Candice Woodcock Survivor Cook Islands Voted Off

When the new season begins Sept. 14 on CBS, the 20 contestants -- this time stranded on islands in the South Pacific -- will team up by race or ethnicity. There are four teams: black, white, Asian and Hispanic, and they will be pitted against one another. One contestant will win $1 million. Criticism has come from all angles -- from television writers to bloggers to a New York City councilman. They called the setup a cynical ploy by a network anxious for buzz, viewers and advertising dollars. "We're trying to work to make this country -- a country of immigrants -- blend in together," Julie Garza, program director of La Ley 96.9 FM, a Triangle Spanish-language radio station, said Thursday. "Then we go and do these kinds of shows." The ratings for the last edition of "Survivor" were down from previous seasons, with about 17 million people watching. The show once routinely drew 20 million. But in comments to reporters this week, executive producer Mark Burnett said the idea is an effort to respond to criticism that past "Survivor" casts were not diverse enough. The Triangle entry to the cast is Candice Woodcock, originally from Fayetteville and a 2005 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill. She is 23, studied at UNC on a prestigious Morehead scholarship and lived in a hut and taught school in Kenya. She also has traveled to Chile and Peru. Woodcock's "Survivor" adventure has already taken place, though she and the other contestants are not allowed to talk about it until the episodes air. The show probably will be a hit, said Lee D. Baker, an associate professor of cultural anthropology at Duke University. He is teaching a class this semester called "The Anthropology of Race."The producers have regularly introduced new creative elements and casting structures that reflect some social issues in our culture. The ethnic format Mark Burnett and his team proposed and implemented for the beginning of this edition is an extension of that process. "CBS fully recognizes the controversial nature of this format, but has full confidence in the producers and their ability to produce the program in a responsible manner." Each season of "Survivor" generally begins by placing contestants on teams. Past installments have pitted the old vs. the young and men vs. women. At some point in the season, the different teams -- or "tribes," as "Survivor" calls them -- will probably merge. Woodcock, a graduate student at Georgetown University, has been a fan of the show for years, said her father, Michael Woodcock. Her father, a Fayetteville ophthalmologist, was surprised at the way the teams were divided. Be he doesn't expect it to affect his daughter's game. "I don't think it's anything that would bother her mentally in any way." Woodcock has experience with less-than-ideal living arrangements and should excel at the game, said former boyfriend Sebastian Gibbs, who met her while volunteering with Students for Students International, a student-run nonprofit at UNC.