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Just try to stop watching

You don't need to worry about falling for another one of "Survivor" executive producer Mark Burnett's decoy stunts to know what's going to happen in the next two weeks. With the dispatching of Miami advertising student Colleen Haskell, the three-person voting bloc of Richard III, Truck Driver Susan and Old Man Rudy are going to pick Sean and Kelly off the island. They now are in the majority — they can simply bide their time until the end.

And yet don't think that's going to stop us from watching next week, either. "Survivor's" audience continues to swell steadily (Wednesday's episode pulled in a 33 share for the second half hour). Not only does the game itself remain remarkably interesting, but since Burnett's role in the Web hoax was revealed last week, viewers have even less reason to believe that things on "Survivor" are generally as they seem.

(Alan Sepinwall of the Newark Star-Ledger asked Burnett how the Gervase theory was developed. "I'm going to have to give you the politican's answer," said Burnett. "It was a game of cat and mouse that we were originally passively playing, and we thought we'd get a little bit more active.")

Meanwhile, some "Survivor" fans are already looking ahead to the two-hour series finale on Aug. 23.

"Things are looking better all the time for Richard fans," writes Daniel Murphy. "Richard's next strategic priority needs to be getting into the final two with someone he can beat, someone who would actually be less popular among the jurors than he is.

"Who would that be? Sean looks good. Sean seems to be disliked by all sides. More importantly, he isn't respected. Rudy vs. Richard could work out well for Richard too. Richard seems to be better regarded on the ground in Pulau Tiga than in America's living rooms because they don't see his smug, cocky asides to the camera. The message boards are full of people who insist Richard can't win because the jurors would vote for anyone else. But I'm not so sure.

"I think the next phase of this game will be equally divided between people trying to get into the final two and people trying to pick their opponent for the final two. Immunity challenges will be worth more than ever.

"There's an interesting quote in the Edmonton Journal from Joel. He said there's a big clue about who wins in the first episode. The Journal article takes this as evidence Rudy won, but I think it might point to Richard. In the first episode, Richard said that the $1 million check already had his name on it."

By the way, what is it about Canadian TV critics and "Survivor"? They're even nuttier about it than we are.

ALSO: CBS will oppose Olympics with "Survivor" repeats

Pick to click

Those ubiquitous TNT promos for "Running Mates" make it seem like a lighthearted political romp for the ladies, a sort of red, white and blue "First Wives' Club" with a chiseled Tom Selleck as the women's common denominator.

The movie, sadly, is nothing like the promo. "Running Mates," which premieres 8 p.m. Sunday on TNT (repeating at 10 p.m.), is a meandering, unfocused and ultimately mawkish fantasy about a presidential candidate who's told by evil men in business suits that if he sells his soul to them, he's assured an electoral victory.

Selleck is the candidate, and it appears he's supposed to remind us of Bill Clinton. His character is handsome and charismatic, is a popular governor who wins the Democratic nomination with lots of help from his Hollywood friends, and he has a thing for the ladies.

Four of those ladies are his self-sacrificing wife (Nancy Travis), his self-sacrificing campaign manager (Laura Linney), a senator's self-sacrificing wife (Faye Dunaway) and his self-sacrificing Hollywood liaison (Teri Hatcher). The best scenes in this movie involve these women talking about the sacrifices they make so a man can be elected to the White House.

There isn't a whole lot of story line to "Running Mates" for most of the first hour: just a string of vignettes, mostly about the foibles of campaigning. Finally, after much wandering around, the movie gets around to making its point, such as it is.

Candidate Selleck is whisked far away to a secluded retreat, where several well-monied corporate fat cats — led by a particularly Mephistophelean fellow with a salt-and-pepper goatee — tell him that if he nominates one of "their" men as his running mate, he will inherit $100 million in campaign funds. Or he could appoint a reformer and send a signal that "America's not for sale."

It's a bogus, not to mention ludicrous, choice. For one thing, it would be impossible to conceal something like that under current campaign laws.

What's really galling is that much of the rest of "Running Mates" tries to be as authentic-looking as possible — even staging a Democratic convention at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, which happens to be the same place the Democrats will converge upon next week in real life. (Also, didn't CNN prohibit future appearances in movies by its on-air personnel after the "Contact" fiasco? Looks like somebody didn't tell "The Capital Gang.")

For the story to turn, then, on a $100 million bribe is absurd. But leave it to Hollywood to reduce the complex issue of campaign finances to a lone heroic figure battling the powers-that-be.

Kansas City morning radio

I profiled our seven most-listened-to morning radio shows for the Kansas City Star:

On this date...

in 1997, the softly lit Barbara Walters explains to the first viewers of her new show, "The View," that she "always wanted to do a show with women of different generations, backgrounds and views — a working mother, a professional in her 30s, a young woman just starting out, and then somebody who's done almost everything and will say almost anything. And in a perfect world, I'd get to join the group whenever I wanted." All ABC wants is more of an audience than had ever tuned in to the wretched "Mike & Maty" and "Caryl & Marilyn: Real Friends."

August 12: in 1996, after twenty months of cult fame on the FX network, Laurie Hibberd, Tom Bergeron, "the Road Warriors," Bob the puppet, and the other "Breakfast Time" denizens of the fx apartment (except for unseen announcer Jim Kocot) move up to the big leagues of network television. "Fox After Breakfast" (AKA "FAB") not only shortens the broadcast from two live hours down to one, but within months Bergeron's co-host, puppet friend, and virtually every likable feature from "the old days" are gone as well.

August 13: in 1985, "West 57th" makes its debut on CBS. The hip, happenin' MTV-paced newsmagazine with youngsters Meredith Vieira, Bob Sirott, Jane Wallace, and John Ferrugia is intended (at least by the show's producer, and future NBC News chief, Andrew Lack) to eventually replace "60 Minutes." It's cancelled in 1989. -- Tom Heald

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