Bye-bye to ‘Survivor

The Survivor lot are still all silly and venal and sulky and the near scandalous moments are few and far between.

It is Groundhog Day all over again on Survivor: Vanuatu (TV3, 8.30pm) as the interminable series goes through the by now all too familiar motions.

It was literally Groundhog Day in the episode involving the pig wrestling challenge. This involved squealing pigs - I guess they don't have to worry about interference from the SPCA on remote tropical islands - mud, and girls in skimpy costumes.

The only point of difference from a mud-wrestling contest was that the pigs were inside the pen and not outside it acting as spectators.

The pig-wrestling occasion was an example of the resilience of learned human behaviour: even when chasing pigs in mud, girls will adjust their bathing suits. Eliza was too busy worrying about what she might look like with mud up her bum to catch a pig.

As one of the other girls complained later: did she even get dirty? Useless. She deserved to go. But she didn't. God knows why. It's hard to keep up without nodding off with all of the tricky manipulations and game playing.

Rory, who has joined the girls' team, thinks he's a player. But even he admits that he can't believe they'd fall for his ham acting.

I can't see why not: they're all at it, and they are all pretty much more horrible than the pigs.

In an idle moment - and there are plenty of them as the immunity challenges drag on for what seems like hours while you start to wonder just what people have against watching paint dry - I found myself wondering how they choose these people.

I think I have it figured out. They choose people who have names that sound normal but are spelled in funny ways. So if you want to go on Survivor you should have a name like Ami, or Lea or Leann.

The owners of these names look almost normal but behave in funny ways. They are almost human but they seem to have made it to adulthood without developing those human traits of a sense of humour, or sense of proportion.

I guess the prospect of a million bucks and the chance to screw other people over while on the telly can do that to people.

I once quite enjoyed these Survivor shows: the people were so horrible and stupid, the games were so stupid, the concept so, yep, hammy.

But Survivor, after our own Celebrity Treasure Island, seems to have had its day. What, no almost fatal flesh-eating illness? What, no girls we might just see in the street flashing their boobs?

Perhaps the concept's been around for so long that the contestants have wised up.

They are still all silly and venal and sulky but the near scandalous moments are few and far between.

The biggest laugh so far was when pretty boy John K - the lazy one who in real life is a mechanical bull operator and who likes napping - said of Twila, the highway repair worker, "I trust Twila's word because she is a rough redneck. And to me all rough rednecks that I have met are pretty loyal."

And so it was bye-bye, pretty boy. And, I think, it's bye-bye Survivor for me.