'Survivor' Sizzles Down Under

CBS scored a one-two punch with their broadcast of the Super Bowl, followed by the much-hyped debut of “Survivor: The Australian Outback,” which pits 16 contestants against each other and the brutal conditions of the Australian Outback (instead of the island hazards of Pulau Tiga, the original “Survivor” ‘s locale). After a bumpy plane ride on a DH-C4 Royal Australian Military aircraft, the photogenic group (the chosen ones out of some 49,000 applicants) landed in the midst of the Outback, set up camp and competed in their first immunity challenge, a rafting competition. The Ogakor tribe (a derivation of the Aboriginal word for “crocodile”) tribe outshined the Kucha tribe (an Aboriginal word for “kangaroo”). And, with her team’s loss, Debb Eaton, 45, a corrections officer from Milan, N.H., was the inaugural Survivor voted out of the Outback. “I feel like a loser getting kicked off first, but I guess I made it this far and that’s more than 49,000 plus people did,” she told cameras after her ousting. “I’ll take that with me, but it hurts.” “Survivor: The Australian Outback” ‘s second episode will air Thursday at 8 p.m. in its regular slot opposite NBC’s “Friends.”

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