Talk about your arrows of outrageous fortune!

Who knew Ethan was a regular Robin Hood? Plus: The chickens cower, and Lindsey squirms.

Nov. 15, 2001 | The worst thing about watching "Survivor" is leaving the channel on CBS at night and waking up in the morning to be confronted with "The Early Show."

A lot of people don't like all this reality TV stuff. It degrades the medium, they say.

"The Early Show" is officially part of the CBS news department, which at one time was considered to be illustrious, back before it got bought by MTV and became a punchline. "The Early Show" stars the vacuous Jane Clayson, the fatuous Bryant Gumble and the fat Mark McEwen, all pretending to be real newspeople.

Not to mention Julie Chen, still plugging away as a real live newscaster after her unforgettable work on "Big Brother."

We often wonder why "The Early Show," a news program, would employ her after she was an incompetent host of the worst TV show in the history of the world.

This morning, we found out why. "The Early Show" is actually tackier than "Big Brother."

We often see, on "The Early Show," the previous night's "Survivor" ejectee. We won't give away who it is just yet. We only bring up "The Early Show" to relate this priceless bit of Tiffany Network badinage.

The program's pathetic entertainment correspondent, Laurie Hibberd, tells Gumbel she interviewed Robbie Coltrane, the classy British character actor who landed the part of the big bearded Hagrid guy in that overhyped new movie about the child wizard.

Coltrane is a big guy, Bryant observes.

"Yes," responds Hibberd. "He's a real pantload."

"A whatload?" asks Gumbel.

"I can't believe I just said that," she replies, giggling.

She's a real pantload, too. So's Bryant.

So's CBS.

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For the third week in a row, "Survivor" opens at night. Dark doings in the African bush!

Why look: Here are some chickens in a cage. And there's a rascally predator, something with a long tail, sidewinding his way through the scrub.

There's no evidence that the hungry lurker is anywhere near those four chickens. We can see the real meaning by that greenish, low-light-photography tint. It speaks to us in quiet, urgent tones.

It whispers, "Danger!"

Cut to a close-up on a chicken's head. The creature makes a little pathetic moan. We don't know much about poultry, but we guess that the little moan might not have anything to do with being threatened, or cooped up, or even with knowing that it will probably die a quick death tomorrow if a machete-wielding Detroit basketball coach named Clarence goes machete mad for Kenya McNuggets.

For all we know, the poor chicken moans because she's been watching a lot of selfish, annoying celebrity wannabes vying for a million dollars in an exotic private wildlife preserve in the middle of Africa.

This chicken is whimpering with disgust.

She's whimpering, sympathetically, for us.

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Last week, of course, the "Survivor" producers, led by all-knowing, all-seeing Mark Burnett, played God. Not the kind of God that fills sacks with cornmeal, drops 100-gallon water towers from the sky or constructs large game-show sets in the middle of one of the poorest, most corrupt nations on Earth.

More of a setter-of-arbitrary-rules God.

A Dungeon-master God.

The producers work through Jeff Probst, a Jesus figure-slash-Level 9/1 Summoner Wizard with 44 kill points. Probst took three survivors from the Boran tribe and switched them with three players from the Samburu tribe. Then, at tribal council, Jeff hinted that the two-tribe merger might not happen the same way it did during the first two seasons of "Survivor."

Next page: The all-time champion "Survivor" basket case