BURNETT'S ISLAND JUST SIT RIGHT BACK AND YOU'LL HEAR A TALE ...

Byline: David Kronke Television Writer

WE'LL ALLOW Mark Burnett, ``Survivor's'' mastermind, to get his usual sales pitch out of the way: `` 'Survivor 4' ends up being probably our best. Casting worked out really, really well.''

But some of the usual bravado is missing. ``How hard is it to excite people (to watch) - I don't know,'' he says. ``We're busy trying to make a show.''

For the first time, industry observers are questioning ``Survivor's'' own survival instincts. ``Survivor: Marquesas,'' set on a remote island in the South Pacific, debuts tonight, introducing viewers to a new set of 16 back-stabbers and hard-bodies vying for the million-dollar payday (or, better still, future work in the entertainment industry). But as Marc Berman, ratings analyst for Mediaweek, notes, ``Nobody's talking about it - that's got to be scary for CBS.''

Hard to believe that it was less than two years ago that ``Survivor'' changed the face of TV, and ushered in the apparently brief era of (faux) reality television.

Earle Marsh, co-author of ``The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows,'' notes, ``When the original 'Survivor' ran in the summer of 2000, it was an incredible phenomenon. The only time I can remember that a show hit in summer with that kind of impact was 45 years earlier, when 'The $64,000 Question' knocked 'I Love Lucy' out of the No. 1 spot. Nothing had ever hit like that in summer. 'Survivor' was the classic water-cooler conversation program.''

But as Berman notes, ``Ratings from the first 'Survivor' to the last were down 45 percent, 8 million fewer viewers. The test will be, will the fourth installment do what the third did, with no buzz at all. There'll probably be more tune-out, particularly now with (NBC's competitor) 'Friends' heating up (with a pregnancy storyline) at the end of the season. That's not going to help.

``But remember,'' Berman adds, ``even the last 'Survivor,' despite its ratings drop, still earned a very good rating. It's still a top-10 show, and still represents a vast improvement on the time period for CBS. But boy, it's not what it used to be.''

Indeed, after a competitive performance opposite TV's most popular sitcom last season, ``Survivor'' faltered against ``Friends,'' which has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity this season. But ``Survivor'' has always earned higher ratings in its second half hour, and will be facing off tonight against a new sitcom, ``Leap of Faith,'' which, in keeping with NBC's Thursdays-at-8:30 tradition, has been receiving excoriating reviews.

Robert Thompson, founding director of Syracuse University's Center for the Study of Popular Television, says, ``We're gonna find out how many legs and how much energy 'Survivor' has after No. 3, when the silence was deafening.

``What was so exciting has now become commonplace,'' Thompson adds. ``Part of the fun of 'Survivor' was that we didn't know what to expect - it was all new, and that was part of the fun. Now, we do know what to expect and how every variation on a theme will occur this time around. Every sitcom ever made does evergreen episodes - the crazy things that happen when someone has a baby; the kids having a party when the parents leave town. 'Survivor' has gotten to that point, and it's less than 2 years old. It has gone through this extraordinary aging process.''

In the new ``Survivor,'' there is one rule change that might help change things: The 16 castaways didn't get any food or water handouts, but were forced to rely on the island's vegetation for sustenance.

Ed Bark, TV critic for the Dallas Morning News, says, ``I think this one has possibilities - I think the setting could help stop the bleeding ratings-wise. It has a good chance. Africa was a disaster; the setting was dull and listless, and the final mix of contestants was not very good. With this series, at least going in, five or six contestants are registering a little quicker.''

Bark adds, however, ``The thing that bothers me about Burnett is that he's so incredibly duplicitous. When 'Survivor: Africa' was over, I asked him, 'Is a body of water necessary for the show to work?' He said, 'No, Africa was awesome; you got to see wild animals.' And the other day, he turned that comment on its ear and admitted Africa was too confining.''

In fact, Burnett did recently concede that ``Survivor: Africa'' fell short, after initially promising the best series ever. ``The location became restrictive - they couldn't go anywhere,'' he said. ``There was this sense of seeing people baking in sun with no access to water. There's something to be said for freedom of movement and exploration. For viewers, 'Africa' felt controlled, and there was no sense of exploration except for the camera's (shots of wild animals).''

Bark also noted that the most recent ``Survivor'' fell victim to perceptions that the outcomes may be manipulated. An apparent mistake in one of ``Survivor: Africa's'' immunity challenges was hushed up, and two of the final four contestants were surreptitiously awarded second-place money; only after a report on the Internet did Burnett and CBS come clean. This follows a lawsuit from the first series alleging that Burnett tried to tweak the outcomes, and an admission after ``Survivor: The Australian Outback'' that certain shots were fudged, undermining the show's ``reality.''

Chalking up the most recent mishap to ``obvious human error,'' Burnett said of the subsequent reporting of the $100,000 make-goods, ``It's so after-the-fact.'' He explained there was ``no real value'' to admitting to the mistake once it was discovered, but insisted, ``We took care of it in right way.''

``In some ways, the show's worst enemy is (Burnett),'' Bark says. ``He can't be trusted to tell the truth. The situation came up the night the thing was broadcast. That he didn't come forth with an acknowledgment points to his integrity. He says, 'We did something; we didn't announce it.' They didn't want to call attention to it.''

Even when the first lawsuit was announced, it was apparent that viewers were more interested in the contestants. Though Burnett touts the tweaks in the show's rules - this season, contestants will be given no food or matches to start fires - Thompson notes, ``Rudy, Rich and Sue (from the first series) were characters you had never seen on TV. This old geezer, an overweight exhibitionist gay man, and Mayberry meets Medea.''

``The first cast was best,'' agrees Berman, who calls himself a ``huge fan'' of the series. ``The second was more Hollywood - the people were not as interesting; you didn't like or dislike or care about them as much. The third group was boring - people didn't care.''

Part of the problem, Marsh observes, was that subsequent casts had seen how the game should be played - and were aware of its star-making qualities, and therefore played to the cameras more, again erasing certain aspects of the show's ``reality.'' He also points out that the show fails utterly when repeated, an important consideration for network bean-counters. Of ``Survivor: Marquesas,'' he says, ``If they don't get an interesting mix of contestants and get interaction that creates fascination or controversy, then they're in deep trouble.''

Thompson wonders, however, if we're not prematurely burying Burnett's franchise. ``People love to trash it for all these reasons - it was such a locomotive, and once it hits the wall, the tendency is to revel in that happening.''

Still, most questioned saw ``Survivor'' not surviving beyond a couple more incarnations. Says Bark, ``The final episode has gone from 51 million viewers to 36 (million) to 27 (million) - if this one comes in around 20 million, the handwriting's on the wall. They could manage two more versions and possibly that's it.''

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(1 -- 2 -- cover -- color) JUST TRYING TO SURVIVE

After falling ratings, new tropical `Survivor' tries to rekindle viewers' passion

(3) no caption (cast of Suvivor: Marquesas) (4) ``Survivor: Marquesas,'' set on a remote island in the South Pacific, debuts tonight on CBS.