The tribe has spoken again, and it was as much fun as the last time.

        Survivor: The Australian Outback premiered Sunday after the Super Bowl with the same personality conflicts, catty remarks, back-stabbing (plus the same slick editing and familiar theme music) that made Survivor a ratings hit last summer.

        Although the 16 contestants in the $1-million TV adventure game — including Rodger Bingham from Crittenden, Ky. — had watched the divisive island politics of the original Survivor, they lapsed into petty bickering before they reached their camps near the Herbert River in North Queensland.

        Let the games begin!

The cast of Survivor 2. Bingham is second row, left, in the green cap. (CBS photo) | ZOOM |

        “You can't have one person in step in and start ordering people around,” complained Debb Eaton, 45, a prison officer from Berlin, N.H., and one of the eight members of Mr. Bingham's Kucha tribe.

        She was annoyed that Michael Skupin, 38, a software publisher from Michigan, was bossing around Mr. Bingham, 53, the Grant County High School carpentry teacher, during construction of a shelter. Mr. Bingham also has owned a hardware store and lumber company in Northern Kentucky.

        Jeff Varner, 34, an Internet project manager from North Carolina, griped about Kimmi Kappenberg, 28, the bubbly bartender from Long Island. “Kimmi will not shut up!” said Mr. Varner, who spent part of the first two days throwing up.

        Mr. Varner's health became a pivotal issue which galvanized the Kucha tribe at tribal council, at which the eight members were forced to vote someone out of the game. The Kucha tribe faced the vote because it lost a rigorous "immunity challenge” with the rival Ogakor tribe to carry a lighted torch across two rivers and an island.

        But Mr. Varner wasn't sent home — Ms. Eaton was. She was voted out after spreading inaccurate information about Mr. Varner, claiming he wanted to go home. The vote was 7-1, with Ms. Eaton voting for Mr. Varner.

        What makes CBS' Survivor so compelling is that the cameras capture the contestants' catty remarks about their competitors in the game. Viewers at home feel as if they know the castaways — and can understand their reasons to dislike other tribe members — a dynamic missing from ABC's The Mole or Fox's Temptation Island.

        Survivor producers again gave viewers a wonderful window on the good, the bad and the ugly so that, by tribal council, all of the eight had some baggage which could have resulted in a vote to kick them out of the game.

        Unlike The Mole or Temptation Island, Survivor editors deliver a fast-paced action show. Much was accomplished in the first hour - the hike to the campsites, building shelters, failing to ignite a fire, scavenging for food, competing for immunity and hiking across jagged rocks to the tribal council overlooking a Herbert River waterfall. They did more in one hour than The Mole contestants do in two weeks — and we also know much more about their personal likes and dislikes.

        Not surprisingly, Survivor producers gave the most screen times to the sexy, young contestants - shirtless male hard bodies and lots of bikini cleavage. Yet Mr. Bingham played a central role in the first hour. His foot got tangled in ropes during the immunity challenge, though the delay didn't cost his tribe the victory. (Kucha lost when Nick Brown, 23, the Harvard Law School student, dropped the torch in the water.)

        The 53-year-old Crittenden farmer, oldest of the 16, also provided the "feel good” emotional moment when he found a letter from his son-in-law in his Bible. He apparently found it while selflessly ripping out pages of the Bible when Ms. Eaton needed paper to try to light a fire.

        “You've gotta do what you've gotta do,” said Mr. Bingham, tearing pages from his treasured personal possession.

        The Crittenden Christian church elder also wasn't caught speaking ill of his bunkmates. When he had the last word before the vote, he could only accentuate the positive.

        “We all get along great. Tonight is really a hard deal for us,” he said. “Every one of these people have worked and worked hard.”

        Then the Kucha Tribe voted 7-1 to oust Ms. Eaton, the jail guard who insisted on taking eyeliner to the Outback.

        I can't wait to see what happens next — which is the test of a great TV show. Somebody gets sent home again when the show moves to Thursday (8 p.m., Channels 12, 7).

        E-mail jkiesewetter@enquirer.com

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