Lost Vs Survivor

There are many things, loyal readers, that you don't know about me. Someday we must sit down and discuss tortoises, and you'll begin to understand what makes me the woman I am today. But for now, may I discuss one of my other passions: Lost.

Yah, that television show, not what I was that one night in the San Jacinto Wilderness (see! I bet you didn't know about that, either! I'm an enigma, I tell you. An ENIGMA!). Lost has restored my faith in this freaky world of late that fiction can be stranger than truth. We didn't get into it until the very last episode last season, but those few minutes hooked us, and we're goners. Forever planning our schedule around Wednesday night. I've even been lustily looking at TiVo, considering how that could save us from missing the last few telling seconds of a Lost episode, as happened a few weeks ago, when we missed "Dad?" WHO saw THAT coming?! (Thanks, sj, and some readers of her blog, for filling me in on that hole in my life). Ok, that, and the kids would love to be able to see Diego save the whale twenty times a day.

For several years, we've also been addicted to Survivor. Ok, so sue me, I like some reality television, I've diminished in your eyes and I'm prepared to accept that. But, compared to Lost, well, Survivor is losing its appeal. I even missed a few episodes this last season. Heck, we didn't even know this last Survivor *started* until a few episodes into it.

Look at the two: they have certain similarities. I mean, both have groups of people trying to manage life after being marooned, cut off from friends, family, and creature comforts. Both are (usually) in beautiful tropical locations. Both have scantily-clad divas and toned buff man candy. But, Lost doesn't have Jeff Probst. And Survivor doesn't have a polar bear. I like Jeff well enough, I'd like his job, actually, but he's not a polar bear (nor, despite all evidence to the contrary, am I). I'd like to see a polar bear decide who gets voted off next season. "The maw has spoken!"

Lost has an honest-to-goodness HOBBIT! The bad-ass hobbit who takes on the Witch King, nonetheless! How can you top that? Maybe by adding the Minbari heroine of Babylon Five, who warns about The Others as she warned about the Shadows over a decade earlier (wow, my geek side is really showing in this entry). Star quality aside, there's an island Gaia, walking paraplegic, haunted survivors, whispers in the forest, a bizarre BF Skinner experiment (or IS it?), intriguing hidden pasts of all the castaways, and did I mention a polar bear?

Survivor has starvation, eating icky food, bickering, and the mysterious Medi'cs who come and cart you off if you happen to fall in the fire (Kooooochaaaaa!). Not a hint of a polar bear anywhere. I hear the producers have discussed a cold-winter clime Survivor, but canned it on the limited bare skin factor.

Oh, I'll still watch Survivor. It's like reading Frank Herbert - Dune was a fantastic book, so I started reading the rest in the series, and by Children of Dune I had to force myself to finish because I had put that much effort into it I couldn't just lose my investment. I have to say that Survivor is easier to stomach. But I think we need to snazz it up.

Perhaps abduct a few contestants at inopportune moments. Spread out some pit-fall traps to thin out the crowd. Add some contestants in the middle of the thing. Include a few people who don't speak English, and at least one knife-wielding madman. There was a hint of perhaps some doom to come when the last Survivors ate the freaking sacrificial chicken (Ugly American, thy name is Survivor. Ya' know, just don't eat the chicken. You have three measely days left, you don't need to eat the chicken. The Mayan gods haven't eaten in a looooooonnnnnng time, you think you have it bad?), but the thunderstorm didn't hold a candle to the deadly, screeching, black-smokey monster of Lost. Now, if the Mayans had come back to demand restitution for the loss of their sacrifice, there may have been some intrigue there.

You know where I'll be next Wednesday night.