Parents' Guide to Castaways

Carrying with it a whiff of both Survivor and Naked and Afraid, this reality series takes the survivalist tack one step further by stranding its participants all by themselves. "Torn from their everyday lives ... shipwrecked on a string of deserted islands in the South Pacific ... lost, stranded, and alone," the portentous voice-over tells us at the series' beginning. Well, there is the small matter of the camera crew -- and the contestants are also not stranded far from each other, so most of them set busily about trying to find others -- and often succeeding -- right after they figure out how to get some shelter and something to eat.

As is typical on survivalist series, that's often the most interesting thing to watch, with various Castaways rigging up ingenious solutions to their problems with the materials at hand, just like Gilligan making a radio with two coconuts and some string. In between the fishing and crabbing and shelter-making, Castaways injects a note of pathos by zooming in on contestants' private lives and struggles: One has issues with loneliness and addictive behaviors, one's just been dumped for being too much of a lone wolf, one really wants to make his mama proud but fears he doesn't have stern enough stuff to survive. Watching a cast struggle and succeed and/or fail in beautiful and/or harsh locations isn't new -- but those who enjoy peeping at strife from a comfortable air-conditioned living room (yet didn't love watching contestants on Survivor bicker and scheme) will be enraptured.