"Survivor": Will anyone likable emerge?

Warning major spoilers ahead for the 3/21 episode of “Survivor”

Karma is a female dog, Colton.

The question, is, how much of a manipulated female dog is karma?

Last night’s episode found the producers of “Survivor” in full panic mode, and rightfully so. As a result, the script was rewritten — again.

Let’s see — this season started out as men vs. women. But then the men turned out to be a bunch of idiots who cowtowed to the most vile person to ever play “Survivor,” the rich gay Republican racist Colton. Colton became such an ugly force that the producers decided to stop the men vs. women thing and redistribute the players into two mixed-gender teams.

Good idea, bad results. By sheer chance, all the strong players ended up on one team, with all the weaklings on the other, again suffering under the reign of Colton. The near-equally vile Alicia — she can’t really be a special-ed teacher, can she? — then became Colton’s henchwoman, and the weaklings commenced losing every challenge presented to them.

Including the reward challenge last night, which involved bouncing coconuts off a trampoline and onto a target. Both Colton and Alicia proved to be awful at this but they still had the gall to yell at Christina, who they’d been viciously taunting as the next casualty since the episode began.

The Salani tribe thus won the privilege of gobbling down tons of ice cream — surely at least some of them paid for it later — and then it was just a matter of waiting for Christina to get voted out when the weakling tribe lost the immunity challenge.

Except…

Colton started feeling sick. And who massaged his aching head? Christina! She’s either a complete saint or a masochist.

And then…

Colton grew even more sick. Lie in the dirt and curl up into a ball sick.

Finally, somebody called the medics. And the medics pushed on Colton’s tummy and proclaimed him likely to have appendicitis. He would have to quit the game. Which seems awfully convenient for the show. You almost got the feeling that somebody decided to offer the guy a million bucks just to go away.

But that’s the thing: He didn’t go away. Even after this dire diagnosis, with his life on the line and no hospitals nearby, everybody sat around and chatted with poor Colton for a few minutes. Suddenly this obnoxious spoiled brat was everyone’s dearest friend. What? If he’d had appendicitis wouldn’t they have rushed him right out of there?

As a final mean gesture to everyone, Colton didn’t hand his immunity idol over to anyone, keeping it as a souvenir and setting the weakling tribe up to turn on toxic Alicia.

But then both tribes were called to the tribal council. Jeff announced that Colton had been diagnosed with appendicitis, but he didn’t say anything about surgery or Colton’s current condition. Very suspicious.

For comic relief there was the dim-wtted Kat, who seemed to think she could either catch appendicitis like a cold or get it from eating too much ice cream. Between Kat and the apparently demented plastic surgeon Tarzan, there’s no lack of humor on the show, but the laughs are also somewhat disconcerting.

With the producers knowing full well that watching the strong tribe smash the weak tribe would not produce much drama over the next few weeks, the tribes merged into what is essentially a mega-tribe. Now the producers can only pray that someone likable and intelligent will emerge, because so far this is the least appealing “Survivor” cast ever.

As a coda, Colton re-appeared looking completely normal, not looking like someone who’s had surgery, and said toodle-loo. Again, very suspicious. Still, at least he’s gone.