SURVIVOR MARQUESAS CBS' tribes go tropical for beach-blanket backstabbing
How will Survivor stay fresh in its fourth season? Cannibalism! "Instead of eating bugs," explains creator Mark Burnett, "contestants will eat each other." Okay, he's kidding, but this Survivor was shot in the Marquesas Islands near Tahiti, known for their tribal tattoo art and a onetime hotbed of cannibals. The island incarnation marks a return to a Pulau Tiga way of life: sandy beaches, waterfalls...but no rice. In fact, no food at all. "This year, there is one big difference," explains Burnett. "Because the island could provide enough food, fish, and water, we provide the contestants with nothing. You have to find everything yourself." Long live the Superpole! (Feb. 28)
JEREMIAH Luke Perry goes back to the future with Cosby kid Malcolm-Jamal Warner
"He's a man walking through hell trying to do the right thing," says Luke Perry of his title character in Showtime's sci-fi series. He and Malcolm-Jamal Warner star as adventurers attempting to build a new civilization in the wake of an age-biased plague called the Big Death that annihilated the planet's entire adult population. Now the orphaned, anarchic generation has matured and, says Perry, "what they've grown into is pretty freaky." Just don't call it a postapocalyptic drama. "It's pre-apocalyptic," Perry insists. "People still have a fighting chance." How's about a latter-day Soylent Green? "I could only hope that we execute on such a high level," Perry quips of the cheesoid Charlton Heston classic. "That's what we're swinging for--me as young Chuck." (March 3)
A WRINKLE IN TIME The enduring children's novel takes flight on ABC
If you can't access your fourth-grade memory bank, here's a recap of the 1962 kids classic A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle: A physicist disappears into a time warp, and his children embark on an intergalactic journey to find him. Now ABC has adapted Wrinkle into a four-hour, effects-heavy miniseries featuring Alfre Woodard as the otherworldly Mrs. Whatsit. "I think making it into a miniseries freed up the constraints we had when we were trying to squeeze it all into 86 minutes," says coexec producer Catherine Hand, adding that Wrinkle's message is still potent. "No matter what your age, things can be terrible, and yes, you can overcome." (Fall)
THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES HBO hits below the belt with Eve Ensler's intimately in-your-face Off Broadway phenomenon
An Off Broadway staple for years, performed by everyone from Glenn Close to Alanis Morissette, Eve Ensler's tribute to the mysteries and magnificence of the feminine nether regions is coming to HBO as a one-woman show. "I wanted to do it the way I originally performed it," says Ensler, who taped the special at New York's Westside Theater. "I was able to revisit some of the women I interviewed years ago." Nor did Ensler soften her often-shocking message for television--this is, after all, the home of The Sopranos. Ensler laughs, "I hope that Tony Soprano would be moved and transformed with a new take on vaginas. The more men know about vaginas, the better." (Feb. 14)
