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Survivor: Admiration, not acrimony, flows among tribal members
Saturday, May 05, 2001 By Rob Owen, Post-Gazette TV Editor
"Survivor"? Try "Comforter." Or even "Friends. " The verbal hugs continued in a press conference yesterday as "Survivor: The Australian Outback" winner Tina Wesson and runner-up (chump?) Colby Donaldson cooed about their friendship.
To cynics, it may seem unbelievable, but listening to them via telephone, you get the sense there was no acting involved. They meant it.
Going into Thursday's finale, it was 27-year-old Colby's game to lose. Even winner Tina attributed 70 percent of her victory to Colby because in the penultimate tribal council he voted out chef Keith Famie, 41, and took Tina with him to the final two, knowing she was a tougher competitor.
"I went in totally focused on winning a million dollars," Colby said. "Obviously, by my actions at the end of the game, it wasn't all about that, so I changed. That big cash prize doesn't have the importance it does at home. ... I didn't go to make friends. I wasn't going to let myself develop relationships, but this is the fun part: Being friends with these people and having no animosity."
That's in stark contrast to the blow-up between Susan Hawk and Kelly Wiglesworth last summer on the first "Survivor."
As presented by all 16 "Survivor: The Australian Outback" castaways on the Thursday broadcast of the "Late Show with David Letterman":
"You could look all around last night and we were all smiling, having a good time," he said. "It was very different from the first show. None of us were mad. None of us was out to be mean last night."
Well, maybe a little. With the presence of shrewish Jerri Manthey, the reunion show had a few moments of venom spitting. Colby said he doesn't regret failing to give Jerri an apology when she selfishly sought one out during questioning by jury members.
"You saw how much she was wanting that from us," he said. "She wanted us to come to her and feed her some good stuff, and she didn't deserve that."
But talk at the press conference was mostly about Tina and Colby. Colby and Tina. The pair. The buds. The guilt?
Turns out Tina felt a little guilty about winning. As she and Colby rested in their dressing rooms in the wee hours of Friday morning after the Bryant Gumbel-hosted reunion show and a post-show party, she confessed her feelings about the victory.
"It would be easier to accept the win if I'd brought Colby along and won," Tina said. "The fact Colby won [the immunity challenge] and brought me along, I somewhat don't feel I won the game on my own merits. It's a little bit harder for me to accept it."
Colby reassured her.
"Tina, if you weren't the person you are and didn't play the game better than all of us, I never would have put you there," Colby recalled. "That means you deserve it. Tina had this game sewn up."
Had Tina won immunity, the outcome would have been the same. Like Colby, she would have voted Keith off, too.
"I would have taken Colby with me," she said without hesitation.
Reaction to the win of much-reviled Richard Hatch on the first "Survivor" weighed heavily on at least some of the contestants in the second edition.
"This is not a slam against Keith, but we wanted America to be really happy with whoever won," Tina said. "That was part of the reason for bringing Elisabeth and Rodger over. We thought they'd be great finalists and wanted them to go further into the game."
Keith wasn't hurt. He knew Tina kept him from eviction early in the show, bouncing 7-foot-tall Mitchell Olson instead. Then there was the time she stepped off a pole to give him an immunity challenge win.
For his part, executive producer Mark Burnett was pleased with a Tina-Colby playoff.
"It made for a better finale ... it was closer between these two" than it would have been between Colby and Keith, Burnett said.
And what a pleasant pair they are. Though he didn't win the $1 million, Colby is still $100,000 richer (the second-place prize) and he'll soon have a new Harley-Davidson, courtesy of Tina.
"The last night we said whoever wins buys the other one a Harley-Davidson," Tina explained.
As for their futures, Tina has no acting aspirations, but chivalrous leading man Colby is game for whatever comes his way (toothpaste commercials seem likely or Texas tourism). Keith is writing a book, due out this fall and titled, "Yes, I Can Cook Rice."
Tina remains overwhelmed by the outcome.
"It's been such an emotional two days anyway," she said. "Winning a million dollars, it was total jubilation and disbelief. It was like a serious victory overload."
Against original programming on the competing networks, the denouement of "Survivor 2" couldn't manage the ratings muscle of the original. The first "Survivor" finale was watched by 51 million viewers; early ratings for the "Survivor 2" conclusion indicate about 36 million viewers tuned in. The reunion show that followed attracted 29 million viewers, the first time an original episode of NBC's "ER" lost to another program since 1994, according to CBS.
Although ratings for "Survivor 2" diminished rather than built toward the end of the show's run, this season's average ratings were slightly higher than the original, 29.1 million viewers to 28.2 million viewers.
Thursday night Burnett announced the next "Survivor" will be set on the African continent. Yesterday he said plans for the new tribal council set have been completed and producers have mapped out where camps for the new tribes will be located in relation to tribal council.
Come fall, viewers will be survivin' "Survivor" hype once again.
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10. Michael: "That fire I fell into wasn't nearly as hot as you are, baby."