Probably.

Here's why:

Among other things, "Survivor" was a tabula rasa. You could see anything in it. To some the island intrigues called up memories of high school. The more mature saw office politics. The Manichaean pointed to the Darwinian overtones. The optimistic saw it as a chance for people to work together, the pessimistic as a true test of Machiavellian politics.

In its own way, the show undercut at least part of each of these expectations as time went on. Most notably, for some reason the castaways found few reasons to work together or, with one exception, to plot together, either to support or to save themselves.

The fittest weren't really rewarded. The residents barely hunted or fished. The group's attempts to build a shelter were pathetic and ultimately abandoned. The last few days on the island saw the remaining survivors cold and hungry as they ate plain rice day after day and sat without adequate shelter during torrents of rain.

And while the island's chief schemers are still around -- good evidence that scheming works -- their success was more the result of their victims' haplessness than any great vision on their part.

As we noted early on, our pet metaphor for "Survivor" was that of the chess game. The winner will be someone who was both a strategist from the beginning and a student of the show's endgame.

Once the two original tribes -- the Tagi (Malaysian for "scheming") and the Pagong (Malaysian for "dead meat") -- came together, the endgame began. The new tribe -- called Rattana, or "place where the Pagong lambs are led to the slaughter" -- would continue to vote one person off the island each week, until two survivors were left. At that point, the previous seven ejected castaways would return to vote to award the $1 million prize to one of the two finalists.

It's plain that the better liked of the last two contestants -- or at least the less disliked -- is going to get the prize. The trick is to get to the end with someone nastier than you.

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