.com Review
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After months of tighter-than-CIA secrecy, here is the exclusive inside story of the TV smash Survivor.
Its creator, Mark Burnett, calls the show "Gilligan's Island meets Lord of the Flies meets Ten Little Indians meets The
Real World," but you knew that. What's new about this book is the view from the other side of the lens. While the
contestants gobbled wriggling three-inch beetles and savaged each other, Burnett and company were feverishly running the
show and writing this tell-all account. It gives you a better feel than TV can for the natural setting: pristine beaches
infested with skin-burrowing bugs that red "coquette" Colleen for life; Malaysian field rats attracted by the
survivors' food and crawling over them all night; six-foot, yellow-and-black-banded sea kraits (snakes) devouring the
rats; 300-pound pythons reeking of rotting meat, poised to drop from trees and eat people.
Except for the crew's hands-down favorite, U.S. Air Force survival trainer Gretchen ("She was wholesome, she was a
survivalist, she looked great in a bathing suit"), most of the contestants were nice as pythons. Laid-back Gervase said,
"Nothing's dumber than a woman, except maybe a cow," amusing "alpha male" Joel and enraging Jenna, Colleen, and Gretchen
(IQ 142). Greg, who stank more than others because he slept in the jungle and got more bug bites, infuriated show host
Jeff Probst. Despite "long nights cuddling with Colleen," Greg betrayed her to flirt with the aptly named winner, Rich.
"It's like a kitten you find," Greg says of Colleen. "You give it a name, like Fluffy ... you're starving. So you look
right in the kitten's eyes and break its neck. Nothing personal." The authors compare gay Rich and phobe Rudy to the
Odd Couple, and Dirk and Sean to "a pair of Malaysian field rats trying to stand up to a yellow-banded krait. The krait,
of course was Susan."
The Pagong tribe was young, strong, lazy, and quarrelsome--"MTV's Beach House." The Tagi were older, but a far better
team, and so more successful. And the most consistent, cynical, and adaptive contestant won.
Survivor is not just great gossip; it's the most fascinating and massively popular psychology experiment ever
conducted. --Tim Appelo
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
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FINAL EVOLUTION
Staring into the Sun
DAY THIRTY-SEVEN
Full moon over the equator.
In the midst of their island experience, Maslow's hierarchy of needs crept up on the four remaining castaways yet again
as they pondered life with a million dollars. The first stage, basic physiological needs, had been met a month before.
Security and safety followed soon after, when the island's dangers become bearable. Love and feelings of belonging were
closely followed by competence, prestige, and esteem. And while level six, curiosity and the need to understand might
happen upon any of them at another point in life (or, in Rudy's case, had been accomplished decades before coming to the
island and stayed with him throughout), the question of level five, self-fulfillment, gave a philosophical tinge to
castaway life.
Simply, a million dollars was just three days away. They could see it, smell it, taste it. They dreamed of spending it.
Would it change them? Would it complete them? Would it make them happy? Or had the previous five-weeks-and-a-day of
existence been a futile pursuit? Castaway thoughts wandered to the philosophical and mildly spiritual.
Sooner or later, if Maslow is to be believed, an individual arrives at self-fulfillment. Peace. "A musician must make
music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is ultimately to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he
must be," Maslow wrote. The trick is finding that source of peace.
So where did the four castaways stand philosophically, three days before winning a million? At four predictably distant
metaphysical compass points.
Sue Hawk festered with rage toward Kelly. On moral and ethical grounds, she wanted to rise above the rage and keep her
early pact not to vote Kelly off. "I want to show that I'm a better person than she is. That I don't stab my friends in
the back," Sue noted. Vulnerability and rage were becoming synonymous with Sue's character. She spoke frankly, had
ceased being guarded in word or action, and, with every day closer to going home, was more aware than ever that acts of
duplicity would be replayed on national television. She didn't want to be seen that way. "I've got a life after this,"
she said bluntly. "I've got to go back to work and look people in the eye and have them know my word is good. Plus, I
feel lucky. I've been with Timmy fifteen years. We've got something really special. That's where my life is. When all
this is done I'm going back home and know that I'm with someone I love. That's a great feeling, and money can't buy
that. I've done some hard things on this show, like vote Gretchen off. But I've also done the right thing, as far as the
game goes. Like when I voted Sonja off. She didn't belong here. The night before that, after she'd gotten soaked in the
water, she woke up shivering like you wouldn't believe. I threw my body over her to keep her warm. So it may have looked
heartless for me to vote off that nice old lady, but I was just trying to do the right thing. That's also why I brought
up the alliances at the Tribal Council that one time. I was of people pretending they didn't exist. That's what I'm
about. I may be blunt, but I'm honest. And I think that es people like Kelly, who plays the game by lying to other
people all the time, pretending to be their friend then stabbing them in the back." Rich and self-fulfillment weren't as
easy to decipher. The fa Kelly, on the other hand, would use the million for independence, but until she broke away from
her maternal issues, she would find that even money couldn't bring peace of mind. She would be a millionaire, but an
unhappy one, still looking for ways to flaunt her independence and tweak the world. If she won the game she would be a
beautiful and bland guest on David Letterman and the morning shows. Her picture would grace the cover of People. She
would marry, have kids, work hard to maintain her cutting-edge mentality before giving in and buying a minivan and
enjoying suburban life. In ten years she would be the subject of a "Where Are They Now?" photo essay, discussing how it
was only several years after winning that she found something resembling happiness. Even then, she wouldn't call it
happiness or self-fulfillment or inner peace, but something hip, like "coming to terms with what I'm all about." She was
Las Ve, a pleasant boomtown craving substance, but not quite sure where to find it.
Rudy was giving the money to his kids. He and his wife enjoyed a great marriage, loved snow skiing together, and knew a
contentment in their life that a sudden influx of wealth or fame wouldn't change. He would continue going to SEAL
reunions. He would continue cooking for his wife now and again, because even away from the island, Rudy found joy in
preparing a fine dinner.
Regardless of the changes money would or would not make in their lives, one hard fact stared at the Final Four as they
lay about the beach on Day Thirty-Seven, pondering what it would feel like to become a millionaire: For three of them,
the end would be nasty, brutish, and short.
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