BY JOHN WINTERS / SUN CHRONICLE STAFF

The television show `` Survivor'' was not a family favorite in Linda Taylor Provost's Attleboro home.

This season, things will be different.

Now that a local resident, Jeanne Hebert from North Attleboro, will be one of the 16 people featured in `` Sur vivor: The Amazon,'' Provost will be glued to her set every Thursday night. `` I have never been a fan of `Survivor' in the past,'' she said. `` However, since I went to high school with Jeanne, now I feel I have to and want to watch every episode of the show. I'm rooting for her all the way. She has the brains, personality and brawn to survive.''

Many locals will be among the millions of regular viewers of the CBS show when the new season begins on Thursday night with a 90-minute edition.

`` Survivor,'' which debuted in May 2000, became a cultural phenom enon overnight, drawing big ratings and turning water coolers around the country into hives of excitement. The show strands a group of 16 strangers in a remote location, pits them against each other in tests of strength and wits, and in the `` tribal council'' that ends each episode, one person gets voted out. The last man or woman standing gets instant fame (though it's proved to be fleet ing) and a million bucks.

The ratings aren't as high as that first incredible season, set on a South Pacific island. But the mix of plotting, playing, physicality and treachery still draws millions of people each week. `` Survivor'' regularly finishes in the top 10 rated shows.

Proof that the show's populari ty is still burning as bright as a tribal torch lies in the fact that the culminating episode of last season, which was set in Thailand and ended in December, was watched by 24 million viewers. That was 2 million fewer than the fourth sea son's finale, which aired in May 2002, but it was still pretty darn good.

Even so, the show has come down to earth a bit as of late, the experts say.

`` That first season really was enormous,'' said Robert Thompson, director of Syracuse Universi ty's Center for the Study of Popu lar Television. Thompson, a noted expert on everything tube-related, got 60 calls for comment from dif ferent media outlets the day after the first `` Survivor'' ended.

After the last season's finale?

`` I could hear the crickets and see the sagebrush roll by,'' Thompson said. `` It's still with us, but as a hit TV show, no longer as a cultural phenome non.''

Think the show is the power house it once was? Well, when was the last time you heard a remark about someone being `` voted off the island?''

Still, those who love the show have stuck with it.

`` I've been hooked since the first season,'' said Brenda Bowen, a Plainville resident who's held `Sur vivor' parties and still catches every episode. `` I tape it every Thursday night while I'm at work, and then watch it as soon as I get home.''

`` You never know what to expect, it's different every time,'' she said.

Bowen's one caveat: ``I don't like the bug eating.''

Her friend Monique Johnson of Attleboro has her heart set on following Hebert's footprints in the sand and making it on the show herself.

`` I just think they made a mistake, and they meant to pick me,'' she jokes.

Each episode, Johnson has between three and 10 friends over to watch the show.

`` I like the strategy they use, and trying to figure who's going to get bumped off,'' she said.

This is indeed part of the appeal, Thompson said.

`` The voting off of people was a new concept,'' when the show debuted, he said. `` Now that's part of half the shows on television. Compared to this new stuff, `Survivor' is still pretty exciting.''

Dolores and Harold Spencer still get a charge out of the show. The North Attleboro residents like to pick their favorite castaway and root for him or her during each new season.

`` When they're kicked off, we say `Where do we go now?' '' Harold Spencer said.

But it's the thrill of the sleuthing that Dolores Spencer still enjoys. `` I enjoy the guessing game of it all,'' she said.

The couple's son has tried to get on the show, and it's his love of the outdoors and adventure that turned the Spencers into `` Survivor'' fans.

`` I'm always curious, what it's like for those people to be living under those circumstances,'' Dolores Spencer said.

The fandom of Teresa and George Devlin of North Attleboro goes even further, it seems. The couple has thrown elaborate `` Survivor'' parties, with food challenges, trivia questions, tiki torches and physical challenges.

But that's as far as Dolores will go, Teresa Devlin said.

`` I would love to be on the show, but I would never make it, the way they talk about each other,'' she said.

Like the other local `` Survivor'' addicts, the Devlins will be even more tuned in with a local woman doing her best to keep from being voted out of the Amazon. Teresa Devlin can't wait to get the inside scoop on how Jeanne Hebert did on the new season, which finished filming last year.

`` I can't believe we don't know how she's done,'' Teresa Devlin said. `` Whoever's kept it a secret, they've done a good job.''

rdrtrdrsrdrw15rsp160 JOHN WINTERS can be reached at 508-236-0434 or at jwinters(at)(at)thesunchronicle.com.