Caribbean cruises. Heartburn medicine. Soft drinks. Fancy restaurants. Wireless phones. The latest movies. Lipstick.

Advertisements for these luxurious products are sprinkled throughout episodes of "Survivor: The Amazon," whose castaways are shown enduring a far more Spartan lifestyle deep in the South American jungle.

In Thursday's episode on CBS-TV, Orangeburg resident JoAnna Ward schemed with another castaway to call a meeting of the women's tribe, dubbed the Jaburu, and elect Deena Bennett as the tribal leader.

Deena realizes right away that leadership could make her vulnerable, which is especially dangerous when 13 other people are competing against her for the $1 million grand prize.

But the women's tribe continues its impressive string of wins over the men's tribe, the Tambaqui, in the continuing series of contests of mental and physical agility.

They claim victory in a game that resembled the card game "Fish" as well as a Houdini-like escape from a cage. For the first, they win a cache of personal hygiene items; for the second, they win immunity from a tribal council at which one of their number would have been sent home.

For the first time in the "Survivor" series, the contestants are divided into two tribes by gender, but it does not reduce the sexual tension.

Thursday's episode found the men talked about the women. "I don't like JoAnna," says one. "She's always yelling about Jesus." Another man fantasizes about watching the women bathe.

In the next scene, voila! There they are, a trio of bikini-clad 20-something bathing beauties. The leering camera offers lingering, titillating footage as they soap their bodies and finally remove their teeny bikini tops. Only an electronically generated blur keeps the show within the bounds of family viewing.

JoAnna, the devout Christian, is nowhere in sight.

T&D Staff Writer Lee Hendren can be reached by e-mail at lhendren@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-533-5552.

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