Separate but stupid

In a curious move, CBS has announced that the next season of Survivor, set in the Cook Islands, will feature race-based teams, at least initially. They've cleaved the contestant according to gender and age before, natch, but only now has Mark Burnett sprouted balls big enough to pit blacks against Asians against whites against latinos.

Imagine the size of Burnett's nuts: A scrotum as large as a furry, deployed parachute, leathery and dry, spread out across a twenty-foot perimeter, filled with two gelatinous, testicular orbs the size of Mini Coopers.

Of course, because this is a consequence-free reality show, it's not going to show us anything valuable or ennobling about the human spirit. Nor, I imagine, will there be clumsily-themed immunity challenges keyed upon dopey racial stereotypes, i.e. difficult M-CAT questions that the Asians can go to town on. What's more, this arrangement only lasts midway through the season, at which point we have the merge -- or, as they might call it, an "integration" of the race teams.

Just think -- Burnett can bring on a Cook Islander dressed like George Wallace to stand outside of tribal council, barring all but whites. Would you be happy then, Mark?