Extreme? You Haven’t Heard Nothin’ Yet

Although “Survivor” is obviously a big hit with the viewers, I humbly propose a slight modification of its format for next season. As we all know, the television audience of the 21st century is interested in not only “real life” situations but also “extreme” situations. “Survivor” is just not extreme enough.

The basic concept of the show works well enough: Put 16 contestants of varying ages on a deserted island, subject them to a kind of Club-Med-meets-the-Spanish-Inquisition regimen, in which two teams are asked to construct life rafts, eat insect larvae, etc., as 10 camera crews record every humiliating second and then, after an agonizing meeting at a hut that looks like a Polynesian fast-food restaurant without the food, vote the weak link off the island. Thirteen weeks into it, the sole survivor (I’m still trying to figure out how you get from two to one--machetes at dawn?) wins a million dollars.

As is usual with television, any so-called new idea is really a glamorized, sanitized version of something that’s been around for a very long time. Ever since there have been people, survival has been a top priority. But instead of claiming a pot of gold, the winners of these early survival games were content to have, well, survived. And the losers? Let’s just say that, unlike the washouts on “Survivor,” who have spent the summer lamenting their outcast state in the pages of the popular press, the losers of the original survival games were not available for interviews.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been researching the topic of survival in some detail. As it turns out, there is a time-honored ritual that dates back more than three centuries that, with some slight modifications, could become the basis for a newly energized, hard-core version of “Survivor.”

The first recorded instance of this custom occurred in the early 17th century when a sailing vessel carrying seven Englishmen from the Caribbean Island of St. Kitts was blown out to sea in a storm. After 17 days, the men were in danger of starving to death, and one of the crew suggested that they cast lots to see who should be sacrificed so that the rest might live. As it turned out, the lot fell to the man who had first made the proposal, and after lots were cast again to see who should execute him, he was killed and eaten.

Just imagine the possibilities when it comes to applying this formula to “Survivor.” Instead of having the contestants vote each other off the island, go with a lottery: I see maybe Vanna White and a wheel with all the contestants’ names on it. And instead of banishing the losers from the island, well, let the remaining contestants, in the immortal words of Crocodile Dundee, put another shrimp on the barbie! Think of how it will reduce provisioning costs for the cast and crew. And no more of those annoying post-show interviews.

To appreciate fully the potential of this new extreme version of “Survivor,” I think we must return, once again to the historical record--well, at least the rumored historical record. On Nantucket, the former whaling port where I live, there was once a night watchman by the name of George Pollard Jr. While still in his 20s, Pollard had been the captain of a whale ship that had been sunk by an enraged sperm whale (neatly providing Herman Melville with a conclusion for “Moby-Dick”). The crew took to their small whaleboats and, after 94 hellish days at sea during which they were forced to drink their urine and eat barnacles from the bottom of their boat, Pollard and just one other sailor were found, in the words of a witness, “sucking the bones of their dead messmates, which they were loath to part with.”

Years after his rescue and eventual return to his home on Nantucket, Capt. Pollard was approached by a recent arrival on the island. The newcomer innocently asked Pollard if he had ever met a young man named Owen Coffin.

“Know ‘im?” the former captain replied. “Why, I et him!”