‘Survivor’ Is Just TV’s Latest Pose of Reality

“Survivor” wasn’t bad, but I would have done more to humiliate Sonja, the first of the competitors to be booted from the island. She didn’t bawl and didn’t even know how to be a bad loser.

“Go get ‘em, you guys,” she generously told her seven companions after they voted her out, 4 to 3. How pathetic was that.

Imagine the horror of the producers when they went to a close-up of Sonja, slapping a camera on her nose with all that hokey funereal music blaring as if her execution date had been set, and she didn’t shed one tear. Not even a lip quiver from this gracious stoic. No cursing under her breath, sour grapes or recriminations, either. No stalking off or emotion of any kind. Didn’t she understand “reality” television? Couldn’t she at least fake it?

Wednesday’s premiere of this heavily hyped CBS series ended with poor Sonja, a 64-year-old musician, getting tossed by her fellow members of the “Tagi Tribe” after she had stumbled in the competition for the “immunity idol,” handing victory to the rival “Pagong Tribe” of survivalists. The vote determining which “Tagi” member would be ejected came after the eight had dipped their unlit torches into a flame and sat in a semi-circle before a campfire. It reminded me of Boy Scout camp.

It also recalled the college frat house, when we used to sit in judgment of rushees on the critical issues of life, blackballing the inferior, nonconforming squirts who had the nerve to wear argyle socks and shirts whose collars didn’t button down.

Instead of Sonja, I would have bounced Jeff Probst. He’s the show’s grating host who surfaced from behind a tree every so often during the hour. He was also there at the end for the secret ballot at the evening “tribal council,” telling Sonja “the tribe has spoken”--what, no echo chamber?--before confiscating her torch, dousing it and ordering her across the bridge and back into the jungle. What a yutz.

Why didn’t CBS ship in Dan Rather? These people know nothing about staging reality.

Or degradation. I would have made Sonja strip to her thong underwear and crawl back through the jungle to the sea on her belly with leeches all over her and her ukulele strapped to her back. And speaking of that uke. . . .

After hearing her play it while singing that little ditty to her group early in the hour, could anyone be surprised that she’d be the first required to exit? Is doing reality a challenge or what?

CBS is hoping these 13 episodes of “Survivor”--which is patterned after a hit Swedish series--will slice into the Wednesday night audience of ABC’s omnipresent “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” and Regis Philbin, who was asking someone about “the Norse God Thor” as the 16 survivalists were being divided into two “tribes” in the winnowing process to determine who would be the last one on the island.

Whoever it is will get $1 million. And if “Survivor” gets big ratings, expect “Survivor II.”

On the surface, “Survivor” would seem to be a perfect fit for these gotcha, caught-on-tape, window-peeping, voyeuristic times, the same applying to the Dutch-inspired “Big Brother,” another weekly electronic keyhole arriving on CBS July 6.

We’re told that everything these eight men and women of “Survivor” did on this Southeast Asian island of Pulau Tiga was captured on tape. If you think these portable close-up cameras, production crews, yards and yards of cable and thickets of gear haven’t altered reality, however, think again.

“Corporate ain’t gonna work out here in the bush,” Susan, a coarse trucker, lectured the cocky corporate planner Richard, who was perched in a tree as if he were supervising from the penthouse suite of a glass high-rise.

Yet “corporate” planning--CBS shaping its edited footage into entertainment under the pretense that its selective “reality” contains sociological weight and insights into primal human behaviors--is exactly what “Survivor” is about.

Treating this as if it were a major story, though, “The Early Show” on CBS led with a giddy “Survivor” update Thursday morning, bringing in an anthropologist to stroke her chin, and later having on the castoff Sonja, too. When she brought out her ukulele and sang, I knew her companions had made the right decision. Squandering this opportunity to pile on the shame, CBS News interviewed Sonja instead of hitting her in the face with a cream pie.

Go figure.

In Los Angeles, self-pleasuring KCBS was naturally all over this puppy, too, throwing everyone at it but the Boobster. That included a promo for its late Wednesday news--”A psychologist gives her prediction on who will be the last survivor at 11!”--that featured Carole Lieberman promising that a physician competitor would ultimately win, and that “if Rudy continues to be domineering, he will be the next one off.”

Duh!

Rudy is the despotic 72-year-old former Navy SEAL who was just one vote shy of being bounced by his comrades. “If they’d listen to me, they’d all have haircuts,” he said. “They’d all be in formation in the morning.” Talk about natural charm and charisma.

“Tagi” or “Pagong,” the tribe of marooned competitors that loses a competition like that “immunity idol” business is the one required to vote a member off the island. Although the balloting is otherwise secret, each voter must reveal to the camera his or her choice for removal. So we know, for example, that Sonja voted against Rudy and Rudy voted against Sonja.

If Rudy does get zapped, CBS would be smart to impose the ultimate humiliation of having Sonja serenade him with her ukulele as he stands at attention and salutes. Fat chance.

As for deep insights, I didn’t like Susan much, either, because she thought rats were squirrels without tails. Or Richard, because he whined and had a big belly.

Not that any of this may matter, for Regis may ultimately expel them from the airwaves just as they will be expelling each other from this island in coming weeks. If not, we can always hope they’ll run into Pygmy headhunters. Or maybe Martha Stewart.

* “Survivor” airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on CBS.

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Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. He can be reached by e-mail at calendar.letters@latimes.com.