‘Survivor’-style TV show drops lawmakers on deserted island

Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) are roughing it out together on a deserted island in a new “Survivor”-esque reality television show.

Discovery Channel’s “Rival Survival” will drop the bipartisan duo on an “uninhabited island surrounded by shark infested waters that mirror the seemingly treacherous world of the U.S. Congress” to see if they can lean on each other to survive. Spoiler alert: Both are still alive.

{mosads}The pair will be able to choose three items to help them during their six-night mission, but other than that, they’re on their own to find enough food and water to make it on the island of Eru.

Flake is no stranger to survival missions. Last year, ITK exclusively revealed that the 51-year-old lawmaker was making a return trip to an uninhabited tropical destination that he first visited in 2009. Roughing it in the wild, Flake said at the time, offered a chance “to test [his] outdoor survival skills.”

Heinrich, 42, is a hunter who served for six years as executive director of a nonprofit that works to educate people on the environment.

“This unusual pairing will leave behind the daily life of congressional staff, Senate hearings and committee meetings to navigate the rigors of surviving on an isolated island with no contact with the outside world to call upon for help,” Discovery Channel said in a press release.

A Discovery Channel spokeswoman tells ITK the show was filmed last month during Congress’s recess. The idea for the show actually came from Flake and Heinrich, who approached the cable network.

The two senators said in a joint statement, “Both of us know just how frustrated people are with Washington right now. … So, we decided to do something completely out of the ordinary and frankly a little extreme to show the world and our colleagues that even if you have serious differences, if you want to survive you have to work together.”

“Rival Survival,” produced by the team behind the series “Naked and Afraid,” premieres on Oct. 29.

This story was updated at 11:18 a.m.