Editorial: Reality show drama

Survivor NZ contestant Hannah Gough in The Hits studio. Photo / Michael Cunningham

Survivor NZ's prizemoney is insulting.

The United States versions of the show give winners US$1 million and the runner-up gets US$100,000 (about NZ$145,000).

The first New Zealand version of the show, which started airing this week, gives its winners $100,000.

We are yet to see if the reduced prize money also equals a reduced version of the game.

But it's insulting, especially when the show is constantly interrupted with paid advertising.

Prizemoney aside, watching Kiwis trying to outwit and outplay each other in the Nicaraguan jungle is hilarious and compelling.

I don't recall Australians in their version of the game standing around after voting someone off, reflecting how mean they had just been to the person who left.

Tony, a hardened former soldier, was in tears describing how terrible he felt at voting Hannah Gough off.

Hannah is a Northlander, a plus-size model and a kindergarten teacher with a fabulous 1950s pin-up vibe.

Part of her rationale on entering Survivor NZ was to change how people are judged because of their bodies.

Sadly, her tribe went ahead and misjudged Hannah based on her size and threw her out.

However, Hannah fought her way back into the game, showed her tribe how badly they behaved and will compete against other ousted contestants to see who stays.

On Sunday, Hannah takes on Tony, who possibly got voted off because he was beginning to say Rambo-esque things like "If you cross me I'll be coming for you", which suggests someone needs to tell Tony that the title of Survivor is a metaphor, no one actually gets killed.

I'm backing Hannah over Tony.

And if she doesn't come home with the Survivor title she's still a winner, and we might not have seen the last of Hannah on television.

She's already broken a Survivor trend - usually the first person voted off is the person that is least memorable. There's not much chance of that happening with Hannah.