Viewers may not survive this one

Anyone offended by the am-dram nastiness of NZ Idol - so that'll be Gary McCormick -should not have been watching last night's Survivor: Palau (TV3, 8.30pm). I wish I hadn't been watching it, but for rather different reasons. But when it came to gratuitous humiliation, Survivor made NZ Idol look like the Teletubbies.

Always aiming for new ways to add a frisson of fear and loathing - they really don't need to go to the bother - the makers of Survivor brought along a woman called Wanda. This poor unfortunate was a 50-something school teacher with a penchant for singing, tunelessly and loudly, songs she had written especially for the show.

These songs were supposed to engender a spirit of teamwork, and, presumably, endear her to her potential team-mates. As a "pick me, pick me" strategy, this failed entirely. Which was the point of Wanda. The moment she opened her mouth - even her speaking voice was a cross between a kookaburra and a fishwife - you just wanted to drown her. Or send her home.

For further humiliation because, ha ha, the survivors are told they'll only have the clothes they set out in - which the woman in the lace tied-under-the-boobs top must be regretting - Wanda is reduced to her petticoat. This undergarment was of the sort I haven't seen anyone wearing, except ironically (that is a fashion term), since I had a great-grandmother.

How nasty. Oh. I seem to have written in my notes: "Somebody please kill her." But hell, didn't you want her to be ridiculed and sent home too? That's why she was there at all.

What a crock Survivor is. All those crocodile tears when Wanda and some forgettable bloke were sent home. Because nobody wanted them on their team.

Now that "pick me, pick me" really was nasty. That little trick took you right back to the playground. The tears from the remaining survivors were of relief: because they were picked.

We're told there will be rats next week. There are already plenty of rats. But this is the first time, in my memory at least (which is not, admittedly, exhaustive in this matter), that a nasty beastie has been seen outside the stock shots of creepy crawlies and venomous creatures that are edited in but never actually seen on the show. Except for the players.

Where do they get these people? Perhaps they give them all some test which proves that they will be lacking in empathy, intelligence and any idea of what to wear on a trip to a remote island.

And where have they been living? Under a stone with the other creepy things? Because, honestly, you'd think Jolanda might have done a bit of research and figured out that being a bossy cow meant the tribe would speak. "I don't want people to say, 'Her personality's too strong, she's a witch."' Which is exactly what they did say.

There are weeks of this to go. Palau, we have been told, due to it's WWII history, is "an eerie mix of man's explosive past and nature's power to reclaim".

Excellent. Hopefully a bomb will wipe the lot of them off the planet, or the jungle will take them and none of them will ever been seen again.

One survivor? Ho hum, that's been done. No survivor would make it all so much more satisfying. And Wanda would have her revenge.