The falsities of starvation on television.

I used to watch the television game show Survivor religiously when it first aired. The first few seasons were great. They starved the contestants and worked their asses off so hard you could see a physical difference in their appearances by the end of the game. The contestants became thin complete with sunken cheeks. It was intriguing to watch human beings physically destroy themselves just for money. I can imagine that there must have been some health issues following the end of every season for some of the players. Now that is true commitment to the game.

Unfortunately, I stopped watching when I developed a theory that all the women on the show used it as a diet program. I still stand by that notion, but watched this season anyway. This season they brought back old players from previous seasons, some of which I remember from when I was regular viewer years ago. It is interesting because clearly the older players have their head in the game. They play the way the game was made to be played. But the contestants from more recent seasons don't seem to give a shit about strategy, strength, alliances, etc. etc. They are more concerned about their little friendships, and braiding each other's hair.

Beyond the handful of shitty players, the show itself seems to have taken a turn. Now, this is a reality game show, but the filming style is no longer even done as if that is so. It is soap opera-y, and possibly staged. The nature shots are most certainly staged. On tonight's episode they were screening an underwater shot of a sea-turtle to return from the commercial break. The problem with this is, when the shot came onto the screen I thought it was a commercial for the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. It dragged on, and when no dialogue was spoken I thought to myself, "No way is this the intro back to Survivor." Well, it was. Fail.

In a nut shell, Survivor had a good idea to bring back respected viewers from earlier seasons, but isn't doing the best job to keep them around for the season following this one (assuming there is one). Thank you Survivor for falling into that reality show stereotype about how staged your show is. At least you kept Jeff around.