Survivor: Guatemala - Reality At It's Finest and Most Disturbing

With nothing else premiering tonight I watched the season premiere of "Survivor:Guatemala." I will admit freely, I am not a huge fan of reality shows. But I, like the majority of America got sucked in to the first two editions to this show, and since then have usually caught the first three episodes or so of each new installment and gotten bored quickly and quit watching. What amazes me is I don't know anyone personally who keeps up with these on a regular basis, but the two that aired last season were the fifth and sixth most watched shows of the 2004-2005 season, so a lot of people are still getting into this.

Just like every other season before it, and following Randy's (from Scream) rules of sequels, they try to be bigger and better. The show starts off with the two teams being dumped off at some Mayan Ruins and being introduced to two other players. They are of course former "Survivor" participants; they've been advertising that surprise for the past few weeks. However, it was just two people from the last run, "Survivor:Palau." I watched five or six episodes of that one and didn't remember either of these people, but I guess all the loyalists will wet their pants. Then they have their first challenge which is a grueling 11 mile hike to some more ruins; the first team there gets to set up camp, the losers have to hike further and set up their camp. This entails the first thirty minutes of the show, and if you find people hiking through the jungle entertaining, I guess you'll be masturbating profusely as you watch. Otherwise, if you're like me, you'll find this rather boring. The other annoying aspect is that before they set off on their hike, Jeff Probst (the luckiest man on television since Vanna White) mentions all of the posinous snakes and crocodiles that are out there. The worst thing that happens to anyone however is a thorny branch falling on one of the player's shoulders. Woo hoo!

Here's where the show changed from being boring to flat out disturbing and a little too realistic. Apparantly in one of the tribes (Hakumba, or something like that) all of the men were dehydrated after their 11 mile hike, and for the next ten minutes we get to see dry heaving and plenty of puke, the art of cramping up, and one guy almost slips into a seizure. What makes this more excruiating is how through the lovely non-politically correct editing that this show entails they turn this into a battle of the sexes. The men are the ones getting sick, and the women are the ones that are fine and have to take care of the men. That's all fine and dandy; good for the women. Don't misunderstand what I'm saying, but I'm feeling really terrible for these guys and I really don't enjoy watching puking, and then they try to make this o.k. because it shows how women are superior to men on 11 mile hikes. What's the point? Where are they going with this? Does anyone care? But, hey, it's fucking "Survivor." I know these people agreed to do this, but how does humilitating these people by showing them puking solve anything. Does this really increase the ratings? If it does, then there are a lot of sick people out there. It's why I never understood the eating contests on "Fear Factor." Not only is it gross, but how does it encase fear. I'm not scared of eating a horse's testicle, I just don't want to do it.

It's easy enough to toke this up to me not being the type of audience that this show appeals to. But I really don't want to know the type of audience this show appeals to after watching it. If you think back, and I know everyone watched at least some of the early seasons, this show was actually more geared toward showing how these people played the game, human interaction. Sure, some of it's exploiative. But I don't remember them ever using a guy two seconds from a seizure being compared to how much stronger women are.

I'm sure no one cares I have this opinion. Because if you like the show, you think I'm an idiot. If you don't you probably didn't read this far. But I know watching it gave me a hell of a reality check, no pun intended. I will never watch an episode of this lame ass shit again. There's a very thin line for reality shows of being endearing and interesting and then just flat out exploiative. "Survivor" has teetered on the edge of this for the past six years, but I think tonight it stepped over the edge and fell 100 stories to its death.