Do the teams have to suffer so much?

[MagicBullet]

One thing I noticed in the first season was that the women had far more sensible clothes and things like rain ponchos. Part of the reason a lot of these ladies are so cold is that they're so skinny to begin with and get skinnier, and another part is that they have nothing but bikinis to wear. I get that they're trying to sex it up a bit, but it's almost cruel to deny people adequate clothing so that male viewers will want to ogle the ladies on the show.

On island shows I get the shipwrecked feel, but somewhere like Nicaragua I would prefer a theme more like a hiking trip gone awry. And they can have the sort of stuff you might have in a backpack on a hiking trip. Which probably includes clothes and sensible shoes. Heck, if you were on a plane that went down and you were "surviving" that way, you'd have a whole lot of baggage to go through and probably some dead passengers you could eat as well. (Still waiting for starving, irritated contestants to eat Jeff Probst.)

[Brooks]

I think it's funny that even the guys understand they have to spoon with each other at night to keep warm (thinking of the Jimmy Johnson discussion on the recap show, LOL).

[Maybaybie]

Also things like hunger and cold play with your mind and make for decisons you may not normally make with a clear head and food in your belly, which in turn makes for good tv. I know when I am hungry or tired or cold or wet I can get grouchy and snap at people without thinking and I would bet it is a daily occurance on Survivor. I would think when the contestants watch it back on tv, they think, "man, I was such a **bleep**!"