If you guys thought that Dating Naked was the most double-take-worthy reality show imaginable, there’s a new oddity to wrap your brains around. Discovery Channel is getting political with its upcoming series Rival Survival, which will stick a Republican senator and a Democrat senator on a deserted island together to see if they can survive their time together. Feel free to confirm that you are not, in fact, reading an Onion story.
For Rival Survival, a title that sounds more like a pro wrestling tag team, the conservative Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) will each have to put aside their personal beliefs for for six days and six nights on the uninhabited island Eru, located in the Marshall Islands. When the experiment/show begins, the men are allowed to choose three everyday items to use on the island, where they’ll have to work together to build shelter and secure food, which necessarily must come from the ocean around them. Plus, the island has no fresh water, so they’ll have to figure that out as well.
The island of Eru was a prime location during World War II, and the waters surrounding it are home to downed WWII wreckage as well as the world’s largest shark sanctuary. These beasts are just a tad more vicious than the ones in the Supreme Court. (Or they’re at least toothier.) I feel my life will have been completely for naught if I don’t get to hear one of these guys threaten to make the other one "goddamned shark food.".
According to EW, the senators actually approached Discovery about this show idea, rather than the other way around. Here’s what the politicians had to say in a joint statement.
Both of us know just how frustrated people are with Washington right now. We can both attest that no one is more frustrated than those of us trying to get things done in this environment. We recognize how difficult it can be to cut through the partisanship. So we decided to do something completely out of the ordinary and frankly a little extreme to show the world and our colleagues that even if you have serious differences, if you want to survive you have to work together.”
The TV struggle is real, guys.
Flake served in the House of Representatives for six terms, from 2001-2013, before being elected into the Senate, and one of his more noteworthy contributions in recent years was teaming with John McCain for the immigration-centered “Gang of 8” last year. Heinrich, who was a U.S. Representative from 2009-2013, identifies himself as an environmentalist and is quite progressive in just about every social issue you can think of. Neither man is up for reelection, and both appear to be polar opposites in every single way. That should make things easier.
Discovery will answer the age-old question “Can conservatives and liberals co-exist on a deserted island?” when Rival Survival premieres on Wednesday, October 29.
