

Sens. Jeff Flake (left) and Martin Heinrich work together! (Photo courtesy Discovery Channel.)

The latest entry in the canon of reality TV shows featuring folks attempting to “survive” in remote, exotic locales features an intriguing twist: the would-be survivalists are two senators. From opposite sides of the political aisle.

And… wait for it… they have to work together!

Discovery Channel on Thursday announced that “Rival Survival,” featuring Sens. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) as dueling colleagues turned desert-island teammates, is set to air Oct. 29.

Filmed over a week on Erdu in the Marshall Islands, the show will follow the senators as they try to work together (see America, it can be done!) “as they attempt to spear fish, build shelter and find enough water to survive for one week.”

The channel’s press release promises all the hallmarks of the genre: “shark infested waters,” minimal supplies, and “an utterly unforgiving deserted destination where the reefs alone are fraught with dangers that include venomous stonefish, lionfish and scorpion fish.”

Beats a week in the Senate.

Flake is no stranger to island survival, having visited the Marshall Islands several times, including a week solo trip.

In a joint statement, Flake and Heinrich say they hope their island adventure does more than just entertain their colleagues — they want to inspire them to work together back in Washington.

“Both of us know just how frustrated people are with Washington right now,” they said. “”We can both attest that no one is more frustrated than those of us trying to get things done in this environment. We recognize how difficult it can be to cut through the partisanship. 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. ”

A Discovery Channel rep says that while the senators faced all sorts of challenges in the wild, producers faced their own hurdles. “Everything was done under the strict confines of the rules with the Senate’s ethics committee,” she says. Oh, and keeping the project under wraps in the notoriously leaky congressional world.

And you thought sharks were scary.

Also worth noting that the show is being produced by the same team behind “Naked and Afraid,” the bare-all reality show that also airs on Discovery.