Idol Speculation: “Survivor Caramoan” Episode 10: The Flaw in the Editing.

No, there’s no pretense of an intro this time, I’m getting right into this episode’s biggest flaw right away.  Hey, the episode itself makes no pretense of buildup, so why should I?

Following a brief scene of Eddie, Malcolm, and Reynold conferring (being oddly happy about being on the bottom of the tribe), we get the aforementioned Dawn breakdown A MERE 10 MINUTES INTO THE EPISODE!  Hell, given the odd spacing of commercial breaks in Australia, it wasn’t even 5 minutes for me.  Just… Why, editing team, couldn’t you have teased us with something more substantial?  I mean, there are things to like about this episode, and Dawn DOES have an actual legitimate breakdown later in the episode, but you didn’t use a single one of those clips, did you, editing team?  No, you just showed the earlier one, because it had Dawn threatening to leave the game.  And what, you may ask, is Dawn’s big problem that may force her out of the game?  Apparently Dawn had an operation on one of her teeth a while back, and so needs some sort of protection on it (the tv room here is really loud, so it’s hard for me to make out things sometimes), but lost it while swimming in the lake.  Look, Dawn, I love you, and I’ve done my damnedest to defend you when you’ve had other breakdowns, but this one is really beyond my spectrum. I could understand being MILDLY PUT OUT at losing a tooth protector, but you knew approximately where it fell, and your reaction was really quite disproportionate to the event in this case.

But don’t worry, Dawn, it’s not only you and the editing team that I’m going to give a hard time.  No, for while I’m a fan of cold, calculating gameplay, I still like my players to have SOMETHING of a heart.  A disproportionate reaction or not, Dawn’s cry for help was so primitive, so desperate, that I’m amazed that al of ONE person went over to help her.  Look, I know this game requires one to behave like a sociopath, but that doesn’t mean you have to put aside all humanity!  Seriously, I’m quite disgusted by the group this episode.

One good thing does come out of all this: Brenda gets another interview after all this time.  Granted it’s not much of an interview, just her talking about how nice it was to help Dawn, but an interview nonetheless.  That brings her total of actual interviews this season up to two.  I should offer her a pay raise.

Our reward challenge is exactly what you’d expect, by which I mean a reused challenge from a previous season.  It’s another obstacle course, in a sense, so while it does lend itself to obstacle courses past on “Survivor”, it particularly hails from “Survivor Philippines”, which makes it slightly more justifiable, but I’ll get to that in a minute.  After being divided into teams of 5 (AGAIN!), the teams race one at a time over balance beams and down a water slide into a pit of mud.  They then dig through another mud pit to find 5 bags of balls, and bring said balls to the finish line.  Once all bags of balls are there, the teams untie them and attempt to throw the balls into a tall metal cone, with the first team to sink all 12 balls winning a trip to a resort with lunch.

Now, I said that this challenge hailing from the Philippines made it more ok, and here’s why: with other reused challenges that have to be built from scratch, it can be chalked up to pure laziness on the part of the challenge department.  With this, it could be seen as a cost-saving measure, as you can keep the old structure.  While that still doesn’t change the fact that it is a reused challenge, it makes it slightly more ok, as it’s just them trying to save money, rather than putting out an inferior product out of sheer lethargy.  Also, if you had to redo a challenge from “Survivor Philippines”, this one was probably one of the most memorable.  Granted, swinging giant balls at pots would have been even better, but who’s counting.

Malcolm would seem to have an advantage, though, as he’s done this challenge before, and steals Jonathan Penner’s (“Survivor Cook Islands”) strategy of finding all the bags of balls on the first leg.  Unfortunately, he’s not as good at it as Penner was, and so the other team steals the strategy on the next leg, with much more effectiveness.  Also, while the teams were more evenly divided this time, with the purple team consisting of Reynold, Erik, Cochran, Dawn, and Phillip, and the orange team consisting of Malcolm, Eddie, Sherri, Andrea, and Brenda, it’s clear that the orange team is still at a disadvantage.  All these factors combine to give the purple team the win, and we get what should be your generic food and relaxation award.

I say “should be” because Phillip is there, and true to form, nothing that Phillip does can be considered “generic”.  Case in point, it turns out that there’s not just one type of etiquette.  “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” gave us “Banana Etiquette”, and now “Survivor Caramoan” has given us “Soap Etiquette”, wherein one must shower before using the pool.  Phillip, being Phillip, ignores this rule, and puts his muddy body straight into the pool, using it like a bath, even stripping down to his birthday suit…

BAD IMAGE!  BAD IMAGE!

Erik is our “Mr. Manners” for the day, and explains to us “Soap Etiquette”, as well as providing a succinct summation of Phillip “Special Agent?” Sheppard.  According to Erik, Phillip is “…independent.  He just jumps right in and does whatever he wants.”  This is a good summation Erik.  Perhaps you’ve been paying more attention than I thought.

Erik also offhandedly comments that he’d like to see Phillip voted out, but it probably doesn’t mean anything.

Evidently the people weren’t right back at camp to allow for Malcolm to strategizing, so we cut to Dawn’s next big breakdown.  It’s important to note beforehand, that we’re coming up on the day Dawn was voted out the first time (something I’d thought of beforehand, and Dawn mentions later), and that Dawn has been having trouble sleeping of late, as they’re both factors in what happens next.  The first is a bout of exceedingly teary, yet somehow strong paranoia.  Dawn notes that Andrea has been spending a lot of time with the “Three Amigos” Alliance (just when you thought there couldn’t be a dumber name for an alliance than “Stealth ‘R Us”), and thinks that Andrea may be plotting to get her out.  A lot her tribemates deride this as her going “crazy”, and say that there’s no reason why, if Andrea DID flip, she’d target Dawn, and while I admit her paranoia is a bit excessive, I have to disagree with the idea that Andrea wouldn’t target Dawn.  It seems like she and Dawn have had a lot of conversations, so Andrea probably knows that Dawn is leading a lot of votes, and it would be an unexpected angle, thus avoiding any potential hidden immunity idol problems (though after tonight, I think this season has used up its quota of hidden immunity idol problems).  Still, they rightly point out that the alliance needs to stick together, and that they can’t afford to let another physical threat slip by, and Dawn goes to console herself with Cochran.

See, editors, THIS breakdown would have been much better to foreshadow.  It’s not as big of one, but it makes sense, is much more compelling, and doesn’t come early in the episode, emphasis on that last part!

Still, a good night’s sleep leads to a new Dawn (both the person and the time of day), leading me to chalk up the breakdown to a lack of sleep, Dawn being an emotional person, and this game requiring one to be paranoid to succeed.  And you can tell, Dawn REALLY wants to succeed.  For all that I may give her a hard time on other things, I can’t take away from her that she is quite driven, more so than a lot of castaways of late.

A tree-mail that we don’t see comes, and the Favorites alliance talks over whom they’d want to vote out, and the consensus is Reynold, which seems like a fine idea to me.  I’m sure that airing this clip before the immunity challenge takes place will not in ANY way influence the results of the immunity challenge.

No, I’m not announcing it again.  My caps lock is all worn out this blog, and you know what time it is, and what type of challenge it is.

The only surprise is that I actually like this challenge.  Running in heats of five, with the top two moving on, the castaways, dive under and pull themselves along a platform, resurfacing and running back across once they reach the end, taking a life ring along the way to put on a pole at the other end of the course.  Once all life rings are across, you’re done.  This challenge originally hails from “Survivor Pearl Islands”, and is pretty much unchanged, save that they’re now transporting life rings instead of coins on strings.  While I admit that I prefer the “Survivor Pearl Islands” version of this challenge, as the moving of the coins seems for difficult (smaller diameter=harder to get on post while moving fast), it’s still a pretty fun challenge, and since it’s only been seen once before, I’m willing to look past it, and reserve my hate for the editing team (seriously, they really dropped the ball this episode).

One event of note is that Phillip becomes the first person ever (yes, for once, one of Probst’s superlatives is actually justified) to voluntarily sit out an immunity challenge for a reason other than food.  Phillip claims that he had traumatic experience being trapped under a pond when he was little, and so can’t do the immunity challenge for being too scared.  Oh, how the mighty have fallen!  At first, I thought it was just talk, and a grandstanding way to get out of doing the challenge since he thought he’d lose, and I was prepared to mock Phillip for it.  However, on further reflection, I don’t believe we’ve ever seen Phillip go much into the water for a challenge, so I can’t really be sure that it isn’t true, and will leave the jokes alone.

Shock of all shocks, Reynold wins a physical challenge, and celebrates by giving his best William Shatner impression, in telling everyone how much he likes them.  However, the Three Amigos Alliance is not out of the woods yet, as only two of them can be immune.  All that has to happen is that the alliance splits their votes (which was their plan anyway), and they’re still doomed.  Malcolm, however, has a plan to keep all three of them in the game, while still holding on to his immunity idol.  Knowing how crafty Malcolm is, I’m sure it’s something clever and insightful!

His plan is: to go find another idol…

Wow, Malcolm, kind of a weak plan.  Sure, you’ll all be safe this vote, but you won’t have your idol, and really, in the long run you’re screwed anyway.

Still, Malcolm’s not the only one with this idea, as Andrea and Dawn both head off looking for an idol as well.  Why no one in the Favorites alliance tried this before, I honestly don’t know.  They probably should have, as they might have prevented Malcolm finding the second idol stashed in a random rock crevasse somewhere.  On the other hand, if they had found it first, we’d have been deprived of the best part of the episode, so no complaints there.

Of course, the logical thing for Malcolm to do now is to give the idol to Eddie, so that all of his alliance is immune, and hope to create chaos in the Favorites alliance.  Seriously, Malcolm seems a bit off this episode.  Is his brain taking a leave of absence?

Just a temporary leave, it seems, as Malcolm uses the Tribal Council to give the idol to Eddie, thus throwing the proceedings into chaos.  Andrea can’t even look up, she’s so distraught.  That’s to her disadvantage, though, since the Favorites alliance engages in the most blatant bit of strategy talk I’ve seen at Tribal Council, since Probst’s cheap “Give me a reason to get rid of _______” line of questioning at one particular Tribal Council in “Survivor Fiji”, the rant for which I’ll save for another time.  The point is that most of the strategy is targeting Andrea, while the Three Amigos alliance says they’ll target Phillip.  I guess the “Vote out the leaders” idea is out the window now.

The Three Amigos seem set to get the alliance to turn on each other and hold onto their idols, when Erik brings up the point that I thought of as soon as they pulled the idols.  Erik points out that there’s no guarantee that they’ll PLAY their idols, as all they’ve done is shown them, and might just be bluffing.  Wow, Erik is really on a roll this episode, he’s just getting smart idea after smart idea.  Certain I’d stick with the plan in that situation.  In fact, the only one who DOESN’T benefit from that plan is Phillip Sheppard.  For the rest of the alliance, if Malcolm and Eddie are bluffing, by sticking with the plan you can eliminate a physical threat outside the alliance, and get rid of a hidden immunity idol in one fell swoop.  If they do play their idols, then you lose a non-essential alliance member, can probably reconvene under the leadership of Dawn and Cochran, and still retain a majority.

In fact, this is exactly what happens, with Erik being the only one to flip, which makes sense for him, as his strategy so far has been to be the swing vote.  This means that Phillip goes home.

Get me Margaret Thatcher haters on the phone, I need to borrow their copies of “Ding-Dong, the Witch is Dead.”

About the only thing that makes me REMOTELY sorry that Phillip goes home is that he was part of the alliance I was supporting.  Phillip was annoying, insane, hypocritical, humorless, and all around an unenjoyable character I’m not sorry to see the back of.  Granted, it would have been better if he was gone BEFORE the jury, but I’ll live with this.

The last part of the episode (by which I mean Tribal Council) was very compelling, but the happy ending still didn’t quite make up for the horrible beginning.  I love the ending, but the editing was just so poor before then that I really couldn’t enjoy the episode very much.  Not terrible, but one of the weaker episodes of this season.

Next week, hopefully, will be even weaker, and the idea that Sherri and Erik are jumping ship to the Three Amigos is just misdirection.  Now why, you may ask, would I want a weak episode?  Well, next week is mid-semester break in Australia, which means I’ll be cruising the Whitsunday Islands.  On the one hand, there will most likely be no tv there, so I’ll be unable to catch the episode (and even if by some miracle I am, I won’t have access to a computer, so my turnaround time on the blog would be greater anyway), but on the other hand, I’ll be able to accurately quote Colby Donaldson (“Survivor The Australian Outback”), and say “I just went snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, what’d you do today?” in an obnoxious voice.  Bottom line, while I love “Survivor”, this kind of takes priority.   Hence why I want a boring episode: I don’t want anything major to happen while I’m gone.  I don’t think it will, though.  I just can’t see Sherri flipping, when she’s been included in the Favorites alliance, and when Eddie and Reynold have been against her this entire time.

Don’t think you won’t be hearing from me, though.  Since I’ve got time to plan for it this time, either Sunday or Monday I’ll give my general thoughts on what I can gather from recaps (assuming anything of significance happens), PLUS, I’ve got an extra-special something to make the blog more substantial.  Stay tuned!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.