Stephen Fishbach (left) was a contestant onSurvivor: Tocantinsand finished in second place.
Hes written aboutSurvivorand his experience forPeopleas well as hosted our Viewer chat for the current season of the show.
you could join his live chat for this weeks episode on Wednesday night here.
Lewis Jacobs/NBC
Below, he discusses howThe Hunger GamesandSurvivorare close cousins.
Nobody is trying to kill you when you playSurvivor.
Producers arent launching exploding fireballs at your head.
Lewis Jacobs/NBC
Poison-tipped tridents are strictly forbidden by the CBS legal department.
Youre stranded in an extreme environment blistering-hot days, bitterly cold nights.
The torrential rainstorms seem to never end.
Murray Close
You forage for food.
You cobble together shelter from sticks and moxie.
To survive, you must rely on the people around you a multicultural mix from across the country.
Only one thing unites them: they are hell-bent on your destruction.
Collins has said she was influenced by reality television.
Indeed, theThe Hunger Gamesembraces many ofSurvivors basic structural elements.
You could run for the trees and wait for your opponents to ice each other.
If you survive that initial scramble, you should probably build alliances.
But how do you trust someone in a game where there can be only one winner?
And what if your supposed ally is deceiving you?
Its such a joke!
Katniss thinks at one point.
Peeta and I going along pretending to be friends!
Katniss is never sure of where she stands with Peeta.
Does he really love her or is it just a strategy?
And what does it mean that hes BFF with the Careers?
Then theres the more troubling problem: Their alliance of convenience is starting to develop into an actual relationship.
WatchingSurvivorat home, I always marveled that people could be so stupid as to make real friends.
But the extreme survival situation forges extreme bonds.
When I was onSurvivor, I did exactly that.
I made an alliance with an Alabama cattle rancher, which evolved into genuine friendship.
In the end, he soundly beat me.
The single question Survivors get asked the most is is it real?
Survivoris very, very real.
The better question is, are therelationshipsreal?
How much of a personal bond is distilled from the simple need to survive?
As Katniss and Peeta discover, theres no easy answer.
Nobody is trying to kill you onSurvivor.
But as Jeff Probst says every season, In this game, fire represents life.
When the tribe votes you out and your torch is snuffed, you suffer a metaphorical death.
After a month or more of suffering and struggling, losing can feel like a spear in the gut.
British censors demand seven seconds of blood footage cut from Hunger Games movie
