Of all the cultural phenomena we might have borrowed from Europe--legal red-light districts, the siesta, pretty money--we get this. Sixteen men and women maroon themselves for as long as 39 days on an isolated tropical island, building driftwood huts and lunching on rats. Meanwhile, 10 folks agree to spend as long as three months sequestered, sleeping in communal bedrooms and living without TV or newspapers in a house that lacks only pencil shavings on the floor to qualify as a human hamster cage--all for cash prizes, under constant camera surveillance for a prime-time audience.
This is where a reference to The...