Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has told her nation that the leadership fight that has split the ruling Labor Party is not just a reality television drama. And she's right - it is far more entertaining than that.
Even by the grim standards of Australian political bloodsport, Gillard's battle with her former foreign minister Kevin Rudd to lead the troubled party into the next election is in a league of its own.
Rudd, of course, was the elected prime minister ousted in Gillard's union-backed Labor coup in June 2010. And while Rudd accepted the post of foreign minister, he has never accepted the events that saw him pushed aside by his own deputy.
As Paul Kelly, the sober elder statesman of Australian political commentary, noted on The Australian newspaper website, the Gillard-Rudd argument is a contest of 'unparalleled ferocity'.
There are two reasons for this. One, it is a political fight to the death between two controversial politicians with arguably little to lose.
They carry little of the stature, or the mutual respect, of their predecessors Bob Hawke and Paul Keating during the latter's leadership challenge in 1991.
Keating, in a strategy that Rudd looks set to follow, launched a two-challenge bid. Then prime minister Hawke's treasurer, he lost the first battle and re-treated from Cabinet to the parliamentary back-benches.