There's a reason "Survivor" is still a huge hit in the ratings long after many observers expected its appeal to fade. Producer Mark Burnett is smart enough to populate the show with interesting contestants and keep them — and the viewers — guessing.
He's never made the show into something other than what made it a success in the first place, but Burnett has tinkered with execution a bit. This time around, contestants weren't immediately separated into two competing tribes, they all got to know each other a bit first.
And once they were split, that was it. Despite the fact that the underdog Koror tribe won every single immunity challenge and the underachieving Ulong tribe has had to vote out eight of its nine members, the two tribes have never merged — something that happened on every other edition of "Survivor."
Which means that as tonight's episode (7 p.m., CBS/Ch. 2) begins, Stephenie LaGrossa is a tribe of one. I daresay nobody saw that coming.
I was in the room while my teenagers were watching a recording of last week's episode, which I had already seen. Every guess they made about who would win various challenges and what would result was wrong. Not that I was any less surprised when I saw it for the first time.
Unpredictability makes for great TV. And "Survivor" is still a great reality/competition show.
WATCHING "THE APPRENTICE," Burnett's other Thursday-night series (8 p.m., Ch. 5), has been sort of like watching a train wreck this season.
You can see just how awful the aftermath is; the people in it have no perspective on the disaster.
We saw it with Salt Lake City's own Audrey Evans, fired in the March 3 episode. She's obviously a successful young woman, but in the aftermath of her ouster she was absolutely certain that she came off looking great and the male members of her team were exposed in their bad behavior. An impartial observer, however, couldn't help come to a somewhat different conclusion.
And then there's Chris Shelton, the 22-year-old real-estate mogul and Richfield, Utah, native who was raised in Las Vegas. His behavior — including temper tantrums, foul language, tobacco chewing, immaturity and loss after loss after loss on the weekly tasks — has been nothing short of embarrassing.
"I perceive myself as being somewhat of a brilliant young man," he says in tonight's episode.
That's probably not the perception most viewers have.
And if you think Shelton's behavior was embarrassing in past episodes, wait till you see tonight's installment.
Got to stop there. Don't want to give anything away.
MAYBE ONE REASON ratings for "The Apprentice" dropped precipitously after the first edition is too much Donald Trump. Oh, he's actually grown into his role as the boss/host of the show, but do we really need to hear every week about how great he is? How successful he is? How smart he is? How Trump this and Trump that are the epitome of every field?
It's more than a bit tiresome.
And then there's the gushing over all the companies and people who appear on the show. Tonight, the two teams compete to create promotional brochures for a new car that Pontiac is introducing. And Trump makes it sound like General Motors is the most successful car company on Earth.
Actually, GM announced in March that it would lose $847 million in the first quarter of 2005, its worst quarterly loss since 1992. That sent its shares to a 10-year low.
The prize that winners of tonight's task win (in addition to not being at risk of getting fired) is to meet with someone Trump refers to as "another successful team leader" — Isiah Thomas, general manager of the New York Knicks.
Um, the Knicks are in last place in their division. NBCSports.com commentator Michael Ventre wrote that Thomas is "chiefly to blame" for the Knicks' lack of success.
Yet, on NBC's "The Apprentice," Trump introduces Thomas by saying, "Now, this is a winner."
Talk about tiresome. . . .
E-mail: pierce@desnews.com