February 6, 2002

6:42 AM

New Survivor 4 Contestants AnnouncedSixteen back-stabbing, over-competitive, fame-seeking, hunger-loving castaway wannabes were announced this morning on CBS' Survivor site. Fewer people watched the mother-of-all-American-reality-TV-shows in it's last incarnation in Africa - will this one in the Marquesas continue the ratings slide?
posted by stevis (10 comments total)

God willing, yes. I'm actually glad I didn't know there had been a Survivor 3.
posted by UnReality at 6:48 AM on February 6, 2002

I was moderately interested in Survivor 2 until it became clear the contestants weren't gonna have to do any "surviving" because the producers concocted easy ways for them to 'win' food and fire and other necessities in the challanges. I would watch again if it was more like a documentary about wilderness survival and the narcissistic wannabes realized along the way that working together was going to get them farther than back-stabbing would.
posted by plaino at 7:07 AM on February 6, 2002

I only watched the last few episodes of Survivor 3, but I religiously read the episode summaries on Salon. Very amusing, at least for a sometimes-fan of the show.

Plaino--the ads are claiming that the contestants won't be given any food or fire in Survivor 4. (Whether the producers stick to that or not, I guess we'll see.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:18 AM on February 6, 2002

Hmmm...I think I'll skip it anyway.
posted by plaino at 7:40 AM on February 6, 2002

I watched religiously - until I see any indication that Knot's Landing is making a comeback, Survivor is the best soap around, bar none.

That said, I do wish there was some actual surviving going on. Season 3 was little more than a video campout. Still entertaining as hell, though.
posted by UncleFes at 7:43 AM on February 6, 2002

Hunter is a FedEx pilot. Is that a tongue-in-cheek reference to the movie Cast Away?
posted by TiggleTaggleTiger at 8:07 AM on February 6, 2002

TiggleTaggleTiger: you've beated me to it! I was about t post that his luxury item would be a volley ball... Damn.
posted by rexgregbr at 8:49 AM on February 6, 2002

I'm addicted to Survivor, so I guess I will watch season 4, but the trouble has been that on 2 and 3 the characters just weren't anywhere near as interesting as on Survivor 1. The producers have tried to make up for this in many ways, especially by editing so as to conceal important information about various people in the game and their alliances, so that the ending will be as much of a surprise as possible. But this has not been able to make up for the fact that the recent contestants just haven't been very interesting. I'm not saying that Survivor 1 was any truer to what 'really' happened; we know that reducing 3 days' worth of footage from multiple cameras to a one-hour episode involves a lot of sleight-of-hand and distortion, but Survivor 1 just had way more interesting raw material to work with, in terms of characters like Richard, Susan, and Rudy. Since then, they have gone for characters who are more conventionally photogenic, but far less quirky and singular as people. As a result, the editing has been oriented much more towards suspense than out-there character development... to the show's detriment. Because if we don't care that much about the people, then the fact that we don't really know what will happen just doesn't matter very much.
posted by Rebis at 10:50 AM on February 6, 2002

Survivor is suffering from a lack of attractive ladies. Where's the new Colleen? Where's the new Elisabeth? A Survivor without a waif-like white woman is like Disney without Mickey.
posted by owillis at 10:57 AM on February 6, 2002

One can only hope.
posted by {savg*pncl} at 7:02 PM on February 6, 2002