BY GARY SHERWOOD 

Okay, with Survivor China starting in just four weeks, this week’s TV Guide gives us a preview of the new tribes.  The good news:  we’re back to old school Survivor, with just two teams of sixteen castaways.  The bad news:  we’re back to old school Survivor, with overwhelmingly white teams, almost half of whom are actors. 

Fei Long Tribe:

Aaron Reisberger, 32, Venice, California
Surfing instructor, bartender, restaurant manager

Courtney Yates, 26, New York, New York
Waitress

(Anyone who tends bar or works in a restaurant in L.A. or New York is an actor.)

Amanda Kimmel, 23, Kalispell, Montana
Hiking tour guide, beauty pageant winner

(Anyone who enters pageants wants to be an actor.  Guarantee you she’s moved to L.A. since the show wrapped.)

Jean-Robert Bellande, 36, Las Vegas, Nevada
Professional Poker Player

(Yeah, right.  Know who’s a professional poker player?  Anyone with a credit card and DSL connection.  Another wannabe actor.)

Leslie Nease, 38, Tega Cay, South Carolina
Christian radio host, fitness instructor

(Whatever.  We haven’t had a God-happy hotty since Elisabeth in the Outback.)

Denise Martin, 40, Douglas, Massachusetts
School lunch lady, black belt in karate

(Now we’re talking.  A hash-slinging, high-kicking New Englander will knock some sense into these narcissistic bohunks.  I wish.  She’ll be the first voted out.)

Todd Herzog, 22, Pleasant Grove, Utah
Flight attendant

(He looks like he could do alright; small but scrappy.  But he better not have had anything to do with that Gwyneth Paltrow flick where she’s a stewardess.  ‘Cause as cruel irony would have it, I got stuck with that as my in-flight movie.  Twice.)

James Clement, 30, Lafayette, Louisiana
Burial service owner, grave digger

(A bald, muscle-bound black guy.  Haven’t seen that before.)

Zhan Hu Tribe:

Peih-Gee Law, 29, Marina Del Rey, California
Music-video dancer-turned-jeweler

(Oh, so obviously an actor.  But she’s the season’s only hot Asian babe (in China, no less!) so I’ll take what I can get.)

Dave Cruser, 37, Simi Valley, California
Model/actor-turned-bartender

(What more need be said?)

Erik Huffman, 26, Nashville, Tennessee
Musician, model

(Ditto.)

Ashley Massaro, 28, East Northport, New York
WWE Smackdown Diva, beauty queen, reality show host

(Oy, where to start.  First…East Northport?  Which is it?  Second, a WWE Smackdown Diva is not just an actress.  She’s a BAD actress, with veiny, overmuscled arms.  Think Rebecca on Amazing Race with teased-out blond hair.)

Michael "Frosti" Zernow, 20, Chicago, Illinois
Film student, parkour expert

(I studied film myself, so I know what a monumental jerk off that is.  And isn’t parkour the pretentious French term for what decent Americans call freerunning?)     

Sherea Lloyd, 26, Atlanta, Georgia
Fourth-grade teacher

(Jeff Probts calls her the "the fish-out-of-water" i.e., the city person who’s never spent a night outdoors.  To which I ask, why is it always a zaftig African-American woman?  Especially on a season where she’s the only African-American woman?)

Jaimie Dugan, 22, Columbia, South Carolina
College student

(Always gotta have a blonde sorority babe who doesn’t make it halfway to the merge.  Jeff says she’s "very bright" which means, uh, not so much.)

Steve "Chicken" Morris, 48, Marion, Virginia
Former bouncer, fish breeder, logger-turned-chicken farmer

(This season’s oldest player.  That means he’s the designated cranky guy who disses on the slacker kids of his tribe and gets voted out in the first couple of eps.)

So there you have it, the first American series to shoot an entire season in China brings over an overwhelmingly Caucasian cast.  Way to show off American multiculturalism, Mark Burnett Productions.  Wanna hear my theory?  Too bad, I’m giving it anyway.  Survivor has been bleeding ratings for several years, and the last two seasons (i.e. the two most racially mixed) were the two least watched editions.  My guess is CBS and/or Mark Burnett looked at those ratings and decided to only way to win back viewership was to lighten up that cast again.  So mission accomplished.  It’s once more, to quote Jeff Probst, "a show about whiny white people."  I’ll just remind CBS and/or Mark Burnett that Pirate Master was whiter than a Swedish bowling team, and its ratings were deservedly abysmal.

See you (metaphorically speaking) in September.