Idol Speculation: “Survivor 46” Episode Several: Wrapped Up With A Nice Little Bow

Inanimate objects, done properly, can become a character in and of themselves.  On “Survivor” immunity idols are the most common example of this, but sometimes people can create their own.  And we may just have one of those tonight.  That was a MAGNIFICENT Buff Bow on Kenzie’s head!  Even with all the emotion at her Tribal Council, I think it stole the show.  

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  While the tribe was unified against Moriah last episode, there was still the stray Venus vote to consider.  Consider it Venus does, and given how she is, she naturally jumps to the conclusion that it was cast by Soda.  Understandable, given how the pair have been interacting these past few days, but wrong.  Soda of course denies this, but this only convinces Venus further.  Everyone, Tevin in particular, is prepared to sit back and watch the fireworks.  

Charlie, then, is the rain that cancels the fireworks.  He comes clean to Venus that he was the stray vote against her.  I have to ask… WHY?  How does this benefit Charlie in any way?  Venus didn’t even suspect him, and this was tearing Nami, the biggest threat to Siga, apart.  Now she knows you moved against her, and Venus does not strike me as the type to forgive and forget.  Even in a best-case scenario, where she decides she has bigger fish to fry and doesn’t immediately try and get you out, say goodbye to that jury vote.  

So egregious is this error that Coach Q comes out again.  He sits Charlie down on the beach (with Tim also there), and just reads him the riot act about how he screwed up a good position.  Not saying Q is wrong, but unsolicited advice is not going to win hearts and minds.  Charlie defuses the situation by “apologizing”, which at least shuts Q up, but this has turned him against Q.  I don’t agree with his conclusion that “Q is running the show” based on this; at worst Q is being a bit too blunt.  It DOES show, however, that Q doesn’t respect your game, and that alone is a reason to work against him.  Point being, Q may be right about what is and isn’t a smart move, but he’s not winning friends with his style of interaction.  

After our intro, we get another scene at night, though this one a bit less confrontational.  Ben wakes up in the middle of a panic attack, and worried about how he’ll be perceived as a result.  Luckily Kenzie is used to this sort of thing, other members of her family having been through similar experiences, so she is able to assist him and comfort him.  She admits that this is something beyond the game, and she’s doing it out of general, human kindness.  Honestly, it’s a very effective scene.  A nice bit of calm before the strategizing storm, and one that didn’t need to be bolstered by turning it into a sob story.  Oddly, the understatement makes the moment more powerful, and frankly it’s just a highlight of the episode.  Well done, show.  

Because we have to stick with the stupid “Split Tribal” twist, we can’t have any more camp scenes for now.  Instead we have to cut straight to our Immunity Challenge, which is the “Stand on the Triangles” one first seen on “Survivor Caramoan”.  A challenge so boring and predictable I’m more fascinated by them using the buff design along the side of the platform in the water.  Nice touch.  

This is also where we get our first look at the Immunity Idol for this season, at least the individual one.  Solid design, in my opinion.  Reminiscent of the one from “Survivor Cambodia”, with red as a main color and a similar outline.  Being made of beads and adding geckos does help make it unique.  Maybe not an idol for the history books, but a solid entry regardless.  

I will say what this challenge lacks in interest in and of itself, it makes up for in banter.  After Probst notes that the calmer conditions compared to the last time this was run (“Survivor 42”), Q suggests playing the “Alphabet Game” with city names, without actually explaining what the Alphabet Game actually is.  A fact that comes back to bite him in the butt when basically everyone starts violating what Q perceives as the rules.  Hunter starts off with “A for Atlanta”, but then Ben gets knocked out due to not saying that again, despite saying both “Boston” and “Baltimore”.  Liz does get the C in there, but again fails to name the previous names, despite Q saying this must be done.  It’s capped off with Charlie saying he gets it, only to make the same mistake as Liz.  Pretty sure that last one, at least, was intentional.  Seems like too good an opportunity for Charlie to tweak Q’s nose in a joking manner for him not to take it.  

Q, incidentally, is the first one out of this challenge, followed shortly by Ben from his team, leaving Kenzie, Tiffany, Hunter, and Tim up on their side.  Soda falls at about the same time, but she’s on the opposite team, leaving Charlie, Maria, Tevin, Venus, and Liz up for them.  Despite being sidelined, Q still keeps up a good bit of commentary.  He explains to Probst how “Black folks ask what time it is.”, which Probst takes in stride.  When Q goes silent, he explains that he was taught to shut up if he’s not in the game.  Evidently unable to stand the silence, Tim pulls a Gabler (“Survivor 43”), and starts shouting out various people the audience doesn’t know during the challenge.  Q mocks him for this, only for Tim to remind him what his dad taught him about shutting up.  It’s honestly the one thing making this challenge fun, and it helps that it’s clearly just the cast having fun with one another, and no one taking the talk too seriously.  Probst even gets in on the fun a bit, reminding us of Jelinsky’s “Several=7” point from earlier in the season.

Eventually the challenge must get serious, though, and everyone transitions to standing on one foot.  Brenda Lowe and Andrea Boehlke can rest easy knowing their impromptu rule on the first run of this challenge remains an official part of it now.  This leads to several dropouts, but Kenzie, despite winning immunity, drops before either Tevin or Maria.  This means her team will miss out on a reward, and go to Tribal Council first, meaning whoever leaves misses the jury.  As for Tevin and Maria, they have a good battle, with Tevin even having a spectacular comeback from nearly falling over.  IN the end, though, Maria’s lower center of gravity wins the day, and she snags immunity.  

Our teams are sent to separate camps, with the winning six going to the current merge camp.  Here we find out the new tribe is dubbed “Nuinui”.  No real complaints here on that one.  The name is a decent length, and obviously Polynesian in origin (granted Fiji is in MELANESIA, but given they’re part of the same language family, I’ll take it at this point).  That said, all it really makes me want to do is get out my old Bionicle toys again.  

Despite winning, not everyone is happy.  Charlie notes that he’s in an exceptionally precarious spot, being one of only two original Siga on the tribe, and the other having immunity.  He realizes he’s exceptionally vulnerable, a status that Tevin confirms.  Tevin, however, is not content to just let things sit on the obvious target, telling us that he wants to invoke the “First Blindside of the Season”.  Jem might take issue with that characterization, Tevin.  

Over with our losers, Hunter is feeling nervous for similar reasons to Charlie.  He tells us he intents to play his idol tonight, a move I can’t really fault.  True, there is the “Journey 6” alliance he could trust in, but he is the only person without an initial-tribe ally in this group.  Further, he’s a noted physical threat at a rare moment without having immunity, making him a tempting target.  

Certainly Tim thinks so, since he tells Q that Hunter should obviously go.  Q, however, thinks it equally obvious that Ben should go.  After all, Nami is at each other’s throats, and Ben is the only one in this group not part of the “Journey 6”.  Ok, Kenzie technically isn’t either, but she’s immune, and Q is unlikely to go against an original Yanu at this juncture.  A member of the “Journey 6”, however?  He’ll turn on them in a heartbeat, now insisting it has to be Tim for his wishy-washy-ness.  A bit early to be turning on him, but also a bit early to be giving my thoughts on the targeting on these tribes.  

I will say, however, that I don’t buy for one minute that Q intentionally lost that challenge.  It was one that didn’t cover his skill set, and he lied to save face.  Understandable, but either Q’s a far better actor than I credit him, or he’s lying to the camera to save face.  

For now, let’s return to our winners, who have the more intriguing strategy.  Tevin is not the only one who wants to “Make a move”.  Soda is ready to get Venus out, and tries to enlist Charlie and Maria to that end, once everyone is done “napping” on the beach.  Understandable, given their tiff, but also a bad move for Soda.  She’s already kind of screwed since she’s not going to the end with Vcnus, and therefore if she IS in the end, Venus is guaranteed to be on the jury.  Guess who Venus will never vote for in a million years?  Even so, better to have her on the jury later than earlier, lest she poison the whole bunch against you.  

This, however, is not enough of a blindside for Tevin, who marshals Liz, along with a presumed Charlie and Maria, to get out Soda.  He considers her, fairly, to be a social threat.  Can’t deny the logic there.  Not content with this, however, Soda approaches Maria and Charlie individually to blindside Tevin.  Charlie seems on board, at least in part because he prefers ANY plan that doesn’t involve him getting voted out, but Maria is a bit more hesitant.  She wants to keep her options open with the “Journey 6”, and Tevin is a part of that.  Hence, conflict, even if getting out Tevin would be the thing to break Nami apart completely.  

Things get worse for Venus when, having already come on strong with Maria, she pushes her again.  Maria, pretty reasonably, gives Venus advice on how to come at people.  She sympathizes with Venus due to her age, but notes that people don’t like being told what to do.  This advice goes in one ear and out the other, Venus chalking it up to their age disparity.  Way to not work on yourself, Venus.  That said, she does at least tone it back to a vote against Soda, something Charlie and Maria are much more likely to go with.  They confer on the beach, Charlie noting that he’s weirdly safe.  Not sure how much of that is due to his effort as much as Nami being a hot mess, but still, good for him.  

As our targets for this group are now firmly set on either Soda or Venus, time to discuss what the best move is.  Clearly, between these two, it’s Soda.  She’s the more subtle player, and Venus’ presence will continue to make Nami at least seem more fractured (if not actually be more fractured), thus making them seem less threatening.  Further, Venus has so buried herself socially she’s unlikely to win many jury votes, and isn’t much of a challenge threat.  If she gets to the end, well, easier victory for you.  Might as well chop Soda off now.  Not to mention that Venus, if the first juror unanimously, will likely poison the jury against all of you.  Yeah, clearly go for Soda.  

In regards to our other group, there is dissension amongst the ranks.  Kenzie, admittedly, is happy with going for Tim, since her and Ben kind of vibe.  Tiffany less so.  That said, props to Ben for catching that Kenzie was not being 100% up front with him.  I thought Kenzie lied pretty effectively there, but he sussed it right out.  

Tim pitches Hunter to the group, who agree to split votes, but Q turns it on Tim as soon as he leaves.  Tiffany agrees with this, correctly noting that Nami is easy to break up, while Siga is less so.  However, Ben comes across as slightly sketchy when Q talks to him, leading to Q turning it back on Ben.  This makes Tiffany happy, but not Kenzie, especially since Q seems to waffle back and forth, and doesn’t let them get much of a word in edgewise.  

This leads to the promised pair discussing Q “running the show”, and predictably, the preview played this up.  Don’t misunderstand, there is a legit issue between them and Q, but it was built up to go somewhere tonight.  Had Charlie been in this group I might have bought it, but no.  Instead, they just note that Q is a bit inflexible, and also a bit prone to changing his mind.  All fair criticisms.  I might sum it up in that Q is a very binary player.  You’re either fully in agreement with him, or fully disagree with him.  Not much room for nuance in the world of Q.  On the one hand, if you’re truly his ally, this can be a great thing!  After all, as long as you don’t piss him off, you can guarantee he’ll stick with you.  That said, as we saw with Ben, staying on his good side is not so easy.  It’s not clear what exactly Ben did to turn Q against him from their conversation, but it flipped Q’s mind completely.  That can be a problem, so it’s understandable that they would consider moving against him.  But, as they note, it’s probably too early.  

With Hunter not much in contention, the debate is between Tim and Ben, and once again the answer of who should go is clear.  Ben is a social threat no one there apart from Tim has really connected with.  Tim is a much more predictable player, and keeping him around prevents the “Journey 6”, which Q at least is pushing hard, from fracturing.  Ben is the clear better choice here.  

We’re also left with little doubt that Ben will go, since he gets all the emotional content at Tribal.  He goes over his panic attack again, and everyone gives him sympathy, while also noting there are human moments outside the game.  Q, for his part, is also courteous, giving Kenzie major props for winning immunity.  The real star of the show, however, is Kenzie’s giant bow buff.  An hour after the episode aired, and I still love that thing.  

For as much as I hate the “Split Tribal” twist at this juncture, the show got a good draw here.  You can have the emotional climax first with this group, then the strategic one with the next.  Not intentional on their part, obviously, but a good way to balance it out, and not feel like we’re waiting for one group or the other to go.  Going to commercial in the middle before an obvious boot like this is a bit much, but hey, the other group has enough mystery to keep us happy regardless.  

Yet, once again, the show gets me.  Tim goes, which I absolutely DID NOT expect.  Good trick, editors.  The bad decision for basically everyone but Kenzie, but definitely an audience blindside.  That said, from a character standpoint, much the better decision.  Ben may not do it for me as a character, but he’s more interesting than Tim, who basically brought nothing.  Seems like a nice enough guy, but just not good tv, sadly.  I will, however, give Hunter some praise for not playing his idol.  Granted, he probably had a lot of trust in what Q was saying, so it’s not the weirdest decision ever, but still, he had valid reasons to believe he would be targeted.  Good on him for saving his idol.  

As mentioned, our second Tribal Council is the strategic climax of the episode.  Logically, this makes for less exciting banter at Tribal, with it being mostly the stuff you’d expect.  Charlie bringing up his Shot in the Dark.  Venus and Soda bringing up the tribe divisions.  We do get a couple of unusual moments, like Liz catching flak for not bringing her bag.  I do have to deduct points on Maria, however, for using a metaphor where one wasn’t asked for.  Don’t encourage Probst, Maria.  

Oddly, despite this being the more unpredictable vote, it’s also the more underwhelming one.  The group does the smart thing and votes Soda out.  She’s a bit teary about the whole thing, but thankfully she at least gets to sit on the jury.  I’m not the biggest fan of Venus, but I am glad she stayed, if only for the drama she brings.  If Ponderosa videos were still a thing, I’d want her on the jury as early as possible, but as is?  I’m fine with this.  

For the episode as a whole, it weirdly fails kind of in spite of itself.  The humor was on point, the editing top-notch.  We had good mystery, and a lot of good character bits.  Yet I confess myself, underwhelmed.  I don’t hate this episode, but it just kind of came and went with little fanfare for me.  I think it’s just a victim of how much had to be stuffed in.  With this many people, and two Tribal Councils, it just feels bloated.  The superiority of the previous factors helps make up for it, but there’s only so much you can do with this format.  Yet another reason to vary things up, show.  

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor 41” Cast Assessment

Congratulations to Rob for correctly identifying the title quote from last episode as originating from Charlie Herschel of “Survivor Gabon”.  Yes, I’m well aware that the contest was over a year ago, but so help me, we haven’t had a “regular” blog since then, and this commenter has EARNED their honor, delayed as it may be.  

Friends, readers, random-internet-passers-by, it is my pleasure, once again, to welcome you back to “Idol Speculation”, my knee-jerk opinion that everyone is entitled to!  Yes, after over a year of starvation, we finally, FINALLY have new “Survivor” content to talk about.  Granted, I could wish for a bit more.  I mean, we have gotten the “EW” pictures and biographies, which are usually the marker for when I do these Cast Assessments, but you don’t want to give us anything?  No photos and bios of your own?  No videos of each of the contestants talking about their strategy?  You’re not even going to give us the official tribe divisions?  Of course not!  I mean, HEAVEN FORBID we know who’s playing with whom before the start of the season!  How dare we analyze tribe dynamics, and speculate pre-season, thereby driving up interest and internet traffic?  Do you know where that leads?  Chaos!  Chaos I say!  

Ok, ok, enough griping at CBS.  I can still work with this, even if it’s not as much as I’m used to, and I can’t analyze tribe dynamics as I normally do (yes, I’m aware that there’s a rumored tribe division from “Inside Survivor”, but until the divisions are announced officially, I don’t consider it canon, and thus won’t write about it.  And I’m not going to frame-by-frame the preview we DID get to try and match people with buff colors.  I do have something of a life).  So, no more joking around.  let us dig into the new players we, at long last, get to overanalyze.  

Sydney Segal (26, Law Student, Brooklyn, NY): Always nice to start off a cast assessment with a strong contender.  Yes, I think Sydney is slated to do pretty well on this season.  By and large, her bio is nothing to write home about.  Pretty standard stuff, talking about how social and athletic she is.  I find it a little weird to specifically refer to your father as a “second Messiah”, but hey, you do you.  The thing that stood out to me, and the thing that makes me high on Sydney’s chances, is the “Survivor” she compares herself to.  If you’re someone new to reading cast bios, you should know that there’s a group of about a half-dozen former players who generally show up in people’s biographies.  You can expect Boston Rob (“Survivor Marquesas”), Parvati Shallow (“Survivor Cook Islands”), Cirie Fields (“Survivor Exile Island”), and Russell Hantz (“Survivor Samoa”) always show up, and to me, always spell doom for whoever picks the latter.  Then, of course, there are the “recency bias” picks, i.e. good players, but ones who only come from the most recent seasons, indicating this may just be someone production emphasized to the player.  Kelley Wentworth (“Survivor San Juan del Sur”) falls into this category, but she seems to have been replaced by Rick Devans (“Survivor Edge of Extinction”) based on this most recent set of bios.  Now, who does Sydney say she’s most like?  Natalie White, winner of “Survivor Samoa”.  That’s a deep cut, right there.  Hard for anyone to stand out on “Survivor Samoa”, aka “The Russell Hantz Show”, so Syndey’s memory of her tells me she’s got the bona-fides.  Sydney also has a good analysis of Natalie’s game, noting her strength in social bonds and flying under the radar.  A solid analysis, and hardly a bad strategy for the game at all.  Sadly, I think Sydney is screwed out of a possible win by the age in which she plays “Survivor”.  Not to say that the “Natalie Strategy” as we may call it isn’t valid anymore, but the new jury format is pretty much set up to reward “big moves”, and more visible games.  While the “Natalie Strategy” has many upsides, visibility is not one of them.  Still, even if she’s unlikely to win, expect Sydney to stick around a while.  She’s got some good skills and is largely inoffensive, so there’s no need to boot her early.  Look to her as a later merge boot, possibly even one of the people out early in the finale.  Sure, I may be extrapolating a lot from a bio that didn’t give us a lot, but hey, if you don’t do anything that stands out as making you an early target, I say you’ve got at least a decent chance.  Besides, you could also say that Michele Fitzgerald’s bio on “Survivor Kaoh Rong” didn’t give us a lot to work with, and we saw how that turned out.  

Danny McCray (33, Ex-NFL Player, Frisco, TX): Hoo boy.  It’s time once again.  Time for the segment of “People Who Are Crazy For Thinking They’re Made For This Show”.  Look, Danny seems like a nice, overall dude.  I admire him for not just relying on his talent in sports to carry him through his entire life, and his drive to continue to improve himself at what the show considers an “older” age.  But one of the main things I look at in these bios is the “Pet Peeve” section, since I feel it can give a good idea of how well you get along with others, and if your first pet peeve is “Lying”?  Man, what were you thinking!  Sure, go on the show all about lying and backstabbing when that very thing gets to you.  See how far that gets you.  Danny has a lot of good characteristics, but unless his tribe needs physical strength very badly, or he’s able to put his distaste for lying aside, the man is a pre-merge boot for sure.  

Liana Wallace (20, College Student, Washington, DC): I’ll admit, I got a bit worried when I saw Liana talk about performing her spoken word poetry.  Nothing against the art form or those who practice it, but it gave me flashbacks to Semhar from “Survivor South Pacific”, whose game is NOT one you want to emulate.  Thankfully, this is where their similarities end, so I think Liana will do pretty well on the show.  Not a lot to recommend her one way or the other.  She just seems like a nice, adventurous, younger player who won’t hold her team back anyway, and be pretty inoffensive overall.  Two things stop me from saying she’ll make it too deep, though.  She suggests emulating Tony (“Survivor Cagayan”) and Elaine (“Survivor Island of the Idols”), so I don’t know about her game knowledge credentials, as both were on the last two seasons.  Plus, I don’t see their play styles meshing very well.  The real thing that I think holds her back from a win, though, is her age.  I know we’ve had winners nearly as young before, but I think back to my college days, and even though I THOUGHT I had the skills to win at that time, I really didn’t.  I had more growing-up to do, and while Liana seems lovely overall, I just have a hard time saying anyone that young has a good shot at winning.  Still, like Sydney earlier, Liana is an inoffensive asset to her tribe, so I expect her to be out no earlier than the early-merge, and probably more like mid-merge, given the group of people on this season.  

Brad Reese (50, Rancher, Shawnee, WY): A fun fact about Brad is that he’s the first player to ever hail from the state of Wyoming.  Perhaps not surprising, as it does have the smallest population in the USA, but still fun.  I hope Brad enjoys that fact, because there’s little else to recommend him.  His bio gives us practically nothing, just a lot of generic platitudes about strength and outdoorsmanship.  As such, we have to consider how well he fits in with this group of players as a whole.  Not well.  The answer is not well.  Brad has the misfortune of being an older guy on a season that, while not as bad as some, skews young overall.  Brad is a rural outdoorsman, while most of this cast is urban.  If Brad had talked a bit about his ability to fit in with diverse groups of people, I might give him more of a shot, but amongst this group, Brad sticks out like a sore thumb, and I just don’t see him getting along with these people.  As such, Brad is my pick to be the first person out this season.  Sorry, Brad, and sorry, Wyoming.  Maybe you can get another player with a group more simpatico to their lifestyle.  

Erika Casupanan (32, Communication Manager, Toronto, ON): At last, Canada has a representative on this show!  Ok, yeah, they had Tom Laidlaw on “Survivor Island of the Idols”, but really, did they, for all the impact Tom had on the season?  Besides, Erika is a MUCH better representative overall.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we go from the worst to the best.  Erika is one of my two winner picks for this season!  Why, you may ask?  Well, as with most of the winners, she has a good balance.  Athletic, without seeming to be a threat.  Sociable, without descending into obsequiousness.  From her questionnaire, while she does list “ignorance” as one of her pet peeves, she’s not guaranteed to come up against it, and her other, “men in ill-fitting jeans” shows a good sense of humor on her part, always an asset.  She calls out good but less remembered-players in Brenda (“Survivor Nicaragua”) and Todd (“Survivor China”) as her inspirations.  And all in an unassuming package.  If I HAD to find a flaw that could cost her the game, I could see her being slightly arrogant.  She talks about paying off her student loan debt at age 27, and if she brags about that, or how smart she is, that could cost her.  That said, she seems to have enough social sense to keep that on the down-low, and I can easily see her rocketing to victory.  

Jairus Robinson (20, College Student”, Oklahoma City, OK): Jairus is one of the few players here that I have a bit more information on than some of the others.  His audition video happened to show up on YouTube, and I watched it.  This is good, because a lot of Jairus’ bio comes off as overconfident, talking about how he’s good socially, mentally, and physically.  Pretty generic, semi-bragging stuff that you see from most people, but again, especially with his age, could easily be him having a bad perception of himself.  Having seen his audition video, I can say that’s he’s not ENTIRELY unjustified in his claims.  If nothing else, the dude just EXUDES charm, and even from a 3-minute video, you can’t help but like the guy.  So yeah, of all the young people on this season, he’s the one I think his age will be least a factor for.  Still a factor, though.  Jairus will do reasonably well, being useful to his tribe and charming enough to work his way into an alliance, but will be blindsided some time in the mid-merge, just by being proverbially spun around by contestants with more life experience.  Good fodder for a returnee winner, though.  

Evvie Jagoda (28, Ph.D. Student, Arlington, MA): This is where the lack of tribe divisions gives me issue, as Evvie’s time in the game is almost entirely dependent on who she ends up playing with early game.  Her pet peeve, you see, is “machismo and man-splainers”.  There are some guys like that on the season, and thus who she’ll come into conflict with if she’s with them.  Given that these type of people tend to be useful in challenges, and thus more likely to be kept around, she’s probably out early if she’s with some of them.  Conversely, if she ends up on a tribe without such men, I could see her doing well.  She seems like she’d be a sensible, reliable alliance member.  A bit quirky, perhaps, but fun nonetheless.  That said, this blog does force me to pick one side or the other, and without the benefit of tribe divisions to give me an easy out… Sorry, Evvie, but I think you’re another pre-merge boot.  While I personally enjoy someone who’s quirky, and can hold a good, intelligent conversation (she spent an entire podcast talking about Neanderthal women.  That is awesome.), said type of person also tends to stand out in a crowd, not a good thing in the early days of “Survivor”.  I pray that I’m wrong, as I really like her and think she makes for good tv, but if I have to choose, I think pre-merge for her, unfortunately.  

Ricard Foye (31, Flight Attendant, Sedro-Wooley, WA): Apologies for not having an accent over the “e” in “Foye”, but I can never remember how to do that with a standard English keyboard.  Getting onto Ricard specifically, I like the guy.  In fact, I’d say he’s my favorite of the season. He’s charming, but still with a personality that stands out.  Dude has a lot of eclectic life experiences, but still down to earth with a relatable career and family life.  And that smile.  Dude just has a really engaging smile.  That alone may be enough to catapult him to victory, as Ricard is my second winner pick overall.  Put a gun to my head and force me to choose, I think Erika beats him, but Ricard still has pretty good shot.  Once again fairly athletic, but not obviously so.  But like I said, the dude just exudes charm, and I’m a social game like “Survivor”, it’s hard to discount the value of that.  With no major negatives that I can note, I can’t help but give the guy my seal of approval, and my second winner pick.  Plus, the dude says he wants to emulate Aubry Bracco (“Survivor Kaoh Rong”).  Can’t help but like a dude that likes Aubry.  

Shantel Smith (34, Pastor, Washington, DC): Ooh, sorry, Canada.  Not hitting on both cylinders, even this time.  Yes, I know that Shantel is currently not living in Canada, but it’s her hometown, so she still counts.  At first, I was pretty high on Shantel.  Good age for self-knowledge and game knowledge.  Good life experience.  “Bad breath” as a pet peeve a bit concerning, but hey, you don’t need to stand nose-to-nose with someone while they’re talking, and maybe her tribe will win the “toothbrush and mouthwash” reward.  A good role model in Xena.  But ooh, the religion angle.  Long-time readers will know I’m gun-shy about such overt religion on “Survivor” ever since we were seeped in it in “Survivor South Pacific”.  Yes, since then some overtly religious individuals such as Lisa Welchel (“Survivor Philippines”) or Sunday Burquest (“Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”) have done well, but the overall trend is more towards religion separating that person from other, less-religious people, particularly in a largely a-religious cast like this one seems to be.  I tried to ignore it, and when Shantel predominately cites her “reverence for God”, as why she’ll win, I can’t ignore it any longer.  She’s not the first boot by any means, but I expect her out pre-merge.  

Naseer Muttalif (37, Sales Manager, Morgan Hill, CA): Poor Naseer.  The guy seems like an interesting character with a unique backstory, so I wanted to see him do well.  Sales is one of the few careers that I think CAN help one prepare for “Survivor” in some small way, so I hoped that Naseer might be able to parlay that into a long stay in the game.  Unfortunately, the rest of his bio does not do him any favors.  His pet peeves are “Laziness and people who don’t contribute to group efforts”, meaning unless he’s on a VERY cohesive and successful tribe early on, he’s going to rub some people the wrong way.  Then you have to add onto that his backstory, which is interesting.  He talks about coming up from being a vegetable farmer, and growing up without electricity in Sri Lanka.  Good stuff, but the dude comes across a bit arrogant, in the “I’m living the American Dream” kind of way.  Not saying he hasn’t earned it, but that kind of talk can get old fast, and if he keeps bringing it up, it won’t do him any favors.  It’s possible he can be more sociable thanks to his sales training, and if his tribe is successful early on, he might make the merge.  There, though, he becomes a threat, so I see him making it no farther than an early-merge boot of this season, unfortunately.  

Genie Chen (46, Grocery Clerk, Portland, OR): Ack!  Pain!  PAIN!  This hurts.  So much.  God Damn, I love Genie already.  An older lady who likes video games.  An older lady not afraid to get out and hustle.  Her pet peeves revolve around proper mask wearing, you guys!  If you don’t love Genie at least a little, then I don’t know what happened to you.  But love, unfortunately, does not win the game of “Survivor”, and much like Evvie, the very things that make me like her are the things that make her a likely early boot on the show.  She’s older and not as athletic; always an issue in the early game.  She stands out from the other contestants, which again, good tv, bad for game.  Unless she’s on an exceptionally winning tribe, she’s going to be an early target and our screens will be the worse for it.  I hope that I’m wrong.  I hope she becomes the next Lauren Rimmer (“Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers”), and shows us heretofore unexpected social prowess that allows her to get deep and dominate the game!  More likely, however, she’s yet another pre-merge boot.  

Xander Hastings (21, App Developer, Chicago, IL): I swear this bio must be wrong.  It may say he’s 21, but the guy gives off more of a “20 year old” vibe than any of the ACTUAL 20 year olds!  A dude-bro to the end, the dude focusses on athletics above all else.  Hell, his idols in the game are predominately Jay (“Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”), but also Joe (“Survivor Worlds Apart”), and Devon (“Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers”).  Maybe it’s just my disdain for the dude-bro archetype (a large contributing factor in why I disagree with those who say Reynold from “Survivor Caramoan” should play again), but I REALLY don’t like this guy, and I get the sense that others won’t as well.  I would not put any of the above players into the “stellar player” category, but Xander is DEFINITELY beneath them.  Those guys had a certain charm, and at least a MODICUM on intelligence to help them get by.  I get none of that from Xander, and thus, he is yet another pre-merge boot.  Plus, on top off all that stuff, his pet peeves are “Laziness and cockiness”, two things that are clearly NEVER seen on this show (please note the sarcasm)!

Sara Wilson (24, Healthcare Consultant, Boston MA): Well, there’s one of these in every cast assessment.  One person who I just can’t get a good read on.  Nothing.  This woman gives me nothing.  Her pet peeves are pretty typical (loud chewing, crude humor, etc.), with only uncleanliness standing out at all, and even then only in a minor way.  Admires Kim Spradlin of “Survivor One World”, which is always a plus, though I’m not sure Sara has the life experience to pull it off.  And that’s it.  that’s all I’ve got for her.  She’s inoffensive, but doesn’t make a big splash on the tv screen.  That said, being quiet can be an advantage, and again, like with Sydney, if you’ve got nothing holding you back, I’m inclined to think you’ll do well.  We may not see much of Sara, but she’ll be there a while.  Probably out somewhere in the mid-merge area, as a blindside vote to avoid an idol.  

David Voce (35, Neurosurgeon, Chicago, IL): Once again, bad flashbacks based on an element of the bio.  This time, I see “Neurosurgeon”, and I jump to Sean Kenniff of “Survivor Borneo”.  Terrible at strategy, but hey, fun to watch.  Sadly, while David definitely has a leg up on Sean in terms of strategy, I’d say charm is severely lacking.  Similar to Xander, his pet peeves are “incompetence, laziness, and a lack of self-awareness”.  Can pretty much guarantee at least 2/3 of those on any given tribe on any given season.  Dude’s smart, which can help, but admits to a “confident exterior”, which can lead to arrogance, which again, get’s old fast.  His nail in the coffin is that he’s yet another person who thinks it’s a good idea to emulate Russell Hantz (“Survivor Samoa”).  To be fair, he DOES acknowledge the flaws in Russell’s game, and names several other players he feels he embodies, but it’s a resume stain that’s REALLY hard to rub away.  He’s lucky in that there’s a couple of other players we’ve talked about so far (Xander in particular), who have some similar issues that he does, and in a greater capacity in my assessment, which may make him seem more reasonable and even-keeled by comparison.  The thought won’t go away in others, however, particularly if David doesn’t end up on a tribe with someone else as confident as him  He’s probably smart enough to slip by pre-merge, but once all the other people who annoy the rest of the cast are gone, he’s on the chopping block.  Assuming another oversized merge, he’s probably the easy consensus boot for annoying everyone else, and goes then.  

Deshawn Radden (26, Medical Student, Miami, FL): I’ve been kind of hard on the guys lately, haven’t I?  Thankfully, Deshawn gives me a well-deserved break from that!  The dude starts out a bit weak in his bio, to be fair.  Pet peeve is being told what to do, which is bound to come up.  Apart from that, however, the man is solid.  Another athlete who is not obviously athletic, and a charmer with a great smile.  Obviously a thinker, but not leaning into the “nerd” archetype so much, which makes for a nice change.  Yeah, a lot of other people have said similar things, and I gave them flak for it, but I’m charmed by the guy even just looking at his picture.  If, in the game, he has even a fraction of that charm, he’ll go far.  The pet peeve is enough to keep him out of a possible winner’s slot for me, and if he does get into an argument with the wrong person, he could go early, but I’d expect his charm to carry him for a while.  Probably mid-to-late merge area, if I were to put a relative number on it.  

Tiffany Seely (47, Teacher, Plainview, NY): Another case where I REALLY wish we had tribe divisions.  Tiffany is our “Mom” of the season, an archetype with an overall bad track record outside of Tina Wesson (“Survivor The Australian Outback”).  Granted, this season has a fair share of “older players”, but it still skews young, and the general trend on “Survivor” is that the young people either vote out the “Mom” early, or let her get to the end and then are upset that she voted them out.  Tiffany really needs to be on a tribe with a couple other older people, both for camouflage and to prevent being cast too fully as the “Mom”.  Not helped are her choices of whom to emulate on the season.  I’m always a fan when people name a contestant of a different gender whom they’re like, but Ozzy (“Survivor Cook Islands”) and Colby (“Survivor The Australian Outback”) are not the type of games that do well these days.  Unless she gets lucky with the tribe draw, expect Tiffany to be a pre-merge boot.  

Eric Abraham (51, Cyber Security Analyst, San Antonio, TX): Eric falls into the rare “Dad” archetype, in my assessment.  This makes him tough to analyze, as there’s not really anyone else who falls into the “Dad” role so easily and obviously as Eric does.  I thought they might focus on his cyber-security job; come across as really analytical and the like  But Eric seems to see himself more as a father and family man than anything.  This can be good and comforting, and while a benefit, I don’t see him winning “Survivor” with that strategy.  It falls into a similar pitfall as the “Mom” archetype, with any betrayal seeming personal.  Plus, anyone with an Oedipus complex is going to want Eric out.  While it’s hard to psychoanalyze people based off a short interview, however, I don’t see anyone going quite that far, and thus, I don’t see Eric being an early target.  Yes, he is old.  In fact, he’s the second-oldest person playing this season.  But you wouldn’t know it from looking at him, so unless he’s the reason his tribe loses an early challenge, I expect Eric’s fatherly demeanor to keep him around a while.  Probably a mid-merge boot, maybe a bit earlier if someone really wants to go full Oedipus.  

Heather Aldret (52, Stay-at-Home Mom, Charleston SC): Well, I spoke too soon.  Meet the ACTUAL mom archetype of the season, as well as the oldest person playing.  Sadly for Heather, I don’t think she has even Tiffany’s ability to blend in.  Older, not obviously athletic, an archetype with a tendency to go out early?  Yeah, she may pay lip service to her skills at observation, and make reasonable player comparisons for herself, but unless she surprises me with evidence to back it up, I don’t see her lasting very long.  Even if she ends up on a tribe with other “older” players, she’s from a different lifestyle than most of the other players this season.  Nothing wrong with that, but it makes it difficult for her to fit in, and thus tanks her chances in the game.  We end on the downer note of one final pre-merge boot.  

Man, that was refreshing!  I may not be able to discuss tribe dynamics here but I can still discuss the cast.  I’ve gotta say, I think it’s a pretty good one.  In the COVID-19 Hiatus, amongst other things, CBS promised more diversity in casting, with at least 50% of each cast being BIPOC, a decision I’m all for, and I think this cast alone shows the benefits of doing so!  For all my snark, this is overall an engaging, likable cast.  Most everyone brings at least some unique experience to the table that adds to the flavor of the whole season, and there’s no one I really dislike on sight (except for Xander, and I’ll leave myself open to the possibility that his bio brought out the worst in him, and he’ll actually be quite a likable guy on-screen).  Obviously, we don’t know how things could play out, but based on the VERY little information we’ve gotten, I’m optimistic about how this season will play out.  

Then, we should at least talk a bit about the one video CBS DID deign to give us: A 3-minute preview where Probst talks about things to come.  First off, I was glad to see that they’re not hiding the fact that the season is shortened due to COVID-19.  I have nothing against them shortening the season, recognizing its necessity, but was afraid they might try and pull the wool over our eyes.  Thankfully, they fully admit the abbreviated nature of the season, and as such, I default to what seems to be people’s general attitudes towards this change: “Nothing wrong with it, but I hope it doesn’t stay as a permanent fixture post-COVID”.  As a fan who does enjoy the challenges, I fear that if seasons stay abbreviated, those’ll be the first things to get the axe.  The game will still be the game we all enjoy, and faster or slower, it’s good to have it back.  If this is what it takes, it’s a more than fair price.  

Probst was also keen to tout simple play-along picture puzzles for younger viewers.  Unless they’re super-intrusive, and distract from the game, I don’t mind the inclusion.  The puzzles seemed a bit simplistic to me, but hey, they’re explicitly for kids, and engagement is a good thing.  One of the few things I actually liked about “Survivor Nicaragua” was the giving us a similarly-styled idol clue to try and figure out before the players.  Fun, engaging idea.  Just don’t let it get in the way of what we came to see.  

The announcement I have the most opinions on, though, is the “asides”.  Probst has said he and production plan to let fans watching know about twists thrown in the game before they happen.  I’ll have to wait and see how they’re implemented before giving a final judgement, but I’m not a fan of this idea at the outset.  Don’t misunderstand, I get why they plan to do it.  It’s more engagement, like with the puzzles, though this time more for the older fans watching.  But for me, I feel like we superfans already did that.  Whenever some new twist or opportunity was in the game, we always backseat game.  Debated what we would have done in another player’s shoes.  But above all, knowing the twist before it happens ruins the surprise, and kind of kills the engagement in a way.  When we learn about a twist the same time as the players, we can play along with them.  React in the moment.  Probst, however, is talking about letting us know the twists early, before the players do.  This gives us more time to think, and actually removes us more from the players, rather than bringing us closer to them.  Plus, when the show is already struggling to fit everything it has into its short air time, extra narration is something we DO NOT NEED!  

That said, it’s usually cast, not production decisions, that make or break a season.  There are exceptions (see “Survivor Edge of Extinction”), but on the whole, you have a good cast, you have a good season.  For my money, it looks like “Survivor 41” has quite a good cast, so I look forward to writing with you all about them on a weekly basis come September 22nd!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.  

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Winners at War” Episode 9: Gotta Be Like Ice

I guess, if we have no one to praise for correctly identifying last week’s quote, we can talk about the new tribe name, since I failed to do so. “Koru” is not a bad name, though a bit on the short side. We’re not doing as bad as back in the day, when it was NOTHING but four-letter names for a while, but this one does manage to not sound similar to any previous tribe name, at least. It does sound similar to the character of Tohru from “Jackie Chan Adventures”, but as I’m probably the only “Survivor” fan who has ever watched that show, it would only bother me.

Getting back from Tribal Council, it’s safe to say that people are not happy. Michele in particular is not happy, and in telling us that she is not happy, we see that the crowdedness of last episode has even spilled over into this one. Michele, you see, references a plot line we DID NOT SEE AT ALL IN THE PAST EPISODE. She talks about how mad she is when she said she was ok with Wendell going, yet was left out anyway. Um, did I miss something? Yeah, Michele talked about not liking Wendell when they first ended up on a tribe together, but the most recent narrative was how she had wasted a fire token on him, and how bonded they were. Where did this come from? Now, you might charitably say that Michele was simply playing that up to the players, to help make her anger come off as righteous indignation, as well as imply her free-agent status. This argument would make sense, were it not for the fact that she was saying this in confessional. You know, when ONLY talking to the camera? Unless she’s pulling a Danni Boatwright, why lie to the camera? And about this of all things?

Michele is not alone in being pissed, however. Nick, of course, is quite upset as well, telling us that there’s a storm brewing. I wouldn’t bring up this line specifically, were it not for a bit of meta it creates for me. You see, there happens to be a tornado advisory in my area, which a crawl started for as soon as Nick started talking about the storm coming. There’s no way that was coordinated, and it’s comedy gold! Sorry to all of you who didn’t have potentially life-threatening weather in your area. To add insult to injury, Nick tells us he was blindsided on his birthday, which I’m sure will in NO WAY come back to become a plot point later in the episode.

To contrast with the anger, we have Adam, who is naturally thrilled to have made it through Tribal Council. Unfortunately for Adam, this is an odd-numbered episode, meaning he has to look like an idiot. However, it seems Adam may be limited to just grammatical and pronunciation matters, as his first big error is misusing the word “literally”. Unless you’re having open-heart surgery, your heart is never “literally” beating out of your chest. That said, Adam does tell Michele of a bit of a good idea of his. I haven’t drawn much attention to it, but Adam has been searching the Tribal Council voting booth for an idol pretty much every time we see him vote, and as someone who’s advocated for that twist for a while, I can’t help but approve. Adam has turned up empty, but noticed a fleur-de-lis on Probst’s pedestal. Remembering that Denise’s idol was a fleur-de-lis, Adam thinks maybe it might be an idol. I think it might just be a recurring symbol, but hey, I’ve heard weirder theories on “Survivor”, and kudos to Adam for thinking outside the box. Adam does lose points for pronunciation, though. The “s” is silent in fleur-de-lis.

Speaking of thinking outside the box, we cut over to the Edge of Extinction. Joy. Yul returns with a tiny pizza… Er, I mean, yet another clue to a fire token earning opportunity. The clue tells the players to take a step back and remember history. Most everyone concludes that they must look in a place where they found fire tokens before, and hikes up the mountain. Why Natalie doesn’t immediately ditch everyone and run for the water well, since only she knows that it’s there, I can’t say. Natalie does have the bright idea of suggesting they split up at the top, so as to keep Yul and Wendell, who don’t know any place the group has been so far, from finding any tokens. Not that it does her much good, of course. It’s Danni and Parvati who have the brainwave to think back to “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, and look in a memorable hiding place there. Thus, they remember Aubry’s find in a hole in the rock, and so look there, finding a “50/50” advantage, basically a coin flip that either grants you immunity or doesn’t. They agree to sell it to Michele, since she has the most fire tokens, and they can also probably guess that she’s on the outs, and in need of something to keep her in the game. But who gets to receive said fire tokens? Parvati found the actual advantage, but Danni was right there, and was the one with the brainwave about finding the clue? The point is moot! Parvati states her intention to use the fire tokens to get food for everyone there, and even tells them about finding the advantage. Parvati, what happened? Don’t get me wrong, I’m enjoying seeing a different side of you, but this all feels like it really came out of nowhere! What happened to the Parvati of old?

As to this method of hiding it, you might think that I’d hate it. There are several reasons to, after all. Reusing an old hiding place, while clever for an anniversary season, just shows the weakness in staying in Fiji (fans of the show can remember where previous advantages were hidden, and look there). Plus, there was no guarantee that someone would remember this. No winner past “Survivor David vs. Goliath” is on this season, and “Survivor Edge of Extinction” itself is not exactly a memorable season. On top of that, while I get wanting to honor the show’s past, you should not honor “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, due to overall being pointless and, in my opinion, the worst season the show has ever had. If it fades into non-existence (with the exception of Aubry, Rick Devans, and Wendy) I will be content. So yeah, I should hate this. But I don’t. Why? Because Aubry got mentioned in a positive light on the 20th anniversary season of the show, and that’s a high even Edge of Extinction can’t bring me down from.

Continuing on the “tangentially related to Aubry” train, our reward challenge comes from her first season “Survivor Kaoh Rong”. Three members of a team of five must transport a net of heavy wooden fish to shore, hook them to a pole, and transport to a table, where the two remaining players must them put them in a table puzzle. Not a bad challenge at all, and certainly not overused. That said, my usual complaint about team challenges post-merge stands, especially when our sit-out doesn’t even get a chance at reward. What is our reward? Chinese take-out. Nothing special, but I suppose when you’re starving on an island, food is food.

On paper, this should be a lopsided competition. Our red team is Jeremy, Nick, Adam, Tony, and Tyson, while our blue team is Michele, Sophie, Kim, Sarah, and Ben. While these types of challenges usually come down to the puzzle, each time has one puzzle whiz, so you’d think the challenge would come down to strength, which it kind of does, since our early lead team does win. And you’d think the red team would have the edge there, having four challenge beasts compared to one. There’s almost no way they could lose. So, I have to ask: WHY IN GOD’S NAME DID YOU PUT ADAM ON THE STRENGTH PORTION OF THE CHALLENGE? HE’S FAR AND AWAY THE WEAKEST PERSON LEFT PHYSICALLY, AND ALL HIS STRENGTH LIES IN PUZZLES! Either Jeremy or Nick our two puzzle solvers, would have been WAY better served helping on this portion of the challenge.

Sure enough, red struggles, and blue wins reward. Before Probst can send them off, though, Sarah asks if she can give it up. Probst agrees, knowing the drama this can create, and Sarah gives the reward to Nick. It is his birthday after all…

Sorry, I had to check my phone there. Just got a news alert. It seems the city of Boston, MA, has exploded. Experts aren’t sure why, as the only clue is that the epicenter is the home of one Rodney Lavoie Jr., contestant on “Survivor Worlds Apart”. Bizarre.

Anyway, this might seem like a nice gesture, but this is Sarah Lacina we’re talking about here. The criminal of “Survivor Game Changers”. Literally the person most people wanted out pre-game. There’s no way it’s that simple. There must be some ulterior motive.

SARAH: I just wanted to do something nice and emotional. There was no gameplay involved.

Well ok, then. Apparently this is just the episode where all the ruthless women show their softer side. That said, just because there was no gameplay involved doesn’t mean people won’t believe there is. Adam points out how big of a threat this makes her. Jeremy reminds us that this is what got him eliminated on “Survivor San Juan del Sur”. Even TONY talks about how dumb of a move this was, and when TONY is the one telling your your move was stupid, you know you done goofed.

With that, though, I would like to point out how good a job Tony and Sarah are doing at keeping their relationship under wraps. On a season where any pre-existing pairs have been snuffed out as soon as they’re noted, it’s pretty impressive that they’ve managed to stay strong and avoid being targeted, by and large. Those times when they have been targeted, it’s for entirely different reasons. It shows the strategic chops these pair have. And the best part. The show doesn’t hit us over the head with this information, but instead trusts the viewer to pay attention, and lets it sink in without narration. More of this, please!

After a humanizing moment with our reward winners, we must get back to what Probst believes “Survivor” is all about: Idols and Advantages. Our feasters look high and low, even going so far as to bust open their fortune cookies to find a clue. No such luck, though I did appreciate the “look under the bottoms of the cartons” maneuver. With no idols or advantages there, we instead turn to Michele, who now has to decide whether or not to buy the “50/50” advantage. Ok, since we’re here, let’s talk about this advantage. Put simply, it’s dumb. The rules on it aren’t exceptionally clear. “Safe” means you effectively have immunity, but “Not Safe” is not well-explained. Is it like losing a challenge on “Island of the Idols” where you lose your vote? If so, then it’s a TERRIBLE advantage. Very expensive (four fire tokens!) for only a SHOT at payoff, and a big loss if you don’t. Even if it just does nothing, however, it’s still a bad deal. People have paid less for GUARANTEED safety. Even with Michele in this position, why go for this? Because a fortune cookie told her to. Look, Michele. I like you. Even as the head of the “Aubry Lobby”, I like you. You seem like a lot of fun to hang with, and you played a solid game last time. I may prefer Aubry, but no disrespect to you. You are a very worthy winner. That said, THIS IS A HORRIBLE DEAL, AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD FOR MAKING IT!

Our immunity challenge today comes courtesy of “Survivor Caramoan”. Basically, everyone has to balance on increasingly small parts of a triangular prism, with the last one standing being the victory. We sadly do not get the positive callback to Andrea and Brenda’s impromptu rule change, though we do get the positive of a few particularly wild players trying to keep their balance. Jeremy’s theatrics and Ben’s “kung-fu” moves in particular need to be praised. Also, I should say that I’m impressed with Ben. I thought he’d be out early, since this sort of challenge does not favor the top-heavy. Jeremy can attest to that. Second place is impressive, though. That said, this challenge does have a couple of bad points. Once again, a fire token is granted to the winner, and we again get rock music with lyrics of the challenge, rather than the more traditional music the show has. I expressed my disdain for these creative choices last episode, and am sad to see they don’t seem to be a one-off thing. However, since I already talked about my hatred for these choices recently, I’ll spare you the rant again, and thus cut to Kim winning immunity. A well-earned victory, but not an impactful one.

At first, the vote seems like it’s going to be simple and straightforward. Nick and Michele are on the outs? Split the vote between Nick and Michele, with Nick being the primary choice for being “untrustworthy”. Adam gets thrown out as the alternate split vote in place of Michele, but that gets dismissed very quickly. But then Nick, sensing that everything is going against him, decides to stir things up. He tells Tyson that his name is getting thrown out. It may be. After all, he is they guy back from the Edge of Extinction, and while I don’t expect most people to remember “Survivor Edge of Extinction”, the fact that the winner came from there is something I would hope they remember, and take to heart when deciding how to treat returnees from the Edge of Extinction. Thus, it wouldn’t surprise me if Tyson had been thrown out as a possible boot, but we haven’t heard about it. This gets Tyson to toss Sarah’s name out, who tosses Adam out again, who tosses out Ben’s name, and then all hell breaks loose. Names being thrown around left and right. Tyson even gets his name thrown out for really real this time. It’s pretty much pure chaos as we head to Tribal Council, meaning my usual “This is who’s being decided between; here’s the right move for the swing votes” format goes out the window.

What I can talk about, however, is one little moment that nearly escaped being seen. You see, for the most part the people we see talking are the groups you’d expect. Jeremy, Tony, and Tyson. Sarah and Sophie. Ben and Adam even get together and do their “odd-couple schtick”, where Ben tries to call Adam on throwing out his name, which Adam does a poor job of denying. But one that almost escapes notice is Kim and Denise. We’d seen them talk on the second iteration of Dakal, but nothing much concrete. Here, however, when everyone else is panicking, they stay calm and debate the pros and cons of going for Sarah (Kim says she’s ok, and we immediately cut to her saying to Ben that Sarah can’t go. This to me says they’re playing smarter than most everyone left. My favorite player still in the game, and the most dominant winner ever teaming up? I love it.

With so much misdirection (though given their airtime earlier in the episode, Adam and Sarah seem to be the main people set up for elimination), all Tribal Council really needs to do is keep the chaos going. That it does, with all pretense thrown out the window, and Tribal Council turns into a whisper-fest, though somewhat more justified than other examples. The producers did nothing to elicit this. This is just everyone being crazy. It’s only Adam and Ben arguing about how they talk to each other once again that gets everyone to pay attention. We’re reminded here that Adam is his own worst enemy. While I don’t doubt that he was targeted before Tribal Council, when he kept being paranoid about straight answers, and continuing to make it an issue when he could just let it die, he really did himself no favors. As such, it’s not a surprise when Adam gets the votes, but the rest of the episode was enough of a mystery, and the reasoning behind his leaving clear, that one can’t help but be satisfied. Adam clearly demonstrated, through his paranoia at Tribal Council, that he had crossed the “Shamar Threshold”, first seen on “Survivor Caramoan”. His chaotic paranoia now made him more a hinderance than a help as an ally.

Did that paranoia pay off, though? Did Adam correctly pick out an at-Tribal Council Immunity Idol? It would seem not, as Adam is unable to wrest it from the podium. Probst takes pity and lets him declare it an idol for himself anyway, before revealing that it is, in fact, just set decoration. To everyone’s credit, apart from a bit of mockery at Adam’s attempts to pull off the fleur-de-lis, no one really thinks it a bad idea. It’s plausible, and as Adam says, worth a try. Even Probst is respectful when snuffing Adam’s torch.

In case it wasn’t obvious, this episode is head and shoulders an improvement over the previous one. There was still some crowding, but we got good emotional moments, three-dimensional characters, even some solid misdirection in there. I still think this season is trying to do too much, but it did that much better this episode than the previous one.

So now, as we await your next episode, I await your next guess. Which US contestant said this quote, and on what season? Adding in episode number is not necessary, but earns your brownie points if you get it! First person to get it correct gets their name at the top of the next blog!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Edge of Extinction” Cast Assessment

Greetings and salutations, loyal readers! Welcome back to “Idol Speculation” my knee-jerk opinion that everyone is entitled to! As you might expect from the re-emergence of this blog, the case for “Survivor Edge of Extinction” has been announced! Is this a cast that will bring us to the edge our seats, or the edge of our tolerance? Let’s find out!

Before we begin, though, a quick note. There’s not a lot to say pre-thoughts this time, since there’s no themed division of the tribes, and I’ll be saving my overall thoughts on the theme for the end of the blog. However, my now recurring point about going off of very little information (due to no full videos apart from a generic season preview on the CBS website) aside, yes, I am aware that there are returnees on this season, but I won’t be talking about them with their tribes, instead mentioning them at the end. My reasons why will become clear momentarily.

Manu Tribe (Man, will it be easy to get them confused with the Mana Tribe from “Survivor Game Changers”)

Dan “The Wardog” DaSilva (38, Law Student/Former Military, Los Angeles, CA): Despite not being one of the people featured in the season preview at the end of “Survivor David vs. Goliath”, Dan is clearly one of the stand-out contestants of this season. He’s a big, brash military type with a distinctive silhouette and strong opinions. Makes for fun tv. The trouble is that Dan doesn’t just stand out to the audience. He stands out to his fellow contestants. And as you should know by now: STANDING OUT EARLY ON DOES NOT BODE WELL ON “SURVIVOR”! It doesn’t help his case that Dan joins a long list of people whose pet peeves seem to directly clash with the show they’ve been placed on. Dan specifically lists weak people and complainers as his two biggest pet peeves. Two types of people that I’m sure have NEVER appeared on this show before. The tried and tested voting strategy of eliminating the brash one still holds up even 38 seasons in, and I see no reason that Dan will not follow this trend. Given his physical strength, I doubt he’ll be the very first boot, and probably survive his initial tribe just fine. As soon as a swap happens, though, Dan will be too much to bear, so expect him out right then. He’ll definitely be a fun watch, just one of those great pre-merge boots in the vein of Brian Corridan (“Survivor Guatemala”), though purely from an entertainment perspective, not a gameplay perspective.

Reem Daly (46, Sales, Ashburn, VA): This is overall a very verbose cast, at least in terms of their biographies, so having Reem be so succinct is refreshing from the start. Reem’s your typical mother type, but seems to have more smarts (she lists chess as a hobby) than one would expect from her. Not as big a splash character-wise, but not the sort of person we see as often on the show, and if she plays it right, could be the next Lauren Rimmer (“Survivor Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers”). Sadly, I don’t think Reem is going to get much of a chance to show us her stuff. Reed just does not seem like the type to me to fight tooth and nail should she need to. And she’ll need to do that, as this character type is usually an early target, due to being an easy, not-as-strong-in-challenges vote. As such, Reem will be a pre-merge boot, and I will be sad for an episode, and then move on.

Rick Devans (33, Morning News Anchor, Macon, GA): Must resist “The Walking Dead” jokes… Must resist “The Walking Dead” jokes… Ok, ok, for all my snark, I actually give Rick good odds in this game. Not to say I think he’ll win, but he’s got a long shelf-life. One qualification all news anchors need is to be personable and inoffensive to the people at home. In some cases that’s a put-on, but that’s not the vibe I get from Rick. He seems to be a fun, easygoing, slightly goofy guy, which usually portends a long life in the game, assuming there’s no major reason to eliminate you, i.e. challenge ability. While Rick is no Adonis, he doesn’t seem to be much of a slouch either, so expect him to be out when his charm can no longer carry him far. Probably making the final episode, but being an early boot on said episode. I’ll give him credit that I find his character intriguing, which is more than I can say for some of this case. While Rick has some similarities to previous contestants, his brand of charm seems like nothing else before it, and I say we’ll enjoy watching it play out.

Wendy Diaz (25, Small Business Owner, Bell, CA): Wendy is a bit of a wild card for me. She’s either going really deep in this game, or she’ll be out incredibly early. Most would say her inclusion in the pre-season preview, along with Rick, would bode well for her. To those people, I would point out that Mari Takahashi was featured in the preview for “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X.”, and look at the good that did her. That being said, I still ere on the side of her doing well on this season. Wendy is clearly a smart cookie, but apart from a cutting wit, you wouldn’t know it from her. Wendy’s big obstacle is going to be her need to take charge. Leading a business at such a young age, I’m sure she’s used to being in charge all the time. If she can lead subtly and diplomatically, as I suspect she can, she’ll do well. If she needs to take charge no matter what, that probably spells her doom, as that’s even LESS tolerated on “Survivor” than it is in the real world. Wendy’s another one who also has risky pet peeves, listing off people who don’t carry their weight and quitters. Again, two types of people I’m sure have NEVER appeared on this show before. I’m probably painting too negative a picture of her here, though, as like I say, Wendy’s a smart cookie. She’s probably out in the mid-to-late merge area, and with that cutting wit, we’ll be enjoying her all the way. Plus, she wants to bring a beloved stuffed animal to the island. I just love that.

Lauren O’Connell (21, Student, Waco, TX): You will note that CBS just had to cast someone who compared herself to Kelley Wentworth (“Survivor San Juan del Sur”) on the season that featured the return of Kelley Wentworth. And, you know, put her on the same tribe as Kelley Wentworth as well, just for shits and giggles. Actually, it’s a good thing Lauren has this distinction, as otherwise she doesn’t stand out in any way. She’s nice, inoffensive, good looking. Someone who makes for a good alliance member, but will neither be a leader nor a big character on this season. Lauren is just there, filling a spot, waiting for her time to come. Given the caliber of player this season, I suspect that time will be the early merge. There’s no reason to get rid of her before then, but with how big the merges are these days, she could be an easy consensus boot who is unlikely to have an idol used on her. Thus, gone.

Keith Sowell (19, Pre-Med Student, Durham, NC): While maybe not as over-the-top as Davie Rickenbacker (“Survivor David vs. Goliath”), Keith does remind me of Davie. They’re both just nice, instantly likable people with a bit of nerd flare to them. The kind of person who won’t necessarily be the center of attention, but will be charming and cut a good confessional, this is just the sort of person I can get behind. However, I don’t give Keith quite as good odds as I gave Davie, despite my liking of him. Davie made it clear that he knew his charm was a weapon, and intended to use it. Keith just seems nice for the sake of being nice. That’ll get you far, even on “Survivor”, but to really succeed on the show, you’ve got to temper that with a killer instinct. I don’t know if it’s his relative youth or his personality, but Keith just doesn’t strike me as having that killer instinct. It’ll definitely take him to the mid-to-late merge area, but I don’t see it carrying him father than that.

Chris Underwood (25, District Sales Manager, Greenville, SC): While not ALL of his pet peeves fall under the category of “doom” this time around, as I doubt many political Facebook posts will abound on “Survivor”, Chris is yet another of our “dooming pet peeves” group. You see, in addition to said Facebook posts, Chris is also not a fan of laziness, and people who can’t back up what they say. GEE, I’VE NEVER HEARD OF PEOPLE LIKE THAT ON “SURVIVOR” BEFORE! All that said, Chris seems fairly laid-back, so I don’t think his pet peeves will actually be Chris’ undoing. No, rather his personality will be Chris’ undoing. Don’t misunderstand me: the dude seems likable and easygoing, with enough athleticism to make him worth keeping around. Now, if only he were here to play the game! Chris strikes me as kind of the “surfer dude” archetype, and unless that’s backed up with a LOT of brains, it usually doesn’t serve one well on “Survivor”. Chris is no moron, but he’s no brain trust either, and so I expect him out where nearly all young, athletic males leave: the early merge.

Kama Tribe

Victoria Baamonde (23, Waitress, Bronx, NY): At first glance, Victoria would seem to fall into the same category as the previously mentioned Lauren: another bland beauty who’s there for, well, her beauty and nothing else. Reading into her biography, however, Victoria’s got a lot going on beneath the surface. For one thing, amongst her pet peeves, she lists her Guinea Pig. Now, this would at first glance merely make her seem like a horrible pet owner, until you learn that her pet is actually named “Peeve”. That’s just the sort of pun I can get behind. Further, she is the rare breed of contestant to compare herself to a previous contestant of the opposite gender, going for Malcolm Freberg (“Survivor Philippines”). Not the most apt comparison in my opinion (she strikes me as a less flirty Brenda Lowe from “Survivor Nicaragua”), but I admire her willingness to think outside the box on this one. She also was valedictorian of her high school. A worthy achievement, although I do have to express my concerns about her claiming she lets everyone know this. Such braggartry can quickly become annoying on “Survivor”. Still, I’ll be watching her career with great interest. Assuming she tempers the need to brag about her GPA, I suspect she’ll do pretty well, lasting to the early-to-mid merge portion of the game, and giving us a lot of insightful commentary along the way.

Ron Clark (46, Teacher at the Ron Clark Academy, Atlanta GA): You’ll notice that I didn’t just list Ron’s occupation as “Teacher”. That’s intentional. Short of naming your children after yourself, naming your school after yourself is about the height of ego. Now, you might be thinking that Ron doesn’t have an ego, just a lot of money. To this, I refer you to him referencing HIMSELF as a sore loser, even at a simple game of “Monopoly”. Yeah, have fun on “Survivor”, guy. Every vibe I get from him is that he’s just irritating and full on himself. Add onto that him being an older player on a season that skews VERY young, along with having no obvious challenge ability (unless they suddenly combine “Survivor” with “The Price is Right” again), and you’ve got a recipe for first boot. Sad to say, but there’s just nothing about Ron to recommend him, and thus his fate is sealed.

Julia Carter (24, Medical Assistant, Bethesda, MD): As a Maryland native, let me state for the record that Bethesda DOES NOT COUNT AS MARYLAND! It’s basically just a colony of DC. With that out of the way, let’s talk about Julia as a person. If ever there was a master of the “humble brag”, Julia would be it. She has a lot of accomplishments in her relatively short life so far, and she’ll certainly mention them, but this does not mean that she’s irritating about them. She won’t be the biggest character out there, but this skill should certainly serve her well on “Survivor”. Should she get to the end of the game, should could pull out a win with a fantastic Final Tribal Council performance. She’s a dark horse to make it there, but has at least a shot at it. With a decent bit of athleticism, I see Julia securing a position as a lieutenant in the dominant alliance, and thus will probably be out in the mid-to-late merge area, though again, with enough guile, I could see her scraping a win on this one.

Eric Hafemann (34, Firefighter, Livermore, CA): I’ll admit, I had to read through the bios a couple of times to differentiate between Eric and the aforementioned Chris. Similar in silhouette and role on their respective tribes, the two do at least differentiate on personality. Both are fairly laid-back, bur Eric seems to be a bit more in the game. I don’t think he’s got the smarts to win the game, but at least he’s putting forth the effort. Eric’s game will be more intentional, but I don’t think he can overcome the stigma of the athletic male, and will thus be another early merge boot. Plus, Eric is another one with “pet peeve downside”. Sure, Eric. Hate on people who take themselves too seriously. On “Survivor”. See how far that gets you. Again, as a character, he doesn’t stand out much, but is at least inoffensive.

Aurora McCreary (32, Divorce Lawyer, Orlando, FL): Hoo boy. I’ve been complaining a lot about the pet peeves of this new group of contestants, but Aurora may be the worst of the bunch. Not to say that all of her pet peeves are likely to be on the show, but that’s mostly due to the sheer NUMBER of pet peeves she has. Let’s list them, shall we? “Know-It-Alls, ignorance, playing the ‘victim card’, any noise coming from the mouth, the easily offended, slow walkers, and people who are homophobic.” Apart from maybe those last two, Aurora can easily expect to encounter these things on the island. Add onto that the number of pet peeves listed, and the whole thing screams to me “high maintenance”, which is not a good look on “Survivor”. Don’t get me wrong: she’ll make for great drama, but she’s another pre-merge boot if I ever saw one. Will probably go out with some fireworks, but go out early nonetheless.

Julie Rosenberg (46, Toymaker, New York, NY): Julie is an intellectual with a fun-loving side. In other words, the sort of character I adore. Julie won’t be forgotten on this season, but that doesn’t necessarily bode well for her time in the game. As an older lady with a lot of ideas, I expect her to be domineering, which usually doesn’t bode well, again, particularly as this season skews young. That said, I get the sense that if anyone can overcome this obstacle, it’s Julie. She strikes me as being self-aware enough to back off and tone it down when she sees this isn’t working. But sadly, these aren’t Julie’s only obstacles. While no weakling, she doesn’t strike me as being very good in challenges, and so despite my best wishes, I suspect Julie will be a pre-merge boot. Probably a late pre-merge boot, and if she can really utilize that wit she might just make it deep, but most likely a pre-merge boot nonetheless.

Gavin Whitson (23, YMCA Programming Director, Erwin, TN): The thing that strikes me the most about Gavin is his tattoo. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a fun character as well, but that tattoo has stuck with me more than a good chunk of this cast. It’s so colorful, which admittedly probably means it’s a recent acquisition, but it’s also got a fun design. Ok, ok, on to Gavin as a character. Gavin often gets compared to a kid, or at least so he says in his bio, and I can understand why. Apart from his looks, this guy has a lot of “juvenile” interests. That said, as someone else with “juvenile” interests, I can relate. With his hidden intelligence, I think Gavin has a decent shot in this game. Where I think he might falter is in his need to not been seen as a kid. He can probably hold it in for a while, but I think eventually he’ll see that he’s not seen as a force in the game, despite probably being a power player in an alliance. Thus, he will do something drastic to get himself noticed. It will work, and he will promptly be voted off for it, since on “Survivor”, you don’t want to noticed quite that much. Still, Gavin will make for a fun ride, until he goes out in the mid-merge area.

Now onto our returnees. Since we’ve got people with multiple appearances and long season names, I’ll be forgoing most of the usual biography information, instead just listing their names, current tribes and previous seasons, in ascending order of first appearance. Thus we start with:

Kelley Wentworth (Manu Tribe, “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, “Survivor Cambodia”): Breaking the trend of everyone on “Survivor” named Kelly being, as I once put it “As bland as beige wallpaper” (perhaps the extra “e” gives her her power?), Kelley is certainly not one to be ignored. Look no further, where she lists her proudest accomplishment as “‘Wentworth, does not count’ X9”. ON a more subtle note, she also lists amongst her pet peeves people who are “basically badasses”. But lest you think Kelley’s sense of humor excludes herself, allow me to again quote her, this time on the player she is most similar to: “Kelley Wentworth from ‘Survivor Cambodia’, and I think she was also on ‘Survivor San Juan del Sur’?” In case it wasn’t clear, I am THRILLED to have Kelley back. Anyone who can bring that much humor is ok in my book. Plus, as we saw on the aforementioned “Survivor Cambodia”, Kelley brings decent strategy to the game as well. Given the crop of newbies she’s up against, I expect Kelley to do quite well. She’s well above their league, and will play circles around them. That said, Kelley is just shy of being my female winner pick for the season. Why? Well, Kelley has the downside of being the most memorable of our returnees, despite being tied for the longest gap between her last season and now. Kelley just made too big of a splash last time, and everyone’s been clamoring to have her back. Amongst the community, her name is on everyone’s lips, and while this is hardly a season of superfans, I expect that to spill over nonetheless. Kelley will have a good run initially, but falter in the mid-to-late merge area, just due to the size of her target.

Joe Anglim (Kama Tribe, “Survivor Worlds Apart”, “Survivor Cambodia”): Ah yes, for all the complaints about the addition of returnees on this season, I will give credit that for the most part, CBS picked people who would be interesting to bring back. Joe is the one exception to this rule. Now, don’t misunderstand me, I quite like Joey Amazing. Who couldn’t like Joey Amazing? He’s too nice to dislike. But unfortunately while every other returnee has the potential to bring a new dynamic to their season, Joe gives no indication that he’ll bring anything other than what he’s brought to previous seasons. Joe is Joe: A likable challenge beast who just can’t conceal his threat level or form a solid meat shield strategy well enough. There’s nothing offensive about him, but we’ve seen this before, but it’s getting old. So, what would make his strategy a winner this time, when it wasn’t the two times beforehand? Edge of Extinction. You see, Joe can now just sit around, wait, be nice to people, and win challenges to get himself to the end, having offended no one. Yes, Joe is my male pick to win the whole shebang. Much as I try to keep an open mind about this twist, I can’t help but feel that it’s an ideal set-up for Joe to win. Hence, I say Joe will win. As a side note, Joe is also the only returnee to list someone different as the player he is most like, going for Kim Spradlin (“Survivor One World”). Oh Joe. Joe, Joe, Joe. Kim Spradlin you ain’t. If it’s any consolation, you’re most Joe Anglim-esque player I know.

Aubry Bracco (Kama Tribe, “Survivor Kaoh Rong”, “Survivor Game Changers”): Do you even have to ask whether I’m excited to see Aubry back or not? As the head of the Aubry Lobby (trademark), I should hope not! That said, how do I think she’ll do this time? By process of elimination you should already know, but just in case, let me spell it out: She’s my female winner pick. My first ever two-time winner pick, in fact. It’s almost hilarious how opposite this is to the perception of Aubry coming into “Survivor Game Changers”. There she was considered a major threat, on par with the previous winners, and thus given no real chance to play the game. Thus, she got very little edit, and that plus a longer gap between the end of her last season and the beginning of this one puts Aubry in the ideal position to do well again. Granted, another season or two in between wouldn’t hurt, but it’s still a decent gap for Aubry. Add onto that a group of not-really superfans, and Aubry is poised to work her magic and take it all. Plus, again, the twist favors determination, and if there’s one thing Aubry has, it’s determination.

David Wright (Manu Tribe, “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X.”): David, in many ways is the opposite of Joe. I’m happy to see him back, but sadly he’s the one returnee I don’t see making the merge. David may not be the most talked about contestant these days, especially given the gap between his original season and now, but he’s hardly forgotten. This could be resolved with a bit of challenge ability, but sadly, David still does not have that. Being a long-term threat with no benefit in the short-term, David will be a pre-merge boot, which is a real shame, since I do like his self-deprecating humor. While he lists himself as the contestant he’s most like, he refers to himself needing a hug. David’s time will be short, but humorous. Sorry David, but you’re the sacrificial lamb of the returnees.

And there you have it! Before I talk about the cast overall, let me talk briefly about the “Edge of Extinction” twist. As I stated at the end of last season, I was skeptical of the idea, being similar to the “Redemption Island” twist on steroids, but was willing to give it a shot. With little new information about the twist coming with the cast release, my position is largely unchanged, though I will say what little new information we did get is not encouraging. Chiefly, it seems contestants will not be informed of the twist prior to the season starting. This is so that we can get reaction shots of people finding out post-Tribal Council, and to make it more likely that fewer will take the twist, being unknown and all. From a dramatic standpoint, I get this, as it does make for more dramatic post-vote-out moments, and definitely helps keep the drama of the vote-out itself, but just feels unfair. I know “Survivor” is not a game of perfect information, but it feels like this could screw up someone’s strategy through no fault of their own, and is just a wrinkle for wrinkle’s sake. Probst claims the idea is to see “how far people will go” to stay in the game, but he gives no evidence for how this new island will be any tougher than the regular island the show is shot on. This leads me to believe that it will be no different, and this is just a marketing gimmick. This is a shame, as seeing how far people would go in terms of deprivation IS an interesting psychological question. I just don’t think it will be answered here. If I’m looking for positives, I’m glad we don’t have a theme of the tribes this time on top off the “Edge of Extinction”, and it’s refreshing to see an 18-person season with only two tribes. The last time that happened was “Survivor South Pacific”, 15 seasons ago. Even I’ll admit, though, that’s stretching for positives.

Speaking of things negative, let’s talk about this cast overall. I’m not a fan. Now, I’m not saying these people are annoying or irritating. They all seem like perfectly nice, likable people, with a few exceptions. The problem here is that, despite making up the majority of the cast, these people seem to have the downside of the “Fans” on a “Fans vs. Favorites” season. Namely, they might be good players in their own right, but they just don’t stand out. They’re nice to have, but we want to see the returnees. We think they’re nice, but we click through their bios quickly to get to the people we already care about. For a new player to stand out on such a season, they have to be REALLY over-the-top. You’ll note that Natalie Bolton and Erik Reichenbach (both “Survivor Micronesia”) are the only fans really seriously talked about these days, and that, again, for how over-the-top they were. These newbies are all right, but no one really stands out as over-the-top. That said, I’m not sure eliminating the returnees here is the answer. It might make a couple of the interesting players (Victoria, Rick), stand out a little more, but without the draw of the returnees, I just see no hype for this cast. Damned if they do, damned if they don’t, basically. Not the most auspicious of previews, but I’ve been wrong before. We’ll see how things stack up in just under three weeks with the premiere of “Survivor Edge of Extinction”!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor HvHvH” Episode 2: More Than Skin Deep

It is inevitable that when a new season of “Survivor” comes around, new players will be basically identified as the same as old players, and assumptions made about their games according. Everyone does it, and I’m including myself in that statement. However, I also like to think that I’m a bit more circumspect, noticing fine details rather than just immediately categorizing these people as one and the same. Recall that on “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”, Hannah Shapiro was repeatedly compared to Aubry Bracco (“Survivor Kaoh Rong”). Certainly the pair had their similarities, but they also had distinctions, and I tried to point these out wherever they happen.

Such is the case with today’s case study, Joe Mena. The man immediately labeled “The New Tony Vlachos” (“Survivor Cagayan”). Again, I had to acknowledge certain similarities. Both were short, heavily tattooed bald men who are law-enforcement adjacent. For me, though, this is where the similarities ended. This episode, however, proves otherwise. Both have a “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” approach to the game, both feel the need to hectically run everywhere, and both have an affinity for idols. Sorry Joe, but you have officially become a repeat character.

Getting into our episode proper, we start off with things being fairly calm at the Heroes camp, as one would expect after a 5-1 vote. Chrissy takes this time to confirm the fan theory that part of the reason she saved her idol was to use it as a fake later on. I can see the logic in that, and given what’s come out about how she and Katrina were not close at all, I can more understand Chrissy’s move. Still, I have to point out that I think people overestimate the benefit of the fake idol. Sure, it was a major factor in Bob Crowley’s win on “Survivor Gabon”, but in a day and age where splitting the vote is common, suspicion of an idol does little to help you in the long run.

Alan also takes this time to try and convince us that his plan to throw suspicion onto the pairing of Ashley and JP was a success. And, I must concede, Alan DID do a good job of spreading suspicion. The only problem is Alan’s aim, as the suspicion was primarily spread ON HIMSELF! Case in point, Ben is now coming around to the Ashley and JP realm of thinking, stating that Alan is a loose cannon. NO! Really?

Back from our commercial break, we find that “Survivor” has gotten a premature cancellation, and has instead been replaced with a revival of “Baywatch”. Oh, wait, that’s just Devon running down the beach shirtless, my bad. Despite what the carefreeness of Devon might indicate, the Hustlers are hard at work. They’re getting firewood. They’re catching fish. They’re sitting on a bench swatting at bugs and complaining about the outdoors.

Oh, wait, that’s Simone, being established early as the odd one out of this tribe. Most of the rest are hard workers, while Simone is having some difficulty. To drive this point home, she praises herself for being brave enough to go poop in the ocean. Now, “Survivor” is certainly a scary game to play, and there’s a LOT that I’m willing to forgive being scared of. But just going out into the ocean and doing your business? This isn’t the Amazon river, with spiky fish that will swim up your penis. Even if it was, Simone doesn’t HAVE a penis! Much like with Cirie’s “Afraid of leaves” comment on “Survivor Exile Island”, it’s a bridge too far for me.

But Simone can’t just stop at being uncomfortable in the outdoors. No, she has to talk about how uncomfortable she is over and over and over and over again! Now, I get what she’s going for. Highlighting her triumphs and showing how much better she’s getting. It can be a way to endear oneself to the tribe, and build up a narrative that can win the game further down the line. But like with Alan spreading suspicion last episode, it needs to be done sparingly, and with subtlety. Pretty much every word out of Simone’s mouth is about how hard it is out here, but how she’s overcoming it. It gets old REALLY fast, and it’s little surprise that the tribe is sick of it.

We also takes some time to reaffirm old bonds, and create new ones. Devon and Ryan are still getting along very well, and while most of the tribe seems anti-Simone, Ali is making alliance overtures to her. I must admit, this is a weird reversal of how I thought the Hustlers tribe would shake out. While both Ali and Simone had indicated that outdoor living might be tough for them, I thought Simone would be the one to overcome and be the social center of things, while Ali would crumble and be insufferable, when in fact the reverse is true. I can’t fault Ali for at least making inquiries about a possible alliance, but I’m not sure it’s worth it overall. Simone seems to be on the outs with most everyone, and with yourself and Patrick together, Simone is an easy first vote. Send some early feelers out to Lauren, and then become a threesome once Simone is gone to split up Ryan and Devon.

Over with the Healers, we quickly get our promised showmance out of the way, as Jessica and Cole flirt on the raft. Apart from Cole making a quip about him possibly being too young for her, nothing much comes of it. Instead, let’s get to the second coming of Tony. In emulating the erratic play, Joe now seems to be ok with Dr. Mike, joking with him about how they’re on the Beauty tribe after Desi talks about her pageant history. Dr. Mike, in a move I’m not fond of, seems to take the comment to heart, talking about how he has nothing to contribute. Way to sell yourself when you might be on the outs, big guy. Joe admits that Dr. Mike is still his enemy, but I don’t see much evidence of it.

Joe, however, thinks the idol may still be out there, and so goes looking for it, smartly taking a stick with him to poke in dark places. Eventually, he barks up the right tree, since the clue is, well, on the bark of a tree. With the word “ocean” for orientation, it indicates that the idol is buried five feet away from a certain symbol. I have to say, I really like this method for hiding the clue. It gives things more of a “treasure hunt” vibe, and is pleasantly different from the usual couplets we get.

Joe jumps to the conclusion that the symbol is the tribe raft, which I can’t really fault him for. The symbol is a square with a hole in it, which pretty well describes their raft. Since Cole is just coming back in with the raft, Joe now jumps to the conclusion that COLE has the idol, and so asks him about it. Cole does not, but asks to see the clue, and points out that the symbol on the tree matches the symbol on their map for the watering hole. Makes much more sense. The pair go digging, and without too much trouble, Joe finds the idol. The pair agree to keep it a secret, with Cole wisely going back and hacking the clue off of the tree. Not that the clue would do anyone much good, since the idol’s gone, but why take the chance of someone digging and figuring that the idol was already found? Just let the paranoia develop naturally. Speaking of which, Joe is now upset that someone KNOWS he has the idol, and now Cole is number one on his hit list. See what I mean about the erratic play?

Getting back to the Heroes, we see Chrissy’s analytical play as she navigates the Kass McQuillen (“Survivor Cagayan”) spot, wherein the person in the middle of two pairs is in the best spot. Chrissy quickly rules out working with Alan due to his being erratic, which I cannot fault. She also rules out working with JP and Ashley, due to them being a power couple and JP being not that smart. This I actually kind of have a problem with. True, I’m one of the first to advocate for splitting up the power couples, but with a likely final three, and this pair being easy to manipulate? They could actually make a good shield you could argue to have led along in the Final Tribal Council. Plus, good meat shields from both. Still, Chrissy chooses Ben for being stable and easygoing, which I can’t really fault. The pair agree to work together, but keep things on the down-low, to avoid becoming a power couple. Smart.

Less smart is Patrick, who is showing himself to be something of a wild child. He freaks out repeatedly over a crab the tribe catches, which at first I (like the rest of the tribe) think is because he’s been pinched. Instead, Patrick is just scared of crabs, which makes me wonder if he was aware of what show he was on. The dude even freaks out over a pincher-less crab, which again, seems a bit much. The tribe is a little weirded out, and Patrick does little to help this impression. He talks loudly and often, treating the tribe to his impression of an Australian accent, which I bring up only because it’s fun to see the producers have an excuse to bust out the didgeridoo sound clips from “Survivor The Australian Outback”. Lauren sums it up best by saying that Patrick is just a big kid, and like with Simone’s talk about the toughness of the outdoors, that can get old really fast.

CHALLENGE TIME! Evidently today is the day to pay tribute to the islands of Palau, as the elements of todays challenges come from seasons taking place in that location. Three tribe members dive down, one at a time to untie and push puzzle pieces through a steel cage. Once they have all the pieces, they swim them to a platform, where the two remaining tribe members assemble them into a signpost pointing to locations of seasons past. Once all the locations are placed correctly, the tribe wins immunity, and varying amounts of fishing gear. This, in my book, is a simple challenge done right. No element is overly complicated, but every element is exciting, and manages to keep the tension high. Really, my only qualm is that the puzzle seems to easy. Granted, given how long it takes the tribes to complete, it’s evidently harder than it looks, but rather than be math-based like the one on “Survivor Palau”, this one is based on the length of the board, which seems easier to get. I could also nitpick that a challenge that serves as a tribute to season’s past would have been a better fit on “Survivor Game Changers”, but given that I’m liking this season better so far, I’m happier to have it here.

I want to spend a minute talking about the sit-outs, because one of them doesn’t make sense, and it’s not the one you think. The Healers sit out Joe, which seems odd, as he’s a big, strong guy. Given that they struggle in the physical part of the challenge, it would seem like maybe Joe could have been some help. Remember, though, that Joe only learned to swim a couple of weeks before coming on the show, meaning water challenges are not his forte. Given that mental challenges ALSO don’t seem to be his forte, there’s really not a good place for him. Now, sitting out LAUREN, like the Hustlers do? That makes no sense. She’s a COMMERCIAL FISHERMAN! She’s MADE to go out on the water. Even if she’s in a boat most of the time, she has to have SOME good swimming ability. Why not put her in over Simone, who is ACKNOWLEDGED to be having a hard time with the physical part of the game? You’ll note that she loses the challenge for them, so I stand by my convictions, even if Lauren would have been on the mental part instead.

This season is two for two on keeping things interesting. Perhaps even more so than last episode, as we got firmer dynamics from the Healers. They’ve still had the least strategy of any tribe, though, so of course they come back to win on the puzzle after a rough start. It’s a close call, but the Heroes manage to pull off a victory, causing Devon to comment on how much he wants Simone gone, thereby ensuring that Simone will stay.

Unsurprisingly, back at camp Simone’s name comes up, and seems to be the consensus. Lauren, however, is still not happy with Patrick, and throws his name out there. Simone, for her part, DOES do a good job of playing this up. She senses she’s at risk, and so eggs Lauren on and affirms her dislike of Patrick. This is enough to get people questioning, and leaving things up in the air as we head off for Tribal Council. As to whom to get rid of between the pair, it’s a tough call. This early in the game, there’s reasons to get rid of both of them, and neither side really has a bad play. At this point, though, I’d say getting rid of Simone is a slightly better move. The things that make Simone a liability early on will go away as she gets more comfortable, which might seem like a reason to keep her around, but this also means she becomes more dangerous as a player. Patrick, on the other hand, is likely to stay the same. And it’s also true that he is erratic, which would seem to put him in the same category as Alan, whom I advocated for eliminating last episode. The major difference, though, is that Patrick is erratic in terms of camp life, while Alan was erratic in terms of strategy. While the former makes Patrick hard to live with, if he’s a loyal soldier he can work very well as jury fodder at the end. Alan, in contrast, could blow up your strategy, and therefore more dangerous in terms of the game.

One thing I will give the Hustlers: They’re more entertaining at Tribal Council. We start off forced, with Ryan comparing things to an awkward birthday party, but he’ll get some better quips later. Pretty much everyone contributes some sort of witty sound-byte, with Lauren in particular giving up the more apt metaphor of the funeral, and Simone talking about old school versus new school play. The man of the hour, though, is Patrick, who gives us a reason to vote him out over Simone. In a simple slip of the tongue, he mentions trusting “most” of his tribe. He awkwardly corrects it to “all” of his tribe, but the damage is done. As Lauren puts it “If he meant ‘all’, he’d have said ‘all’.” This is the point where my opinion flips, and Patrick is now the better one to get rid of. If he slips up on his own game, chances are he’ll slip up on your game, which is a danger to be taken care of. I still can’t say there’s a “wrong” decision here, but the balance of power has shifted.

In the end, my original idea wins out, and Simone goes home, which I’m actually somewhat sorry for. Not so much because she was a great character or strategist. She did neither particularly well, and from an entertainment perspective, Patrick brought a lot more. It is merely that Simone continues what is quickly becoming the curse of the “Asian-American Woman”. For whatever reason, Asian-American women in particular have not been faring well on “Survivor” as of late. The last to make the merge was Brenda Lowe on “Survivor Caramoan”, which is about the only noteworthy thing she did on that season. For perspective, “Survivor Caramoan” was nearly five years ago at the time of this writing. I’m one to assume it’s just coincidence, but even if so, it’s a disturbing coincidence.

I can’t say this episode was as exciting as last episode, but I’m at a loss as to why, minus the lack of “premier excitement” that the premier episode always has. This one still brought fun challenges, fun characters, good strategy, and a well-balanced narrative. All in all, I’d say this season is two for two so far. Once again, please keep up the streak!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

“Survivor” Retrospectives: Caramoan

In my last blog, I said that “Survivor Philippines” was the start of what gets often called the best 4-season run in the show’s history, and if you look online, you’ll find no shortage of people repeating that claim. However, if one WERE to find a season to take exception to that title, then Caramoan would be the main contender. In a rare reversal for seasons, which are generally either considered good at the start and good at the end, or good at the start but then falter, this is a season that was HATED at the start, yet, when all was said and done, people were pretty ok with it, if not feeling fantastic about the whole thing. So, how did this come about, and is there any truth in it? Well, you’re going to need to read my meticulous analysis to find out! Or, you know, watch the season and judge for yourself.

If you’ve chosen to do the former, be forewarned that I write these blogs assuming that my readers have already seen the season, and want it dissected in detail. If you are not one of those people, and you don’t want the season spoiled for you, I encourage you to stop reading now, and scroll down to the “Abstract” section at the bottom of this page. This is a general spoiler-free recommendation of the season, which should hopefully suit your needs. For the rest of us, let us begin.

CAST

This is a season where it’s hard to talk so much about individual people or events in each section, as one is inclined to talk about the overarching themes of the season. Still, this means there will be ample time to go over such things in the “Overall” section. As it stands, though, we do have some individual characters to talk about, and none more so than our old friend, John Cochran (“Survivor South Pacific”). Not content with being arguably the main breakout character from his initial season, Cochran proceeded to become the breakout character of his second run, primarily by bringing us what he’d promised us on his initial outing. If you’ll recall, during “Survivor South Pacific”, Cochran was touted as the ultimate “Survivor” nerd, the guy who knew the game inside and out. Naturally, everyone went on to conclude that this guy would be a master strategist, running the game for the glory of the “Survivor” nerd. Instead, Cochran turned out more like your stereotypical tv nerd: awkward and pathetic with few redeeming qualities. He was somewhat self-deprecating which saved him in the humor department, but in terms of what was promised, it was a big disappointment. In many ways, this season was a mirror-universe for Cochran. He had the foresight to take tutelage from past “Survivor” winners (notably Yul Kwon of “Survivor Cook Islands”), and actually was the main strategist of the season. Watching Cochran work behind the scenes, seeing his every move get planned out and executed in excruciating detail, was quite gratifying, even if you weren’t the biggest Cochran fan. For my part, it was gratifying to see just how much Cochran had grown from his first outing, as well as somewhat getting to play the game vicariously through a fellow nerd. However, from my perspective, this was also a double-edged sword. Cochran, not unfairly, lost the underdog status that had helped make him endearing on “Survivor South Pacific”, and while some of his self-deprecating tendencies were still there (note his joking about his horrible sunburn during the first episode), but a lot more of his humor turned against his fellow competitors. This in and of itself is not a bad thing, but Cochran has a very caustic wit, and turned on others, it often came off as mean-spirited and unnecessary. Frankly, while Cochran improved his strategy by leaps and bounds, it makes him harder to like in the process. So, all in all, Cochran is kind of a mixed bag for me as the start of the show. I tend to fall more on the “liking him” side, since I watch the show more for strategy than for character moments, but Cochran doesn’t make it easy.

More easy to love is the return of last-season’s fan-favorite, Malcolm Freberg. Yes, if anything, this is where the Malcolm zeitgeist reached it’s peak. I mean, Malcolm was beloved on “Survivor Philippines”, there’s no question, but this season, you had people CRYING, I mean, big bawling sobs, at his exit. That is fan love that is hard to come by. And Malcolm definitely earned it, bringing a lot more of the same stuff that had made him loved the first time around. He still had a pretty good strategic mind, was good in challenge, and could give a hell of a confessional. I’d say that Malcolm seemed somewhat diminished compared to his first season, but given that the man was having to play back-to-back seasons, it’s understandable. Plus, it’s hard to top some of the confessionals he had on “Survivor Philippines”. Everybody only gets one confessional as good as “Abi-Maria has all the social grace of a Mack truck.” And, as I’ll discuss more in the “Overall” section, Malcolm had the unfortunate problem of being overshadowed by larger, more obnoxious characters early on, but even then, the love for Malcolm was still there, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy him as well. While not as successful as his first time around, the man brought what he’d given us before, and as it was good, I was delighted to see it again. He provided some good color commentary, and helped prevent the eventual prevalent alliance from being too one-sided.

But who, you might ask, could overshadow the great Malcolm Freberg? The answer, my friends, is unfortunately one Phillip “Special Agent?” Sheppard of “Survivor Redemption Island”. A man only Jeff Probst wanted to see again, but since Jeff is an executive producer on the show, that’s what he got. I’ll give him this: Phillip was a big character for the season. It was just a character we cared NOT to see. Granted, Phillip did drop SOME of his annoying quirks from his first outing. Great-Grandpa Jessum was fortunately absent from the season, and the gorilla and lion tattoos barely got mentioned. Unfortunately, we had the new annoyance of “Stealth-R-Us”, Phillip’s alliance that he insisted on promoting every episode. Folks, I’m not sure it’s possible to make this stuff up. The man basically turned everyone on his tribe into a faux spy organization, and gave everyone stupid nicknames. And if you think that might have been cute for a little while, bear in mind that this is Phillip Sheppard we’re talking about, the man who will not be silenced. Every episode it was minutes on end of “Stealth-R-Us” and how it was coming. If it was at ALL funny, it wore out its welcome incredibly fast, to the point where everyone was screaming to get Phillip off their screens, especially since he still had some social faux-pas up his sleeve (diving into a reward swimming pool naked, for example). What’s worse is that Phillip was pretty much the ONLY game for the first several episodes of the season. Not to say that other people weren’t playing, but they quickly realized that the smart way to play would be to let Phillip have his way, keep the target on his back, and easily make the merge as a result. Smart play, but not fun to watch for those of us who were sick of Phillip. There’s more to why this season is considered the weakest between “Survivor Philippines” and “Survivor Cagayan”, but Phillip is the annoying poster boy for the whole thing.

Phillip was not alone in his “annoying character”-ness, though. No, we also had to add Brandon Hantz (“Survivor South Pacific”) to the mix. If Phillip wasn’t talking about how great “Stealth-R-Us” was, he was verbally sparring with Brandon, the most vocal opponent to the alliance. Now, if “Stealth-R-Us” was hated, you’d think that Brandon, being the main critic of the alliance, would be a beloved audience favorite. HAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, you poor naive fools! No, Brandon fought stupid with stupid, being just as ignorant and short-sighted as Phillip was. On top of all this, Brandon was a very inconsistent player, talking of sabotage one minute, and calming down to be a good little boy the next. This got old and frustrating really fast, both for myself and the rest of the audience. Brandon’s instability would pay off in the end, but in then it was more painful than entertaining. Plus, their arguments often devolved into imagined slights against each other, which again, got old real fast. In a big confrontation between two people on this show, you want to have a side to root for, or at least have both sides be reasonable enough for a debate to be compelling. Here, we HATED both sides, and neither side made any sense! How quaint! The best thing that could be said about Brandon is that he didn’t overstay his welcome quite as much as Phillip did, and even that’s a very slight positive in his corner.

Then, there’s Dawn Meehan (“Survivor South Pacific”). Hoo boy, this is a hard one to talk about. While not as big a character as Malcolm or Cochran in this regard, Dawn was initially another respite from the insanity of Phillip Sheppard. She talked good strategy with Cochran, had a nice “toughening up” arc, and was arguably the most universally likable person at the beginning of the season. However, time was not calm do Dawn. Despite working hard to correct her strategic mistakes from her first outing, her emotional mistakes kept getting the better of her. Dawn is a very emotional person, and one of the few criticisms of her was that she cried too much her first time out. Dawn won favor from the fans by swearing she would cry less this time around. She then pretty much immediately LOST favor with the fans by crying a whole lot, often over things that weren’t a huge deal, such as losing some false teeth in the watering hole, which Brenda Lowe (of “Survivor Nicaragua”, who made SO little impact on the season that she got dubbed “Purple Brenda” by the fans) had to fish out for her. Sadly, this emotionality of Dawn’s overshadowed her character, which in my book is a real disappointment. When you look beyond Dawn just being the woman who cried a lot, she played a smart game, formed good social bonds, and made it to the end despite all her emotional setbacks. She’s actually a smart, really compelling character. And yet, all everyone focusses on is how emotional she was. The harassment of her online even got to the point where Dawn quit twitter, which I have to say is really low, guys. Yeah, she’s a bit on the weepy side, but she’s no Phillip or Brandon. Save it for those who deserve it more. Dawn’s one of the better characters on the season, and needs more love, both in and out of the game.

Now, this is a “Fans vs. Favorites” season, and you’ll notice that I’ve only talked about people from the “Favorites” side so far. From this, you might conclude that the “Fans” are a non-entity this season. And you’d largely be right. However, you would not be completely right. Sadly, this is the season that gave us Shamar Thomas. Evidently deciding that ONE Phillip Sheppard was not good enough, we had to get two of them! Shamar was loud, obnoxious, nonsensical, and dominated the screen for the episodes he was on. Like Phillip, he was no fun to watch, and took precious time away from the stuff we were actually interested in. I know this is kind of a short paragraph, but there’s only so many ways I can say “Everyone found this character annoying.”, and since we’ve trod that ground with Phillip and Brandon already, I’d basically be repeating myself. Suffice to add that, if SHAMAR is the only truly memorable fan to come out of this season, things are not looking good.

Before I move on to talking about the people who were big at the time, there are a couple of others who fans might say I ought to bring up as still being big characters today. I’ve neglected to talk about our two other “Survivor Redemption Island” returnees, Francesca Hogi and Andrea Boehlke. The former I’m not talking about here because, while she is talked about still to this day, it’s more for her manner of elimination than about her herself, and for characters like that, I traditionally save talking about them for the “Twists” section of the blog. As for the latter, while she did show herself to have some decent strategic chops to back up her claims from her first time out, my personal experience says that you don’t hear people talking about “How good Andrea was” when talking about this season. Maybe she was just overshadowed by Cochran, but while she did improve, I don’t think it was that great an improvement, and I don’t think she’s talked about enough to merit further mention here. There’s also the other fan people point to as a good one: Reynold Toepfer. Many columnists, particularly Stephen Feshbach (“Survivor Tocantins”), talk about how good he was at strategy, and how he’s underrated, since he isn’t talked about today. For my part, I don’t see it. The man was a generic schmoozer who apart from some idol hunting, did absolutely nothing, and just let himself get played entirely by Malcolm. It makes me like MALCOLM a lot more, but Reynold? Nothing going for him.

I suppose I should also quickly mention the paradoxical Julia Landauer, another of the fans. I say “paraodxical” as she’s well-remembered, but for bringing NOTHING to the table. Cochran described her as “An insult to vanilla.” in terms of personality, and while I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for her (ok, a crush), I can’t deny that there’s truth to this claim. Julia made it DECENTLY far into the game, but gave us practically no entertainment, and as a result is the butt of many a joke. Harsh though it is, I really can’t deny the humor there. Plus, it once AGAIN shows the weakness on the fan side of things if one of your most memorable people is remembered precisely BECAUSE they had nothing to be remembered for.

Moving on to those who were characters at the time, but who have since faded into obscurity, here’s where we get to the good fans. First up, we have Sherri Beithman, who at the start seemed like she might be the fan’s saving grace. True, she was a major part of the reason that Shamar stuck around for so long, and for that she must be disgraced, but she WAS quite the smart cookie, and pretty well ran the table of the Gota tribe (where the fans were) before the swap, no small feat. Unfortunately, Sherri’s dive into obscurity is justified. I’d complain if she’d kept up her strategic prowess throughout the season, but once the swap happened, followed by the merge, Sherri became a generic follower. True, she holds the record for “Best Finish by a Fan”, but she did it by fading into the background and being a loyal number. I understand that circumstances had a lot to do with it, and I don’t think Sherri is stupid by any means, but apart from those first four episodes, she got what she deserved. Plus: WORST FINAL TRIBAL COUNCIL PERFORMANCE EVER! We also got the duo of Michael Snow and Matt Bischoff, a likable alliance who had some good strategic thoughts in the game, but whose early exits prevented them from doing anything that might have impacted the season, thereby guaranteeing their obscurity. Still, they were the most universally beloved of the fans, which is saying something, and given time to make an impact, they could have been really great. Our only favorite who’s faded back into semi-obscurity (I don’t think it’s possible for a returning player to COMPLETELY fade into obscurity, due to the exposure they receive) would be Corinne Kaplan. Working as Malcolm’s alliance partner, Corinne was basically a less-likable version of the Michael and Matt dynamic. She was smart, but got caught in the crossfire between the power players. She gave us some snarky comments, and was entertaining, but compared to the overpowering screen-hog that is Phillip Sheppard, she just doesn’t stand out as much over time.

Yeah, objectively this was not a really great cast. Apart from Malcolm and perhaps Cochran, no one is both universally loved and remembered. On top of that, the fans contributed NOTHING to the overall season, making for a very one-sided sweep, which was no fun to watch. Add onto that a number of people, even amongst the returnees who made absolutely NO impact, and you’ve got a cast that should be ripe for hating. I say SHOULD because while the cast is weak, I can’t dismiss it entirely. Similar to “Survivor Philippines”, while the cast as a whole may not have been all that spectacular, by and large the people who made it deep in the game were the people we liked. It’s not as universal as “Survivor Philippines” in this regard, and will get a lower score in this section as a result, but the few likable characters I would say were MORE well-liked that the liked characters on “Survivor Philippines”, so that’s a plus. I guess to sum up, Caramoan’s cast is a negatively skewed mixed-bag, but the positives are so good in and of themselves that you have to inflate the score a little bit.

Score: 5 out of 10.

CHALLENGES

Caramoan really didn’t know if it wanted to try new challenges or, as a semi-All-Stars season, rehash old challenges as an homage to seasons past. This, unfortunately, does not serve it well. In general, the original challenges they came up with for this season were pretty good, and even the choices for reused challenges tended to be good ones. A bit overdone in a lot of cases, but good nonetheless. Where this season falters is in being wishy-washy. The trouble is that, almost universally, the new challenges were SO good that you felt disappointed even when a GOOD reused challenge cam back. Add onto this the few flops of ideas and/or reused challenges (which every season has), and it gets dragged down a bit, along with not having a truly distinct aesthetic to lean on. Still, the challenges here are decent enough, and some even stand out to give this season an above-average score.

Score: 7 out of 10.

TWISTS

Right away, this season got off on a bad foot with the twists, reusing the “Fans vs. Favorites” twist from “Survivor Micronesia”. As I’ll discuss in the “Overall” section, this was a problem because not only are we repeating ideas on a show that’s built on innovation, but comparisons between the two will be inevitable, and as I consider “Survivor Micronesia” to be the pinnacle of “Survivor” at the time of this writing, you can guess what kind of comparisons this leads to. Yes, even though it brought back a couple of people I wanted to see, I was not high on this twist, and am still not high on it today. It’s a more lopsided version of a better season, and makes it seem like the show is running out of ideas. On top of that, while the show took great pains to show that the fans and favorites were given equal treatment on “Survivor Micronesia” a key step in hiding a one-sided competition, here they made NO bones about who was favored, flying the favorites in on a helicopter ride while the fans got naught but a boat. As I said, this blatant favoritism did not sit well with me, and started the season off on a poor note.

Sad to say, but the season was not particularly helped by the first four episodes, which were relatively twist-free. On the fans side of things, we did get a “cool kids vs. nerds” storyline, as Reynold and Eddie Fox bonded with Allie Pohevitz and Hope Driskill to form the “cool kids” leaving everyone else out, but we’ve seen such storylines unfold before, and apart from a shakeup in episode 4, which everyone saw coming, nothing happens beyond a Pagonging of an alliance. As for the favorites, we did get our first ever two-time first boot with Francesca, which was kind of cool to see. She weathered the blow quite well, and deserves respect for that (as well as being an answer in “Survivor” trivia), but it wasn’t quite a universal good, as it felt a little bit like poor Francesca was being picked on by our dear friend Phillip. With the dominance of “Stealth-R-Us” and the favorites never needing to go to Tribal Council after the first one, this was quite a dead zone for new things. It all culminated in the medical evacuation of Shamar, which was an unsatisfying exit for an unlikeable player.

Episode 5 finally shook things up, both figuratively and literally. Brandon could no longer contain his crazy, and actually went so far as to engage in open, defiant sabotage of the tribe, dumping out pretty much all their rice (to “make things even for the fans”), and knocking over a chair, for some reason. This blow up is one of the most controversial things on the season. We’ve seen SOME sabotage before, but nothing quite to this degree, or fueled by this much anger. It’s definitely a unique moment, but not one that looks good for the show. Rather, it looks like the show put a mentally unstable person on there just for the sake of ratings, which understandably looks bad for the show. for my part, though, I think it’s standing out is enough. Granted, it’s not PLEASANT to watch, but it’s like a car wreck: it may be bad, but you can’t look way. Plus, I like to give the show the benefit of a doubt with regards to the mental stability of Brandon Hantz. He needed help, sure, but I’m not sure it was significant help to keep him from the show. Point being, it’s a standout moment from the season, if not a universally good one. It also led to a huge blowout argument, which was again not the most pleasant to watch, but I find it cathartic as it calls out Phillip as a deluded idiot. Brandon’s treatment of everyone else, though? Cringe-worthy. This, in turn, led to an at-challenge Tribal Council, which we had seen before, but was rare enough that it was fun to watch.

From here, we have our tribe swap, which unfortunately led to MORE of a boring season, as the Gota tribe got pretty much all the best challenge players, leaving Bikal to wallow in losses until the merge. We did get SOME intrigue here, with Corinne on Bikal campaigning to keep “her gay” Michael Snow around, but it still ended up being more decimation of the fans.

Then came the merge, though, and BOY do things look up from here! During his time on Gota, Malcolm had formed an alliance with Eddie and Reynold, so as to have other buff guys around to help keep the target off of his back. Combine this with his alliance with Corinne, and the knowledge that Erik Reichenbach and Michael Snow, both critics of Phillip, would jump on board, and you had an alliance set to take it to the end. They ride out one vote, and they’ve got the majority. Here, however, we get strategic blunders and strategic genius. Genuinely liking Dawn, Corinne made the mistake of telling Dawn of their plans, to get her on board as a safety precaution. Dawn, however, was wary of people flipping after her experiences on “Survivor South Pacific”, and so flipped the script on Corinne. She informed Cochran and Phillip, who pulled in Andrea, Brenda, Sherri, and even Erik to vote out the traitorous Corinne instead, believing her to be the head of the alliance. A miscalculation on who to target, but otherwise great strategy. We’ve got two opposing forces of good intellectual strength (Cochran taking the front on strategy at this point, rather than Phillip) each trying to cement their position. Some might argue that Dawn would have been better sticking with Corinne and Malcolm’s alliance, but she’d have no power there, whereas with Cochran, she was a power couple. Much better to keep it that way, even if it does mean the continued existence of Phillip. This led to a great blindside. the only real misstep with this twist is that by being voted out so early, we didn’t get Corinne on the jury, which would have been hilarious. Still, the ORIGINAL way of doing things was “first merge boot misses the jury”, so I can’t call it unfair, just unfortunate.

While alliances held strong for the next boot, it was still twist-worthy. Malcolm, Eddie, and Reynold, realizing the targets on their backs, needed to play one of their idols (Malcolm and Reynold each having one) in order to stay alive. Rather than just each play their idols, however, Malcolm tried to out predict the vote. Taking note of what was said at Tribal Council, when reynolds went to play the idol for himself, Malcolm said the now infamous “Hold up, bro!”, and convinced Reynold to play the idol on him, despite the fact that Malcolm could have played his own idol. A brilliant little bit of douchebaggery, and further proof that Eddie and Reynold weren’t so much “partners” of Malcolm as they were his minions. All that grandstanding was for naught, though, as Andrea had predicted just such a move, and switched the vote to Michael, on the grounds that he was the least likely choice. That’s some impressive strategizing and idol play, but it’s NOTHING compared to the next Tribal Council.

You see, despite Malcolm’s alliance being down an idol, he managed to find another one, giving them two once again. When Reynold won immunity, the logical thing to do was to make every member of the alliance safe. Which is what they did, even going the extra step of declaring this intention AT Tribal Council, and pulling out their idols as proof of this. What makes this extra smart is that it makes it possible they won’t have to play their idols, thus keeping the protection. After all, this sort of thing can get the alliance to turn on itself, leading to you not even being targeted that night. Unfortunately, what can now be called Cochran’s alliance is smart as well, and realize that they need to hold firm to their original plan for the best gain. After all, Malcolm foolishly declared the intention of his alliance to vote out Phillip, who at this point was on the bottom anyway. Unless you’re Phillip, he’s an acceptable loss. In a rare moment of brilliance, it’s Erik “I’ll give my immunity to Natalie” Reichenbach who points this out; good for him. In a spectacular blowout, Malcolm and Eddie are forced to play their idols, resulting in Phillip going home. If you want a highlight of the season other than Brandon’s blow-up, this is it. We’ve literally never seen idol play like this before, never seen a counter-strategy so perfect. And the talking and last-minute chaos generated from this is hilarious. If you’re going to give this season any positive notes, it’s all centered around this Tribal Council.

Finding no more idols to save them, Malcolm and Reynold are next to leave in the only two really dull post-merge Tribal Council. Eddie, however, will stick around due to infighting amongst the alliance. Andrea starts mistrusting Brenda, leading Cochran and co. to think that Andrea’s too smart for her own good, and thereby vote her off. Andrea’s wish is fulfilled, though, when Brenda DOES start scheming against Cochran next episode, and when Cochran gets wind of this, he gets rid of her instead. This sadly means that Eddie the pathetic one sticks around longer than he should, but the infighting keeps the post-merge game from getting stale, and gives us some really good blindsides.

This is also where a lot of the Dawn hate comes from. Dawn was the swing vote that ended up sending Brenda home, and many people hated her guts for this, since Brenda had gone out of her way to be nice to Dawn. I say, betraying your friends is a big part of what “Survivor” is all about. I’d argue that going with Brenda would have been the smarter move overall, but you can’t get mad at Dawn for making a betraying move IN A GAME ABOUT BETRAYAL!

We get our next twist right off in the finale, as Erik’s nutrition levels drop so low that he needs to be medevaced. Sad to see, and kind of anticlimactic, but since he was leaving soon anyway, it’s not a huge loss. We also sadly get the return of the “final immunity challenge advantage”, the only true misstep of the finale. Still, that doesn’t take away from the excitement of Cochran taking only the second flawless victory (no vote before the Final Tribal Council, and getting every vote at the Final tribal Council) ever on “Survivor”, and that’s a pretty good way to end this season. A lot of people might want me to talk about the debacle of the reunion show should go here, but I’ll be talking about it in the “Overall” section.

As to how the twists stand on their own, this really was quite the mixed bag. We had a really slow start, and cringe-worthy twists in the beginning, but the player twists in the back half were so exciting, so unpredictable, that despite early setback, this season still comes out on top twist-wise.

Score: 6 out of 10.

OVERALL

In regards to aesthetic, this season returned to the Philippines once again, and suffers for it. Most of the elements came off looking like “Generic South Pacific Island” stuff, even though the Philippines are NOT in the South Pacific. Once in a while we got something cool looking, like the individual immunity idol, but most of the time, it was either bland, or stuff we’d seen before on “Survivor Philippines”. Not much to write home about in this department.

The true theme of this season was “Fans vs. Favorites”, and once again, it came off poorly. Apart from reusing a beloved twist, which would inevitably lead to downward comparisons, this season got chastised from the beginning for their definition of “Favorites”. While “Survivor Micronesia” was not without controversy, that season at least mostly had people who were big names from those seasons. Here, with the exception of Malcolm, most people argued that these were not “Favorites” of theirs, and that therefore the title was misleading. However, I can see what they were going for here. These are not “Favorites” in the sense of people you’ve already seen and liked, but people who, had circumstances been different, could have been greats. True, this makes the “Favorites” title misleading, but with the exceptions of the people from “Survivor Redemption Island”, I didn’t have major issue with the cast, and I think the audience was just butt-hurt on this one.

The next comparison to “Survivor Micronesia” doesn’t help the season either. While the “Fans” on “Survivor Micronesia” might have been outclassed strategy-wise, most of them were at least entertaining, and you got the sense that, were it not for their lack of experience, they might have been real contenders. Neither of these positives can be said for this seasons “Fans”. Frankly, they were unentertaining and ranged from useless to mostly useless in terms of strategy. Even I can’t deny, that’s a real checkmark against this season.

Further hurting this season was the slow start. This in and of itself would have been bad enough, but instead of just giving us boring episodes, the producers filled it with the shenanigans of Phillip, Brandon, and Shamar. If they looked to this to entertain the audience, it backfired horribly. It was obnoxious and it got old really fast. I can’t stress enough just how painful it was when ALL we had for intrigue in the first few episodes was “Stealth-R-Us”. It was, not, to say the least, a strong opening.

But the BIG flaw has to be that Reunion Show. I don’t normally talk about these in these blogs, but this one was SO egregiously bad that it bears mentioning. Due to the volatile nature of putting Brandon Hantz and Phillip Sheppard in the same room together, producers politely asked Brandon not to show up at the reunion, which he civilly agreed to. Had the producers left it there, it wouldn’t be worth mentioning. But, for some stupid reason, the producers decided that if BRANDON couldn’t be up on stage, NO pre-merge boots could be up on stage. In an incredibly disrespectful move, the pre-merge boots were relegated to the audience, a slight none of them took lightly. Now, I get that the further you make it into the game, the bigger the start you generally are, and your big starts are who you want to focus on. However, not even giving the pre-merge boots the dignity of being up on stage is just downright cruel. This is probably their last moment of fame, at least for a while, and they deserve the respect of just being a contestant. Not putting them on stage like they deserve sickens me to my core. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the reunion questioning was a disaster, with awkward forced apologies, and only talking to a chosen few. As I said, there’s always favoritism at the reunion show, but this took the cake! Even above the obnoxiousness of Phillip, THIS is the thing most hated about this season.

So, with all these flaws, all these missteps, you’d think that this season would coagulate horribly, and be one of the worst seasons on record. And yet, it isn’t. Why, you may ask? I think in large part it has to do with the timing of things. More and more, I come to realize that a strong ending to a season of “Survivor” is much more beneficial to a season overall than a strong beginning. If a season ends on an exciting note, people are much more forgiving than if it ends on a boring note. And this season definitely ended strong, with nary a bad episode post-merge, and a lot of alliance intrigue that even “Survivor Micronesia” couldn’t bring us. Additionally, in strange way, the bad start to the season HELPED get rid of downward comparisons to “Survivor Micronesia”. When the season started out so badly, a lot of people didn’t even bother TRYING to compare it to this godlike season, even when similarities were there. A lot of people didn’t even put it in the same category. And that is what saved it. Sure, the obnoxious stuff in early episodes was still obnoxious, but by putting it mentally separated from “Survivor Micronesia” a lot of stuff we’d seen before didn’t seem so repetitive. Add onto that the excitement of the post-merge game, and the season starts to actually seem pretty good, which is why it’s overall score would be so high.

Score: 26 out of 40.

ABSTRACT

Caramoan is the ultimate season for telling people “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” This season repeats a lot from past seasons, and the first few episodes are a difficult watch. I suggest you struggle through them, though, as once you get a few episodes in, we get some really good intrigue and strategy, with number of big stand-out moments. I will warn you that this season requires extensive knowledge of past seasons to be enjoyed, so that might be a barrier. Also, if you’re looking for seasons with no impact afterwards, this is an ok one to skip. If, however, you’re looking for an exciting season, give this one a try. It may take a while, but in the end, it won’t disappoint.

-Matt

Idol Speculation: Updated Season Rankings

Well, with less than two weeks to go until the premier of “Survivor Cambodia”, time’s running out for the last of my pre-season content. But trust me, this is worth the wait.

As anyone who follows “Survivor” news probably knows by now, this season is being hyped up to the max. It makes sense, since it’s a season of all returnees (only the third to do so). While it is a little weird that they’re doing it AFTER a “Survivor” anniversary, I see no reason not to join in the fun. If we’re going to honor “Survivor” history, what better way to do it than by giving my personal opinions on the rankings of “Survivor” seasons, relative to each other? True, I did this back during “Survivor Caramoan”, but that was a while ago. New seasons have come out, and things have changed somewhat since then, so it seems relevant to do.

Keep in mind that these are my subjective opinions on the seasons. Most likely, something isn’t going to match up with your own personal rankings. If you’d like to let me know where I’m wrong, feel free to do so in the comments. It’s also worth noting that I don’t consider any season of “Survivor” to be “bad”, at least relative to other shows on the air. Even the worst season of “Survivor” is better than 90% of what you’d get anywhere else. Relative to each other, however, and with regards to the high bar I set for a good season of “Survivor”, some fall a bit short. With that in mind, I’m dividing my rankings into three major categories: Sub-Par Seasons, which just don’t stack up as well as others, but may still have a bit of merit; Good Seasons, which meet the bar set for “Survivor”, but don’t quite distinguish themselves enough to be the creme de la creme; and Phenomenal Seasons, which outshine all the others, and have that extra something that makes me want to see them over and over again. With our definitions clarified somewhat, let’s see what I think of each individual season.

SUB-PAR SEASONS

30. “Survivor Fiji”: While “Survivor Fiji” has many problems, it’s biggest flaw, and what puts it at the very bottom for me, can be summed up in two words: It’s BORING! Believe me, there are several seasons in this section that I have gripes with, that make me angry, but they at least make me feel something. “Survivor Fiji” was just so bland and forgettable that I can’t really say too much about it, and in my mind, that’s more damning than a season that arouses my anger. If you want more specific reasons, “Survivor Fiji” had a major problem with the cast. A vast majority of the people cast, particularly the women of this season, were just plain forgettable. I’d argue it’s due to the show recruiting ALL BUT ONE of the people on the season, but that’s neither here nor there. The season did have a few stand-outs, such as Yau-Man Chan and Andre “Dreamz” Heard, but it wasn’t enough. When the season did have stand-outs, they were, more often than not, unpleasant to watch, and that’s just not good tv. To compound these problems, the “Haves vs. Have-Nots” twist made the game all too predictable, and unlike some other game-breaking twists was not an obvious idea that needed to be tried. Compound all this with boring and/or stupid challenges, and the problems of a “generic south pacific island” aesthetic, and “Survivor Fiji” can’t go anywhere but last.

29. “Survivor Redemption Island”: You all knew this one was going near the bottom of the list. The complete and utter obvious domination of the game by one player (in this case, “Boston Rob” Mariano) made this a season that was basically going through the required motions to give the obvious winner a check. In this case, the winner was broadcast very early on, and so it was a LONG slog to the end; never a good sign. The fact that the dominance of Boston Rob was so strategically brilliant is enough to save this season from coming in dead last, but only just. And, because there aren’t enough things to dislike about this season, CBS used the time to introduce us to the “Redemption Island” twist. Basically an extended version of the “Outcast Twist” from “Survivor Pearl Islands”, Redemption Island both neutered the show in terms of dramatic vote-offs, removed one challenge per episode so we could have a watered-down “Redemption Duel”, and blatantly stacked the game in favor of those who were good at challenges, something fans of strategy didn’t want to see. But just in case the game WASN’T stacked in favor of Boston Rob, the cast apart from him and Russell Hantz was composed pretty much entirely of non-entities, or characters so over-the-top they appear to be cartoons. How they found three people to come back for future seasons is a mystery to me. In any case, while it can be a good study in strategy, “Survivor Redemption Island” is in no way fun to watch, and just had too much going against it to get higher than this.

28. “Survivor One World”: “Survivor One World” shares the same fundamental flaw that “Survivor Redemption Island” does, in and of that it was clearly broadcast early on that one person was going to win, and so the rest of the season just seemed to be going through the motions. Part of what saves “Survivor One World”, though, is that the person in question is Kim Spradlin, a new player as opposed to someone we’d already seen three times already. This novelty makes it slightly better than “Survivor Redemption Island”, but only slightly. By and large, the cast of this season had the same non-entity feel about it as discussed earlier, but with the few stand-outs being less over the top than “Survivor Redemption Island”. This is both blessing, in and of that this meant fewer annoyances, but also makes the cast even more generic. But lest we forget, this was the season that introduced us to Colton Cumbie, a whiny, racist human being who was a terrible strategist and no fun to watch. Though he was only in it for six episodes, his mere PRESENCE drags the season down a great deal, and it didn’t have a lot going for it to begin with. The major twist of this season, with both tribes living together on one beach, I think is actually a good idea, but flopped due to the terrible cast, and with nothing else to stand out about it, “Survivor One World” just flops as a whole.

27. “Survivor Samoa”: The one thing most people love about this season is the one thing I hate the most about it: Russell Hantz. A narcissistic, sexist, disgusting human being, Russell Hantz is the flaw in “Survivor Samoa”. The season is about him and him alone. Once again, it’s very clear from the beginning that Russell Hantz is the big name of the season, and everyone else is, at best, a backup singer. The few people who tried to stand out were charicatures of charicatures, and more ridiculous than interesting. The location and twists of this season were bland and forgettable, meaning apart from the near death of Russell Swan, only Russell Hantz can carry the season, and he’s just not that fun to watch. In hindsight, the finale of “Survivor Samoa” is hilarious, but it just isn’t enough to put up with a predictable season of Russell Hantz.

26. “Survivor Nicaragua”: I can’t in good faith call “Survivor Nicaragua” a good season, but it does have some ups. While the cast was largely filled either with generic players or just plain awful people, it did also give us good, fun strategists in Marty Piombo and Brenda Lowe, and to a lesser extent Holly Hoffman. Sadly, their presence is overridden by the quitting of Na’Onka Mixon and “Purple Kelly”, the former of whom seemed to set out to win the “Most Awful Human Being in Existence” Award, though I will say that I think the editing did her no favors, and made her seem somewhat worse than she was. The “Old vs. Young” twist, while a dismal, predictable flop, was a fairly obvious idea that at least needed to be tried once. Sad to say, the “Medallion of Power” does not fall into the same category, and needs to be forgotten. I think “Survivor Nicaragua” had some potential, but between who dominated the cast, and how the twists turned out, it just all fell apart into a mess.

25. “Survivor Worlds Apart”: I almost put this season in the “Average Seasons” category, since we did have a somewhat exciting finish, and some good strategizing towards the end. Sadly, what dominates this season is the awful behavior of various contestants, notably Will Sims II and Dan Foley, and that just cannot be condoned. This season was also hurt by a seeming general apathy from the cast as a whole towards strategizing, a few even taking the “moral high ground” against the game. This seemed to insult people who liked the show, and enjoyed the strategy of it, which was off-putting. While not a season-ruiner, the “Collars” division of tribes was brought to the forefront, when it should really have been a garnish to what was there. As such, the whole thing felt gimmicky and forced, only adding to this season’s litany of problems. Like I said, there’s good stuff here, but the bad is just what jumps to mind, and I don’t want to see it again.

AVERAGE SEASONS

24. “Survivor Thailand”: A lot of people, particularly Jeff Probst, like to put this season at the bottom of their lists, since it too had a fair number of unpleasant people on it. Certainly the “grindgate” incident is fairly damning, and I’d be lying if said that that particular event was not a stain on “Survivor” history. However, I think people underestimate this season. It had a fantastic location, some innovative challenges, and a large number of good twists. While some twists were flat-out misses, such as the “mutiny” twist first tried here, most of them worked pretty well. I liked the idea of choosing one’s starting beach, each with its own advantages and disadvantages, and let us not forget the merge fake-out that this season gave us. Whether it was a cheap move by production or not, it cannot be denied that it was hilarious to watch. On top of all these, this is really an example of what we might call “Classic ‘Survivor’”, which gives it an edge over the seasons beneath it. Yeah, the cast could have been better, and I will say this is one of the worst final twos ever in the show’s history, but we had some good people who lasted a while, and if nothing else, “Survivor Thailand” can be viewed as a travelogue with some random weird people in it.

23. “Survivor San Juan del Sur”: The only other season that could be called “boring” or “forgettable”, “Survivor San Juan del Sur” is saved by having few annoying characters, and some decent strategic talk mixed in with the boredom, if you knew where to look. True, most of the people on this season over-hyped themselves, and the reusing of the “Blood vs. Water” twist reeked of desperation. Bringing back Exile Island was a nice touch, but casting people to a theme, instead of pulling a theme from the cast, is not a good way to make a season. On top of that, a lot of the more interesting people were gone right after the merge, meaning that the back half of the season just felt wanting. It did come back strong in the finish, and there’s not a whole lot to hate about the season itself, but it’s just too weak to put any higher.

22. “Survivor South Pacific”: Here’s a season I have a personal love for, but can’t put higher on the list. Basically a carbon copy of “Survivor Redemption Island”, this season brought back nearly everything that made “Survivor Redemption Island” awful. The “Redemption Island” twist? Check. Returnees who we didn’t need to see? Check. Lackluster challenges and location? Check. And if you thought Redemptions Island was stacking the deck for Boston Rob, this season had Oscar “Ozzy” Lusth, challenge beast, on it, basically ensuring that Ozzy would stick around until the very end. What this season DOESN”t bring in from “Survivor Redemption Island” is the predictable winner and the lackluster cast. While it still had its share of duds, “Survivor South Pacific” gave us a few good characters, notably John Cochran and Dawn Meehan, and a winner who was actually something of a surprise. It’s a little more obvious on rewatch, but it’s still fun to see her journey, even knowing the outcome. Granted, this season does have a fairly predictable Pagonging, and also gave us Brandon Hantz. It’s still a fun season, just having to overcome a lot of obstacles that didn’t need to be there.

21. “Survivor The Australian Outback”: Even having a dramatic location and being a classic season of “Survivor” doesn’t make up for the fact that this season is just plain BORING in the back half. Don’t get me wrong, we had some good moments in the first five episodes, Mike Skupin falling in the fire is a fantastic dramatic moment, and even the merge episode had some good strategizing. But after that, things just became a very bland slog to the end. We thankfully had some starvation and natural disasters to help keep the episodes exciting, but take that away, and there’s very little substance to the back half of this season. Don’t get we wrong, the early days are still amazing, but as someone with little to no nostalgia value for the season, the back half is just hard to forgive.

20. “Survivor Exile Island”: This could easily have turned into a gimmicky season, and in a way it still was, but that’s actually a credit to the season. The twists of Exile Island and the Hidden Immunity Idol added a lot of excitement to what might otherwise have been just a standard season. We had a fair number of big characters and good strategists, but they didn’t really come out of the woodwork until the merge, meaning this season had a rough start. The twists save it, but it’s still a long way to go to get to the good stuff, lowering this season down in the rankings. Still, the good stuff is worth waiting for with both wacky (if occasionally annoying) characters who are colorful and memorable, and some fairly interesting strategy talk. Plus, Terry Deitz’s underdog story is as good television as you could hope for, so there’s a plus. The voodoo theme, though a bit overdone, helps make this season less generic, though the challenges are nothing special. This season has many good qualities, mostly in the cast, it just takes a while to get to them.

19. “Survivor Marquesas”: Though it should be acknowledged for its historical and strategic significance, on the whole “Survivor Marquesas” is little to write home about. It’s a generic south pacific island if ever there was one, and while the challenges are more creative than you might expect, they still don’t amaze. The big problem, though, is that the characters at the merge, by and large, are boring. Oh sure, you have a few interesting people like Sean Rector and Kathy Vavrick-O’Brien, and they make it far, but the vast majority of the merge players just aren’t memorable enough. There’s a lot of great strategy here, with the first “Totem Pole Shake-Up” and just a general shifting of alliances, and it does keep the series interesting all the way through. I just wish that it was perpetrated largely by people I could really care about.

18. “Survivor Cook Islands”: This is another season that’s more strategic than character-based, and it once again suffers from it early on. “Survivor Cook Islands” was another theme-cast season, dividing the tribes by race, which brought out a bit of interesting commentary, but mainly just seemed like a cringe-worthy move by the producers, and meant we got a lot of duds to fit the racial balance. The characters we do have shine through a bit more than in other seasons, and following the “mutiny” twist in the one time it actually worked well, we had a great underdog story that carried through to a good resolution. Add onto that a more memorable theme than some locations and a great finals matchup between Ozzy and Yul Kwon (Becky Lee was really a non-entity here), and you’ve got a season that can be agreed upon as being “pretty good” overall.

17. “Survivor All-Stars”: If I were going on pure fanboy nerdiness, this would be the season for me. While we’ve had other “Tribute Seasons” paying homage to “Survivor”, this one really pulled out all the stops. Everywhere in this season, there are references, homages, celebrations of “Survivor” history! What more could you ask for? Well, in this case, a season that stands well on its own. The sad fact is that, take away the gimmicks of historical tributes and returning castaways, this was a season that was actually pretty boring. The strategy, which a few exceptions, was a fairly predictable affair, with the dominant tribe taking out the losing tribe at the merge, with little variation, and it just came down to which sub-alliance would come out on top. Sadly, it was the one we were all predicting, and it made for a lackluster finale. What stand-out moments we did get were fairly unpleasant, since this season got personal to the point of just being hard to watch. As a tribute to seasons past, “Survivor All-Stars” needs to be commemorated, but as a season on its own, which hardly unmemorable, it has some major issues. Plus: WORST. WINNER. EVER.

16. “Survivor China”: A season I’ve come to respect more with age, “Survivor China” is a fun watch the first time, but a fascinating watch the second time. There was a LOT of subtle strategy on this season, which is part of why its moved up in my estimation, but still enough blatant strategy that it doesn’t require a rewatch to be enjoyed. True, we did once again have a fairly predictable winner, but for once, the Final Tribal Council was not a runaway landslide for the winer, and a few shake-ups in the vote post-merge kept things interesting. “Survivor China” had very few duds in it, and while there were a few characters who were annoying (Courtney Yates), by and large, we had an exciting and memorable group this time around. Top all that off with a unique location and theme, plus some fun little cultural touches, and “Survivor China” becomes one of the most underrated good seasons.

15. “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”: I’m sure a lot of you are upset that this season isn’t near #1 on the list, but I stand by the fact that “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” is not as good as you remember it. True, it was a tribute season, but it played things a lot more subtly than “Survivor All-Stars”, and stands very well on its own, even without that draw. Certainly, the pre-merge area was exciting, seeing how tribe politics developed. But once J.T. left, even though there were a few shake-ups in the boot order again, it became very clear that this was the Villains’ season. Given that most of the Villains were unlikeable to a certain degree, this was not a fun outcome. We did get the rise of a great winner, but another season full of Russell Hantz, particularly right after the last one, was not a fun experience. On top of that, while this season did have a lot of exciting and unexpected stupid moves, they’re just too stupid for my taste. Were I of a conspiracy theory bent, I would say that these were the result of the producers stacking things in favor of Russell. As it stands, it’s just too much stupidity for me. I respect this season for it’s good points, but it’s not quite what everyone remembers it to be.

14. “Survivor Caramoan”: All right, put down the torches and pitchforks, I can see them from here! Like I said, it’s my list, and I think “Survivor Caramoan”, as a whole, is a strong season. Did we get a lot of unlikeable characters? Sure. Is the beginning of the season, apart from the first episode, a slog? Certainly. But that back half, man, you can’t knock the back half. We had people making moves that ought not to work, but do, and on a regular basis. Unlike some other seasons, though, these moves come not from a place of stupidity, but from a place of strategy, which is far more entertaining in my book. Seriously, I get that it’s hard to sit through the beginning, but man is it worth it! This is a post-merge situation where something interesting is happening literally every episode. It gives us a great winner who isn’t entirely predictable, has its fair share of epic challenges, and gives some formerly maligned players new respect. Yeah, the people on the “Fans” side of things could have been stronger, and that reunion show was a travesty, but I think it would also be a travesty to put this season any lower. The post-merge game is just that strong.

13. “Survivor Blood vs. Water”: Despite having the stigma of the “Redemption Island” twist, “Survivor Blood vs. Water” manages to be a very good season, but not for the reasons I usually give. No, this season may be one of the most interpersonally interesting seasons to date. It was a bold move to bring on related people to “Survivor”, and as we saw with “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, it could easily backfire. This is where returning castaways get used well, as they make it more likely that, even if a twist does go awry, the season won’t necessarily be a flop. But it wasn’t a flop, and the new dynamic of playing with loved ones both changed up strategy in new and interesting ways, and gave us some of the most touching moments the show’s ever had, while simultaneously avoiding any awkward family-ruining moments, by and large. And don’t think it was just the returnees that made this a good season. No, their loved ones came to play, and gave us many of the best moments of the season. While the winner was once again pretty clearly broadcast from an early date, this time there were actual credible threats to the dominant alliance, and a number of times it almost got overthrown. That, right there, is exciting. Add some fun challenges onto that, and it’s hard to find fault with this season. Why doesn’t this become a “Phenomenal Season”, then? A few reasons. First off, Colton. While I am happy that we got Caleb Bankston out of the deal, we just didn’t need to see Colton again. True, his time there was short, and he got humiliated, but that doesn’t help matter. Second, the “Redemption Island” twist. While I maintain that this was the best iteration of said twist, that’s like saying a lunch of a broccoli and peanut butter sandwich is made better with the addition of a chocolate chip cookie. The cookie is nice, but it doesn’t change the fact that that sandwich is awful. But the most damning factor for this season is that, for me, a lot of it blends together. Sure, it had its share of stand-out moments, but it’s often hard for me to distinguish one episode from another, or remember to boot order accurately, which puts it just out of “phenomenal” range. Those interpersonal moments, though. Those deserve all the respect in the world.

PHENOMENAL SEASONS

12. “Survivor Gabon”: Even though “Survivor Gabon” holds a special place in my heart and always will, I’ll admit in recent years I’ve come to see some of the spots of the season. There’s a lot to like about it, but there are also a lot of dead spaces, particularly in the early parts of the game. Still, a strong finish is better than a strong start for me, and this season finished strong. True, it is a bit annoying how the failure of the Fang tribe was so clearly broadcast, thus taking away suspense for the audience, but again, this was a season all about the post-merge, not the pre-merge. This was the season of the underdog. We were given a lot of people early on who seemed set to take control of the game, making for a bland season. In a twist, however, those people were overthrown by the underdog players, who were themselves later overthrown! As you can tell, a very shake-up heavy season, and all the better for it, in my opinion. I’ve heard some people say that the cast, particularly Randy Bailey and Corinne Kaplan, but they didn’t bother me. They seemed more like engaging misanthropes than genuinely awful people, and their commentary made the season a laugh riot. Plus, a unique location and good challenges. Other people’s criticisms aren’t without merit, but I think they miss the good points of this season. We got a lot of interesting shakeups, particularly later on, a fair number of good characters, and a fun, non-obvious winner.

11. “Survivor Philippines”: A bit of an odd duck for the “Phenomenal Seasons” section as I’ve said before and will say again that “Survivor Philippines”, which a good, consistent season, doesn’t stand out much. Once again, it’s a case of rewatch making everything better. There’s a lot of good background material that makes the season better, and it helps that most of the strong people make the merge. That’s what really puts it up there, though: the merge people, particularly the endgame. Looking back at all the seasons, it’s rare that I don’t have at least one finalist to root against, but I liked pretty much everyone this season at the end, which ups it a lot. True, it does nothing spectacularly right, but even the best seasons have one or two mistakes. If nothing else, “Survivor Philippines” must be acknowledged for doing nothing wrong, and having a lot of smart gameplay within it.

10. “Survivor Palau”: Another rarity on this list: a season that does not benefit from rewatch. “Survivor Palau” is best described as a spectacle. It had a lot of things we’d never seen before as an audience, a really distinctive aesthetic style, and many over-the-top characters and arguments. Plus, some of the best challenges of the show ever. My beef with “Survivor Palau” is that, while it does have strategic game to enjoy, it’s pushed back in favor of the spectacle, which does not sit well with me. Plus, the overemotionally at the end gets a bit grating. Still, one can’t take one’s eyes off the spectacle, and so “Survivor Palau”deserves credit for that.

9. “Survivor Borneo”: Having no nostalgia goggles where “Survivor Borneo” is concerned, I see it as more of an interesting case study than an actual season of the show. “Survivor Borneo” is a very different season, which is both an advantage and a disadvantage. It lands this high on the list because of its historical significance, and because it has things you’re not going to see anywhere else, such as people dawning on the idea of strategy only partway through the game, and a focus more on interpersonal interaction than any other season, save perhaps “Survivor Blood vs. Water”. Sadly, these differences are not always good. There’s a fair amount of whining about morality, which I can’t stand, and “Survivor Borneo” can be hard to follow, since the strategic game was not the forefront of the show. I can’t deny that “Survivor Borneo” is an engaging watch, but it’s just too different, and not always in a good way, to put any higher.

8. “Survivor Tocantins”: “Survivor Tocantins” is a season that, at first glance, isn’t very special, but gets better and better every time you go through it. Unspectacular apart from location (no real interesting challenges or twists), “Survivor Tocantins” has a very fascinating strategic game. We get an underdog tribe coming back to win everything, but it wasn’t blatantly set up that way. Plus, due to a slow start for them, you really got to see how things all came together to get the Jalapao 3 an edge. True, this season had its share of uninteresting or annoying characters, but most of the people there were pretty nice people, and the bond between J.T. and Stephen Feshbach that permeates this season really makes for an enjoyable watch. If only for those two, this is a great season.

7. “Survivor The Amazon”: Often called “The Season that Invented Modern ‘Survivor’”, “Survivor The Amazon” earns its title well. This season was vastly unpredictable, start to finish, and created a lot of big names in a unique location. I’ve never been a big fan of the winner, but on rewatch, I can respect her game more than before. Really, the only strike against this season is that the “Young Men are Horny” theme, while occasionally funny, was overplayed. It got annoying really fast. Thankfully, this season had a good mix of both humor and strategy, so it’s still good, just not as good as it otherwise might have been.

6. “Survivor Vanuatu”: I’ve complained before about seasons with just strategists sometimes being boring, but if you want to see it done right, watch “Survivor Vanuatu”. This was a season with very few big characters, and not a lot remarkable in either the twist or aesthetic department (though a few fun challenges and cultural tidbits were thrown in there). What this season did have, though, was intelligence. We really got to see some of the best minds going at it, and while they weren’t the biggest characters of the show, they also seemed like nice people while doing it. That’s quite a rarity in and of itself. What really sets this season apart, though, is the comeback by the winner. Were it not for the victory of Chris Daugherty, down 6-1, this season would not be so high. As it is, watching with that journey in mind, this is a fantastic season, and a great study in general “Survivor” strategy.

5. “Survivor Africa”: If you want to talk unique locations and good challenges, you want to talk “Survivor Africa”. Even if the cast had been duds, this was still going to be a memorable season for location alone. Once again, though, we got the best of all possible worlds. This season gave us a lot of big characters and interpersonal drama, which did go a bit overboard once or twice, but was largely just fun television. Here, in my opinion, is where the strategic game really started to take off. This season gave us some new ideas, such as throwing a challenge and flipping (ineffectively) against your original numbers. With a largely likable cast behind these factors, “Survivor Africa”, in my opinion, blends the best of both old school and new school “Survivor”, keeping in both the strategic and personal elements, while not descending into parody.

4. “Survivor Guatemala”: Now, HERE’S where my nostalgia goggles show up. “Survivor Guatemala” was the first season I saw that I really appreciated, and I still hold that it has value. It’s got some good twists, challenges, and stands out as a location, and while the cast had some grumps in it, I largely found them to be entertaining grumps. Plus, again, good strategy with a lot of shake-ups, and an overall likable group. Frankly, it’s a travesty that no one from this season has ever been brought back again.

3. “Survivor Cagayan”: One of the most recent marvels in “Survivor” history. What most people have pointed to as this season’s greatest strength, which is true, is that most everyone on this season came to play. However good or bad they were at playing, they all came to play. On top of this, with few exceptions, most everyone was a character, as well as a strategist, meaning this season had something for everyone. The “Brains vs. Brawn vs. Beauty” start worked well to distinguish this season from others, but was not pushed on us so much that it became intrusive. True, not every twist hit the mark, and Tony Vlachos is not the most likable winner, but the good of the strategy and the character’s memorable moments outweighs the bad. “Survivor Cagayan” stands up there with the greatest of seasons.

2. “Survivor Pearl Islands”: Talk about a season with more iconic moments than any other. While maybe not the MOST strategic season ever, this one still had its moments strategically, and several good comeuppance points. But the players, man! Apart from perhaps “Survivor Borneo”, this may be the most recognizable group to ever play, and for good reason. Nary a dud among them, this season just exudes fun from every pore, while still having enough strategy to be taken seriously. While the Outcast Twist and Jonny Fairplay were not the best elements to have, they’re both outweighed by the good, and in the case of the former, was an obvious idea that had to be tried at least once.

“Survivor Micronesia”: This one tops the list for being, in my eyes, the most unpredictable season to date. The winner was never clearly broadcast, and while stated plans usually happened, they were so illogical that you couldn’t believe they’d work. This season played its cards close to the chest, and it works well, throwing both the audience as well as the players for a loop. Plus, great challenges, some delightfully stupid moments, and a lot of big characters on both sides. Just an enjoyable romp with some of the best strategy the show’s ever had, and well deserving of the #1 spot for its unpredictability.

And there you have the rankings. Hopefully you found them enjoyable. Well, this was a long blog, and I need rest before “Survivor Cambodia” starts. Where will it fall? tune in on September 23rd and find out! “Idol Speculation” will be there, covering it all.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

“Survivor” Retrospectives: Nicaragua

HOLD EVERYTHING! I’ve found the time in my hectic life to start writing again, so I demand that you drop everything and read my pointless pontifications about “Survivor”! In all seriousness, this is very belated, but it’s time once again to start up “Survivor Retrospectives” a (somewhat) objective look back at “Survivor” seasons past, and seeing how they hold up in the passage of time. And we’re starting off with a doozy of a season this time! Yes, what this summer’s editions of “Survivor Retrospectives” may lack in quantity compared to other summers, we more than make up for in the quality of the seasons that must be assessed. Now, not to say that “Survivor Nicaragua” is a good season, far from it. In fact, Nicaragua is one of the most maligned seasons to date, and many people consider it the worst season of the show ever. But extremely bad seasons are just as much fun to analyze as extremely good seasons, and oh baby do we have a string of bad seasons coming up! Nicaragua just happens to kick off that list. But, does Nicaragua deserve the terrible reputation it gets? Frankly yes. Even I, who loves to have unpopular opinions about “Survivor” can’t defend this season as being “good”. But, is it quite as bad as everyone makes it out to be? I think not. Let’s take a closer look, and see exactly what this season does right, and why it doesn’t outweigh everything it does wrong.

Since it’s been a while, though, I feel compelled to remind everyone that this blog will contain spoilers. If you want to watch “Survivor Nicaragua” spoiler-free, do not read this blog! If you want to know whether Nicaragua is worth watching, but don’t want spoilers, scroll down to the bottom of this page, where I will have a section labeled “Abstract”. There you will find a spoiler-free opinion on the season as a whole, which should help in your decision. But enough chit-chat! Time to dissect this season for all it’s worth, starting with the place we usually begin, the cast.

CAST

As with many a bad “Survivor” season, people will tell you that the cast is the big problem with the season, and Nicaragua is a great example of this. In my opinion, however, the cast of Nicaragua is NOT it’s great weakness. It’s not a good cast, don’t get me wrong, but people tend to take a few bad apples and say that they poison the whole cast, forgetting that there were actually a few good characters in amongst the bad. Chief among these, most people will tell you, is Brenda Lowe, our “villain” for the season. I put “villain” in quotation marks on the basis that, at the time it was airing, most people considered Brenda a villain. Nowadays, though, compared to the rest of the cast, she’s considered the best thing to come out of Nicaragua, and therefore a hero. It also helps that she’s the only person from Nicaragua to ever come back. I can’t deny, I like Brenda about as much as everyone else does. A smart strategist who also happened to be an attractive young woman, Brenda was inevitably compared to Parvati Shallow (“Survivor Cook Islands”), which I don’t feel was entirely fair. The pair aren’t dissimilar, but while Parvati mainly played the flirt game and brought together a women’s alliance (along with a few side deals), Brenda took a different route. True, Brenda did use her looks to win a few allies to her side (notably Chase Rice), but she took the more straightforward route of creating a dominating alliance, and then spinning around those not allied with her to keep them off-balance. Not dissimilar, but also I think selling Brenda a bit short, making her seem like she was just a clone of Parvati. As I’ve discussed before, seasons and people can fall victim to simply coming after a popular season, and being compared unfairly to that season. Granted, I don’t think Brenda has too much of a problem with this, but I would say she’s slightly underrated. Not quite as underrated, though, as her strategic rival, Marty Piombo. Initially on the opposite tribe from Brenda, it seemed as though Marty was going to be Brenda’s rival come the merge. After the inevitable tribe swap, though, that storyline was sped up, as Marty ended up on the same tribe as Brenda, and in the minority. This, however, made him infinitely more interesting. Now Marty was having to struggle for his life, and as an obvious target, he was likely to be gone. Thankfully, Marty was no dummy, and despite being targeted numerous times before the merge, managed to talk his way out of it many times, most famously with his “Chess Grandmaster” lie to Jud “Fabio” Birza, who we’ll be talking about later. This made for a really compelling story, and there’s a reason these three episodes of the season (where Marty was struggling and on the outs) are remembered most favorably out of all the rest of the season. Marty made for good tv, and between his wit and his strategy, I also liked him a lot. A shame he hasn’t come back.

Of those who are remembered fondly from Nicaragua, Brenda and Marty are about the only ones who get any sort of talk today, but people forget that there are a few others from Nicaragua who, at the time at least, were actually quite popular. In particular, a duo of older women (a demographic “Survivor” loves to ignore, for whatever reason) who are now forgotten unfairly, in my opinion. First up is Holly Hoffman, our underdog for the season. Holly was initially maligned coming in, and not entirely unfairly. Her first major act of the season was to crack under the strain of survival and the game, and toss fellow contestant Dan Lembo’s shoes into the ocean, having first filled them with sand. Not exactly the start to make anyone like you or be impressed with you. Holly, however, saw what she was doing and turned her game around, becoming another of the strategic masterminds of her tribe, along with Marty. Things really took off for her after the tribe swap, where she managed to take control of her game, and even overcome being on the bottom a few times. It was a similar story arc to Kathy Vavrick-O’Brien’s on “Survivor Marquesas”, only with not quite as sharp a learning curve. Whereas Kathy clearly had no idea what the game was about going in, you got the sense that Holly knew what was going on, and was just unable to make use of it at the start. Still, she was an interesting character and good strategist who wasn’t a jerk, and very easy to like. Even she, though, was somewhat overshadowed by the other awesome older lady, Jane Bright. In a sense the opposite of Holly, Jane was no strategic mastermind, and brought into the alliance more often than not (even though Marty had it in for her, for whatever reason), but her big factor was her survival skills. One of few people to ever come on the show knowing how to make fire, Jane proved to be an invaluable asset from that standpoint of the game. These days, it’s rare to see a hard-core survivalist on the show, but to have it be one of the oldest people in the game? Unheard of! No one talks about her anymore, but it’s important to remember that, at the time, Jane was the most beloved of the cast. Don’t believe me? She, and not the currently-beloved Brenda or Marty, won the “Player of the Season” award. And I’ll admit, while I nowadays find her vacuum of intelligence a bit grating, I still like her. It’s just cool to me to see this little old lady doing so incredibly well compared to these young bucks. So yeah, Jane’s pretty cool, and so is Holly. In effect, it could be argued they started the modern trend of having awesome older-lady characters on the show, and they deserve credit for that. But even though they started the trend, I find that they are not remembered precisely because of said trend. The older-lady characters who came after them did what they did, but better, and were from overall better seasons. As such, Holly and Jane kind of get the shaft. Still, this does not change the fact that Holly and Jane are pretty cool, and arguably high points of the season.

Now we move onto the characters who are kind of mixed bags. First and foremost is winner Fabio, who I mentioned before. Living up to his in-show nickname, Fabio was very good looking, but an idiot and accident-prone. The latter trait was occasionally funny, but for the most part, Fabio always felt to me like a waste of space. At the time he was a fairly well-liked winner, partly because of his claim that he played up his stupidity to get farther in the game. I buy this argument to a degree, but he’s still pretty much a dumb blonde, and it’s not that surprising that he’s been forgotten in the passage of time. I’ll talk more later about how he was the best possible outcome for the season, given the final three, but on the whole, not the best winner of all seasons, and it’s understandable that he’s forgotten. Also to be mentioned is early boot stunt-cast Jimmy Johnson. As a different take on casting sports stars on previous seasons, the show cast Jimmy J., a former football coach and sport commentator. Not a bad idea in concept, and it helped that Jimmy J. actually was a big fan of the show, but the trouble was that he just wan’t very interesting. All he really had going for him was the stunt aspect of his casting, which wasn’t much, and so while not hated, he is pretty well forgotten. The only other person who fits in this category is Matthew “Sash” Lenahan, another potential strategist of the season. I say “potential” not because Sash wasn’t strategic, but because he never really got the respect he deserves. Unlike a Brenda, Holly, or Marty, Sash had no charm to back up his strategy. He THOUGHT he was charming, but he came off both to the audience and the cast as a schmoozer who was completely full of it. I can’t say I don’t see where it comes from, and I get that people may not like Sash, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve respect for his moves. He was pretty much an equal partner of Brenda, was really the one responsible for not letting Marty get a foothold post-swap, and even managed to come back from being put on the bottom of the merged tribe. People may say that I’m overestimating his influence on the game, and that I’m the only one who really cares about him on this season, but damn it, Stephen Fishbach (“Survivor Tocantins”) has called him “underrated”, so THERE!

Now, sadly, we must move into the bad people of this season. As an individual, the least offensive far and away is Jimmy Tarantino, aka Jimmy T. An obnoxious braggart, Jimmy T. was never really destined to be liked. He was out quickly, his only saving grace. I didn’t like him, the audience didn’t like him, and he was overall just a waste of space on the season. Still, most would agree that he’s better than the terrible duo of Na’Onka Mixon and “Purple Kelly” Shinn. Now, the latter I can’t talk too much about, as she’s remembered for the manner of her leaving the show, which will be covered in the “Twist” section, but suffice to say here that she is, far and away, the biggest waste of space the show has ever had. Apart from her exit, the only thing memorable about her is her hair color (hence the nickname), and that’s not a good thing. This combined with her exit makes her one of the most reviled “Survivor” contestants ever. But she’s nowhere near as bad as Na’Onka. Put simply, Na’Onka was seen by most as rude and mean. She bitched about just about everybody else, played favorites, and dared to go up against crowd favorites. Apart from her exit (which will again be talked about in the “Twist” section), she’s most remembered for tripping up fellow contestant Kelly Bruno in an attempt to get a clue to the hidden immunity idol. This would be fine, if it weren’t for the fact that Kelly had a prosthetic leg, thus labeling Na’Onka as “The Woman Who’s Mean to Handicapped People”, never mind the fact that Kelly proved to be perfectly competent, and her leg in no way seemed to affect her physical game. Not an easy person to like, and I completely sympathize. Talking about Na’Onka leaves something of a bad taste in my mouth as well. That said, however, I give Na’Onka a bit more credit that everybody else, if only because I found it fascinating how someone so obnoxious, how such an awful human being, could last week after week. She’s not a pleasant aspect of the season, and it doesn’t help that she’s arguably the most memorable thing in it, but Na’Onka gets a slightly bad reputation, in my mind. What I cannot deny, though, is the fact that the rest of the cast was awful. Unlike the Na’Onka’s or Jimmy T.’s of the world, they weren’t mean or obnoxious, but they were just bland to the point of being unpleasant. It’s a bit hard to describe, but with so much of the cast as these boring, stereotypical Americans, combined with a number of unpleasant characters, those who were merely boring looked the worse. All everyone, including myself, could think was “Why couldn’t we have gotten GOOD people on the show, instead of these blank slates?” I think the best demonstration of this in Ben Henry, aka Benry, possibly the most bland person on the entire planet, who contributed nothing to the game, yet seemed like he was a big shot in his own brain. not an endearing quality. The rest of the cast not mentioned was similar, and this really is why the cast fails so much. While there were a few good people in there, the most remembered people were unpleasant, and even those where were boring came off badly, so it’s hard to call the cast overall good. Still, one should not forget those who were good, and so I rank this cast perhaps higher than others might.

SCORE: 5 out of 10

CHALLENGES

As I’ll discuss in the “Overall” section, I can kind of see why the cast of Nicaragua didn’t get a very good reception. For all my praising of some individuals, the cast overall is one of the weaker ones. No, what really suffers are the challenges of this season, which, if you look at them, are actually quite good. You had a lot of creativity thrown in at all phases, combined with some really memorable visuals. There was the Plinko board, the chute for cannonballs, the giant water wheel! Most challenges this season felt dynamic and epic. Even after the merge, we got a lot of great challenges. there was balancing coins atop a sword, the treasure chest puzzle, a lot of really quite good individual challenges. As concepts, they’re simple, but their design and execution really elevates them. And that’s a good way to describe this season’s challenges: they took a lot of risks. Some elements of challenges are repeats, to be sure, but for the most part, we had original challenges this season, which were mostly hits. Part of the problem, though, is that with every risk there comes the possibility of failure, and the trouble is that the failures were so spectacular that they’re what’s remembered, and partly explain why this season is not remembered for its challenges (that and the fact that other parts of the season were so unpleasant that people don’t even want to contemplate its challenges). Some challenges just seemed out of place for the theme of the season, like a blindfolded moving of grilling supplies. Some ideas were good in theory, like an obstacle course where teams had to smash through walls of straw, wood, and “Brick”. Once it was made clear that this was a reference to “The Three Little Pigs” however, people couldn’t take it seriously. It was just too immature and too modern for a show like “Survivor”. Then there were the challenges that just failed outright, but got overused, such as the “Hanging by a rope over the water” challenge. But the king of the bad challenges has to be the “Gulliver’s Travels” challenge. It’s bad enough when “Survivor” has to plug a bad Jack Black movie, but to have them make it into a challenge is awful. As if the reward (seeing the movie) wasn’t bad enough, the challenge featured the visual of not-competing Dan Lembo (remembered, if at all, for being short, annoying, and contributing nothing) sitting in a far too big chair, adding a sense of ridiculousness to an already ridiculous challenge. So yeah, there were some real stinkers in this one. On the whole, though, there were still a lot of good challenges to be found here, and I think that the overall opinion on the season unfairly maligns the challenges.

SCORE: 7 out of 10

TWISTS

Most people will say the cast is where this season falls short, but I contend that it’s really here, in the twists, where this season falls flat. Plain and simple, there were just too many of them, and most of them fell flat. While it’s fair to say that some of them were good IDEAS, it’s hard to come up with a single major twist (either producer-implemented or cast-implemented) that actually panned out. And they started even before the season began! For Nicaragua, fans were allowed to vote on one person who would enter into the game, based on one-minute videos on CBS.com This led to the inclusion of Jimmy T. in the cast. Not a bad idea in theory. The trouble is that, as mentioned, this twist gave us Jimmy T., who both didn’t last long and was incredibly annoying, leading to a lot of letdown from the fans. Things didn’t improve when it came out that the top 10 finalists for the contest (the only ones fans were allowed to vote on) were CBS recruits told to apply this way. Not a good day for CBS. Also minor but worth mentioning is the fact that starting in Nicaragua, “Survivor” shifted back to airing on Wednesday nights, as it had during “Survivor Borneo” but not since then. It didn’t impact the season as a whole, but it is a part of “Survivor” history, and did show that the fancies is loyal to a fault. Rather than give up on the show (easy to do 21 seasons in), people shifted their viewing schedules. Trust me, this factoid is the HIGH point of the twists.

Starting in the game proper, we have another twist that was in theory a good idea, but in practice ended up a bad idea. This time around, the tribes were divided up by age, into the 40 and older Espada, and the 30 and younger La Flor (initially hidden from the contestants by mixing the tribes entering). A pretty simple twist, but it makes sense. We’ve had “Battle of the Sexes”, why not “Battle of the Ages”? And like some other twists I’ll discuss in future retrospectives, I think this one had the potential to be a good twist, but was brought down in execution. The problem was that, despite CBS’ efforts to counteract this effect, the obvious outcome of the younger people dominating the older people in challenges (except for Jane on the individual level) came to pass. I place part of the blame on CBS, as I think they could probably have found some more fit older contestants, or else made the challenges more puzzle-heavy than they were, but part of it’s just the nature of “Survivor”. I’m ok with the “Old vs. Young” twist, as it had to be done at some point, but even I admit that it fell flat. Not that CBS didn’t TRY to correct for the physical disparity, of course! Oh no, we had to sit through the poorly named and poorly planned out “Medallion of Power”. A little item hunted for at the start of the game, the tribe with the Medallion of Power could hand it in at any challenge and be given an advantage in said challenge. An obvious attempt to balance out the challenges for the older contestants, this twist was even stupider than its name, which is saying a lot. Apart from making the older contestants seem like wimps for having to have this crutch, the Medallion of Power was overpowered, to say the least. Add on the fact that the younger contestants held onto it for most of it’s (admittedly short) tenure, and you’ve got a twist no one loved, including myself. Thankfully, it was retired in Episode 5, and will never be heard from again. A minor note: this season changed up how the idol was hidden. For once, it was by no major landmarks, instead relying on correctly calculating how many yards the idol would be buried from a certain landmark. Additionally, the clue was done pictographically, rather than a word clue, which was a nice change. It made the idols harder to find, and allowed the viewers at home to play along, since no visual clue was shown in the editing to where the idol was. This wasn’t a major twist of the season, but it’s a very positive little detail.

Apart from the aforementioned sabotage of Dan’s shoes by Holly, nothing of note happened until Episode 5, when the tribe swap occurred. In a change up from past swaps, a leader of each tribe was randomly selected by rocks. However, rather than have this person simply get first pick on the new tribe, the leaders were told to select a certain number of people from the other tribe (to make the numbers balance out) to join their tribe. Holly and Brenda ended up picking, which didn’t lead to much excitement. Brenda was already the leader of La Flor, so this just gave her more power, and while Holly wasn’t the power player of Espada (that would be Marty), she had been moving up the ranks, and this only cemented her power position. Once again, this is not a bad idea for a swap, but the execution ended up being poor, because it just game the power players more power. Admittedly, this one could be seen as successful, as it gave us the compelling “Marty as Underdog” storyline, but it would have been cooler to see someone on the bottom be in control.

Following on the “Marty as Underdog” storyline, we get his surprising survival as an underdog, first by getting Kelly Bruno targeted at a double Tribal Council, and then by making Jill Behm seem a bigger target. This also got Sash his hidden immunity idol (Brenda and Na’Onka having found the other one), as he made a deal with Marty that, in being saved, Marty would give up his idol to Sash. A shining moment for Sash, and a rare moment of stupidity for Marty, but as I say, not as bad as some of the other aspects of this season.

Now comes the merge, and here’s where things get tricky. It’s worth noting, though, that during the merge was the first instance of someone left out of a reward challenge post-merge being allowed to choose a side to root for, and go with them on reward potentially. A pretty good idea, but not a major twist of the season, just one of those little things to like. The dominant alliance was always hazy at best, so we got some nice blindsides. I say “Nice” in that they were really tricky blindsides, but had the problem of getting rid of good people). After the surprising vote-off of Alina “Dirt Squirrel” Wilson for no particular reason, the power trio of Brenda, Sash, and Na’Onka (the only discernible alliance) took out Marty, who at this point was really a fan favorite. A good gameplay blindside, but as I’ll discuss in a bit, it was the start of a negative turn for the season. One of the favorite contestants got voted out, with several episodes to go, this is not a good thing. This was followed by a shake-up, in which Na’Onka flipped along with a few other non-memorables to join Holly’s alliance, voting off Brenda in the process. This seems like a good “Survivor” move, and it is. The trouble is, like Marty, Brenda was a darling of the fans (though less so after her vote off, as she refused to “scramble” which many people saw as arrogant and pathetic), and to see her vote off, most people to root for were gone. Not to mention, this kept Na’Onka, who EVERYONE hated, in power. Not a good situation for the show, but it could still recover. And it might have done, if not for what happened next.

Late in the game (Final 8), Na’Onka, despite being in the dominant alliance, decided, for no apparent reason, that she’d had enough, and would like to quit. Having done nothing for the past 20-odd days, Purple Kelly jumped right along with her, and decided that she wanted out. This is what the season is remembered for, and it is a HORRIBLE twist. Seeing people quit is never fun, and seeing people quit this late in the game for no discernible reason is downright despicable. On the heels of the two great games of the season being ejected, this felt to most viewers, including myself, like a great insult to the game. And it was. The kicker, though, was that Na’Onka and Purple Kelly were still allowed on the jury, which many people saw as an insult. Probst’s justification was that Janu, who also quit post-merge on “Survivor Palau” had been allowed on the jury, so precedent was set. I get this justification, and I agree with it. That doesn’t make it feel good, however. This led to the “Quitter clause” now standard in “Survivor” contracts, wherein this who quit the game can be denied the right to sit on the jury, or even get their prize money. Yes, that’s how bad this twist was, and the major issue is that THIS is what’s remembered about this season. Not good.

It’s during this period that we also get the “Someone can give up individual reward for extra camp supplies” twist, which is a fun edition, but nothing major. The Libertad camp also got set on fire at this point, which was mildly interesting, but had been done before on “Survivor The Amazon”, and so came off as trite and cliched. The only other thing of note this season was that Fabio went on a string of immunity runs to win the game, which was mildly impressive to watch, but again, we’d seen it before. Sash did overcome being sent to the bottom of the totem pole by Brenda’s vote out, but again, not that impressive.

This was a season screwed over in terms of twists. A lot of front loaded producer-implemented twists made the season seem weak from the start, and while the twists were eased up on later, most of the twists, both producer and cast-based alike, really just didn’t come off well. A few minor ones, like the pictographic idol clues and the sit-out being allowed to bet on the winner were kind of fun, but they just don’t overcome the overwhelming sense of horribleness these twists exude.

SCORE: 2 out of 10.

OVERALL

Nicaragua is not the most unique of locations, but the production did what they could to make it unique. They gave it a conquistador theme to help distinguish the season, and while it made it distinct, they made it a bit too over-the-top for a “Survivor” theme. For my part, I found the Christian Iconography off-putting, even though I concede it’s appropriate for the theme. This was also where we REALLY started getting into “plastic” “Survivor”, where everything put in seemed a little too fake. We’d gotten it somewhat with “Survivor Samoa” and “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, but it came out in force here. Everything just felt like it didn’t fit in with the show, and this trend would not be corrected, even partially, until “Survivor Philippines”, and even then it took a while. One detail that I don’t hear people talk about, but that I think really hurt the season, was the theme music. For some reason I can’t comprehend, the producers, rather than go with an original theme song, decided to use the version from “Survivor Borneo”. This was a terrible creative decision. This wasn’t any sort of anniversary for the show, nor was it some sort of All-Star season where they might have wanted to hearken back to seasons past. What this move came off as was a “This season is bad, so let’s make it look better by reminding people of a good season!” play, and it really undermined the season before it started.

But that’s just the production theme, what about cast themes? Well, the cast themes are, if anything, worse. As I said, a major problem of this season is timing, and not just because it came after the acclaimed “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” (though that was also a contributing factor). No, Nicaragua was never going to be one of the great seasons, just due to the facts that the twists were lackluster, and most of the cast was boring or unpleasant. No, the timing problem really shows itself post-merge. Even with a season with a weak cast, there are one or two standouts that, if they make it to the end, can make the season ok. In this case, those standouts were Marty and Brenda. That the two went back-to-back, fairly early in the merge, was a hard enough blow. But then, right on its heals, comes the quitting of Na’Onka and Purple Kelly. Think about this for a second. You’ve got the two fan favorites thus far, the two best strategists, the two most dynamic players of the game, voted out one right after the other, with several episodes to go. this alone is hard enough to recover from. But then you get the two most DISLIKED players, quitting, right afterwards, leaving a bad taste in your mouth. All anyone could think was “Why did THESE people get to stay longer than Brenda and Marty?” I’m not saying that Brenda and Marty being voted out, or Na’Onka and Purple Kelly quitting would have been easy to handle on their own, but happening one right after the other, the badness just compounded, and the season couldn’t recover. You were left with a bunch of bad people around, although Jane and Holly might have salvaged the season a bit, but our final 3 ended up being Sash, Chase, and Fabio. A unlikeable strategist, a boring nice guy, and a likable idiot. Of the three, the Fabio win was probably the best possible outcome, but even then, it was a poor choice. Notice also that the final three was entirely young people. While both tribes had their unlikeable people, it was clear that on the whole, the older side was more interesting and more likable. To have the young people dominate so, it was the final nail in the coffin. The big problem with the season though, is the quit. It’s unpleasant, and it’s what’s remembered out of the whole season. While this season does have a few underrated qualities (Brenda and Marty, and some minor twists), I cannot deny that the overall effect of Nicaragua is unpleasant. Is it overly hated on? I’d say so. But does it deserved to be hated? Yes. Yes it does.

SCORE: 16 out of 40

ABSTRACT

Nicaragua is not one of the shining jewels of “Survivor” A lot of boring cast members and unpleasant twists make this one a hard watch. I’d recommend this one only for the hardcore “Survivor” completionist. One contestant does return in a future season, but they make so little of an impact that Nicaragua does not need to be seen to appreciate them. Still, although you will find it hated in the community as a whole, it has one or two minor details that might make it worth a watch, if you’re willing to tolerate a lot of irritating elements. On the whole, though, I agree with the consensus. While I’m not as vehement in this stance, I say skip this season.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Blood vs. Water” Episode 9: Cheeseburger Debates

Ladies and Gentlemen!  Please welcome tonight’s opening act, the Great Vytas-ini, the world’s worst magician!  Watch as he manages to make any tension during the first half of the episode DISAPPEAR!  And let’s not forget his lovely assistants, the “Survivor” Editing Team, who will do the same for the second half of the episode.  Before our show starts, however, a few reminders.  Please be aware that any photographic and video recording devices are not permitted during the show.  Anyone found with such devices will have them confiscated, and be asked to leave the premises.  Smoking is not permitted in the theatre, and for the kindness of your fellow audience members, please turn off all things electronic and beeping.  We’d also like to take this time to mention the fact that our show is sponsored by:

MATT’S MESS-UP!

Yes, this mess-up is a bit unique, in that it actually spans two blogs!  I meant to comment on this in the last one, but due to sheer length, and a lot happening in that episode, I forgot to.  As such I will address it now.  My mess-up is that, during the episode where Kat got voted off, I neglected to deride her for her complaints that Laura M. was “cheating” by looking at John’s puzzle.  To be fair, I derided Kat for a lot of things, but that’s no excuse to miss this one.  I’ve complained about others doing it in the past, and Kat is no exception.  It’s “Survivor”.  The concept of fairness is minimal at best.  Your job is to get ahead of the competition by any means necessary.  If they neglect to cover up or destroy their puzzle, use that to your advantage.  I’ve heard some people claim that it truly is unfair as Laura had a better vantage point that Kat, but again, since when is “Survivor” fair?  Also, Kat could either A: have looked on Laura’s puzzle since Laura was further ahead of her at that time, or B: run over to John’s puzzle, either to destroy it or get a better look.  And yet, rather than be proactive, Kat instead chose to complain and lose.  Did I mention how glad I am that she’s gone?

Well, moving on to the episode, we see that Super Vytas is using his power of super serenity (no, it is not the super power to summon “Purple Brenda” Lowe from “Survivor Caramoan”), to keep himself outwardly calm in the face of Aras’ exit.  Privately, he admits that it tears him up inside, and that he wants revenge, particularly against Tyson, but to the public eye, he soldiers on.  Good for him.  I’ve said in the past that I understand the reactions of the betrayed, but think it’d be in their best interests to keep it under wraps.  Vytas lives that out.  Good for you, man.  Props also go to Tyson for unflinchingly schmoozing Vytas by going up and hugging him, despite having just voted off his closest ally.

Of course, for every good bit of strategy, there is a bad one, and Kasama is no exception.  Tina, of all people, falls victim to bad social posturing by doing the old “Call out the betrayers by saying they’ll get no votes at final tribal” gambit.  Yes, she’s clearly frustrated at the betrayal, and I don’t begrudge her those emotions.  However, this is a STUPID way to go about expressing them, as it only angers the people you want to keep you in the game.  And this coming from TINA, one of the best social game players in the early seasons.  God, Tina, what happened to you?  Also, I have to say, I find the argument that Tina’s using unjustified, and not just because it didn’t include Gervase when he was the one made out to be the biggest traitor.  It’s true, betray does bring animosity, but not everyone on the jury will see it that way, and if the finals are made up of ONLY traitors, well, you have to give the million to one of them!  There, perfect counter-argument, Tina has no leg to stand on.

Fortunately, as seems to be often the case on this show, morning brings sanity, and Tina, realizing her days are numbered, releases Katie from any ties to her.  Tina thinks Katie has a better shot than she does to stay (despite the fact that for most of the episode, Katie is the name of the two that’s bandied about more), and should not hold herself to one alliance just because Tina is her mother.  I both love and hate this scene.  I love it because it gives Katie the freedom to make moves, and prevents any angry family war scenes that I feared at the start of this season.  I hate it because it’s a bad move for Tina.  In the face of this sort of coalition, you will unite, or you will fall.  Tina, your move with Katie was very classy, but it’s just not smart.  Unless you two plan to split the money should only one of you win, in which case I’m VERY annoyed at this season, as such a pact ruins the gameplay.  Katie makes the token “I don’t know how I’ll do it.” speech, which I buy in that Katie hasn’t had much gameplay experience, and therefore probably DOESN’T know how to proceed.  Anyway, the two come back from tree-mail, and we head to a challenge.

Let’s get ready to RUUUUUUUUUMBLE!  You’ve seen the epicness that was “The Rumble in the Jungle”.  You’ve heard of the mighty clash of titans in “The Thrilla in Manila”.  But now, Ladies and Gentlemen, prepare yourself for the ultimate clash of the titans, a battle for the ages, the one that will decide, once and for all, who the supreme being is.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you “The Commotion by the Ocean”.  In the red corner, we have our reigning champion: Butod!  Yes, this beetle larva may look like a small-fry, but don’t be fooled!  I can dodge and weave like nobody’s business, wriggles going down, and is known to have a mean left hook.  But our challenger is no pushover either!  In the blue corner, we have our challenger, Gervase Peterson.  He squared off against Butod during the finals of the Borneo championship, and definitely came off the worse for wear.  Now, 13 years later, Jumpin’ Gervase Peterson is back for revenge!  Will his patented left-right slap be enough to conquer the Butod, or is this just one battle Gervase is not meant to win?

Well, before we get to that, we have some pre-game analysis to look over.  In case it wasn’t obvious, this is a gross food challenge, which I’m ok with, despite being reused.  It’s a challenge that can easily by tailored to the locale, and is just a classic staple of “Survivor”.  That said, I’m overall not a fan of this iteration of the challenge, particularly the final round.  The food is certainly gross, so it earns points in the challenging department, but none of it is very distinctive.  The first round is mealworms, which Vytas, Tyson, Gervase, Monica, Caleb, and Hayden all manage to get down.  I was a bit surprised that Tina didn’t last longer, given her bragging about her suppressed gag reflex on “Survivor The Australian Outback”.  Then again, Tina threw up there as well, so perhaps she’s just overselling herself.  The next round is pig intestine (probably the best of the three rounds), which makes the crime of diffusing the tension of the episode by NOT having Vytas progress (evidently the super gag suppression only lasts for a short stretch of time) and instead having Monica and Gervase (both members of the majority alliance) progress.  Here we get the infamous Butod round, and now comes my displeasure.  For all that pig intestine and mealworms weren’t the most unique food challenge “Survivor” has ever produced, I’ll concede they were at least original to this season.  The Butod, however, I must put my food down on.  I concede that Butod may be indigenous to the area, but my gripe is that it’s a food already done mixed in with new ones.  Consistency is my only desire here, folks.  Furthermore, I get the sneaking suspicion that the final round would have been different had Gervase not made it.  This is just too good to be true, there’s no WAY they didn’t specifically put Butod in the challenge, hoping Gervase would make it.  To be fair, however, it WAS very funny to see Gervase try and eat them, as well as his reaction to them.

Monica, as you might expect, wins immunity, so it seems to be a sure bet that Super Vytas is going home.  All that’s left is to get us our obvious misdirection.  It comes in the form of Hayden actually speaking, specifically with Super Vytas.  Super Vytas uses his powers of deduction to correctly conclude that the majority will split the votes 4-3 with himself and someone else, just to prevent any idol surprises.  Super Vytas, however, begs Hayden to split the vote so that the 4 goes to the other person and not him, promising Hayden and later Tyson that they will have a sub-alliance and his eternal gratitude.  The Hoarder admits to us that he’s got no intention of siding with Super Vytas against his good spot, and Wisecracker seems to be going the same way.  Not that I blame them, Super Vytas’ arguments are not very smart.  Look, I respect that you need to make the jury like you, and that there are no guarantees when it comes to challenges, but Vytas is both a physical and mental threat who needs to be taken down.  Super Vytas then, however, makes the one logical argument, which is that if he goes, the women have majority, which is very bad for Tyson, Caleb, Gervase, and Hayden.  This makes Wisecracker take notice, but I’m still not convinced.  Like I said, Super Vytas is just too much of a threat.

He’s not the only one who wants to help his situation, however.  Despite having immunity, Monica is paranoid.  Ok, the other times I could kind of understand it, but now Monica’s really looking over her shoulder way too much.  It’s bound to make other people distrust her.  I’m usually not one to agree with Laura, but I have to say, for once I’m on her side.  Monica: YOU HAVE IMMUNITY!  I understand wanting to play proactively to keep yourself in the game longer, but this is just going way too far!

Still, if there was any doubt in my mind that Super Vytas was going to get the axe tonight, it was dispelled by Super Vytas’ performance at Tribal Council.  The man who’s the master of subtlety in tight spots, the man who would try and talk his way out of anything, utterly blows his only chance by emphasizing repeatedly how he wants to get revenge for Aras-Man.  This determination and drive makes him too much of a threat to keep around, and pretty much ensures his demise.  Not even a commercial break during Probst’s getting of the votes can make this Tribal Council have any sense of tension.  Predictably, Vytas (his loss demotes him from his superness) leaves, and while I’m a supporter of Tyson’s alliance, and am therefore very happy they made the smart decision, I’m still sorry to see him go.  Save for one or two instances, Vytas played with a lot of class, a great social game, and a pretty decent strategic game.  On top of that, he was fun to watch, and I am officially on the bandwagon for bringing Vytas back at some point, just on his own merits.

Well, that was a short episode, if I do say so myself.  How thoroughly unsatisfying.  No, of course that’s not what happens, it’s a good-old double elimination episode, which I’m happy for if only because it will speed us towards a more interesting strategy.

Not that the last Tribal Council was uneventful, however.  No, Vytas’ comments stung Monica a little too close to home.  Turns out she’s STILL sore about the Brad thing, and wants revenge against Vytas for her husband’s sacrifice.  Accordingly, she switches her vote to Vytas (all the girls were supposed to go Katie), which ultimately makes no difference, but is a very dumb move.  Monica, did you WATCH “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”?  Did you SEE what happened to Tyson when he did the exact same thing?  Do you understand the OUTRAGE I feel at a dumb move like that?

While Monica may not understand, Gervase certainly does.  He rightly points out that this could have cost any of them the game, had Vytas had the idol, and makes him mistrustful of Monica.  What can I say, good thinking on the part of Gervase, bad thinking on the part of Monica.

Seeing as how nothing interesting could possibly be happening at camp, we head over to Redemption Island, where Aras tries to remain calm, as Vytas blames him for their current predicament.  These is the usual bland sort of interviews we get at Redemption Island, so I am then very thankful that we move quickly on to the great “Cheeseburger Debates”!  The topic this time: “Be it resolved that you are on Redemption Island, and therefore you are out of the game.”  Vytas has drawn the affirmative side, while Aras assumes the negative side.  This has been a debate amongst “Survivor” fans since the inception of Redemption Island.  On the one hand, people on Redemption Island have been voted out, but on the other hand, they’re still influencing the game, so are they really “out”?  To put in my two cents, I personally say their out, if only for my disdain that the Redemption Island twist.  Sure, they still influence the game, but so, to a degree, do jury members.  Still, Aras’ argument that he’s not eating a cheeseburger, and is therefore still in the game, is quite compelling.

Time for another immunity challenge.  Today’s challenge hearkens to us from “Survivor Nicaragua”, specifically the final immunity challenge of that season.  Balancing a sword on a pedestal, castaways will balance coins of various sizes (as dictated by Jeff Probst) on the hilt, making a small tower of coins.  The last one with a standing tower wins.  This one earns my ire less for not being overdone, but I’d still prefer an original challenge, or at least one more epic in scale.  Still, that sword was pretty badass-looking, so I guess this challenge is ok.

Following the token “People falling out comedically early” (Ciera and Monica, in this case), we end up with Katie of all people winning immunity.  Good on her.  Encouragement from her mom probably helped, though I have to say, Tina, given that the alliance wanted Katie out before you, and she’s the only other person on the outside, perhaps it would have been better for you to wish for your daughter to fall.  Oh well, c’est, as they say, la vie.  Cue obvious misdirection of whether or not the alliance will turn on Monica.

And come it does, in spades.  No real need to talk about it, it’s mostly just conversing amongst alliance mates, particularly Gervase (odd, given that of everyone there, I think his name’s come up the LEAST in terms of word of mouth, save for possibly Hayden).  So, what will Tina do to improve her situation?  Yeah, she had a misstep after Aras’ blindside, but she’s still quite the savvy player.  Surely she’ll come up with a great strategy, full of shock and nuance, one that could completely change the game!

She goes idol hunting.  The most hackneyed, overdone, antisocial, rarely effective strategy ever, and THIS is what Tina thinks is the best bet?

The flaws in this plan become obvious when Tyson, Caleb, and Hayden all take it upon themselves to babysit Tina the entire day, thus not allowing her to search for an idol that isn’t even there.  Have to admire Tyson, though, for being so committed to keeping the idol secret (quite rightly, I would say) that he’ll even waste a day babysitting Tina to keep it under wraps.

Paranoia is still rampant in Monica, however, and it’s not unjustified when, after questioning Laura and Tyson about what they’d do if by some chance Tina DOES have the idol, Laura immediately replies “split the vote”.  Of course, there’s no one left outside the alliance who isn’t immune to split the vote with, so Monica of course believes it to be her.  Given that she IS the other target, however, this does little but make me more annoyed at Monica.  The misdirection here is somewhat better than with Vytas, but my money’s still on Tina.

Tina will not go, however, if Probst has anything to say about it.  Seriously, it’s like he hand-picked those questions to set Tina up to make a good argument as to why she should stay, and that Monica’s untrustworthy.  To her credit, Tina steps up to the plate, and gives a MASTERFUL Tribal Council performance.  She manages to promote herself, arouse suspicion about the idol (even if I thought she overplayed it right before voting), and get Monica to make herself look worse.  THIS is where my doubts about the vote start to be raised.

After a fairly funny fake-out from Tina, we see that Probst’s pleas have done nothing, and Tina goes home.  I won’t miss her as much as I’ll miss Vytas, but I’ll still miss her.  While I feel she wasn’t as nice as she was on her previous seasons, and that she had some major gameplay gaffes, I can’t deny that she still had some masterful moments, and I think I came to appreciate her more as a character than I have before.  However, I must be happy that the alliance continues it’s domination, so I’m ready to see Tina leave at the next Redemption Island duel.

Yeah, this was not the best showing for this season.  It wasn’t a BAD episode overall, at least there was nothing cringe-worthy, but it was exceedingly predictable, and nothing of great interest happened.  I didn’t hate it, though, and this episode was good for a lot of jokes on this blog, so points there.  Hopefully next week can be more groundbreaking.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Caramoan” Finale: In Defense of Dawn

Well.  That happened.

Seriously, that’s all you get for the moment.  You’ll find out my thoughts later, as they’re somewhat complex.  For now, let me focus on one thing I wish to address before the episode gets started.  Dawn’s blindside of Brenda on the previous episode is one of the biggest of the season, and is of course talked about immensely by the fan community.  Naturally, the fan community has strong opinions, but seems to have decided to express those opinions by attacking Dawn personally.  Now, I’m hardly one to talk, in a sense, because I don’t hold much back when it comes to criticizing strategy.  But that’s just it, when it comes to STRATEGY.  People are calling Dawn a horrible person, and for what?  Committing a blindside?  Those happen every day on this show, it’s not exactly a new or bewildering thing.  That Dawn had a personal relationship with Brenda, particularly given the teeth incident from a few episodes ago?  Closer, but again, we’ve seen that done before, and what about betraying this personal relationships was different from all the other betrayals of personal relationships?  Could it be Brenda’s reaction?  Yes, that’s what I would go with.  Brenda had a very open, very convincing reaction to being voted out, so much so that even I disproportionately felt for her.  However, when you look at it, this blindside was really no different from any other, save that Brenda is good at making you feel bad.  If anything, that justifies the blindside more, as if Brenda makes it to the end, she can pull that off and win with relative ease.  She’s good at that emotional manipulation, don’t get me wrong, but that’s no reason to harangue Dawn.  For all that I still think the smarter move would have been Eddie, it’s nothing personal against Dawn.  Her game has been to get close to people so they won’t betray her, and then stab them in the back.  Dawn, if you’re reading this, you game, while not the best that ever existed, has merit.  You’ve greatly improved from last time, you’ve played a good game, and you are a very decent person.  Kudos.

One person who DOESN’T deserve ANY kudos is Eddie.  Even including the likes of Amber Brkich (“Survivor The Australian Outback”), I don’t think I’ve ever seen a person do LESS than Eddie has to get where he is.  The man has been a literal NON-ENTITY this time around, with the ONLY thing he has done that is at ALL strategic was flirt with Andrea, and I’m still not at all convinced that had any strategy behind it.  I hesitate to say he doesn’t DESERVE to be in the final episode, but that’s only because I don’t think the concept of “deserving” on “Survivor” is appropriate.  He doesn’t even have any challenge credits on himself to call his own.  It just disgusts me that he continues to exist.

Moving on to the episode proper, we waste no time in finding our medevac.  We start off with some suspicious comments from the others, pointing out that Erik looked a bit listless and dull at Tribal Council.  Frankly, I’d just brush it off as how Erik normally looks, but it seems that something really is wrong with him, as he collapses on the walk back from tribal.  Probst and the medical team come out to take a look, and discover that Erik is too undernourished to continue playing.  Frankly, thinking on it, I’m not all that surprised.  Erik is a very physical guy, but also a skinny guy.  He has no fat to burn, so of course he’s going to give out faster than everyone else.  That, and Brandon’s dumping out of the rice and beans may have had something to do with it…

Regardless, Erik now leaves the game in fifth place, having lasted a whole 20 minutes longer than on “Survivor Micronesia” (ok, one spoiler for my thoughts, Micronesia is the superior “Fans vs. Favorites” season).  Good for you, Erik.  After your nonexistent performance this time around, I wouldn’t expect you to get brought back.

A now more downtrodden final 4 head back to Enil Edam, and once again, it’s Cochran who breaks the lull, deciding to strategize with Eddie on the off-chance that Eddie wins immunity.  Not a bad move on Cochran’s part, but he’s talking to Eddie, surely the man won’t know what to do when actually asked to make a decision.  Wait, is Eddie actually taking the opportunity handed to him to try and turn Cochran against Dawn?  Oh my God, he grew a brain!  And it only took him 14 episodes to do it!

While this is good strategy on Eddie’s part, as he admits that if he gets to the finals, he wins, I don’t buy Cochran’s indecision for a minute.  His whole game has been centered around getting himself and Dawn to the finals, and after Brenda’s performance last Tribal Council, he’s be a fool not take Dawn with him.  If Brenda’s reaction elicited such hatred from the fan community who don’t personally know Dawn, imagine what it does to other people who feel personally betrayed by her.

Next morning brings tree mail, which informs us that we’ll be getting a reward challenge, rather than an immunity challenge today, and I can’t say I’m happy about it.  I was hoping they’d COPY “Survivor Micronesia” in this case, even though I said the less they copy, the better, and give us a twist Final 2 rather than Final 3.  I’ve made my case for a Final 2 over Final 3 before, but suffice to say here that I don’t think the Final 3 accomplishes what it wants, and Final 2 just feels more appropriate somehow.

With only Favorites from “Survivor South Pacific” left, it seems only appropriate that we use a rehashed challenge from “Survivor South Pacific”.  Specifically, we’re copying the penultimate immunity challenge from that season, which is to make a house of cards to a certain height, with the difficulty of a moving platform added in.  I’ve expressed hatred for this challenge before, but looking back, my main gripe was that it was a FINAL immunity challenge.  Now that it isn’t, and is also a difficult skill set, with an extra difficulty increase with the moving platform, I’m willing to let it go.  Plus, it gives us a lot of good back-and-forth as to who’s winning, which makes for a lot of drama.  Now, what are they playing for.  It’s late in the game, so it’ll have to be high stakes… OH GOD-FUCKING-DAMMIT, they’re doing the “Final Immunity Advantage” thing again?  I’m all ranted out on that from the end of “Survivor Philippines”, but guess whether I like it or not.

A very back and forth race leaves Cochran the victor, and everyone heads back to camp to strategize.  Eddie pulls Sherri on board his camp, thus taking away a lot of my limited respect for Sherri.  How she thinks it can be a good idea to take Eddie to the finals, I don’t know.  He’s well liked, never betrayed anybody, and for Sherri, he takes away a potential “Last Fan Standing” argument with his presence.  There is no upside.

We also get Cochran and Dawn reaffirming their loyalty to one another, though Cochran hints to us that he may betray Dawn anyway.  Again, I don’t buy it for a minute.  Still, at least it means Eddie is actually DOING SOMETHING (no, I’m not letting this go, he’s one of the most pathetic players I’ve ever seen).

Following another night’s sleep, we get our Fallen Comrade’s Tribute, which, whatever Probst might say, I like, and wish would stick around for a good long while.  I find this one to be rather touching, personally.  Not quite a “Top 5 and Bottom 5” touching, but still nice.  I think what it is is the humanity behind it.  No, not in the “everyone was nice” sense, but that the comments were very honest, notably Cochran asking about which blonde was which from the Fan’s Tribe.

After the ceremonial “Burning of the Giant Wooden Thing”, we head to our final challenge, which is NOT a repeat.  No, it’s a COMBINATION OF REPEATS.  Tribe members climb up a series of stairs in a tower (“Survivor Palau”) to retrieve puzzle bags (pretty much any given season”), and then slide down a water slide (“Survivor One World”), and solve a 3-D fire puzzle (“Survivor One World” again).  Actually, one thing I will give this challenge is that the puzzle is appropriate and difficult.  I quite enjoy it.  Though frankly, I’d enjoy it a lot more IF IT WASN’T THE FINAL IMMUNITY CHALLENGE!  I don’t care about repeats so much for final challenges, but at least make it an endurance challenge.  I like that, at the end of the day, it’s willpower that wins out.

Cochran’s advantage is that he doesn’t have to untie his bags, which gives him an early lead.  He loses it, but then gains it back on the puzzle, ultimately leading to victory as Dawn and Sherri get flustered, and Eddie did not even get 5 pieces in.  This means that Cochran has won 3 individual immunities, leading to a total of 4 individual wins, and thus earning his title of “Challenge Dominator” for the season.  Eddie, muscle-bound fireman, has been unable to win anything.  Turn in your man card, sir, you’ve lost the right to use it.

It’s true, one could argue that Cochran had an advantage for 3 of his 3 immunity wins, but really, would you honestly have guessed he’d win ANYTHING, advantage or not?

Back at camp, we get more misdirection that I don’t buy, blah, blah, blah, let’s cut to Eddie going home already.  While he did TRY to redeem himself at the end by persuading Cochran with words and full-frontal nudity, it’s a case of too little, too late, and I’m overjoyed that he’s gone.  He would easily have been one of the worst “Survivor” winners ever.

Day 39 is its usual anticlimactic self, with everyone celebrating over breakfast, and preparing their statements for Final Tribal.  Our one interesting tidbit is that Cochran, of all people, doesn’t know how to present to a jury.  The HARVARD LAW grad, doesn’t know how to handle a jury.  The Ivy league really has gone downhill.  Must be too many undeserving rich kids buying their way in.

All are understandably nervous at making their opening statements, but give it a go anyway.  Dawn, being female, must start us off, and I have to tell you, I never realized how HARD of a game this was.  I mean, being stranded out in the elements, unable to trust anyone, it’s just so HARD, but I didn’t realize until now how HARD it was, and how HARD a time Dawn had playing it.  Did I mention the game was HARD?

Thankfully, Dawn gets better, emphasizing how, tears aside, she wanted to play a cutthroat game, and did so.  This is a fair statement, and her only flaw in it is that she gives Cochran too much credit.  Admittedly he may deserve it, but Dawn, you don’t need to let the jury know that.  Sherri is up next, and oh boy, you can tell the nerves are getting to her.  Her only argument is that she’s a businesswoman, saying that influenced how she played the game.  She A: cites no evidence, and B: reminds everyone that she has money to spare.  She also doesn’t make the obvious “Last Fan Standing” argument, thus sealing her fate.  Cochran, in contrast, gives a flawless opening speech, talking about how great the other players on the jury were, and thus emphasizing how good he must have been to take them out.  A good bit of pandering to the jury, while still emphasizing your strengths.  That is what makes a good opening speech.

But now it’s time for the rebuttal, which is where the fun begins.  Malcolm, ever the fan-favorite, gets the squealing over with early on by going first.  He essentially tells Sherri that she’s not getting his vote (no surprise there, the one point where she controlled the game, Malcolm had no say in), and tells Dawn that he’s likely to vote for her, given how good of a game she played, but wants her to step up an own it.  This is good advice, and I’m very pleased that Malcolm can look beyond emotion and see the pretty solid game Dawn played.  My only surprise is that he didn’t vote for her, as I thought she did own up to her game, in that sense.  His only actual question is to Cochran, asking what Cochran has that Malcolm does not.  A fair question, and Cochran answers self-deprecatingly, pointing out that he was always on edge, and casting himself as the underdog.  Ok, he may be overselling it, but that’s still a pretty good answer.

Eddie is up next, blatantly asking Sherri if she had a strategy, or was carried all the way here?  I don’t see how the two are disparate, but Sherri makes the mistake of answering that she was carried.  Good-bye, Sherri votes, we hardly knew ye!  Eddie also goes on the popular theme of lighting into Dawn, and basically declaring his support to Cochran by asking what Cochran will do in a bar with the “Three Amigos”.  Cochran once again emphasizes his underdogness with more self-deprecation (I’m sensing a pattern here), but also says that he’ll be surrounded by women, so they won’t be RIGHT next to each other.

Good Old “Special Agent?” Sheppard is here to up the crazy, as is evidenced by the music, and like Eddie, he all but declares his undying love for Cochran, officially firing Sherri from Stealth ‘R Us, and mocking Dawn’s emotional breakdowns in a way that felt kind of mean.  Of a similar vein is Erik, who asks Dawn if she realizes what her emotions have done to  the jurors, which she handles well.  He tries to ask a similar thing to Sherri, only framing it around strategy, but Sherri, having evidently decided she hasn’t tried hard enough to not get any votes this time, and goes the Katie Gallagher (“Survivor Palau”) route, refusing to answer Erik’s question, and telling him to shut up.

Things get a bit nicer with Michael, who takes a similar route to Malcolm’s, asking Dawn to own up to why, since she and Cochran were so tight, she deserves it over him.  Dawn has a very good answer, pointing out that she basically gathered all the information that Cochran used, while Cochran rebuts that Dawn would have quit the game if he hadn’t talked her down multiple times.  Reynold is a bit harsher, attacking Dawn’s supposed “decit” in personal dealings, before asking Dawn to describe him in 3 words.  Dawn describes him as “chauvinistic, humorous, and narcissistic” (I know the last one’s inaccurate, but it was words to that effect), which Reynold SOMEHOW takes as a compliment (I guess he really is narcissistic), and sits down again.  This is worse than Troyzan’s (“Survivor One World”) “This is MY Island” rant.

Finally, we reach the ladies.  Andrea is another one who is surprisingly nice to Dawn, basically reiterating Malcolm’s points, and we finish up, not surprisingly, with Bombshell Brenda, who delivers in the “Bitter Juror” department, lobbing Cochran a relative softball, before hitting Dawn with all of the feels, and asking her to remove her lower teeth, for some reason.  It didn’t make sense to me, either, but Brenda was hurting.  After some protests, Dawn complies, and I haven’t seen this much of a tooth focus on “Survivor” in a while.  It’s like Dawn is the mad offspring of Maralyn Hershey (“Survivor The Australian Outback”), and J.T. (“Survivor Tocantins”).

Seeing as we only see one name during the voting, we can guess that it’s a landslide victory.  In fact, Cochran wins, much to my pleasure.  I’ve picked a winner once before with Kim Spradlin on “Survivor One World”, but the person I’ve ROOTED for has never won until now.  Couple that with the fact that I’ve adored Cochran since before “Survivor South Pacific” began to air, plus his playing an AMAZING game this time around, and I’m well-pleased with the outcome, so much so that I can’t even really express it!  As if that wasn’t enough, he’s one of only TWO winners to play a “flawless game” (receiving no votes before Final Tribal, only to receive ALL votes at Final Tribal), with the aforementioned J.T. being the other.

And then we come to the reunion show.  The awful, awful reunion show.

It doesn’t start off to bad, the segments with Cochran are nice and self-deprecating (Cochran, the Tribal’s over, you can stop now), and all around funny and humble.  But enough of that, we need to see a montage of all the times Dawn cried!  Actually, I don’t have a problem with the Dawn segment either, truth be told, and I thought the reconciliation with Brenda was a nice touch, particularly given how it inflamed the fan community.  Also, major props to Brenda for showing off her baby belly.  In a culture that’s obsessed with looks, it’s a major accomplishment to put yourself out there like that.  Major, major congratulations, Brenda, and I hope the baby is healthy and full of life.

But then, the problems start piling up.  For one thing, only those who made the jury get to stay on stage, and while the others are there, they’re rarely cut to, and it just feels like cheating.  However far you make it in the game, you were still a part of it, and deserved to get seen, and asked a question by Probst, however lame it may be.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, he doesn’t even GET to ask all the jurors (and Sherri) questions.  Why?  Well, that would be the OTHER problem with this reunion show: too much emphasis on previous players.  It’s one thing to have former players appear in the audience, maybe answering a question if it’s pertinent, but it’s another thing to CENTER YOUR REUNION AROUND PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T EVEN PLAY THIS TIME!  Come on, this wasn’t the STRONGEST cast ever, but it had a lot of good people.  You only detract from them by focusing on these others, saying that they’re not strong enough to hold up a season by themselves.  Beyond that, Malcolm’s winning Fan Favorite was predictable, and while the teasing of the new season may be good from a marketing standpoint, I just found it frustrating to say the least.  I did like that Probst talked to some fans live, but I wish he’d asked them more interesting questions, or else found more interesting fans.

By rights, I should hate this episode.  It has so much to dislike, namely the reused challenges, the “Final Immunity Advantage”, the Final 3, the existence of Eddie, and the awful reunion show.  And yet, I can’t bring myself to hate it, simply because the glory that is Cochran’s victory trumps all.  It gets even better when I imagine the look on Jim Rice’s (“Survivor South Pacific”) face.

As to the season as a whole, it’s not so good.  I can thoroughly say I enjoyed it, and it would probably rank tenth overall just for the winner, and it did do a good job separating itself from “Survivor Micronesia”.  However, the reused challenges were painful, the pre-merge game had very few good points, and overall, the cast was just weaker this time around.  That’s part of the problem of going up against a season like “Survivor Micronesia”: how can you beat my personal favorite season?  The big problem here is the Fans.  While I admit in any season called “Fans vs. Favorites”, the Favorites will have the advantage, and the focus will be on them, but at least the Fans on “Survivor Micronesia” were SOMEWHAT memorable.  This time around, I really don’t care much for any of them, and that REALLY just drags the season down for me.

Business as usual, we must see how wrong my predictions at the start of the season were:

Allie: Yep, all the blondes were boring, I just picked the wrong one to be the LEAST inadequate.

Eddie: I’m going to say I was right on this one.  If he wasn’t kept around for being an idiot, he’d have been gone long ago.

Hope: Completely right, for once.

Julia: Of course I was right about my darling Julia!  Don’t you dare contradict me!

Laura: Mildly wrong, but still not much of an entity on the season.

Matt: Another wrong one.  He was much more game-savvy, and much shorter-lived than I predicted.

Michael: Wrong.  Much stronger and smarter socially than I thought.  I’d actually like to see him back, which is more than I can say for the rest of the Fans.

Reynold: Despite making it longer than I predicted, I think I nailed his personality.  If it weren’t for the Fans’ need for strength, I think I would have been 100% right.

Shamar: I thought THIS guy would WIN?!

Sherri: Sort of wrong. She was smarter than I credited at first, but then she slipped into what I predicted.  Still, she made it farther than I thought, and I was, perhaps a bit harsh on her.

Erik: Right on time in the game, but sadly, he toned down his goofball personality this time.  He was a much smarter player, though.

Corinne: Pretty much right, although she was taken out sooner than I expected.

Brenda: Played a much quieter game, but still very strategic.  Lasted longer than I thought.

Francesca: Dashed my hopes, girl.  Why couldn’t you survive?

Andrea: Despite what some say, I still think I was right on this one.

Phillip: He was smarter this time around, and I was wrong about his time in the game, but he remains CRAZY!

Dawn: Close to right, though she was very emotional.

Cochran: Wrong, thankfully.  He was able to overcome his perceptions and improve his game to become one of my favorite winners ever.

Brandon: Far too volatile and left too early for me to be right.

Malcolm: Actually right, for once this season.

Well, I promised it in the last blog, let’s get to my

TOP 5 AND BOTTOM 5!

Today’s topic, as you might expect, is Reunion Shows.  Not much else to add there, except that the descriptions as to why will be relatively short.  Reunion shows tend to make or break for me.

TOP 5:

5. “Survivor Exile Island”: This one just had a lot of funny moments.  I particularly like Probst’s quip to Aras about remembering to pay his taxes.  Also, some highlights of Shane, and good strategy talk from those left made for a nice, solid reunion.

4. “Survivor Palau”: Just an overall very touching reunion, particularly where Coby was concerned.  We also got some good Wanda singing, and one of the best jobs Probst has ever done with getting to talk to everybody, even the early boots.

3. “Survivor Borneo”: While I overall prefer Probst as the host, having Bryant Gumble wasn’t a bad choice.  He lent the proceedings an air of joviality, and the first cast had a lot of good stories, and just gave out a lot of good material.

2. “Survivor Samoa”: This one wouldn’t be very memorable, if it weren’t for seeing Russell Hantz squirm in his seat.  Given how much I hate the man, it’s just too delightful to pass up.

1. “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”: How do I not give it to the one with the tribute to Jenn Lyon (“Survivor Palau”)?

Honorable Mention: “Survivor All-Stars”:  While Jerri’s walk-out was fascinating, it was also somewhat painful in retrospect.

 

BOTTOM 5

5. “Survivor Nicaragua”: Nothing PARTICULARLY bad about this one, just a bad cast, and a winner I don’t particularly like.  That, and too much focus on Jimmy Johnson.

4. “Survivor Pearl Islands”: In contrast, I actually like this cast a lot.  However, it loses points for not giving a proper teaser for the next season, it was just Probst talking.

3. “Survivor Fiji”: Too large a cast with too few memorable people to merit anything good.

2. “Survivor Marquesas”: God bless Rosie O’Donnell, she’s a lovely person and a great actress, but she REALLY shouldn’t have been hosting the reunion.  Just made it a mockery.

1. “Survivor Caramoan”: I think my reasoning on this one is perfectly clear.

Honorable Mention: “Survivor Redemption Island”: I respect that “Boston Rob” (“Survivor Marquesas” played a good game.  That doesn’t mean I need to hear all about how awesome he is.

 

All that’s left now after a crazy season is wild mass guessing about what the twist of “Survivor Blood vs. Water” is.  My money is either on a family season (i.e. returnees vs. their loved ones), or a sort of “Rivals” All-Star season.  My money’s on the former, just because a “Fans vs. Favorites” season is kind of like an All-Star season, and I don’t think they’ll be doing another one twice in a row.  One thing’s for certain, though: this new season is code for “Survivor WE’RE GOING BACK TO FUCKING SAMOA AGAIN”!

So ends this season of “Idol Speculation”  For those of you looking to fill the void in your useless and boring lives with my erudite observations, my current travel blog, “Over in Under”, will continue until my return to the States in late June, and I will be resuming “’Survivor’ Retrospectives” over the summer, beginning with “Survivor Guatemala”.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.