Loved ones visit Survivor
When Survivor was brand new, in the year 2000, late-night comedian David Letterman ridiculed the idea of a reality-TV survival competition in which contestants were stranded on a desert island and forced to survive with what they had. What kind of a survival challenge is it really, Letterman demanded, when every so often host Jeff Probst swans onto the beach and offers the supposedly starving castaways a cheeseburger and fries?
How times have changed. The Survivor food auction is now a Survivor tradition — so much so that, in last week’s outing, Probst felt comfortable enough to joke that he was doing it after each castaway had been handed $500 US for food items. “What kind of doughnuts are they?” one castaway asked, perhaps a little sharply for Probst’s liking. “Fresh,” Probst replied, without missing a beat. As it happened, that castaway was the one sent home at the end, “the 13th person voted out and the fourth member of our jury,” Probst intoned solemnly, before adding Survivor’s signature catchphrase: “The tribe has spoken.”
Survivor Caramoan: Fans vs. Favorites ends this weekend on a tear. It’s near the top of the ratings perch, still, after all these years. More than two million viewers watched the April 17 show, second only to Hockey Night in Canada that week. Survivor may have lost a step in the U.S., where singingand-dancing competitions dominate the reality-TV ratings, but Survivor and its sister program, The Amazing Race, are the people’s choice here in Canada.
Tonight’s outing, the last new episode before Sunday’s threehour finale, features another Survivor tradition, this one more recent: the visit from loved ones. In recent seasons, Survivor producers have made the visit part of the game by compelling contestants to compete in a challenge alongside their respective family members, with the inevitable conflict and deeply buried resentments bubbling to the fore. Family secrets have a way of spilling into the open when, as Probst has noted in numerous interviews, you’re under pressure in unfamiliar surroundings and there are TV cameras all about.
The loved ones’ visit has become a fan favourite among Survivor followers, but it can be hard to watch. Contestants are away from home for, at most, 39 days, yet the reunions are emotional and tearful — hysterical, even. For the viewer watching at home, it can be vaguely discomforting, disorienting even, to witness such displays of emotion in what, after all, is just a silly TV show made for people’s amusement. (CBS, Global — 9 p.m.)