Six years ago we were just starting out as newlyweds in a new city with our first “real” jobs making about minimum wage and with no real friends to speak of (yeah, I know, of which to speak). We had some time on our hands, but we didn’t spend very much of it in front of the tube. We had gotten a TV as a wedding gift, but without cable we could only get two or three stations to tune in correctly, depending on how you balanced the antenna and where you applied the tinfoil. The hot new show that summer was Survivor: Borneo, on CBS, which happened to be the station with the weakest signal. But the premise was intriguing enough that we eventually figured out when it came on and made the effort to suffer through the static; the night scenes were just terrible — you couldn’t see anything. But before long we were hooked on the show, and thirteen seasons later it remains one of our favorite programs.

This year Survivor is back in the news because of the producers’ decision to split the contestants into four tribes of four, divided by race.

Is this the most stupid idea of the year or the most brilliant? Maybe somewhere inbetween? I’ll leave that to smarter people to figure out; Professor Tung Yin at Iowa is a fellow Survivor fan who has some thoughts and links that might shed some light on that question. He does note that previous seasons have had the tribes divided by gender, or by age and gender both. But Survivor has pushed the diversity button from the very beginning, always adding equal numbers of men and women to the “cast,” being sure to include the “token” (to use Yin’s term) minorities and players with various disabilities (the deaf woman, the guy with one leg, etc.), and attempting to include contestants who will play to the stereotypes or push various agendas. After all, this is the show that gave us Richard Hatch as its first “Sole Survivor,” a man who gave himself the nickname “fat, naked fag.”

Now everyone is asking how Survivor’s audience will react. Will we get caught up in the racial clash on screen and cheer on only “the home team,” so to speak?

I don’t think so. Most fans have and will appreciate the great players, the interesting players, the dynamic players despite their race, gender or socio-economic status.

The most popular contestants have been people like:

Rudy, the 72 year old retired Navy seal who was in better shape than most of the other people a third of his age. This cranky and seemingly bigoted old man ended up striking an alliance with Richard, one of the “queers and homosexuals” that otherwise made him shake his head. That alliance would take him into the final three of season one.

Rupert, the grizzly redneck whose warrior growl was matched only by his big tender heart. His great physical strength took him far in back to back seasons, and though he was never voted Sole Survivor, he was the first (and, to date, only) player to receive a separate $1 million prize awarded to him by fans of the show.

Stephanie, the young lady who by sheer force of willpower alone nearly won the game, twice. She probably would have won the first time around if she hadn’t been seen as such a great threat to the other players; her best attribute was also her downfall. Also appearing in back to back seasons, Stephanie took runner-up in Survivor: Guatemala.

Cirie, the cheerful city-dweller who started last season literally afraid of leaves, having never gone camping or spent any time outdoors. She roughed it out and ended up making it into the final four. Cirie was always witty in her diary sessions, keeping a level head and a positive attitude, and her resiliency was nothing short of remarkable. Toward the end, she even learned how to start a fire on her own — something she thought she’d never be able to do.

Survivor has been won by six men and six women, ten of them caucasian, one African American and one Hispanic.