CBS came under fire late last month when the news hit that this fall's (lucky) thirteenth season of Survivor would feature four teams, with participants grouped by race. Activists have criticized both producers and the network for the "separate but equal" team divisions, GM has withdrawn its sponsorship; practically the only people supporting the move seem to be white supremacists.

Well, we're not thrilled about it either. The worry about the show is that it will invite contestants to make stereotypical generalizations about opposing teams based on racial prejudice -- and that's just lazy. In this day and age, we have enough information at our disposal to make stereotypical generalizations based on our prejudices against all sorts of people, entirely irrespective of their ethnic heritage. Naturally, the producers of Survivor know this too, and already have plans for future seasons of the show to split teams up according to all sorts of different criteria that we use to prejudge people every day, without ever risking charges of racism. I mean, we're just a little bit more sophisticated than that, thank you.

Season 14

Collecting food is always an anxious proposition on Survivor, but when the four teams are made up of food-allergics -- peanut, gluten, lactose, and shellfish -- it's an even stickier undertaking! Sure, everything's fine when the shellfish abstainers don't have to mix with the gluten avoiders, but after the merge, keeping tabs on which food pans belong to which contestants becomes a matter of life and death! The traditional "mystery dish" at the food auction takes on a dramatic edge when a nut-allergic tribe member bids her whole stake on...a peanut butter sandwich! And her epipen is miles away! Watch their wacky misadventures, and be grateful they're on TV and not on their way to your house for a dinner party!

Season 16

We couldn't all be cool back in high school! This season's contestants are about to return for their ten-year anniversaries, and they all have something to prove. The four tribes are composed of former participants in various naturally inimical extracurriculars: the varsity basketballers vs. the chess clubbers; the cheerleaders vs. the model UN. Some challenges will favour the natural athletes, while others are tailored to the intellectuals. Only...which is which? Not all the high-school athletes played through college, and some will have probably gone to seed, whereas some of the 98-lb. weaklings from their sophomore years have been hitting the gym! It's history's ultimate question...who will triumph: the jocks, or the nerds?!

Season 17

The show returns to the African savannah -- with a twist! This time, the four tribes are made up of contestants allergic to grass, dust, pollen, and ragweed. Disappointingly, the season ends after one half-hour episode as all the contestants give up, in agony.

Season 20

You know those people who have decided to set themselves just outside contemporary society by choosing one battleground issue and abstaining from using it? What is their problem? The producers of Survivor decided to find out, assembling a bunch of them to compete for a $1 million prize. Don't worry -- they all at least have bank accounts! But five of them can't drive; five don't own TVs; five are stubbornly clinging to dial-up internet connections; and five refuse to own cell phones. Certainly it's true that these abstentions will be mostly theoretical in a survival scenario, and the prediction is that the first part of the season will roll along smoothly as the tribe members back each other up in their chosen area of technophobia. The problem is that once the tribes mix, the no-cell-phone people will be infuriated by the self-righteousness of the dial-up people, without recognizing that they're all basically the same. Fortunately, you have a TV -- and can mock all their Luddite asses!

Season 22

There's a lot to love about living in a big city: the nightlife, the fine dining, the shopping. What's not so great is having to navigate sidewalks clogged with nitwits who've responded to their perfectly average adolescences by making a full-time job, in adulthood, of showing how special they are by not selling out, maaaaaaan. You've rolled your eyes at their tiresome antics and wondered what it might be like if they were scooped up off the sidewalk and deposited far, far away. Well, so have the producers of Survivor -- which is how this season has come to be composed of four tribes of urban nonconformists: adult goths; buskers (assorted); people with an absolutely staggering number of body piercings; and adult, non-professional skateboarders. Hey, even society's dropouts love money -- but how will the season work when the contestants are constitutionally unable to follow rules of any sort, even in challenges? Without hydrogen peroxide for the piercees and pancake makeup for the goths, how will those tribemates even be able to define, on a basic level, who they are?

Season 29

Suggestions that, in the age of gene therapy, Survivor favours contestants who are ideal physical specimens is just not true. Survivor is no eugenic pageant! To prove it, producers offer a slate of tribes made up of genetic defectives: one team is tone-deaf; another colour-blind; a third has flat feet; and the last, most chilling of all, have...outies. Parental discretion is strongly advised.