· The premiere of Survivor: Inland Empire posted strong numbers—13.8 million viewers, easily winning the 8 p.m. hour for CBS. [THR]
· Universal is negotiating for screen rights to Robert Ludlum's The Parsifal Mosaic (not to be confused with MGM's Cruise/Washington/Cronenberg Ludlum project The Matarese Circle). "The Parcifal Mosaic?" That makes Quantum of Solace sound as catchy as He's Just Not That Into You. [Variety]
· CBS greenlights comedy pilot Good Girls, which will hopefully be as good as Worst Week was the worst. It's about "two childhood friends who try to reinvent themselves after making some youthful mistakes." And Ashton Kutcher is a producer, so prepare for ascots-a-plenty. [Variety]
· E! has ordered a reality show called Hot Girls in Scary Places. The premise is said to be "very high-concept" and under extremely tight wraps. It's killing us! What is this show about? [THR]

In the show's season finale, the final tribal council voted to give nerdy Bob a million dollars, but not before insane jury member Corinne had her turn. Corinne laid into finalist "Sugar" (who the show's chyrons helpfully identified as a "pin-up model") for the deeply egregious, untenable habit of weeping over her dead father who just died of lung cancer. The nerve! While it's not quite up there with Sue Hawk's famous, first-season "rats and snakes" monologue as far as sheer hillbilly eloquence goes, we admire Corinne's adherence to one of reality TV's key tenets: if you find someone terrible, you must point it out in a manner so incredibly cruel that it eclipses the original offense. Corinne, your self-awareness had to die so that this CBS franchise could live. [CBS]

A New York producer named Sean Pomper issued a press release today announcing the film, a meta-slasher romp starring castoffs from Survivor, Rock of Love, The Mole, The Biggest Loser, I Want to Work for Diddy, even the Howard Stern offering Wack Pack at the Christys' Farm (!!!) — a veritable dollar-store ensemble of talent that will gather on Long Island to "ponder the question... 'Would you kill for $1,000,000?'":

[The cast is] invited to participate in a new TV Show where the prize is $1,000,000. Before the first contestant is voted off, a "freakish accident" happens, and they meet their demise. When the second and third guest "bite the dust" our contestants discover that they are not only playing for $1,000,000 but playing for their lives. [...]

"The Reality Stars are led to believe that they are competing for a prize of one million dollars, and before they realize a scam took place, the game costs them their lives," [Pomper said.] "This is a first-time acting opportunity for many of America's Top Reality Stars."

Pomper adds that shooting begins next week, with more reality-based features to come after Reality Horror Show finds its niche in the 900-section of your cable provider's channel guide. But even that exposure would be some kind of extraordinary cultural milestone we might not mind in the end. As opposed to, say, like, Zoolander 2. Godspeed, Sean Pomper!

• 'Reality Horror Night' [via PR Web]

The unblurred wardrobe malfunction (courtesy of Survivor Sucks), after the jump (NSFW):

• Male Nudity Makes "Survivor" a Major Flop [TMZ]

First, the runners-up:

No. 10 – Rob & Amber, Survivor
No. 9 – Sara & Grissom, CSI
No. 8 – Ryan & Marissa, The O.C.
No. 7 – Trista & Ryan, The Bachelorette
No. 6 – Kate & Jack, Lost
No. 5 – Billy & Alison, Melrose Place
No. 4 – Clark & Lana, Smallville
No. 3 – Boris & Natasha, The Bullwinkle Show (ed. note: ???)

And the top two, excerpted from TV Guide:

No. 2 – Tom & Lynette, Desperate Housewives: She has him canned from her ad firm, hates mothering and almost cheats on him with a pizza guy. He, in turn, takes it like a tool as penance for lying about his secret kid. Forget Wisteria Lane’s occasional homicides, the real mystery here is why these two aren’t in therapy.

No. 1 – “Gizzie” (George & Izzie), Grey’s Anatomy: First off, could the combo name be any uglier? And secondly, ewww. It was like watching a faded prom queen and her slightly dim-witted brother get it on…at the expense of George’s marriage to Callie.

While we're a little shocked that Boris & Natasha made the list over, say, Hills villains Heidi & Spencer, we can't help but wish TV Guide had extended its expose to include characters from decades long since past. After all, everyone knows that Shirley and the Big Ragu were, like, sooo passé (all the cool kids 'shipped Laverne and Squiggy), and Donna's marriage on The Donna Reed Show? OMG, could she have been more of a Mary Sue?!

• TV Guide

· Hard-to-kill Heroes cheerleader and Official Friend of the Dolphins Hayden Panettiere joins the cast of teen comedy Daydream Nation, possibly opposite a Culkin. [Variety]
· FX has abruptly decided not to order any more episodes of Dirt or The Riches because of the strike's interruption of their production, but hasn't yet ruled out the possibility that they might renew the shows for third seasons that will have to awkwardly resolve all the plot threads cut in the middle of this abbreviated run. [THR]
· CBS is its moving Survivor brand into fitness products, starting with something called "Supercharged Sunflower Seeds," a snack undoubtedly rich in the nutrients one needs to live while stranded on a deserted island or trapped in a remote part of China. [Variety]

• Bonaduce Bloodies "Survivor" Star [TMZ]

Eye has greenlit production on approximately 13 episodes of the untitled project, which begins casting shortly with an eye on a summer 2007 premiere. Details of the project are being kept under wraps.

What is known is that the action in the skein will take place on both land and at sea, suggesting the presence of ships and islands as central characters in the unscripted drama.

It's also expected the skein will incorporate traditional reality elements such as competitions and elimination ceremonies. (Perhaps losers will have to walk the plank?)

Not yet addressed are the details of the casting process, so it remains to be seen if Burnett will attempt another controversial and headline-grabbing gimmick in the vein of the quickly abandoned racial segregation of teams on this season of Survivor. Burnett is nothing if not a consummate showman, however, with an acute sense of how to best lure eyeballs to TV screens, so we wouldn't be a bit surprised if he divvied up his latest contestants into Team Hook-Hand and Team Peg-Leg, then justified the insensitive feat of handicapped exploitation by describing it as a social experiment intended to see which amputee groups fared best when removed from society and denied modern prosthetics.

• Pirates pegged for CBS [Variety]

At least one of the white people was able to talk about his new tribemates like they were actual human beings with names. Or not. Jonathan told his tribemate Jessica, "I think we can align with a couple of the Asians." [...]

Of course, that new alliance represents the Asian and white tribes; the other group was made up of members from the Latino and black tribes.

If that alliance stays intact for two more visits to Tribal Council, the new Aitutaki tribe will have only white and Asian people.

It's a fascinating development, and one that should give defensive producer Mark Burnett plenty of ammunition against critics who would argue the format was nothing but a cynical ratings ploy quickly abandoned when the melting pot water got a little too hot. Merged tribes or not, this cultural petrie dish experiment will likely continue to provide valuable insights into the genetic advantages of natural selection, until producers are likely left with no choice but to step in with affirmative action measures to ensure their quickly diminishing African American and Latino players are thrown a couple of extra immunity tokens throughout the season.

• Survivor tribes integrate and the race war begins as one tribe forms alliances along racial lines [RealityBlurred]

Match the following Survivor: Cook Islands tribes to the corresponding statements made by one of their members on last night's premiere:

A: Asians B: Blacks C: Caucasians D: Dominicans & Their Ilk.

1. "I can't believe a bunch of ****** who are so little weigh so much! All that rice!
2. "Represent! Represent!"
3. "I feel like this is ass backwards. Our parents got a raft and paddled away from an island."
4. "Are you guys braiding the palms? Giving it cornrows? That's some nappy hair right there!"
5. "This is a unique opportunity to show that we work hard..."
6. "I don't fit the stereotype—hard working Mr. Engineers with jacket suit and ties."
7. "We've got, like, a jock, and then we've got a sorority type..."
8. "I had a dream!"

Answers: 1. A 2. B 3. D 4. B 5. D 6. A 7. C 8. B
(Highlight to read.)

New 'Survivor' Format Teaches Jeff Probst That Asians Can Come From Different Countries [Defamer]

"When you start talking to a person from Asia, you realize — Wow! They have all different backgrounds!" gushed Probst, who described himself repeatedly as a 44-year-old white guy from Wichita. [...]

The other day, he told the reporters, he went to his dentist, who is white, and the dentist brought in another dentist, who is Asian. "And I found myself saying to the Asian doctor, 'Where in Asia is your family from?' " The dentist said he was Korean. "The only reason I had the courage to even ask that question or the knowledge to ask that question was I'd just spent 39 days with people from Korea," Probst said.

Yes, he really did.

Asians, he explained, include Chinese and Japanese and Koreans and "they don't necessarily get along," adding, "This is stuff maybe I should know."

Probst's shockingly ignorant remarks (seriously—the guy lives in LA. Shouldn't he at least know his egg rolls from his hand rolls?) serve as a striking reminder that reality TV show hosts are not hired for their knowledge of geography and culture, but because they look and sound good on camera. Still, considering the Pandora's Box they're opening with this season's four-way race war, you'd think Survivor's producers would have at least briefed their star on the basics before he had a chance to question members of the Hispanic Tribe about the weather in Hispania.

• 'Survivor' Host's Geoethnic Studies, From Soup to Mutts [WashingtonPost.com]

Whereas on a desert island where economics and social class count for nothing, it's simply your ability to build a fire and catch fish that becomes of paramount importance. Add to this, the political nature of Survivor which is overlaid on the survivalist themes and you need to add in the criteria of "Do I like this person?" or "Can I convince this person to vote with me?" [...]

Were we correct?? Time will tell. All I can say is that the series will pull no punches and will at the very least show that behaving like an asshole isn't the exclusive right of any particular race. It will also show that it's impossible to stereotype people once you meet them and (even vicariously) live with them as they struggle to build a world.

If you find yourself lost in the sea of his gasbag rhetoric, you're not alone: We've read the paragraphs several times now, to no decipherable avail, and our consultation of the unabridged source material has only resulted in a further tumble down the rabbit hole of Realityland's nonsensical, ratings-justifying logic.

• EMAILS TO THE EDITOR: [Cynopsis via FishBowlLA]

"This is a great idea," wrote poster "Drafli Hakon" on Stormfront, which claims 120,000 members. "This will get all those millions of couch potatoes who watch the show [rooting] for their own. Win, lose or draw, millions of whites will start to remember that they ARE part of a tribe. If the Whites win, they will feel pride. If they lose, they will feel resentment towards those who won. It's win-win for us."

Another poster, "Krom," agreed. "This is great and should be really interesting!" the poster wrote. "One benefit I see is that people will really see racial differences are real PLUS they will be able to root for their own people; a sense of racial solidarity. Good luck to the white team!"

As unlikely as it sounds, it may well be a stale reality franchise that mobilizes white-supremacy's many splintered factions, inspiring the movement to seek mainstream legitimacy that hasn't been seen since David Duke's heyday. It mat not be what Mark Burnett had intended with his little attention-grabbing scheme, but he always has the safety net of falling back on the old, "I was only following orders" excuse, by quoting Les Moonves' clear-cut directives of, "Yes, I want you to do it. If you do it, I want you to do it right. Don't back off of it. Just do it."

• 'Survivor' Stirs Up Supremacists [TVWeek.com]
• Top Marketers Pull Out of 'Survivor' [AdAge]

A GM spokesperson on Wednesday said the decision was made about three months ago and isn't related to the format of next season's competition, which will pit four tribes of different races and ethnicities against one another. [...]

GM decided to pull its advertising from "Survivor" because sponsoring the show no longer fit the company's business objectives, a spokesperson for the automaker said. It was difficult to integrate an automobile into a program that's set on an island, the spokesperson said, adding, "It's been a great relationship with the show."

It's ironic that they should choose to pull out in this of all seasons, where a GMC Yukon™ Cross-Island Challenge would have integrated quite nicely with the show's new format, helping to confirm once and for all whether or not widely held stereotypes about Asian drivers are true.

• General Motors Drops 'Survivor' Sponsorship [TVWeek.com]

"The idea of having a battle of the races is preposterous," [New York] City Councilman John Liu said Thursday. "How could anybody be so desperate for ratings?" [...]

Liu, who is Asian-American, said he was launching a campaign urging CBS to pull the show because it could encourage racial division and promote negative typecasts. He and a coalition of officials, including the council's black, Latino and Asian caucus, planned to rally at City Hall on Friday. [...]

The show's host, Jeff Probst, said the network was aware this season's race ploy might offend viewers. [...]

"[I]t's much safer to say, 'No, let's just stick with things the way they are. Let's don't be the network to rock the boat. Let's not have "Survivor" try something new,'" he said. "But the biases from home can't affect you. This is an equal opportunity game."

It will be interesting to see if our local politicians will organize a similar reality show boycott (and, God willingly, perhaps do something about The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency while they were at it). And once again, we find ourselves endlessly tickled at CBS' newly anointed Defender of Bad Ideas, Probst, and his ridiculous set of talking points—as if there is some logical way to justify a premise that will inevitably lead to tribal council meetings in which contestants hold a paper to the camera reading, "Sekou, 'cause he's black," before dropping their eviction ballots into a bowl.

• NYC Officials Want New 'Survivor' Pulled [ABCNews.com]

Beating even the impressive headlines-to-episode turnaround times of Matt Stone and Trey Parker themselves, a Defamer reader drafted this cast photo of the inevitable South Park episode skewering Survivor: Cook Island and its almost-too-ridiculous -to-be-parodied race vs. race premise. We look forward to the requisite scene in which Cartman sensitively explains to Kyle why he can't play along at home, because "there's no bleeping Jew Tribe, Jew," though we can't help but feel this would have been the perfect opportunity for the recently departed Chef to preach in the final moments how it's time we all looked past something as surface as skin color, unless it's a shade of delicious mocha-chocolate covering the large expanse of a plus-plus-sized hooker's ass.

Of the 20 players, 13 are from California, and nine of those are from Los Angeles. A few are listed by other cities to help disguise this fact, but Venice and Marina Del Rey are both basically part of Los Angeles.

Even more incredibly, many of them are actors, two of whom have together had parts on all three CSIs. Sundra Oakley was on CSI Miami, while Jonathan Penner was on CSI New York and the original version. While Sundra is listed in her CBS bio as an actress, Jonathan is listed as a writer/producer, as he wrote and produced the TV movie version of The Lone Ranger.

Of course, dividing the contestants into "sporadically employed LA-based actors looking for a career boost through appearing on reality show no one really cares about anymore" and "other" tribes just wouldn't have given the series that buzzed-about, out-of-the-nonracist-box vision Les Moonves was shooting for when he boldly gave his go-ahead orders of, "Yes, I want you to do it. If you do it, I want you to do it right. Don't back off of it. Just do it." But knowing these contestants have experience taking instructions from a director through an earpiece certainly can't hurt, especially when said director helpfully inquires if a player can, "I don't know, trip a Chinaman or something?" during an especially tepid stretch of the firemaking challenge.

• Slug Exclusive: Jeff Probst Talks "Survivor" Segregation [The Slug]
• Survivor Cook Islands cast includes at least three actors, 13 people from California [RealityBlurred.com]