Courtesy of CBS

This is to announce that I have submitted the names of the final five contestants on Survivor Out Back for official consideration in this year's coveted Darwin Awards. As you may know, these hotly contested prizes are presented to individuals who demonstrate unparalleled innovation in their efforts to remove themselves from the gene pool. The competition, as always, will be stiff. Consider the feats of past winners, such as the Iraqi terrorist blown to smithereens when he opened the letter bomb that was mailed back to him marked "return to sender" after he failed to put enough postage on the package. Or the zealous zookeeper in Germany who fed his constipated elephant 22 doses of animal laxative and a bushel of berries, figs and prunes before the plugged pachyderm finally let loose, suffocating his keeper under a 330-pound shitstorm as the man attempted to administer an olive oil enema. Still, I think the tribepersons of Team Barramundi have a good chance to win the whole shebang. Not one of them has engaged in a single amusing reproductive act, they're all dying of starvation because they don't have enough wilderness smarts to harvest the wild food that flourishes in Far North Queensland, and their idea of fun is sitting wordlessly on stumps while they stare at the campfire, when they can figure out how to get one lit, that is.

But the main reason they deserve The Darwin is because they've successfully removed their audience from the gene pool, as well. I mean, if you're like me, sprawled in my Lazy Boy on Thursdays watching Survivor, it's a real challenge to think about anything, much less something important like propagating the species. But there I sit, slack-jawed with ennui, stunned senseless like a high school kid in Ferris Bueller's Day Off listening to Ben Stein lecture about tariffs, as I wait for producer Mark Burnett to make something, anything, happen, the drool soaking my jammie top. In Episode Thirteen, for example, I began yawning during the opening credits, turned glassy-eyed as the hapless Barramundis emerged mildewed yet again from the debris shelter after yet another rainy night, and nodded off completely when Colby The Cheese Wedge allowed as how "the closer you get to the end the more you think about what's waiting."

But when Izzy grabbed the penis gourd bearing announcement of the Reward Challenge, I was suddenly awake and yelling: You go girl! It was, alas, only a false alarm, and the Barramundanes returned to their warm and fuzzy Walton Mountain ways, weeping as they clicked greetings to loved ones back home after a coffee and Danish at obsequious host Jeff Probst's trumped-up Internet Café. Here was Izzy calling herself "Bessy," for some reason, weeping as she signed off, and there was Rodger Hee Haw's hillbilly clan all atwitter, and he wept, and there was Keith Famine's main squeeze all cute and dewey-eyed, and he called her Peas and she called him Carrots and they wept, and then everyone wept, and I snoozed a bit and when I awoke the Barramundis were packed into the debris shelter all cozy again and saying "night, John-boy" and suchlike, and then Izzy muttered "night, Pa," but she meant Rodger Hee Haw, and I thought, hey, what's up with that, hoping some sort of Oedipal shtick might be lurking in the wings. But even this bit of nutritious perversion was not to be, as Rodger couldn't remember a single answer during the lock-and-key Immunity Challenge and proceeded to get his formerly flabby butt parts ejected from the continent. Well, at least I'll get to ogle Izzy some more, the little purples flowers in her hair, the mascara, and whatnot. It won't quite make up for the ejection of the unglued Cadet Meyer from Fox's Boot Camp, but it will have to do.

Users ask me, they say, Vaughn, why do you rip so hard on Survivor Out Back, do you eat with that mouth? Friends, we Welsh have a saying: If you have a chance to dump on something you have a duty to do so. Since I was rejected twice from Survivor Island, first as a contestant and later as a journalist with CBS-approved credentials to cover the contestants, I feel I've earned my right to rag. Anyway, I hope you'll consider my remarks the spice that makes the rice. And now, let's get on with the show so the show will soon be over.