To be something that's worth watching, TV needs to strike a sincere chord with the viewer. If it doesn't, then there's no point watching and we're all just mindless zombies staring into the box that the Illuminati dropped into our houses just to keep us preoccupied while they ruin every part of the actual, physical and spiritual world around us. Ahem.
That might be the case, but I don’t really have any proof, and even if I did, that would mean that I was already dead.
I prefer to believe that, at its best, TV is worth watching because it holds a mirror up to real life and to all of us as human beings. There’s a show that does this particularly well, and that's why I watch Survivor. It consistently makes me feel like I'm immersed in a situation that could happen to me in real, forcing me to consider what I might do in the same situation.
Thinking is good, and it makes for good TV, and if you don't like Survivor, you probably aren't the type of person who's interested in learning peculiarities about yourself and the rest of the human race. (On second thought, that sounds a bit harsh. Let's just say we probably have different tastes in television and leave it at that.)
I was reminded about how Survivor strikes a chord with me just recently.
The backstory:
I'm currently watching a copy of the second season, which took place in the Australian Outback. This was the Survivor before the Survivor where I started watching the show, which is a bit embarrassing for someone who currently makes his living by acting like I know everything about TV.
By fart of fate , during the summer of Survivor’s introduction to the thronging masses, I was actually retaking a French course (required, for some reason) I failed back in first year when the administration foolishly scheduled one of its session at 9 AM on a Friday.
The summer course fell on the same night of the week as Survivor, so I didn't see the first season, despite the fact that everybody was talking about it at the time.
This was also around the same time when I was becoming head sheep in charge at my fraternity, so television wasn't at the top of my priorities (which was weird, since this was probably the only time in my life when I wasn't really “up” on what was happening on television. Obviously, still watched television, but since I was staying up until 4 or 5 AM and then sleeping until one or two o’clock in the afternoon, my TV schedule just wasn’t normal. I was probably watching Seinfeld reruns and sports highlights more than anything else at the time. It was a problem that persisted for about a 10-month period that also fell around the time I first became interested in a person who was known as "TV Chick" and the "Independent Agent" in various stages of our relationship and my column.)
The point is that I didn’t watch the first two seasons of Survivor when they originally aired. Probably not even more than half of one episode. But, like any self-respecting student of television and Survivor, I always meant to go back and set straight my ways. I bought the season one DVDs a few years ago, and, more recently, I downloaded the Australian Outback season, watching most of it on the TTC (which I'm taking more often due to a cityful of parking enforcement officers, all of whom are on to me).
The moment during that Survivor that prompted me to write this blog post came during the eleventh episode of the second season, after two challenges. At this point there were only a handful of people left (Colby, Tina, Keith, Amber, Nick and Rodger), and, for whatever reason, during this particular Survivor they were particularly famished. The tribe ran out of rice way before they should've run out (according to Jeff Probst, who came across like a scolding parent while explaining this fact), and were, sort of literally, starving.
Okay, maybe they weren't starving, but they were hungry, but they weren’t feeling good (just like any of us wouldn’t feel good if we were plucked out of this life of having food whenever our fancies are tickled). They couldn't catch any fish -- because the same damn turtle kept biting the hooks off their lines -- which basically meant they weren't eating at all when their rice supply bottomed out.
Elizabeth (who was cute as a buttom at the time but would later become best known as Rosie O'Donnell's Republican punching bag on The View, a situation I found to be exceedingly fascinating while it lasted) in particular was struggling with the food shortage. She said she was feeling shaky and barely had the strength to get up in the morning. Remember, she was practically America's sweetheart at this time, so people were probably feeling bad about this.
So Jeff Probst comes strolling onto the beach out of nowhere and makes them an offer: He’ll trade enough rice to last them through the end of the game in exchange for something of value. They offered him their blankets, but he scoffed. If one could scoff literally, Jeff Probst did so here. The blankets weren't good enough. Probst wanted something ... more.
Probst insisted that if the tribe wanted food, they would have to surrender their shelter. They quickly agreed on the basis that people who are starving will agree to anything that results in them getting fed. As eventual winner Tina put it, “There are worst things in life than getting wet. Like starving to death.” They took the deal to get what they needed most (food), even though they had to give up what they needed second most (shelter).
To me, the quizzical thing about this situation was the fact that Probst seemed very satisfied about getting their shelter. The blankets weren’t enough, but why did he care?
It’s not like Probst intended to set up their shelter for a night and use it to camp out. One would assume that he had a futuristic trailer with air conditioning and running water and food.
And he wouldn't have used those blankets either. Probst definitely has blankets of his own. He wouldn't want their dirty blankets, unless he was planning to sell them on eBay.
So why was Probst so determined to make them suffer? Is he a sadist? Why didn't I notice this at any other point in any of the other seasons. I appreciate that Probst and producers want to force the players to survive on their own as much as possible, but they had already given them rice anyway. What's a little more between friends.
And I realize that this was near the beginning and Survivor was still working out the kinks. But at this moment, more than any other moment of any other season that I can remember, Probst was pleasuring in the mistreated of the contestants on his show. He was lording over them like an omnipetent spirit, and he was enjoying it. He was God to them, as well as the only person who possessed information.
So then I wonder what I would do if I was in Jeff Probst's position. Would I enjoy the power, but not too much? Or maybe I'd really enjoy and go stark raving looney mad with power. Or perhaps I'd be creeped out by own ability to shape the reality of an entire group of people even though that ability is artificial.
When Jeff Probst can force you to take stock of a personal relationship with power while also inspiring you to question your limits of self control, that's good TV. And the fact that there's good TV out there makes me not hate myself too much for spending a lot of my time watching and writing about television.
