SURVIVAL SHOW
Beach Brooke Shields and Leonardo DeCaprio all by themselves
on a desert island and see if she can work Leo up like she did
Christopher Atkins back in 1980 in "The Blue Lagoon."
Personally, I think Brooke would outlast Leo for the prize money.
I mean, she's now tall enough to pick the coconuts right out
of the trees without even putting on her high heels.
THE 'BIRD OF PARADISE'
SURVIVAL SHOW
This could be a lot of fun: Instead of volunteers from the public,
CBS could strand 16 of their own network programming executives
on an island with an active volcano. The highlight of each show
would be a review of the previous week's ratings. If they went
down, the executives would draw lots to see which of them the
natives get to toss into the volcano.
© 2000, 2001 by Ron
Miller. Cartoon © 2000 by Jim Hummel.
You can comment on this column or contact Ron Miller with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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