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Never underestimate the need to be on TV — which infects even those who hardly seem like typical candidates.
That includes Keith Barton, a 43-year-old Navy veteran from Vernal who's featured in the premiere of "Tethered," which is sort of a cross between "Man vs. Wild" and the 1958 movie "The Defiant Ones."
In "Tethered" (Sunday, 11 p.m., Discovery), two strangers are dropped into a forbidding jungle, tied together with a 6-foot chain and given no food and minimal supplies to embark on a 40-plus-mile journey to their "extraction point."
And, quite clearly, the two strangers are not paired up because producers think they will get along.
As Sunday's premiere begins, Barton is all tough-guy bravado.
"My top priority is myself," he says. "It's going to be my way or the highway. If you can't deal with it my way, then I'm going to pull you straight through the jungle."
And then he meets his partner — Willow Collamer, a 36-year-old surfer/yogi whose very appearance offends Barton, from his "bright pink shirt" to his "weird" look, tattoos, eyeliner and feather in his hair. "I didn't know who the hell I was getting tethered to," Barton says.
Neither man is particularly good at getting along with the other. When Collamer hugs and kisses a tree — really — Barton exclaims, "I hope you gave him a disease."
The Utahn also calls the man to whom he's tethered a "whiny, bitchy baby," a "weakling," a "pansy" and "freakin' weird as all hell."
And, remember, they can't get any more than 6 feet apart, so Collamer hears all this.
The great irony is that Barton declares he's come on the show for his children.
"This is important to me because I have four kids and being able to survive out here is going to really show my kids that I can survive anywhere," he says.
What his children will see on the episode is a whole lot of incredibly childish behavior. In addition to the name-calling, there are egos run amok, yelling, arguing and threatening each other.
There's even a physical altercation when Collamer wants to take a dip in the ocean and Barton refuses — which quickly devolves into Collamer trying to pull Barton with him and Barton throwing Collamer to the ground.
They did apologize to each other, at least.
Clearly, this is a high-stress situation. They're in the jungles of Panama, they're starving, they're getting eaten alive by various bugs.
And, in the end, things don't turn out quite the way Barton expected.
But if you're ever tempted to go on a reality TV show to make your children proud, sit down and watch this episode of "Tethered" first. Please.
Scott D. Pierce covers television for The Salt Lake Tribune. Email him at spierce@sltrib.com; follow him on Twitter: @ScottDPierce.