Courtesy of CBS

But this new backdrop—allegedly situated in a gum and eucalyptus forest along the Herbert River in Queensland, Australia—looks like something hammered together by the same carpenters who built the sets of Fantasy Island in the 1980s, a confection of imported sand, potted trees and dusty papier mache. The production strives gamely to infuse these prefabbed venues with something authentic by washing the incoherent woofs and grunts of someone playing a didgeridoo over everything, and by unleashing swarms of tiny evil bugs from the figs the cast figured might be Meal One. But it all still feels like a back lot in Studio City. And these photogenic but already predictable clansmen of the Kucha and Ogakor Tribes are really just the same players we grew to abhor on Survivor The First (minus the Butt Crack From Beyond, of course—Richard Hatch), although this bunch has been morphed into buffier specimens with bigger breasts, gaudier tats, and tastier buns. But maybe because they were all glued last summer to the original (and who wasn't?), they're already slandering each other in the same manner as did Susan and Jenna and the other professional vipers. For example, Jeff Varner, the computer geek and boy cheerleader, allowed as how he'd like to grab comely Kimmi Kappenberg by the neck and "shake the shit out of her." (That's not happy talk, Jeff, and because we think you were repulsed by Kimmi's loud chat about how hard it was to masturbate in the outback, we're figuring you for Survivor II's Gay Guy). Even the oily and obsequious prattle we came to expect from the MC, Jeff Probst, seems a little forced now, as if he can hear the howls of derision back home when he lifts what appears to be a Thermos painted with a funny face, and calls it the "Immunity Idol."

At the beginning, though, I thought maybe Survivor Outback was going to make a big flashy swerve to the right. The players are packed into an Aussie military transport and you feel a little bit of the locked-and-loaded jolt you get watching Aliens, one of the few successful sequels known to mankind. But soon everyone is barfing into barf bags and you find yourself hoping that maybe you'll get to watch the plane crash. No such luck. As it turns out, none of these wusses can even start a fire. And when the grotesquely unlikable Debb Eaton garners all seven votes of her Kucha tribemates, and walks the Walk of Shame out of the bush forever, no one in America was surprised, except maybe Ralph Nader. In "real" life Eaton is the lowest thing on earth, lower even than a fig bug or a cane toad; she's a prison guard, which seemed before we met her like good experience for someone who was going to be locked up with Jeff Probst on a very large prison island. But good riddance. As the sun sank over the outback ol' Debb returned to New Hampshire, where she announced plans to marry her stepson, who is also a prison guard.

Note to self: For the scary thing you do on Monday think about prison guards having sex. Unprotected sex.