As former Fairfax teenager Keetin Marchi was flipping through channels on the television last December, she found a survivor-type show featuring people her own age. An avid watcher of reality TV, little did she know then that she would be on that show during its second season.
“It was so much fun. I loved doing it,” said Keetin, 14, of the show “Endurance” on “Discovery Kids” on NBC.
Out of a national search, Keetin was one of 10 girls and 10 boys picked to be a part of "Endurance." For two weeks in July, Keetin went to Mexico, where camera crews taped them nine hours of the day playing different activities and games.
“I had never been on camera,” Keetin said.
Her family said Keetin took the initiative to be on the show.
“I wasn’t surprised,” said her mother, Patsy Marchi, who accompanied her daughter to Mexico for the taping. “She’s very outgoing. She’s just a very energized type of child. She’s independent, and she knows what she really likes to do.”
The process of getting on the television show started in March, when the show’s host came on, telling viewers to call if they wanted to be on the air. Keetin responded, learning she had to make a tape about why she wanted to be on the show.
With a friend’s help, she made the tape. To Keetin’s surprise, she breezed through the three rounds of cuts. Keetin found out she was going to be on the show the day after graduation, June 12.
“Oh my goodness, I’m going to be on the show! I was so excited,” Keetin said.
When the time for taping came, Keetin traveled to Mexico with her mother, where she met the other participants from Georgia, Minnesota, Illinois, California and Florida, among other locales.
FOR NINE HOURS each day, crews taped the teens negotiating through different temple missions and an endurance mission.
Not only did the teenagers compete against each other but they endured the food (“It filled our stomachs”) and the hot weather, with sand temperatures of 120 degrees (“We kinda got used to it. And we had the water right there," Keetin said).
When they weren’t playing games, they did a lot of talking on the beach.
“We actually had a chance to play the games, that was neat,” Keetin said.
Although the taping was only two weeks long, the gang bonded and keeps in touch via e-mail and telephone.
“I just know that I met so many great people,” Keetin said.
Patsy Marchi said the whole family enjoyed the experience of the filming.
“We were very proud of her. There were thousands of applicants,” Marchi said. Their family recently moved from Fairfax to North Carolina.
Her 17-year-old brother, Ryan, saw a clip of this year’s season on television, and glimpsed his sister on TV. The show will air Saturdays between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. on NBC.
“I thought it was pretty cool. She’s always wanted to do that kind of thing, and obviously it’s great that she got to do it,” said Ryan.