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TV Diary -- "Survivor: The Australian Outback"
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The dingoes of war
"Survivor," Episode 3: Colby to Jerri: I want to 'roo you!

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Feb. 9, 2001 | It's been seven days in the outback and the Survivors are hungry. They subsist on sticky rice and some flour. One tribe, Kucha, has figured out how to pull a few fish out of the stream in front of their camp.

The Ogakor are stuck with starch enough to start a laundry service.




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The show opens with Michael, Kucha's self-styled leader and creepy Christian, slicing the head off a 2-pound fish. He's still nattering on about his tribe's needing protein. He's right, of course. But can't he just call it food like normal people?

All of Kucha just sits torpidly in its tent. Michael says he's going to go out and kill a wild pig. The rest pick his idea apart.

We know why the Kuchas are trying to dissuade him. We'd personally rather eat rice than listen to that Jesus freak crow about putting food on the table, as he did on last week's show after he caught the damn fish.

Still, the rest of the tribe are beyond lame.

"We just walk around and hope we run into a big pig?" snipes cranky Jeff.

Uh, yes, Jeff. It's called "hunting." It's what people did for food before there were out-of-work actors to serve it to you in trendy restaurants.

"Mike wants to go out and spend four hours a day looking for food because Mike is hungry," Jeff tells the camera later. "None of the rest of us are up for that."

Mike is an insufferable but focussed fanatic. Jeff is effeminate and bitchy. This is precisely how the Roman Empire was lost to the Christians, it seems to us.

Mike takes the team's only knife and starts fashioning a spear; this sends Jeff and dopey Elisabeth into paroxysms of exasperation.

"He wants to go spear a pig?" says Elisabeth. "Really? Have we seen a pig? I haven't seen a pig!"

"'I'm going to catch pigs.'" Jeff mocks. "Classic Mike -- he's an idiot. I want to see your pig. Go get me a pig."

Michael applies some war paint. Maybe he's a veteran of men's retreats and corporate seminars that teach CEOs how to act like bears.

Paint-wearing bears.

Or maybe he is just way into "Braveheart."

Mike looks at his spear. "This is a pig killer," he says soberly.

He looks pretty stupid. The rest of the group must be trying to figure out why in the hell he packed war paint instead of, say, a Swiss Army knife, or a bowling ball.

You have to wonder how some of these people ended up on the show if they have no idea how to get food.

. Next page | A tough challenge
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