Survivor

I  have been watching Survivor  for way too long.  It is really about the only network television show I have really paid much attention to since Lost ended.  The show was born during an actor's guild strike, and was quickly followed by many other "reality" television shows, until you wondered if TV was ever going to go back to telling fictional stories.  Reality TV is cheap to make compared to shows that use actual actors, and you can simply tweak and recycle themes nearly endlessly and things stay somewhat interesting because there are endless combinations of weird people you can throw together on a tropical island.
The premise of the show strikes a primal chord in people, but what keeps me coming back after over a decade, is the questions that this particular show raises: moral questions, social questions, ultimately spiritual questions.
Last night was the finale of the latest season, and the choice was between Tony, a police officer from Jersey who was the epitome of a win at any cost "scrambler," and Woo, a taekwondo instructor who basically rode an alliance with Tony into the final two, where the jury (made up of players who have been voted off), must decide who "deserves" to win the million dollar prize.
In the course of the 39 days that Survivor contestants spend playing the game, it is necessary to lie, cheat and betray trust in order to stay in the game.  Except this year, Woo managed to stay in the game largely without doing that.  He looked for all intents and purposes as though he was simply a malleable stooge that Tony was using, until the very end, when he started talking about the principles by which he had been playing: honor, respect, etc. which were/are part of his taekwondo philosophy.  I thought for a moment that Woo had a chance, because I realized he had done something really remarkable: he had gotten to the end of the game by being honorable and a good sport, rather than by being a liar and a snake in the grass.  He had reached the final vote without ever wielding power, or being a bully.  He had even, given the choice between facing the jury with Tony or Cass, a player who was for various reasons profoundly disliked and who had no more claim to controling her own destiny than Woo, chose Tony, who had obviously been in control, and been the most strategic player in the game.
He chose Tony because he considered Tony to be the more worthy opponent, and because he wanted to finish his game without breaking his code of honor.
And Tony won.
And Woo got nothing, but he walked away with his honor in tact, which actually is something.
Going into the final episode, I had judged Woo, he was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, he was young and naive, he was a little too happy go lucky for Survivor.  His choice vis-a-vis Tony seemed to back up that judgment, until he said why, and then I thought, "Crap! He deserves to win! But he's not going to."
He couldn't win because the game of Survivor has invented morality all it's own.  It's been on long enough that fans of the show, who end up being contestants on the show, have come to appreciate treachery and "making moves" more than being a good, honorable person.  You can't be too much of a villain (Russell Hantz), but you also can't be a choirboy and have people think you're actually a good player.  You have to have some blood on your hands, but not too much.
It ends up being an interesting social commentary.  The players notice it from the beginning now.  They often say, at some point, "I'm not like this, but this is the game, and this is what you have to do."  There have been people who won the game by being likeable, and there have been those who won by sheer, undeniable shrewdness.  But the culture of the game has morphed in recent years to give bias to the "win at any cost" mindset.
So much so that a person who plays based on a code of honor and principles seems utterly doomed, even if he actually has a 50-50 shot.
Then again, it's just a TV show, right?