By JANE BOWRON

When is a final not a final? When you're watching "the final" as advertised of Survivor: Amazon (Wednesday, TV3, 7.30) and they finish with three contestants and the winner isn't made known till next week when you get the reunion show tagged to the winner announcement.

I feel like ringing David Russell from the Consumers' Institute to see if I can sue for damages for two hours of wasted time spent in front of the box. "Final" to me means "The End", or as the Oxford Dictionary so aptly describes, "final – the end of transmission", but who am I to argue with semantics? We live in a world of false advertising and what the heck, there is only one survivor of the Survivor series and that's Jeff Probst, the double-dimpled host who must be singing all the way to the Swiss bank, if he ever finds time to get to open an account.

As each series whittles the talent down to the final competitors, the biggest thrill is seeing the weight loss. Matthew, the crazy blade-sharpener who's lost a massive 14 kilograms, looks like one of those see-through anatomical mannequins they use in med school. You can see every vein, every hard-earned muscle from all that wood and vine chopping sticking out on his tanly moreso (manly torso) and Heidi (weight loss – eight kilos) has almost joined another species.

The rodent family would welcome her with open paws if she happened to be loitering round the mouse trap but the false breasts would give her away. The rest of her you could fold up and put in a match box but her silicon "girls" as bosoms were referred to in this week's King of the Hill, would bulge horribly out the sides.

After Amazon Survivor `ends' the next one's starting up over in the Pearl Islands, Panama, with another 16 grain-fed Americans selling their NBFs (new best friends) down the river and crash-dieting their way to fame and fortune. Still the odds of winning $1 million are considerably better than Lotto even though I continue to shell out the five bucks for a Lucky Dip and am considering having my first name changed to Not a Winning Ticket, surname to Card Declined.

Heidi getting the heave-ho at Tribal Council, leaving her tonsil-inflamed bosom buddy, the swim suit model Jenna, behind with the three lads, must have been a wrench for both parties. What was her crime? Even though the cameras are there it's sometimes hard to work out what sways the vote but I would have thought that Butch's over-squirreling of the wood causing the shelter to burn down would have surpassed Heidi being the only one not to have her belongings burnt in the fire.

The doe-eyed Jenna and Heidi's relationship has been textbook co-dependency and if the swimsuit model wins I hope she shares the loot and donates her bikini bottom to Heidi.

The trouble with this series is that there weren't enough real characters in the mix to make it interesting. Perhaps the gang from The Family (TV2, 9pm, Tuesday) should put their Rolex-wristed hands up to join the next Survivor series. With the pursuit of mammon being that gang's spur they would make for ferocious competitors.

Watching Peaches, Spider and the two ugly stepdaughters, etc, slug it out for the mill, sans high heels, champagne, pilates and botox jabs in the dirty wilds would be far more interesting than observing them at play in their bland Aucker's habitat.

Spider, currently having implants in his gums for permanent false teeth, could generously donate his upper dentures toward the design of the next immunity challenge necklace and the son, with the penchant for thin young nymphets, would have been made mincemeat out of by the likes of the conniving Heidi and Jenna.

Taking their kit off and waiving immunity for a plate of chocolate cookies and peanut butter (yuk) exposing their skinny flesh with the naughty bits blurred-out for TV took the Survivor series to a new low level. What next – sexual favours exchanged for dwindling food supplies, fish or gifted immunity?

Survivor's initially fresh air, island life Outward Boundish image of man against the elements and each other with a bit of cash thrown in has come a long way, down. It's called The End.