One of the most piquant moments in a summer dominated by what is
being called, without apparent irony, “reality TV,” came when it
was announced that on the Wednesday night of the Republican
convention, the
exiguous network coverage of the event
had been soundly trounced in the ratings
by “Survivor” on CBS.
This is the show in which sixteen people were deposited on an island
in the Pacific and invited to vote each other off the island
until there is only one left. The “survivor” wins a million
dollars. The episode that induced so many potential
convention-watchers to switch the channel was the one in which
the black basketball coach from outside Philadelphia, Gervase,
was voted off the island, thus giving the
lie to the rumor that
had been going the rounds that he was the ultimate winner who
had already been chosen but whose identity CBS had managed to
keep secret.

Meanwhile, back in Philadelphia, the allegedly real convention
was bombing with the public (though not necessarily with the
pundits, about which more later). Perhaps, their appetites
whetted by all this “reality” programing, they thought that
deliberation about the future governance of the country was
pretty thin gruel in comparison. And there was certainly this to
be said in favor of such a view of the matter, that the expulsion
of Gervase was at least a matter of uncertainty and speculation.
He had been widely picked as an early departure because of his
refusal to