Island game pales next to hardship

As yet another band of Survivors languish on a tropical island, bitching and bickering their way towards the final showdown tonight, it is tempting to imagine how they would go confronted with a real emergency.

With southern Asia awash with hundreds of thousands of genuine and terrified tsunami survivors, the game being played out in Vanuatu has suddenly become overpowering in its artificiality and irrelevance.

And in the fictional realm, intriguing new drama Lost, with its man-crunching polar bears, yeti-like monsters and other horrors, also highlights how easy the Survivor: Vanuatu tribes really have it.

In lieu of any genuine survival challenges or threats - this lot aren't even making a show of doing any hunter-gathering, for example - Eliza, Chris, Twila and co have only their strategies and back-stabbing to work on. And they, primed no doubt by watching the earlier series, have the formula down pat.

The chief element of interest as this now-tired format grinds its way through endless games and immunity challenges, is the inexorable rise of the highway construction workers in the group, Chris and Twila.

Chris delivered a virtuoso performance in lying and double-crossing last week, revelling in being the middle man between two warring camps of females, clearly demarcated by their swimwear (the one-piece oldies v the bikini babes). Southerner Twila just basked in her hammock like a rattler on a rock.

Still, the manic and anorexic-looking Eliza is giving them a run for their money. She may look frail but this is someone planning on being a lawyer in America. Survivor, you sense, is just her warm-up act.

Against this lot, sweet "youth mentor" Julie didn't have a chance, despite treating Chris to a magnificent night on an active volcano in a doomed attempt to buy his vote.

Survivor: Vanuatu has continued the fine tradition of translating the culture of the country it is set in to pure Disney hokey.

One of last week's challenges, for example, was based on the legend of a chief with the name of "Roy Mata". Like, is that an American name or what?

My bet is the person wearing the winner's tusks and taking the cash home tonight is one of the highway gang. Those two are as hard-bitten and unswerving as an Arizona desert road.

As Twila noted so chillingly last week, "People have been murdered for less than a million dollars".

The challenges for the wannabe famous keep on coming. Hollywood Dream Chasers, a new reality series on Prime, follows nine actors from around the world trying to make it big in Hollywood.

In tonight's opener, the nine are bursting with confidence and thinking big. Ambitions range from "romantic lead in a feature" to "winning an Oscar in two years".

Think of this as one long audition. Chief entertainment will be watching them crash and burn.

To emphasise the ups and downs, the show cuts constantly and irritatingly to an image of a snakes and ladders board. We get it, thanks.

First hurdle next week is meeting casting director Ed, a guy who pledges to spare no feelings and play it straight. Ed's a Hollywood veteran and knows the business inside out. Now, there's a shark worth being afraid of.

* What: Survivor: Vanuatu finale and Hollywood Dream Chasers

* Where and when: TV3 8.30pm and Prime 9.30pm

* Reviewer: Frances Grant