Actually, I can't wait to see who doesn't win. I don't watch "Survivor" to bask in the joy of a fellow human being winning a lot of money; few of us do (especially when the money goes from "a lot" to "some" after taxes).

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I watch so that I can feel superior to, laugh at, disparage, and actively root against various inept and irritating contestants as they fall out of boats, eat squirming bugs, and lose their bathing suit tops in riptides — and that's why "Survivor All-Stars" is so much fun.

For starters, I didn't have to get to know a whole new crop of contestants. I already knew these Survivors — and, in many cases, already disliked them and eagerly awaited their comeuppances.

Amber bugged me plenty during the Australian Outback season, where she played the bland remora to the stronger players' sharks. She's doing it again on "All-Stars," shmooping with the Marquesas season's Boston Rob and letting him carry her to the end instead of doing her own strategizing.

Rupert drove me crazy during his stint on the Pearl Islands — a relatively short stint, I might add, although the fact that he didn't even get halfway through the game the last time didn't stop him from adopting his customary patronizing tone with his All-Stars tribe-mates almost immediately. (At least some kind soul talked him out of the skirt this time around.) I wanted to glue his beard to the bumper of a moving car.

But on the All-Stars season, I got the Rupertian justice I'd longed for at last. Yes, he's still on the show — but the island gods punished his know-it-all-ness on the subject of shelter architecture by flooding said shelter with water and making him look like an idiot. As the other members of the Saboga tribe huddled miserably in two feet of standing water and glared at Rupert, ohhh, how I laughed.

Many of the contestants came with my contempt pre-installed, which is convenient for an inveterate reality-TV watcher like myself. But other contestants had to earn the contempt, and earn it they have, usually by the fact that, after seven and a half seasons, they still don't understand what "Survivor" is really about.

Fool me twice, shame on me
The most hilarious aspect of the All-Stars season is the failure of most of the participants to learn anything, anything at all, from their previous experiences. Lex and Kathy have played the game before, Lex in Africa and Kathy in Marquesas, and both of them did reasonably well. So it's mind-boggling and comical that either of them would still think honor has anything to do with winning "Survivor," or belongs on "Survivor" at all.

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"Survivor" isn't Special Forces basic training, or Girl Scout sleep-away camp; the players don't go out into the wild for over a month, living on rice and bark and grubs, in order to forge lasting friendships and braid one another's hair. They do it to screw each other out of a million bucks — which the hyperactive tattooed kokopelli known as Lex remembered when he punted his friend Ethan, winner of the Africa season, out of the tribe, but suddenly forgot when Boston Rob broke a promise to protect Lex.

That led to Lex's ouster, and to a lot of hypocritical post-boot pontificating from Lex about how he doesn't know how Boston Rob can live with himself and blah blah blah. I pictured Boston Rob drying his unethical tears with a hundred-dollar bill, and oh, how I laughed. How can these people still not have figured out that the idea behind the game is to mislead the other players into trusting you?

Newman: ‘Survivor All-Stars’ is a big bore

Nobody has learned anything, really. As obnoxiously as Lex behaved, Ethan deserved to get voted off, since he didn't learn not to trip over his own feet during challenges, and cost his tribe several victories as a result.

Richard Hatch, the first sole Survivor, didn't learn that a truly enduring evil doesn't waste a lot of time congratulating itself, particularly within earshot of its intended targets. (Or that a truly enduring evil usually has pants on.)

Shii Ann didn't learn that gloating about her superior intelligence while lolling around camp like a rag doll isn't a recipe for success.

The deliciously crazy Sue didn't learn how to modulate her voice, at all, and when Hatch allegedly harassed her, she withdrew from the game at the approximate decibel level of a plane taking off directly overhead.

Probst on the edge
And not one of them has learned that maybe, just maybe, it's time for all of them to get jobs — real jobs, nine-to-five jobs, jobs with no cameras around. Not one of them has learned that we can't miss them if they won't go away.

Host Jeff Probst is maybe five episodes away from turning to the camera and mouthing the words, ‘Will you get a load of these freaks?’

The only one of the All-Stars who probably wouldn't much care if he never got on TV again is Big Tom, the Africa season's mush-mouthed farmer, which is why he'll never win "Survivor" — he's not a big enough fame-whore.

I can't stand any of these people except for Big Tom, who I find refreshing even if I can't understand what he's saying half the time, and Jerri, who did learn to tone down the Australian Outback bitchiness but got the heave anyway.

The rest of them I'd like to hit with my shoe, and it makes the show even more entertaining than usual. In every episode, someone I hate is going to do something stupid; someone I hate is going to get voted off, or stink at fishing, or mouth off to Jeff Probst — and Probst is another reason to tune in to All-Stars.

The intrepid host, genially bland for six seasons, got in touch with his inner sand crab in the Pearl Islands, and he's carried the same delightful air of amused exasperation into the All-Stars season. Probst has abandoned all pretense of objectivity at tribal councils in favor of smirking at the Survivors' discomfort or staring at them in disbelief. He's maybe five episodes away from turning to the camera and mouthing the words, "Will you get a load of these freaks?" And when he finally does it, ohhh, how I will laugh.

It's true that CBS hyped the All-Stars edition of "Survivor" to death, but even though all the past winners had gone the way of the dodo by mid-March, the show has lived up to that hype — not by producing a shocking spectacle that puts regular "Survivor" to shame, but by doing exactly what regular "Survivor" does best, in concentrated form. It's like a high-school reunion, one I can enjoy from the safety of my couch.

Sarah D. Bunting is the co-creator and co-editor-in-chief of Television Without Pity.com. She lives in Brooklyn.

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