Suspense of Summer TV Ends with Final ‘Survivor’

Ending a saga that was as gripping as it was pointless, the CBS reality/game show “Survivor” revealed that 39-year-old Richard Hatch was its first winner.

The broadcast Wednesday night, for which the network said it was commanding as much as $600,000 for a 30-second commercial, culminated 13 weeks of ratings success and left Hatch with $1 million and a Pontiac Aztek.

In the end, Hatch, a corporate trainer from Newport, R.I., beat out solo castaway Kelly Wiglesworth, 23, a river guide from Las Vegas, who was the first runner-up. Rudy Boesch, a 72-year-old retired Navy SEAL, came in third, while truck driver Susan Hawk, 38, of Palmyra, Wis., finished fourth.

A “jury” of seven ousted castaways determined the winner between Hatch and Wiglesworth. For finishing second, Wiglesworth gets $100,000.

CBS had hoped to wring some drama out of what was essentially staged reality, and the imperious Hatch, who lectured and waxed philosophical throughout the series, became the show’s emergent villain.

“The press made more out of my being evil than people” have, Hatch told Bryant Gumbel in a televised “Survivor” town meeting, conducted by the CBS “Early Show” host Wednesday night following the two-hour “Survivor” finale.

Before the show launched on May 31, the openly gay Hatch made headlines when he was arrested and investigated for possible child abuse after taking his adopted son out for an early morning jog not long after returning from the island off the coast of Borneo where “Survivor” was filmed last spring.

A criminal case is pending. At the time, rumors briefly surfaced that Hatch had won the competition.

The identity of the winner was kept under wraps until Wednesday night. CBS managed to avert potential leaks by getting those associated with the program to sign confidentially agreements that carried the threat of stiff fines, among other safeguards.

But the huge buildup to the series’ final revelation was undermined for West Coast viewers when home shopping channel QVC began selling T-shirts picturing Hatch as the winner soon after 7 p.m., an hour before the show began airing here.

The end of the game became the television event of the summer, with as many as 40 million viewers expected to tune in--a figure that approaches the audience for last year’s Academy Awards telecast.

Based on an earlier Swedish television program called “Expedition Robinson,” “Survivor” debuted just as most of prime-time television went into reruns.

The 16 marooned contestants were grouped into teams, or “tribes,” in the course of enduring the rigors of life on a remote island--all the while under the watchful eye of camera crews.

Each week, one person was voted off the island by their fellow castaways, with the eventual winner selected by seven of those ousted contestants.

The sociological implications of stranding 16 people on an island were downplayed repeatedly by contestants in the final episode, as they continually stressed on camera that “Survivor” was just a game.

During its 13-week run, the show not only became a summertime hit but a pop culture phenomenon, with Warholesque fame conferred particularly on the four finalists, who are pictured on the cover of the Aug. 28 issue of Newsweek.

The network will begin rerunning the series in mid-September, and contestants already are applying for the next “Survivor” game, which will be located in the Australian Outback and will be joining CBS’ schedule in January.

* Times staff writer Brian Lowry contributed to this story.