Parvati Shallow says Survivor is the 'ultimate reality show'.[Agencies]

You're stranded on a deserted island. You and your fellow castaways, some impossibly attractive, have drifted by boat to one of the islands of Palau, a small remote nation in the Pacific.

You are allowed only the clothes on your back. One of your tribe starts a fire using his glasses so at least you can cook and keep warm. On the menu tonight: coconuts, baby shark (if someone's been fishing) and a Palauan delicacy boiled fruit-bat soup.

There are no showers, no soap, no loo paper for 39 days. As for nature calls the beach is your toilet bowl. Just find a spot off-camera. Why would anyone subject themselves to this masochistic torture?

It's simple: $US1 million.

After 39 days of scheming, sleeping in the rain under dripping rocks, lack of food and clean water, and taxing immunity challenges that earned her a fat lip 25-year-old Florida-born Parvati Shallow has won the title of Sole Survivor in Survivor Micronesia: Fans vs Favorites, the 16th season of the series that's considered the grandfather of all US reality TV shows.

The three-hour finale screened on TV3 last Thursday.

"Survivor is like the ultimate reality show. It's not scripted at all, they don't put you in false situations it's something that everyone's so fascinated about, being a castaway on a deserted island, having to live off the land, it's a basic human fantasy.

"Like that Castaway movie with Tom Hanks, people love watching others suffer. That's why it's done so well, everyone loves to watch the fighting and backstabbing."