Backstage on Emmy night, reality-host winner Jeff Probst told reporters he thought maybe it was time for seven-time champ The Amazing Race to step aside and let another reality-competition show get a chance at the big prize. My reaction was that maybe the other shows should raise their game. Survivor: Samoa has done a pretty good job of that so far this season, introducing a memorably scheming villain (Russell Hantz, who’s relishing every moment) while subjecting both tribes to some of the harshest conditions imaginable.

For the first time in a while, Survivor truly feels like it’s living up to its name. Surviving, let alone winning, this season is going to be quite the accomplishment. This week’s emotionally grueling episode (Thursday, 8/7c, CBS), which if submitted to Emmy voters could conceivably upset Race next year, is accurately and prophetically titled “This Is the Man Test”—quoting Jaison’s lament about being pounded for five straight days by relentless rainstorms that have shriveled his feet and shrunken his soul. The misery, exhaustion and hunger are palpable, leading to a dire event during a physical challenge that Probst later describes as “the scariest moment I’ve ever had on this show.” (And that presumably includes when Michael fell into the fire during the Australian season.)

CBS has given away part of the twist in its too-revealing promos—if you’ve managed to miss them, I won’t give it away here—but what befalls one overtaxed player is among the most heart-rending sequences you’re likely to see on any reality-competition show. Probst’s command of the situation on the scene and later at a unique tribal council reaffirms why he has two Emmys. The subsequent fallout between (and within) the tribes represents a clear turning point for the season, and serves as a reminder of the power this series once had on the culture at large. It’s a true watercooler episode.

On the other end of the spectrum, from watercooler to water closet (a quaint term for the crapper), there’s Comedy Central’s abysmal The Jeff Dunham Show, a vanity showcase for a nondescript ventriloquist and his grotesque dummies that made me wish I was far away in a festering Samoan rain forest. With the sound of canned laughter like a Borscht Belt or tailgating water torture, the show is so uninspired and low-rent it considers Brooke Hogan a “celebrity” guest, appearing just so a geeky puppet named Peanut can ogle her chest.

Whether he’s operating the grumpy-old-bigot puppet Walter (write your own homophobic jokes), the skeletal Achmed the Dead Terrorist (self-consciously ripping off Jeff Foxworthy with his “You might be a terrorist if …” shtick) or the demented hick Bubba J (spouting stale gun and beer gags), Dunham throws his voice—but sadly, doesn’t throw it away—with a pained look on his face that can only be described as constipated. (Yes, there are toilet jokes as well.)

The reason this guy has a series is because, as Comedy Central never tires of repeating, last year’s Jeff Dunham’s Very Special Christmas Special attracted a remarkable channel-record audience of 6.6 million. If for some reason—like, maybe, a sudden outbreak of taste—he fails to achieve a similar miracle on Thursday nights, I hear there’s an opening for a house ventriloquist on The Jay Leno Show.