Survivor: Pearl Islands - DVD Review

As soon as reality television hit its peak, pundits eagerly anticipated its fall. Like Nascar fans awaiting a crash, TV critics watched as reality television did something no one expected it to do - settled in for a while and refused to go away quietly. This was to be no fifteen minutes of fame, they needed at least half an hour, maybe more. Sure, some of the lesser quality programs that sprung up during the initial glut of reality shows had to go (The Mole anyone?), but, as with any programming, the cream of the crop rose to the top. And, now, those same critics who bemoaned reality TV praise The Amazing Race, Beauty & The Geek, and the Godfather of the genre - Survivor. There's even an Emmy category for reality programming.

Was there a turning point? As with anything like this, there were several - from Kelly Clarkson to Richard Hatch, but the season that firmly cemented that the king of reality, Survivor wasn't going anywhere was the seventh, the trip to the Pearl Islands, recently released in all its demented glory on a five-disc DVD set. Until then, it looked like Survivor could easily grow stale someday and disappear like Temptation Island, but with this chapter, we learned two key things about Survivor that now lead me to believe it could be on long after we're pushing up daisies.

1. CBS and Mark Burnett weren't going to let the formula get stale.

2. People are endlessly, somewhat disturbingly creative and entertaining.

For evidence of the first, watch how the creative team behind Survivor mix it up on their contestants, starting by stranding them in the middle of nowhere on their way to a photo shoot with no supplies and only the clothes on their back. The easiest way for Survivor to go stale would have been to let the formula get predictable (The Apprentice anyone?). But every year the team behind Survivor changes a key element or two, keeping the contestants and the audience on their toes. It got even better in season seven when the first six contestants were allowed to compete their way back on to the show, completely destroying most of the player's strategies. In the season, even after you voted out your enemy, he wasn't necessarily gone.

But the real key to the seventh season of Survivor was the casting - from Lill, the sweet as your grandma boy scout troop leader, to Burton, the outcast who threatened to take over, to the king of the island, Johnny Fairplay. When Johnny lied about a death in the family just to have something to lord over his fellow contestants - "I swear on my dead grandma" - you knew that reality television had reached a new high...or low, depending on how you look at the genre. With the seventh season, Survivor proved that as much as changing the game's structure will keep the show alive, it's going to be the way the individual mice run through the maze that really keeps it entertaining. As with all reality TV, casting is 90% of the battle and you'd be hard-pressed to find a more entertaining cast than the seventh season of Survivor (although the crew of the current Exile Island looks promising too).

The DVD set for Pearl Islands continues the strong pattern of season releases for CBS' reality programming with a vivid full screen transfer and an adequate audio track. Fans of the show will be happy to find commentary tracks on five of the episodes with some of the most famous faces from the season including Rupert, Sandra, Jon, and Burton. There are also two featurettes that recap the season - "Pirates' Tales" and "Game Strategies" - as well as all of the reunion episode that aired after the finale.

One final note - if you're taking a trip to the Pearl Islands for the first time - maybe you're a Survivor or reality TV fan but you missed this season - don't spend any time looking at the covers of the three DVD cases because, believe it or not, they actually give away the order of expulsion from the island. Yes, most people opening their wallets for Survivor: Pearl Islands are fans of the show who want to relive or catch the extras on their favorite season but not everyone is and Paramount would be wise to try and keep the secret on future DVD releases.