Sharks in the world’s most dangerous waters threatened two rival senators during the filming of a new Discovery Channel reality show based on the hit “Naked and Afraid,” according to the executive producer of “Rival Survival.”
“I’ve seen two shots already where I see a large shark in the frame and the camera tilts up just a little bit and there is a senator right above him swimming right over the shark,” Craig Coffman told Secrets. “These guys were literally in shark-infested waters.”
The network on Thursday is giving reporters a sneak peak of the upcoming Oct. 29 show, the latest by Discovery to flex its muscle in the political shark tank of Washington with other insider shows like the “The Presidents’ Gatekeepers,” about White House chiefs of staff, and “All the President’s Men Revisited.”
“Rival Survival” is the brainchild of the stars: Democratic New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich and Republican Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake.
“It’s ‘Naked and Afraid,’ but with clothes,” said a network insider.
The duo were put on Eru, one of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean, for six days and given rudimentary equipment. They had to learn to make fire, fish for food, and find water. But mostly they had to learn to live with each other.
“They spend all the time in your world, in Washington, in suits. Imagine being dumped off where you have no food or water,” said Coffman. “Six days is a long time. One night alone with no water and nothing really except just you and another senator is a long night and there is a bunch of those nights,” he added.
Not surprisingly, the rival senators compare their situation to the political chaos in Washington. Coffman said that the two senators thought, “Could we make some kind of story about what we are going through in Washington? Because they are like everybody else, they are frustrated too.”
He wouldn’t reveal which did the best or who was the healthiest at the end of the six days, but Coffman did assure Secrets that neither got naked like they are on his other show. “There’s no nakedness in the show, these guys are wearing shoes, they’re wearing shorts, they want to be re-elected, OK?”
While the six days will be boiled down to just one show, Coffman said it did give some thought to the idea of having 2016 presidential candidates fighting it out on a deserted island. “Maybe that’s our next show, the one last human being standing gets to be president,” he joked.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
