With Survivor and The Amazing Race taking the summer off, a trio of cable shows are out to fill the endurance challenge-based reality series void. TNT offers up the one-two punch of the Dwayne Johnson-fronted The Hero and 72 Hours (which air back-to-back on Thursdays at 8 PM and 9 PM respectively), while the obscure Reelz network counters with Race to the Scene (Thursdays at 9 PM). Which of these shows walks away as the sole survivor? We pit them head-to-head in five key areas:

Brian from American Baking Competition and Krissi from Masterchef were too cocky and uppity when they got criticized, which is one of our pet peeves, but they both still survived elimination and managed to escape making our list.

Squeezed in between a week of high-profile broadcast network upfronts, Turner's cablers launched themselves into the TV conversation by hosting their big event at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom this morning. TNT's biggest new property is, of course, the campy Dallas remake, while TBS is clearly trying to move past their former "We saved Conan and bought the rights to Family Guy repeats!" image and instead focusing on the future, now claiming, "We saved Cougar Town and bought the rights to The Big Bang Theory repeats!" After excited executives talked shop about shows currently in development (not particularly worth noting) and sampling their new series, Conan O'Brien came out to do a bit about television bigwigs and their imaginary Craigslist postings. It was underwhelming, but he snuck in a few funny jokes about Turner having their upfronts at 9 AM next to Penn Station while this afternoon's CBS upfronts will be at li'l ol' Carnegie Hall, and managed to keep the tired NBC jabs to a minimum. And on the bright side, his set was a lot funnier than anything else previewed for the network.