“Survivor” What-Ifs?: All-Stars

Well, I promised you more frequent blogs, and here we are!  It’s time to talk about “Survivor All-Stars”, a move clearly designed to capitalize on the recent deep dive into the season on “Rob Has a Podcast”, and totally not just a lucky coincidence in any way whatsoever!  It’s not like I promised this blog a couple weeks ago or anything!  

But yeah, “Survivor All-Stars”.  A season that, on paper, should have been a slam-dunk win for the show.  18 of the fan’s favorite players duking out to see who’s the best of the best? Tributes to seasons past?  This should have been an easy victory, a contender for top season of all-time.  And yet… It’s not.  In some ways, I’d say it kind of gets off easy, since given some events we’ll talk about in the season, it should be as reviled as “Survivor Island of the Idols”, yet avoided some of the controversy by virtue of when it aired.  But between favorites going early, and some controversial/uncomfortable elements, the fanbase kind of quietly tries to pretend this season doesn’t exist.  So, can we change that?  Can we make this season the beloved fan favorite it was meant to be?  Let’s take a dive in and find out.  

Before we get into that, though, be aware that there are SPOILERS ahead.  While we will largely be going through a hypothetical scenario in this blog, the fact is, it’s hard to talk about such a scenario without comparing it to how things went down in our timeline, and thus there will be spoilers in this blog.  Primarily, this will be in relation to “Survivor All-Stars”, but some future seasons may also get discussed in the “Legacy” section.  Point being, proceed with caution.  

THE IMPACT

So, in a first for this blog, we have a change that technically occurs outside the season itself.  As mentioned in the last blog, the change is that Kathy wins the final immunity challenge of “Survivor Marquesas”, and, as a cascade effect, wins the season.  At first glance, you might think this might not change All-Stars at all.  After all, Kathy was on the season in our timeline, and as a more popular winner, you think they’re not bringing her back?  Of course, I can’t argue with any of this.  What I CAN argue with is that Kathy winning doesn’t change the makeup of All-Stars in any way.  

You see, dear reader, I think a Kathy win would force a shakeup from the tribe division we’ve come to know on this season.  Not that they would have made an effort to bring in Brian Heidik from “Survivor Thailand” to have a tribe of all-winners or anything.  If the rumors of Brian being hard to work with and demanding money up front to play again are true, that’s not happening.  But there’s no way without it that production would have three winners on a single tribe.  Was it a mistake to put the winners at such an obvious disadvantage in our timeline?  Perhaps, but at the time, I don’t think production sees it that way, and is more concerned with the previous winners not running rampant over the other players.  If Kathy stays on Mogo Mogo, then that tribe is half-winners (Kathy, Richard, and Jenna), and production’s not going to stand for that.  How do they shake it up?  Well, there’s a couple of different ways, but I think they’d ultimately go with the simplest one: Swapping two members between Mogo Mogo and Chapera.  Saboga probably gets left out since they have two winners in our timeline, but Kathy and Colby probably start on Chapter, while Boston Rob and Amber start on Mogo Mogo.  This switch seems the simplest and the neatest.  The seasonal makeup of each tribe doesn’t change, no tribe has more than two winners on it, and neither tribe gets a major challenge advantage or disadvantage by the trade.  I suppose in terms of challenges, one would rather have Kathy than Amber, but that’s a minor point.  I did consider that production might swap Alicia to Mogo Mogo instead of Amber, but then Colby and Amber start on the same tribe again, when they started on the same tribe in their first season.  Granted, that didn’t stop them from putting Tina and Jerri on the same tribe, even in our timeline, but I think doing so twice might be too much.  So, Saboga stays the same, Chapera now has Kathy and Colby, and Mogo Mogo now has Boston Rob and Amber.  So what?

THE FALLOUT

As always, with changes that happen so early in the season, it’s tough to go through decision by decision, episode by episode, and say how things would go.  Too much changes to really have, for want of a better word, “definitive” conclusions.  That said, there are some generalizations I think we can make, based on this one simple change.  

First, alliances.  Saboga remains the same, of course, since nothing changed with them.  Mogo Mogo is also fairly straightforward.  Similar to Saboga, there’s a bit of an anti-winner sentiment, or at least an anti-Richard Hatch sentiment.  Even in our timeline, Hatch was destined to be the first boot of Mogo Mogo, and I don’t see either Rob or Amber changing that.  He was the biggest fish in the pond, after all, and Jenna probably just gets lumped in with him.  Rob and Amber still hook up, and given that Rob and Lex were close before the season aired, it’s fair to say they’d team up here.  As a safety net against Rob’s coupling, Lex probably buddies up with Shii-Ann, even more so than he did in our timeline.  Chapera is a bit of a tougher nut to crack, since so much of their early strategy centered around Rob and Amber.  That said, I see Rob C. and Kathy being the pariahs, both for playing good games, and the latter for winning.  Colby probably ringleads an alliance of himself, Alicia, Big Tom, and Sue against the pair, though being Colby, he doesn’t really frame it that way.  

The second change this produces is in terms of challenges.  Saboga is still a train wreck, so a lot of outcomes remain unchanged.  However, given how big a force Boston Rob was in terms of winning the challenges, I’d say in this timeline, Chapera and Mogo Mogo flip victories from what we know.  Mostly this just swaps around first and second place, but it DOES lead to a Mogo Mogo loss in episode 4’s immunity challenge.  But oh, what an important loss that is.  You see, this is where Rob C. went out in our timeline, whereas here, he’s safe up until the dissolution of Saboga.  Who goes instead?  Assuming Mogo Mogo loses, it can only be Richard.  Dude was too big a target.  As a consequence, the incident between himself and Sue now never happens, already making this timeline an improvement over the one we got.  But this also means that Rob C. isn’t quite as screwed over as in our timeline.  He’s still screwed, of course, but at least seems to have more of a chance just due to lasting longer.  

Without Richard there to suggest Mogo Mogo tie their logs together, it’s tough to say what the outcome of the dissolution challenge would be, but given how Saboga was on a losing streak, let’s say they lose again.  The pairs stay the same, but switch to opposite tribes, Jenna and Rupert now going to Mogo Mogo, while Ethan and Jerri end up on Chapera.  How do we know this?  In the show, we see Colby wanting to take Ethan for Mogo Mogo, and his being on Chapera probably doesn’t change that.  Plus, Rob says in the commentary for the finale in our timeline that he wanted Rupert and Jenna on his tribe anyway if they got first pick, so again, probably nothing changes here, though related to a point in the previous paragraph, Sue presumably doesn’t quit, since the inciting incident no longer happens.  

From there, our win/loss flip for Chapera and Mogo Mogo continues.  While up 8-6 initially, Chapera keeps on losing and losing, sending out the winners and threats in Rob C., Kathy, and Ethan.  With no Sue quit, the losing streak continues, forcing Chapera to eat at least one of their own.  Mostly likely Sue, since even in this timeline, she probably gets on everyone’s nerves.  What’s interesting here is the second tribe swap.  If we assume the random draw still ends up lopsidedly leaving only Amber on her original tribe, joined in this timeline by Colby, Big Tom, Alicia, and Jerri.  This means that Boston Rob’s plea to save Amber, the thing that arguably inadvertently screws him over the most in our timeline, falls on deaf ears.  Unless Colby and Jerri blow up again (and if we’re assuming they made it this far without voting each other out, I think we can say that Amber won’t change that), Rob no longer has a Lex to try and make a deal with, nor a Kathy to plead his case.  There is only Colby calling the shots, and Colby doesn’t care about Rob’s romance.  Amber gets the axe, and Rob goes from cutthroat mafia don to heartbroken lover.  Heck, jumping ahead a bit, without spending the whole game together, this may even kill the Rob/Amber power couple.  There might be no Amazing Race legacy, even!  

Thus, Mogo Mogo has an edge at the merge, though very slight.  It’s nearly impossible to predict how things would go at this point, though in general, I’d say they keep their advantage.  Rob wants revenge, and Lex is happy to use that drive to his advantage, probably bringing in Big Tom as an extra sixth vote, then getting out Colby, Alicia, and Jerri, probably in that order.  From there, it comes down to who of the original Mogo Mogo can grab power.  With no Amber at his side, it’s probably not Rob.  My guess would be that Lex and Shii-Ann become the power duo of the season, though not in a romantic sense.  Between Lex’s connection to Big Tom, and Rob losing his partner, my guess would be that those two power through to the end, leading to an ultimate victory for Lex, though with Shii-Ann gaining a lot of respect along the way.  If nothing else, we lose out on the unpleasantness that is the overly-personal post-merge of our timeline.  True, it’s still pretty much a straight Pagonging, but at least it’s merely routine, rather than painful.  

THE LEGACY

For once, we’ll start with how this impacts returnee seasons, partly because there’s fewer that people from All-Stars qualify for, and partly because All-Stars doesn’t really make most anyone new more famous.  We’ve had returnees from the All-Stars era, like Rupert, Colby, and Jerri, but they were famous due to their original season, not so much their performance on this season.  Really, only Boston Rob and Amber became household names as a result of All-Stars.  Amber is now relegated to the “forgotten” pile in this timeline, but Rob is still remembered.  That said, Rob’s perception changes from how we now it in the eyes of the audience.  Rather than known as the cutthroat backstabber he was after All-Stars, Rob in this time is, ironically, noted for his loyalty.  He sticks with his original tribe throughout, and goes on a revenge quest for his girlfriend after she gets voted out.  It helps as well that he doesn’t have as many personal betrayals as in our timeline, making things feel less personal overall.  So he probably still comes back on all the seasons we think of, but on Heroes vs. Villains, is actually on the Heroes tribe.  How weird is that?

Lex winning doesn’t change a ton, as while his gameplay is respected, he is ultimately a “villain” winner in the eyes of the public.  Remembered, but not super well-liked.  Still, he probably comes back for Winners at War in Nick’s spot, with someone like Jenna probably taking over Amber’s spot in this timeline.  Really, the breakout star of the new timeline, though, is Shii-Ann.  All-Stars made her more notable in our timeline, but here, where she plays a solid game and comes close to winning?  She’s a legend now.  Probably brought back several times, most likely on Heroes vs. Villains as a Villain, and possibly in Game Changers as well.  

Really, though, the big question is whether the perception of All-Stars overall changes as a result of the new timeline.  I’d say it does, and does so for the better.  Most of the unpleasantness, from the Richard/Sue incident to the personal betrayals of Boston Rob, are gone now, and some of our big names make it a bit farther.  True, there’s still a Pagonging post-merge, and a lot of big names still go out early, but hey, low bar or not, this new timeline is definitely an improvement overall.  At worst, this timeline is merely boring.  At best, it’s a great tribute to the early days of “Survivor” with no pain whatsoever on rewatch.  

And that about wraps up this two-parter of a “What If?” Scenario.  I hope you all enjoyed exploring it, and I hope there’s more to come.  That said, I’m always soliciting for new ideas for scenarios to look at, so feel free to post them in the comments below, either directly on the blog, or on whatever form of social media you found this on.  Do also bear in mind that there are some rules determining whether or not I’ll accept a scenario for review:

1. One Change Only: This can’t be a whole bunch of things or multiple things going another way to alter the course of a season.  This must be one singular event that alters the season in some way.  Cascade effects, where one change naturally leads to another, are ok, but they have to be natural and logical.  As an example, Shii-Ann not flipping and Chuay Gahn losing the final 10 immunity challenge on “Survivor Thailand” would definitely change things, but those are two independent changes that need to happen, and therefore not appropriate for this blog.  I should also mention that the change has to be an EVENT, not a play style.  Yes, “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” probably goes much differently if Russell Hantz (“Survivor Samoa”) isn’t an asshole to everyone, but apart from that never happening, it’s a change in overall play style, not a single moment.  It’s also, as I say, implausible, which leads to my next ground rule…

2. The Change Must Be Realistic: An unlikely change is ok, but it has to be something that COULD have happened, or it’s not worth writing about.  Yes, Fang winning the first immunity challenge on “Survivor Gabon” would drastically change the season.  Would it ever happen?  No.  So there’s no point in writing about it.  

3. The Change Must Have An Impact: By this, I mean the change has to actually alter the season in some significant way.  Simply changing up the boot order is not enough.  Someone new has to win, the perception of the season has to change, or both.  As an example, I originally planned to do a blog on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, with a timeline where Candice didn’t flip at the final 9.  I thought this could lead to a Heroes victory.  Then I remembered that Russell Hantz plays his idol in that same episode, meaning the flip most likely doesn’t matter, and apart from a slight boot order change, the season as a whole remains untouched.  Uninteresting, and therefore not worth talking about.  

In addition to these hard-and-fast rules, there are two what I call “Flexible Rules”.  As the name would imply, these rules can be bent with a compelling arguments, but they are two things that should be borne in mind when suggesting new situations to examine:

4. US Seasons Only: This is nothing against international seasons of “Survivor”.  From what I’ve heard through the grapevine, they can be quite good.  The trouble is, as a citizen on the US, the US version of “Survivor” is the one I’m most familiar with, know the most about, and have seen the most of.  I haven’t even seen a full international season of “Survivor”, just the occasional clip.  Nothing knocking them, of course.  I just haven’t gotten around to viewing them.  So, while I won’t outright ban the suggesting of changes from non-US seasons of “Survivor”, bear in mind that I’m unlikely to pick them due to a lack of knowledge and lack of time to catch up on the seasons.  

5. I Will Not Do Brandon Flipping At The Africa Final 9: A flip by Brandon Quinton at the Final 9 of “Survivor Africa”, voting out Lex instead of Kelly, would indeed fit all the criteria mentioned above.  I’m refusing this particular scenario, not because it isn’t interesting or worth talking about, but because it was already covered by Mario Lanza in his book “When it Was Worth Playing For”.  He covered it so well and so thoroughly that I don’t think I would have anything to add.  I’m willing to consider this scenario if someone can give me a compelling reason that Mario is wrong, or there’s some aspect he didn’t consider, but until that time, this scenario is out.  Other “Survivor Africa” scenarios are ok, though.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

-Matt

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Island of the Idols” Episode 4: The Dumb Leading the Blind

Oh mighty and powerful “Survivor” Gods, if you can hear me, I beseech thee: Bestow upon me thy favor, as you have so bestowed your favor upon Karishma! I have but one humble request: Please do not let this season turn out to be another “Survivor Redemption Island”. Do not let us have three good episodes, followed by nothing but garbage afterwards!

Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself into my thoughts. In fact, we can’t even talk about this episode yet, as we still have to talk about the last episode, as it’s time for another edition of…

MATT’S MESS-UP!

Yes, we had two episodes error-free, but I made a mistake and/or omitted something last time. Specifically, while I mentioned that Vince went home with an idol in his pocket, I neglected to give any commentary on his not playing his idol. Now, many have rightly pointed out that he only had two Tribal Councils to play it at, so why not play it, especially when there’s suspicion that he might have on. A reasonable argument, but to be fair to Vince, I think he had good reason not to play it. The women were clearly in power, and they did a convincing job of making him think he had their favor. Plus, what most people seem to forget is that it’s not good for “Two Tribal Councils”, but “Two Tribal Councils you attend.” Vince has good luck with the challenges, and that thing takes him to the merge. Granted, we know that that didn’t happen, but Vince couldn’t have known, and it’s not like Vokai badly loses every single challenge. They only do that with puzzles. Yes, in hindsight, Vince should have played his idol, but the women spun him well, and I can’t fault him too much for holding on to it.

Getting into our actual episode, you’d expect the tribe to be mostly copacetic with their near unanimous decision, since all knew who they wanted, but split the vote to be safe. And you’d be right, but with the exception of Karishma. While I do think she misidentified the causes of no one coming to her aid with the hand thing, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t get paranoid about stuff worth getting paranoid about. Case in point, Karishma correctly deduces that being the split boot means everyone considers her expendable, a fact confirmed in confessional. It’s not as cut and dried as that, however. Aaron, in particular, still hasn’t forgotten being left out of that first vote. Thus, he wants as many targets as possible, to keep himself off the radar. He finds fertile target ground in a blossoming showmance between Chelsea and Dean. Yes, the person with the idol, and the person who’s spoken all of two sentences on the show so far. Feel the chemistry. Aaron and Missy confer, agreeing that this is a problem that needs to be nipped in the bud. Can’t fault the logic in wanting to get Dean out. After all, he’s not a member of the core alliance, and with nowhere else to go after he leaves, Chelsea comes back into the women’s alliance. All Aaron gains is another spot ahead of him, but still, that’s not nothing.

Over at Vokai, we get a minor repeat of the J’Tia and the Rice situation from “Survivor Cagayan”, that is, sadly, both less exciting in its execution and in its results. Once again, the person left out of the vote is the person left alone at camp. In this case, members of the tribe agree to either go fishing or walking. Jamal agrees to stay behind. Admittedly no one can really call him on this without looking like a jerk themselves, but still, it’s made to seem like no one is suspicious, which you’d think at least Tommy would be, being the guy who saw the blowup of Jamal the closest. Jamal tries to tie idol-hunting into a bad relationship he had. If you think of the most forced “Survivor”/real life connection you can remember, this is pretty much similar. It does lead to success, as such anecdotes tend to do. While I may mock Jamal’s story, I can’t fault his idol hunting skills. While the tradition of the significant-looking tree remains, it was hidden off the trail and deeply camouflaged in the trunk, so I’m not surprised it took this long to find.

Jamal finding the idol also means we get our first up-close look at the hidden immunity idols this season, confirming once and for all that the art department was doing this season in their sleep. Ah yes, a tribe-colored string with some beads and a large seed. How distinctive.

The fishing expedition returning heralds another boat on the horizon. Naturally, this one is here to take someone to the Island of the Idols. This time, however, production has finally gotten their heads out of their butts, and realized that a random name-draw is boring. What they come up with is only marginally better, but better nonetheless. They basically take the rule from “Survivor Ghost Island”, and apply it to the tribe: Come to a unanimous decision, or draw rocks. At first, the tribe is all gung-ho about drawing rocks, but then Kellee comes in and points out that this is a stupid idea. I knew there was a reason I liked her! Yes, in a game with a decent amount of randomness already, the LAST thing you want to do is add more to it with a rock draw, not to mention you run the risk of your greatest enemy getting an advantage. Besides, it’s more fun to watch the social manipulation and negotiation. Show some backbone.

But who to send? With such a stigma against going, plus Kellee not wanting to be found out in her lie, very few people are eager to go. Lauren is downright terrified of the place. Tommy’s game relies on social bonds, not suspicion, so he doesn’t want to go. Jason does an impression of a stereotypical Jewish mother to convince himself not to go. Coby Archa (“Survivor Palau”) shows up volunteering to go, but is summarily ignored. Finally, Noura volunteers, and despite her being the obvious target, evidently people agree, as the next shot is her coming to the Island of the Idols. I guess the idea is that since she was already a target, she doesn’t have a downside in being sent, but guys, have you forgotten the “Possibly get an advantage” part? Admittedly, Kellee probably hasn’t mentioned that to allay suspicion, but you’ve got to have guessed it from the season name regardless! Why run the risk of your worst enemy getting an advantage?

Well, Noura is greeted by Boston Rob and Sandra, and it becomes clear that Noura is going to be running this particular Island of the Idols. Oh, Rob and Sandra can try and get a word in edgewise, but Noura is just going to talk right over them. Lucky for her, her lesson is about talking. More specifically, the “Art of Persuasion”. In case Boston Rob spelling it out for you wasn’t obvious we cut to a montage of famous persuasive moments in “Survivor” History. We have the mind screw of Erik Reichenbach from “Survivor Micronesia” (always good for a laugh), Parvati flirting with Adam on “Survivor Cook Island” (random, but ok, it’s Parvati, I get why this was included), Yul blackmailing Penner with his hidden immunity idol (a classic), Sandra making Russell Hantz paranoid (easy to do, but still fun to watch), and Boston Rob asking Lex to spare Amber (really, show? You want us to remember THAT part of “Survivor All-Stars? Why not show us Hatch rubbing against Sue while you’re at it?). Some ups and downs, but not the worst cross-section of “Survivor” I’ve ever seen.

This lesson is appropriate for Noura, and her challenge is correspondingly difficult. She’s informed that the immunity challenge with be a “Lead the blindfolded people” challenge, and that to get her advantage, she must convince her tribe to let her be the caller in the challenge. If she fails, she loses her vote, but if she succeeds, she gets a new advantage for the show: a vote block. She can essentially force one person not to vote at a Tribal Council. I applaud the show for coming up with new advantages, but I have to say, I’m not sure this is a good one. Yes, having one less vote, particularly against you, is a good thing, but you ruffle a lot of feathers using it, to very little gain.

Still, this should be an easy enough job for Noura. She’s naturally loud, which is an advantage in a caller, and she’s bossy enough to be good at this. Granted, the caller also needs to be good at puzzles, but we’ve seen no evidence that Noura isn’t at least decent at puzzles. Noura accordingly jumps at the chance, which Sandra and Boston Rob try and walk back. Man, they are REALLY desperate to be able to negotiate with someone.

Noura comes back to camp with not a terrible lie: I know the challenge and can help us practice, but you need to say I’m doing a specific part of the challenge. A little on the nose, but pulled off with subtlety, might work. Sadly this is Noura we’re talking about. Subtlety is not really in her wheelhouse, and she seems to crack a bit under the questioning, not coming up with convincing answers as to why this would be plausible. Probably, she would have been better off just telling the tribe, then volunteering to practice as the caller, citing her loud voice, and hoping to win them over that way. She does start practicing with the tribe for the challenge, and we see that bossiness does not lend itself to clarity. Noura’s micromanaging gets the job done, but slowly, in a challenge where speed is of the essence, and frustrates the tribe as a whole. About the only happy one is Kellee, since he secret is safe with Noura making such a fool of herself.

Off to our immunity challenge, and if I can praise this episode for anything, it’s the mystery! Yes, only Lairo has offered up multiple targets at this point, but Noura has had such a terrible performance this time that I could see the show forgoing mystery in favor of a humiliating “Downfall of Noura” episode. It will all depend on how she does at being the caller.

Or, you know, she could be the sit-out, cutting the story off at the knees, and guaranteeing another loss for Lairo. The show does its level best to give us dramatic tension, but sure enough, they lose.

Back at camp, Karishma seems to be the dead girl walking once again, as pretty much everyone says that they haven’t bonded with her, and to keep the tribe happy, it would be best to just stick with the plan. Plus, in the event of a swap, Karishma is a risk. She has nowhere to go but the women’s alliance on Lairo, but it won’t always just be the women’s alliance. Accordingly, Missy and Aaron want to keep that going by splitting up the showmance, and voting off Dean. Frankly, it’s probably the smartest decision they have, for the reasons I outlined at the top of the blog. When the float the plan to Elizabeth, however, she’s not on board. Neither is Elaine, who Elizabeth lets in on the plan, since she rightly points out that this plan leaves out Tom and Chelsea, further disuniting the tribe. Fair enough, but it’s better if you look at it as bringing Chelsea back into the fold. Do this, and the women all stay strong, and lose a person they didn’t need anyway. Tom may be mad, but what can he do? He’s got little choice. Besides, with all his talk of teamwork, Tom doesn’t strike me as the type who’d flip, even if he was pissed.

Word of this gets back to Missy and Aaron via Elizabeth, and I have to say she plays this well. By getting Elaine on her side, Elizabeth has a scapegoat for who’s the one ruining the plans. “Look, everyone, I want to go along with this, I really do, but Elaine just won’t do it, so we won’t have the numbers.” Gets things to go your way, without the risk of looking like the troublemaker. Especially good since her performance as the caller in the challenge, and subsequent breakdown, did not look good for her, so it’s nice to see her get her game face on.

All this pisses off Missy something fierce, and she complains about people “Not wanting to play the game.” Like Dan earlier in this episode, I have to make my eyes go in a circle here. I’ve said before and I’ll say again: Just because somebody isn’t playing the way you think they should DOESN’T mean they aren’t playing. They’re just playing a different, probably smarter, game than you. Missy then pesters Elaine for a new target, even throwing Chelsea’s name into the mix as an alternative way to split the showmance up as we head to Tribal Council.

The topic of tonight’s Tribal Council is chaos, which will be shown visually this time. It’s barely been an hour at the time of this writing, and I still can’t make heads or tails of what happened. People talked about bullets flying at random, going all the way back to “Plan Z” (evidently this tribe likes “Spongebob Squarepants”), nothing makes sense here! The one thing this Tribal Council has going for it is the complete unknown of the target. About four people on an eight-person tribe have been targeted, leaving things very up in the air as to who will go home. Still, mystery alone is not enough. This Tribal Council has been decent, but nothing spectacular. It needs something to push it over the edge. Cue the awesome music!

Chaos, while entertaining, is not always satisfying. It can lead to situations like Jeremy’s ouster on “Survivor San Juan del Sur”. We got surprised, but also no idea how we got here. That’s what happened tonight, as Chelsea leaves, idol in pocket. She should have known after telling Probst how she likes blindsides. I am very sorry to see Chelsea go. Most of the other targets (save Dean) were interesting characters as well, but Chelsea was a superfan, and playing a decent strategic game. I’d have liked to see more of it.

That said, this is the first really dumb move of the season. I wasn’t a big fan of Molly going out, but there was at least some logic to it. Here, voting out Chelsea goes against both possible stated goals. If you want a unified tribe, well, Karishma was the most on the outs, and the greatest threat in a swap. If you wanted to strengthen the women’s alliance, you needed to vote out a guy. Chelsea does neither of those things. All she does is split up the showmance, and again, in terms of the women’s alliance, Dean’s a better bet. Sorry, ladies. There’s no way to spin this as a good thing.

Yeah, like I said at the top, this was just not a good episode. If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be “Crowded”. Up until this point the show’s done a good job of balancing game time with time on Island of the Idols. This time, however, it dominated. We had one short scene at Lairo, one short scene at Vokai, the Island of the Idols, then immunity challenge. This led to pretty much all the strategizing happening between the challenge and Tribal Council, which just makes things too difficult to follow. This is by no means an irredeemable episode, but definitely confusing and weak, especially compared to the other high-quality episodes we’ve had so far this season. Still, I don’t feel a bad episode deserves to end on a bad note. Yes, it is time once again to bring back…

TOP 5 AND BOTTOM 5!

Yep, while topics have been scarce on the ground as of late, it seems we’ve yet to do a list of the best and worst blindfolded challenges in the history of the show. The Noura arc this episode kind of overshadowed it, but these blindfolded challenges are always good for suspense, action, and lowbrow comedy. How did this season stack up? Let’s start listing off the blindfold challenges of seasons past and find out!

TOP 5

5. “Survivor Cagayan”: Normally, as we’ll see, there’s a lot of physical comedy in this category. “Survivor Cagayan”, however, is an exception. There’s very little physical comedy, and what little there is is mostly groin shots, which are more painful than funny. However, this challenge took to Luzon tribe, already a comedy of errors in the challenge department, put them in a challenge designed to be a comedy of errors, and you’ve got yourself a lot of fun. J’Tia losing the challenge by being unable to pull up a basket in sync with the rest of her tribe? Hilarious.

4. “Survivor Ghost Island”: Later seasons really do tend to cut back on the physical humor of these challenges, which is why you won’t see many of them on this list. When the comedy comes from other places, though, it still works. Case in point, while the competency of callers varies from challenge to challenge, rarely have we seen one fail at grabbing the essentials. This challenge would have been bland and forgettable were it not for Wendell, funnily enough, forgetting to grab the puzzle pieces, and needing to run the course again just to get them. Not funny enough to land higher on the list, but still memorable.

3. “Survivor The Australian Outback”: Sometimes, all you need is an ending. This one was a pretty dull challenge to begin with. Just a bunch of random tasks with no rhyme or reason. But then, Jerri out of nowhere fails at directing Amber to put a basket on a table, leading to an exciting comeback victory for Kucha. A lot of tension and humor to be had. It loses points for the lackluster end to the challenge, but that moment alone deserves a spot on this list.

2. “Survivor Vanuatu”: This particular iteration of a blindfold challenge has a lot of the hallmarks of these sorts of challenges. Callers missing the obvious. People running into objects. People running into each other. Having some pieces out in the water helps make this one a memorable one, but what sets it apart is Sarge yelling “Say my name!” at the end of it all. It’s hard to not join in his triumph, and I defy anyone to tell me it’s not a memorable moment. Seriously, why has Sarge never been on again?

1. “Survivor All-Stars”: It’s the simple things in life. This challenge may not have had the most exciting ending, though the upset of Chapera actually losing a challenge was cool. But moment for moment, this has the best comedy. Lex wandering off on his own. Hatch getting things confused. Big Tom being hit in the head repeatedly. Had this gotten more serious, it would have been an awful challenge. Since no lasting harm was done, though, we can laugh at it. And laugh we shall.

Honorable Mention: “Survivor Gabon”: This challenge is a bit of an odd one. There is the “blindfolded person and caller” element to it, but in this case, that’s only to stop a ball rolling down a hill thrown by the other tribe. A fun and creative challenge, but not strictly a blindfold challenge, which keeps it off the list proper. If nothing else, though, it deserves credit for Randy Bailey thinking of calling out to the other player. A brilliant move that gave Kota a well-deserved win. Well done, Randy.

BOTTOM 5

5. “Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”: This was the first blindfold challenge to have the people stay blindfolded while doing a puzzle (no, the blindfold maze from “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” doesn’t count, since it’s not strictly a puzzle), which was a good way to shake things up. Unfortunately the rest of the challenge was kind of lackluster, and needed the puzzle to be difficult to really recommend it. Suffice to say, it was not, and the challenge just kind of falls flat as a result.

4. “Survivor Island of the Idols”: Maybe I’m being mean here, but this one really just didn’t do it for me. We’ve seen all these obstacles before, so they just kind of blend together in my mind, making the whole affair forgettable, even now. Again, I appreciate them doing the puzzle blindfolded, but this time, with no mystery as to who was winning, it just didn’t have the edge or the physical comedy needed to save it.

3. “Survivor Tocantins”: I applaud them for trying something different here, but different doesn’t always mean better. Here, blindfolded people had to make their way through more of a maze than an obstacle course, which is certainly difficult, but not all that interesting to watch. Pouring things into buckets while blindfolded should also be fun, but something just seems off about it. Maybe it’s the labels on the gutters, but this challenge just felt “off” somehow.

2. “Survivor Nicaragua”: Once again, “Survivor Nicaragua” does something wrong. This was when the show tended to put more “modern” things in the show as rewards and I didn’t like it. Here, you had a simple blindfold challenge to pick up various camping items. Not exciting, no physical comedy, and didn’t really fit the show. Need I say more?

1. “Survivor Worlds Apart”: Like I said before, physical comedy is funny, up until you hit the point where people are actually injured. Kelly having that severe a head wound is not fun to watch, and just retroactively makes everything about the challenge worse. For all my gripes, this is the only blindfold challenge I have a real problem with, since it makes me uncomfortable rather than having fun with the concept, like any good challenge should.

Honorable Mention: “Survivor The Amazon”: At first glance, this seems like a pretty standard blindfold challenge. People bumping into each other, people making gaffes. Why put it on the bottom list? Well, according to audio commentary on “Survivor All-Stars” it’s because of missed potential. Butch was the caller for the men, and he was not so good with names, according to Rob Cesternino, and so called out completely wrong identities for his tribe mates. Comedy gold! And they barely showed any of it! For missed potential alone, this challenge must go on the bottom list.

And there you have it. What blindfold challenges did I foolishly leave off either list? Let me know, and I’ll see you in the hopefully better next episode!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Edge of Extinction” Episode 4: Sailor Wendy

Freeing chickens by moonlight/Spilling secrets by daylight/Busted ankle and she’ll still fight/She is the one named Big Wendy!

Yes, this introduction is corny, but it’s better than what we get on the show these days. Not only do we lack the awesomeness that is the “Survivor” theme song, but now we don’t even get Post-Tribal Council fallout. Why? Edge of Extinction, of course! Everyone’s favorite twist that just gets worse and worse with each passing episode! To its credit, though, we do at least get something different this time around. Reem and Keith were both allied, so their subsequent vote-outs were to be expected, and their bond largely intact. Chris, though? He is amongst those responsible for their evictions, and so you can expect initial conversations to be, well, awkward. What you don’t expect is for Reem and Keith to be so vindictive. Granted, I’d expect lack of food to do that to anyone, but they really lay into Chris as though he’s the scum of the earth, gaining schadenfreude from his blindside. Ok, Keith I can kind of get. Chris was his play to stay in the game, and it didn’t work. But Reem? Yes, Chris voted against her as well, but he was just a number among many, and was by no means the orchestrator of her demise. Someone like Kelley, Lauren, or Wardog I could understand, but Chris was just someone on your tribe who didn’t vote with you. Guess what? SO WAS KEITH! Oh well. I feel bad for Chris here, but at least his judgement day gives us something different to watch.

Moving onto the players ACTUALLY in the game (I still refuse to consider those on the Edge of Extinction fully “in the game”), we see that Wendy’s chicken crusade continues. Trying a different tack, she returns the flint, now ready to enact her own version of “Chicken Run”. Here we see that Wendy’s TRUE flaw in the game is her inability to keep a secret, well, secret. We saw her earlier talk to Rick about her chicken-freeing plans, and now she nearly does the same with David. Some might be inclined to blame this on her Tourette’s, and I can’t rule out that possibility. However, given that she’s been shown to be high-energy regardless, and she didn’t talk about her Tourette’s making it hard for her to keep secrets, I’m inclined to say that has nothing to do with it. Wendy’s just really bad at keeping secrets.

Not helping Wendy’s case is the fact that people (Kelley in particular) have finally caught on that she STOLE THE FLINT! Better late than never, I suppose. Since this only adds to Wendy’s already substantial pile of “Royally Screwed”, she’ll need a big shift in order for things to work out for her. Cue the tribe swap!

Actually, that’s about our only cue. We forgo our usual foreshadowing confessionals (the person on the bottom talking about needing a miracle, the person on top talking about how safe they are, etc.), which I like. Shake up the formula once in a while, I say. Sadly, what we replace it with is arguably worse. Yes folks, it’s time for PROBST HYPERBOLE! Watch as Jeff Probst tries desperately to interest you in what has so far been a pretty lackluster season by making out that your average shocked tribe expression is the BIGGEST the show has ever had! Look, Probst, I get what you’re trying to do, but this was just way too obvious. Yeah, this was probably the biggest reaction so far of the season, but of the whole show? Whether you want to admit it or not, “Survivor Gabon” exits, and was a good season. If nothing else, it gave us the over-the-top reaction to the exit of Marcus Lehman, which is the REAL “Biggest reaction of all time”.

Thus comes our promised tribe switch, this time to three tribes. Now, I get why this is done these days. It helps prevent supermajorities, and shakes things up from your regular switch. But at this point, it’s become so predictable, I think it needs to be retired, at least for a little while. People are starting to guess a switch to three tribes is coming, and planning accordingly. Shake things up! Keep people guessing! Make for a more exciting game WITHOUT being really predictable. Hell, you even know what the buff color will be before the reveal. It’s green. Because with the exception of Angkor on “Survivor Cambodia”, it’s ALWAYS green! Look, as green is my favorite color, I’m happy to see it used more often, but give us some variety for goodness sake!

Well, at least the breakdown of our switch gives us some variety, in the form of a rare fall-out. This is not really a “switch” so much as a “dissolution”, as there are very few new interactions to be had. Joe, Aurora, Julie, Julia, and Ron all stay on Kama. Aubry, Victoria, Eric, and Gavin remain together as well, joining Wendy on Manu. This means that our big five alliance, the one that’s voted together at every Tribal Council so far, makes up the new Lesu tribe. A fun concept on paper, being effectively a swap that’s not really a swap, but then, when you think about it more, it’s really lame. Here’s where I’d normally describe the new dynamics this creates, but there are practically none! Everybody stays with everybody else! The only new interaction is on Manu, and even then, basically all it does is help Aubry stay in the game longer. Granted, I’m in favor of this outcome, but it doesn’t really add anything to the season. Ultimately, this just makes the swap seem like a pointless waste of what could instead have been a challenge.

That said, I must now nerd-out “Survivor” style, and call Gavin for saying that there’s never been a swap like this before. Yes, Gavin, there has. “Survivor All-Stars”? Second swap? Chapera and Mogo Mogo just switched camps, with only Amber ending up with new people? Granted, that was two tribes to two tribes, and the camps at least changed, but still, pretty similar situation, no? Some might argue that “Survivor All-Stars” goes into the same category as “Survivor Game Changers”, but I think “Survivor All-Stars” deserves more credit than that. Yeah, it’s by no means a top-tier season, but it had some fun moments, so big emotions involved, and if you look at it as less of a season in and of itself and more a love letter to past seasons, it actually works really well. Yes, I would argue that it’s better than “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains” in that regard. Bite me. If nothing else, “Survivor All-Stars” is a guilty pleasure for me, and I think it needs more love.

Tirade over, we now go deeper into the dynamics of Lesu. Not since Angkor have we quite got a tribe that seems so screwed to be at the new camp. Post Angkor, it seems like the newly created tribe gets some advantage, whether it be an extra person (“Survivor Millennials vs. Gen-X”), getting a challenge beast on the tribe (“Survivor Game Changers”), or just getting someone who can make camp life extremely easy (“Survivor Ghost Island”), something seems to compensate the new tribe for their inherent disadvantage. This time, however, there’s nothing. True, no one with the possible exception of David seems to suck in challenges (and even then, David does usually have a knack for puzzles), but there’s no big guns either. No, Wardog does not count as a big gun, given his track record in challenges so far. Add onto that having to build a new shelter and start with no ship supplies, I’d say Lesu is in trouble.

Such tensions will usually get one person to crack, and this time that person is Lauren. She’s been having trouble eating, and the extra physical labor involved in the new camp is getting to her. I can’t say I don’t sympathize with her, but I must counter her claim that “‘Survivor would be fun.” Dear, I may not agree with Keith Nale (“Survivor San Juan del Sur”) a lot of the time, but this bit of wisdom from him rings true: “‘Survivor’ ain’t fun. Going on a cruise is fun.” I’m all for fans playing the game, but don’t have any illusions about what you’re getting into.

Moving over to Manu, Wendy is giving everyone the grand tour. Aubry should know the camp quite well, as it’s clearly the old Mana camp she spent the majority of “Survivor Game Changers” at, but evidently she’s being polite. Speaking of Aubry, her new lease on life is confirmed when Wendy begins spilling the secrets of Manu to her new tribe, which I can’t really blame her for. With no knowledge of the Edge of Extinction, she has no reason not to burn the people who perpetually kept her out of the loop, and since the old Kama seem set up to run the game, might as well ingratiate yourself now. Aubry goes full Boston Rob from “Survivor Redemption Island”, and laughs at the “ametures” (his words, not hers) giving up info so easily.

All well and good, but bear in mind that Aubry is with arguably three of the people most dead-set against working with a returnee from her old tribe. Why should she think Wendy will go before her, old Manu or not? Well, the answer to that is our old friends, the chickens! Yes, while Manu camp doesn’t have quite the amenities of Kama camp, it does have chickens, which Eric in particular is very keen on eating. Wendy once again sticks up for the chickens, and while Eric has a more sympathetic ear that most of the old Manu, he’s still pretty dead-set on killing a chicken.

Checking in with Kama, Joe now decides to turn on his “charm”, so that he doesn’t just have to rely on physical strength to carry him through the game. Not a bad idea in theory, but we quickly see that Joe doesn’t really know how to pull it off. The man was allied with Aurora and Aubry. Aubry is now gone, but he at least has Aurora on his side. This means all he needs is one more. Does he try to pull in Julie, the lady who has seemed most on the outs, and closer in age to Aurora, thus meaning a possible connection. No, that would be the SMART thing to do! Instead, he decides to try and convert Ron. You know, the guy Joe caught plotting against him LITERALLY TWO DAYS AGO! Look, a tribe swap can shake things up, but when all your tribe does is shrink, it’s probably not going to change things that much. Sure enough, Ron quickly reveals that his talk to Joe was all a ploy so that Julia could go through his belongings, checking for an idol. When no idol is found, Ron is willing to accelerate Joe’s demise, even at the cost of his tribe. I can understand the impulse, but I’m not sure it’s wise. Kama seems to be the overall weakest tribe, with their only saving graces being Ron’s puzzle ability and Joey Amazing. Get rid of half of that, and you can expect many a Tribal Council visit. With only original tribe members to vote out after that, there’s not a lot going your way.

Back at Manu, Wendy decides to enact Opertaion: Fly the Coop, sneaking in and releasing the chickens. It makes for a fun scene, and Wendy gives us Stereotypical Anime Girl Pose #5, which is something you rarely see on “Survivor”, so I enjoy it. What’s more, Wendy actually pulls the move off with SUBTLETY this time, waiting until everyone’s asleep, thus giving her plausible deniability. Good in theory, at least, but plausible deniability only carries one so far. Wendy, unfortunately, has been too vocal about the chickens, and so everyone can tell that she’s been planning this anyway. Things get worse when the chickens, territorial creatures, keep trying to come back to camp, forcing Wendy to shoo them away. Honestly, who can blame them for coming back? That was a sweep coop they had, with a net giving them a wide-open area. Shame we couldn’t have seen THAT being built. Maybe in place of, say, Edge of Extinction?

Eric in particular is mad about the chickens, stating that the first one he catches goes straight into the pot. This confessional is interrupted by the clucking of a nearby chicken. I have to admit, that’s good. It got a chuckle out of me.

Say, since we’ve got nothing by rehashed tribe dynamics for those IN the game, why no have some rehashed tribe dynamics for those out of the game? Yes, it’s back to the Edge of Extinction. Keith gives us a confessional about the temptation of the sail. What it means to him. How much easier than living on this island it is. Wow. A really touching confessional that brings something we haven’t heard before to the game. Almost makes this twist worth it. Too bad we have to the segway into more bashing of Chris for little reason. Chris, for his part, tries to redeem himself, and so takes out the fishing spear and brings back… wait, FISHING SPEAR! Dammit, “Survivor”, you can’t even stick to your own premise now! I thought “Edge of Extinction” players were supposed to get nothing, and now, not only do you give them rice, but you give them a fishing spear too? How is this in any way worse conditions than the regular camps? You’ve officially lost the right to say this twist in any way tests the metal of the contestants.

Chris comes back with fish, finally earning him some love from Keith and Reem. Talking about Reem for another minute, I’ll give credit that she’s at least toughening up during her time out there. When Chris and Keith complain about the conditions, she points out that this isn’t the Holiday Inn, and they can’t expect comfort. It’s fun to see from Reem, if only because it makes me see her as the second coming of Twila Tanner (“Survivor Vanuatu”) and it is glorious.

Our challenge today technically originates on “Survivor Samoa”, but is more directly copied from the second immunity challenge of “Survivor Cambodia”. Tribes first race up a pair of A-Frames, then tie rope to pull a crate. Then, of course, you solve a puzzle, with the first two solved puzzles winning immunity. A reused challenge, to be sure, but a cool and infrequent one, so I’m willing to let it slide.

I’ve talked briefly about the challenge abilities of Lesu and Kama, but let’s talk Manu for a second. Since most challenges are “only as fast as your slowest member”, I’d say they have an edge. They have puzzle ability in Aubry (and, as we’ll later see, Wendy), and probably the only guy comparable to Joey Amazing in Eric. With no real challenge sinks, I have a hard time seeing them lose a challenge. Kama has some of the physically weaker members, and Lesu just a lack of big guns, but Manu has no real weak suit. Give them any time of challenge, they’ll probably do well. That said, I feel like Manu is the most likely to lose based on targeting. They’ve had a lot of talk about taking out Wendy, and the vendetta against returnees may still stand for Aubry. True, we’ve had some talk on both other tribes about vote-related topics (Ron’s plan against Joe, Lauren being ill), but nothing that coalesces very well. Hell, despite Lesu being favored to lose based on strength, I’d say they’re least likely to lose based on screentime.

However, that all goes downhill pretty quickly, so let’s talk idols for a moment. I always favor the split idol when multiple tribes need immunity, but what they go with here is pretty cool as well. Probst pulls out a wooden phoenix to pair with the dragon, looking to be at war with each other. The idols have a theme and feel like they fit together, yet aren’t identical. It’s a cool and different way of having multiple idols. I still prefer having one idol that splits apart, but I like this better than either having a mini-idol or multiple copies of an idol, and I could see some creative idols coming out in the future as a result.

Dodo music heralds the demise of Lesu, as even a favorable amount of confessionals can’t spare them a trip to Tribal Council. Back at camp, everyone is devastated. As well they should be. This is the group that voted together every single time this season. The group that, as a result, has had the chance to form the tightest bond. And now they have to turn on each other, much sooner than expected. This should be touching. This should be the highlight of the season. This Tribal Council, on paper, should be the emotional equivalent of the Dan Barry boot on “Survivor Exile Island”. It should be that heart-wrenching. And yet… I don’t care.

You are, perhaps, wondering why I don’t care. The answer is simple. The vote out at the aforementioned Dan Tribal Council was impactful because of the time we spent getting to know the La Mina Tribe. While perhaps not as interesting as the clashing personalities on Casaya, we still knew who these people were. We still met them. We still cared about them. Who can we care about on this tribe, based on what we’ve seen? David and Rick? Ok, fair, they’re a funny and smart pair, but they still have yet to truly stand out. Everyone else? Lauren found an idol, good for her. Doesn’t make her a memorable player we’ve bonded with. Wardog? Fun for how he always ends up in charge of the boot, but still yet to carve a name for himself, and seems like he’s trying to hard when he does. Even Kelley, taken on her own merits this season, hasn’t done much to earn investment. As a returnee, she has an advantage in that department. And even THEN, we’ve seen more of people geeking out over her than we have anything from her properly. I love Kelley Wentworth as much as the next guy, but she needs to step it up. Bring out that charm and grit we saw on “Survivor Cambodia”.

Moving on to the strategizing, David and Rick quickly nix the “Vote out Kelley” plan, on the basis that “The time isn’t right.” according to David. Translation: Wardog won’t go for the plan, and we need him as a swing vote. As such, they decide to target Lauren due to her illness. This makes sense, as Wardog has seemed to favor that type of strategy so far. Plus, David suspects that Kelley has an idol at this point, and thus Lauren is the “safe” vote. Ok, this episode will completely redeem itself if David’s proclamation there is what ends up biting him in the butt on this vote.

Kelley and Lauren, as you’d expect, are our other pair, and quickly decide to target Rick as being more likely to flip in the event of the merge. I can kind of see that, but if I was Lauren, I’d push harder for David. Bigger threat, not great in challenges so far, and getting rid of him gives you power over the returnees left. Perhaps Kelley wouldn’t go for it? In any case, Wardog once again finds himself the swing vote, and at this point I think we have to assume that it’s his maneuvering that’s got him in this position. Given that he’s the swing vote at pretty much EVERY vote so far, it has to be intentional. He claims to be unsure of what to do as we head off to Tribal Council, but really, the outcome is obvious. Lauren will go home tonight. She’s fun and all, but Rick has been built up as a big character for the season, if not the overall breakout character of the season. No way we lose him now. That said, it will be the wrong move for Wardog. The debate here is down to strength versus loyalty, and given that the old Manu will almost certainly be down in numbers come the merge, loyalty is needed. Plus, Wardog as an in with at least Kelley, whereas Rick and David seem inseparably tight. Then again, who said Wardog always makes the smart move?

Rick kicks off our festivities tonight with a fun fake broadcast for the “Lesu News Network”. Frankly I’m surprised it took him this long to make a joke like that. The wait was worth it, though, as it is quite funny. Sadly, the rest of Tribal Council does not live up to it. Again, it SHOULD be really emotional. Everyone hits all the right beats, talking about how bonded they are, and how they don’t want anyone to go. But because we just don’t care about the people experiencing it, we don’t care about the experience.

Even the shock that Wardog did the smart thing and send Rick home isn’t enough to save it. Granted, it’s better than a predictable vote, but now I’m just sad we lost one of the biggest characters of the season. It was the smart move, but Rick brought much-needed levity to the season. With him gone, not only does Kama’s dominance seem assured, but now it will be all the more hollow without our funny man.

This episode needed to help a season that has been struggling overall, but did not deliver. There were one or two bright spots of humor, but apart from that, again, we just don’t care. It’s still salvageable, but we need to connect more with this case, and we need to do it now. Can it be done with Edge of Extinction taking up more and more time each episode? Possibly, but it’s an uphill battle. Still, I’ve been wrong before. Perhaps this is one of those times.

As a final note before I sign off, I want to talk briefly about our “Next Time On…” preview. I normally don’t mention these, as doing so would be pointless, but I feel so strongly about something that I need to call BS. Much as it pains me to say it, I don’t see an Aubry/Wendy/Victoria alliance coming to fruition. Victoria was too set against returnees. My guess is that, like Ron with Joe, it’s just another diversion. You heard it here first!

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Cagayan” Episode 6: Kontrolling Khaos

Yes, yes, I am well aware that both “Controlling” and “Chaos” are not spelled with a “K”. It was clever alliteration, given the central focus of this episode, as well as an homage to old 90’s cartoons, where everything cool was spelled with a “K”. Or, I should say, everything “Kewl” was spelled with a “K”. But I’m not here for a history lesson, I’m here to talk about “Survivor”, and as there’s a LOT to get to this episode, I should waste no more time, even though by simply mentioning it I am dragging out even longer, thereby denying my few readers what they came here for. Let this madness stop now, only to start right back up with the start of the episode.

For once, we have a fairly positive after-tribal experience, where everyone talks about how good Tribal Council went, and how the six of them are really truly united. Somewhat surprisingly, it’s Sarah, the person who has the LEAST reason to stick with the new Aparri, who brings up this line of thinking. Guess she must really want to be with them. She also prophetically brings up the “What if there’s a merge tomorrow?” possibility. There’s always one.

Dawn breaks, and we get what SHOULD be another reaffirming conversation on the new Aparri. Kass and Sarah have gone out to collect firewood it seems, but also to size up the tribe. Kass says that she’s most worried about two people flipping: Jeremiah and Sarah. Um, Kass, I agree that Sarah’s not as trustworthy as some (Kass’ point about one vote to save your skin meaning nothing was very poignant), but has it occurred to you that YOUR TALKING TO SARAH? It might therefore be prudent to maybe NOT show distrust to the person you’re talking to? The person you’re supposedly ALLIGNED with? Just a few friendly suggestions. I’m not letting Sarah off that easy, though. My criticism of her gameplay will come a bit later, but I will say on a personal level, I find her attitude towards her integrity overdramatic. Oh dear, someone accused you of being untrustworthy on “Survivor”, who would have guessed? I’m not saying it’s nice to hear those things, and I’m not saying she doesn’t have a point about Kass’ attitude towards her, but she acts like questioning her integrity is the worst thing anyone can do to her. Sarah, you’ve come on “Survivor”, your integrity is GOING to be questioned at some point. Things between the pair seem to be smoothed over with a handshake, but something tells me we haven’t seen the last of this conflict this episode. That something is called “I’m writing this blog after the episode has aired, so I already know what will come back this episode and what won’t.”

Solana is much more copasetic, simply partying until tree mail arrives telling them to pack their things, there’s a merge coming. A similar tree mail arrives at Aparri, though this one warns that company is coming. Spencer gives it his all to unify the six, which seems to work. Before long, the new Solana shows up at camp via what is called a “rowboat”, despite the obvious motor noises. They bring supplies, food, and nice new black buffs. There is also a note, explaining that a new cookie with “special powers” is in play, though what these special powers are is not specified, at least to the cast. The audience has known about them for a while. Basically, this cookie reverts back to how it originally worked on “Survivor Exile Island”, and “Survivor Cook Islands”, where it can be played after the votes have been read. We get stock phrases from people about how badly they want to find the cookie, and how it will change the game for them, blah, blah, blah. There are a lot better interviews to get to tonight, so I’ll skip over an in-depth analysis of people’s desires for the cookie for now.

I will, however, take this time to express my opinion on this particular hyped twist for the season, colloquially called the “Tyler Perry Idol”. Yes, I know they’re “cookies” this season, but as “Tyler Perry Idol” is a proper noun, it will be referred to as such. I’m fairly divided on the introduction of this new cookie. On the one hand, I think it’s an unexpected twist that will hopefully give rise to new strategies, and does, in a sense, fit in with the “Survivor” mythos. One could even argue, given that the cookie from Luzon never got used, that this is just a mutated form of that cookie. On the other, there’s a REASON that cookie usage was changed as of “Survivor Fiji”: it was far too powerful. It was basically a free ride to the finale for whoever found it, as everyone was too afraid to ever vote for the person holding it. Admittedly, this incarnation of it is probably not as bad, for the sole reason that it’s not on Exile Island this time. Until “Survivor Gabon” only alpha males got regularly sent to Exile Island, and so were the ones who found the cookies. This time, things are more even, but it still seems broken to me. As it didn’t really come into play this episode, I will reserve judgment on the wisdom of this twist until we see if people can overcome this cookie. I think it’s possible but we’ll see.

The new tribe is quickly agreed to be named Solarrion, a name which I cannot stand. If I haven’t said this before now, let me be clear that I HATE it when people just merge the names of the original tribes to form a new name (in this case SOLana, apARRI, and luzON). Look, the tribe names are given for a REASON, they usually mean something in the language of the region. In this particular case, I believe they refer to specific regions and cities in the Philippines. It does NOT make sense to mash them together. Also, could you be a BIT creative? I like to see what people come up with. No, this will NOT merit a “Top 5 and Bottom 5”, as while the name Solarrion is stupid, there are worse portmanteau names to be had. Don’t worry, though, there is a “Top 5 and Bottom 5” coming, you’ll get your extra long merge blog.

As they picnic, the new (shudder) Solarrion tribe sizes each other up. Jefra comments on her disappointment that Alexis was voted out, as she could have been swayed to join with the new Solana 5. Jefra, you do remember Jeremiah, right? That guy you considered flipping with? That guy you were close to? That guy who might flip back again if only you’d ask? No, we’re just not going to talk to him, and throw all our eggs in the “Sarah” basket? Ok, it’s your torch snuffing.

Tony, for once, is actually making sense, propositioning Sarah with the prospect of joining back up with him, adding Trish and Woo to the mix to make a solid foursome. Sarah says she’ll consider it, but when Tony asks her to swear on her badge, she refuses, as she’s still uncertain. This clearly shows how many scruples the pair have. Tony has absolutely no qualms about the whole “badge” thing, while Sarah takes it really seriously. Oh, and Sarah? This is a TERRIBLE way to play both sides of the fence. It’s bad enough you don’t stop bragging about it all through the episode, but in order for that strategy to work, you need to NOT waffle on what side you’re picking. That’s what got Dolly Neely (“Survivor Vanuatu”) voted out. I know the badge thing is important to you, but again, this is “Survivor”. Learn to play it a bit better.

Speaking of playing things wrongly, Sarah’s next move is to go chat with Kass and Jeremiah about what the whole side is going to do for Tribal Council. Sarah is adamant that either LJ or Tony, being the physical threats, have to go, but Kass and Jeremiah think that Trish and Jefra are the more appropriate targets, due to no one suspecting them, and therefore it is unlikely that either will be given the cookie at Tribal Council. Sarah counters that neither is a threat in challenges, are strategically useless, and they can be gotten rid of at any time. To bolster her argument, she swears up and down that Tony at least does not have an cookie, and she suspects LJ doesn’t either. This actually surprises me a little, as I would have thought Tony would have told Sarah about the cookie as incentive to flip. And if he didn’t, Sarah, how do you know he has no cookie? Did he tell you? Yes, and you can surely trust the guy who’d say anything to get you on his side to tell you the truth. Admittedly, Sarah’s main point is that they ought to go for Woo, which Kass and Jeremiah readily agree to, but they make the good point that Woo could win immunity. I’m sure this in NO WAY means that Woo will win immunity this challenge, no sir!

Oddly, JEREMIAH of all people is the one who questions this assertion, rightly guessing that since he doesn’t have the cookie, and Jefra and Morgan didn’t have the drive to look for it, LJ probably found it. As to where my strategic sympathies lie, I have to admit, I side with Kass and Jeremiah on this one. At this point in the game, for the new Aparri alliance, the one major factor that could ruin everything is the playing of an cookie. Kass and Jeremiah are right when they say that Jefra and Trish are the least likely people to get cookies. Also, as to Sarah’s “They can be got at any time.” argument, it is true. You say that about them at this Tribal council. And the next. And the next. And before you know it, that person who you could “Get out any time” is sitting in one of the top spots. It continually boggles me that people don’t start seeing the “Under the Radar” players as strategic threats come the merge, they’re really dangerous. What Sarah fails to realize is that there is more to the game than just eliminating the physical threats.

Even if I DID agree with Sarah’s choice of targets, I certainly wouldn’t agree with her attitude. I’ll admit that being the swing vote gives you a lot of power, and that it does entitle you to a certain amount of decision making power, but it does NOT give you the right to dictate the targets at Tribal, especially when you frame it as “I will not vote for persons X, Y, and Z.” That makes you seem untrustworthy to certain people in your alliance. Kass, for example. Incidentally, while my sympathies were with Sarah in the last conversation, due to the fact that Kass WAS basically saying that she personally could not trust Sarah, I fail to see how Kass was being a bully in this situation. It seemed like Kass was just trying to have a good strategic conversation, and Sarah got whiney and adamant when it didn’t go her way. Again, you have more control that others, Sarah, but at a certain point, you just have to go with the majority.

Speaking of Kass, the pair have a minor verbal altercation in front of the fire, overheard by Trish, who comments that it may be useful in breaking up the new Aparri Six. More on that later. In the meantime, Tasha is called in to moderate the rift between Kass and Sarah. Both state their side of the argument. Tasha tries to be impartial, but admits that she’s a little nicer towards Sarah, as it’s more important that she be kept happy. However, this inadvertently alienates Kass, who reads between the lines, and thinks that Sarah has replaced her in the hierarchy, which from what I have seen is not true. Kass complains that Sarah should not receive special treatment just because she’s the swing vote, but here I have to disagree with her. She needs to be kept happy (not to the degree that Sarah THINKS she should be kept happy, but kept happy nonetheless), and so you need to pander a little bit.

I suppose this is the time I should talk about Kass’ overall gameplay, as I think this episode, and this scene in particular, brought out both the good and the bad in Kass. I’ll get into what I thought of her move this episode after I summarize it, but her overall gameplay can be summed up here. I still like Kass and root for her. I think she has a lot going for her that people don’t give respect to. She’s a middle-aged woman (at this point), not particularly physically strong, on the losing side of the first vote, yet despite setbacks and lashings, mostly from Spencer, she’s kept going, and has shown to be a mental threat. One thing I really admire about Kass is that she makes very logical decisions most of the time. Apart from her decision to oust Garrett over J’Tia in the first episode, every decision she’s made has been well thought-out, and done for good strategic reasons. Where Kass’ gameplay falls short is that she’s a very literal, up-front person. She’s almost Vulcan-Like in her manner. When she says things like how Sarah may not be trustworthy to Sarah, she doesn’t mean them maliciously, she’s just explaining her strategic viewpoint. Unfortunately, Kass seems unable to turn it off, and so ends up saying things that offend others, or else put them on their guard, when it really shouldn’t. The other problem with this is that Kass expects others to do the same. Therefore, she can’t pick up on the subtext of Tasha’s mediating, and takes Tasha’s decision at face value. The hypocrisy here is that this upsets Kass, when she seems to think it shouldn’t upset others, but as these things go, it’s not that bad of a hypocrisy. Bad for the game, maybe, but not bad personally. Still, this limits Kass’ gameplay, and hopefully she’ll have learned from it next time she comes back. And trust me, she will come back after what happened this episode. Anyone who names themselves “Chaos Kass” and earns it basically guarantees themselves a spot in the “Survivor Hall of Infamy”.

Now we’re on to the first immunity challenge of the merge, the big one, the one that sets the tone for the whole… Yeah, it’s a reused challenge, and I’m not happy. Hailing from “Survivor Caramoan”, the point of this challenge is to stand over a triangular prism on increasingly small wooden slats, until you end up balancing on a beam at the top, last one standing wins. Look, I’m all for endurance challenges, but this one is unremarkable, particularly given how it ends, and I’m just not a fan of reusing challenges. If there is one good thing to be gleaned from this, it’s that we get to look at the new individual immunity idol. It’s not the best thing to come out of this season production-design-wise, but it looks pretty awesome, and fits in well enough.

Woo wins! Who would have guessed?

Back at the camp, we get what would normally be a dispersal of dramatic tension right off the bat. Sarah admits that after her waffling, she’s sticking with the new Aparri, because they’re weaker. Ok, I’m a casual fan of Sarah, but even I am appalled at how short-sighted and simplistic her gameplay is. Sarah, there is more to this game than physical strength. Still, she reaffirms this bond with the new Aparri, though not before pulling a Colton Cumbie (“Survivor One World”), and forcing everyone to vote for Tony, despite EVERYONE ELSE saying that Jefra is the better move. First J’Tia’s “Brandon Hantz” (“Survivor South Pacific”) tantrum, and now this? When did THESE GUYS become the paragons of strategy? Still, I can’t fault her strategy. While there are a few united fronts in the new Aparri, the new Solana is a strong 5. Going with them is suicide for the sixth. As I said, normally this would defuse the pre-Tribal tension, but I’m ok for three reasons: First, they kept it going all before the immunity challenge, which was just about when that story got old. It made the pre-challenge scenes exciting, and didn’t stay overlong. Second, it gave us the hilarious scene where she admitted to Tony that she was siding with the new Aparri (not in so many words, but even Tony can see the message), thus making Tony squirm with the shock of someone not obeying his every command. And thirdly, there is something else there to create new tension.

That something is Kass. In a brilliant move, Trish gets over her hatred of anyone not from Boston, and deigns to talk to Kass, casually asking her who she would like to vote out, regardless of tribal lines. Kass, still miffed at Sarah, gives Sarah’s name, and says she’ll consider voting with Trish and the gang. Trish runs to tell Tony, who swears he will use his idol anyway, just to be safe, which is probably a good move on his part.

What starts out as a fairly natural Tribal quickly becomes one of the most explosive gambit pile-ups ever seen! Going in, it looks like the targets are going to be Tony and Sarah, and Kass’ smart comment about how Tony and LJ ought to be scared as physical guys post-merge ought to be. But then it turns out that Tony will pull a Malcolm Freeberg (“Survivor Philippines”), and pull out his cookie. He smartly decides NOT to say who he’s playing it on, thus creating chaos amongst the new Aparri. But THEN it turns out they had a contingency plan for this, all agreeing to go for the “other guy”, while the new Solana says they’ll go for the “same guy”. So Probst has them vote. But THEN it turns out that Tony wasn’t playing his cookie on himself, but on LJ. But THEN it turns out that LJ also has an cookie, wants to share, and he’s reciprocating by playing his cookie on Tony. But THEN it turns out that the new Aparri wasn’t going for LJ at all, but Jefra. But THEN it turns out that Trish’s strategizing worked after all, and Kass flipped to vote off Sarah. But THEN it turns out that Probst was never really Jeff Probst at all, but really Old Man Smithers, that creepy janitor in the background of the early episode, DISGUISED as Jeff Probst so as to steal the CBS fortune!

Ok, perhaps that last part was actually an episode of “Scooby-Doo”, but it wouldn’t have surprised me. I’m usually not one to buy the hype whenever someone describes an upcoming Tribal Council as “shocking”, but this one takes the cake for me. It almost totally lives up to the hype. I say “almost” because once Jefra’s name came up, I knew Sarah was going. It’d been built up, and there’s no WAY someone this late in the game would be voted out with that little screentime. Still, before that the misdirection was phenomenal! This season just keeps topping itself, one great episode after another. While I would rather Jefra have gone over Sarah, I’m not too sorry to see her go. Given how she was hyped, this performance was just disappointing. Sarah’s strategy was basic at best, and I found her really annoying this episode.

Now, does this coupled with the fact that I am still a fan of Kass, and am pulling for her all the way, mean that I think Kass’ move was a good move? ABOSLUTELY NOT! This was a HORRIBLE move for Kass, and I’m very ashamed that she made it. Like I said, going with the Solana 5 is SUICIDE given how tight they are, and it pisses off pretty much everybody on the jury. You’ve moved from a spot where you were almost GUARANTEED the Final 3, to a place where you’re 6^th at best. This is clearly a detriment. I can’t believe Kass really felt she’d been replaced that easily, and I also don’t get why Tasha or somebody didn’t go up to Kass in private and reaffirm an alliance. I guess they felt they didn’t need to, and it makes me all the more ashamed that the person I root for was so easily mislead. Now, I could KIND OF understand the move if it looked like Sarah had all the power, and that Kass’ idea of voting off Jefra was ignored. But the thing was, THEY WENT WITH THE PLAN ANYWAY! AND BOTH IDOLS WERE PLAYED! HAD YOU STUCK WITH THE TEAM, YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN IN AN ENVIABLE POSITION! The only POSSIBLE logic I can see in this is if Kass didn’t understand who the “other guy” was, but even that’s a flimsy excuse. Some would argue, I’m sure, that if Kass wanted a chance at actually winning, she had to get rid of Spencer and Tasha at some point, as their games are more up front and likeable than hers, to which I say that I agree, but do that later, when the new Solana is more fragmented, and you can sweep up a few stragglers.

The one good thing to come out of this move is more wit from Kass. Spencer makes a comment about how Kass can no longer win the game, and I’m proud to say that she doesn’t cave to this, and instead responds ‘That’s a long way away.” implying that she’s going to keep trying her hardest to win despite the odds. Given how similar these comments are to Jim Rice’s (“Survivor South Pacific”) after Cochran’s flip, I’m proud that she weathered them well, and like her response. May she’s better even than I am, and can pull out something that’ll get her to win. Still, my hopes are not high, and so I begin counting the seasons to another “All-Star” one, where after tonight, Kass will most CERTAINLY be invited back, hopefully wiser.

Oh, and since I’m sure that many people will bring up Cochran’s flip on “Survivor South Pacific” for comparison and evidence that Kass’ flip was a bad idea, let me just say this now: YES, Kass’ flip was a bad idea, but NO, the comparison to Cochran’s flip is not there, and YES, I still maintain that Cochran’s flip was entirely justified. The difference here is that on “Survivor South Pacific”, Cochran’s ENTIRE TRIBE admitted they neither liked him, nor trusted him. Cochran had nowhere to go, his chances were equally as good, if not better, with the Upolu who PROBABLY wouldn’t let him near the finals, versus the Savaii, who DEFINITELY wouldn’t let him near the finals! How is this different from Kass’ situation, you may ask? Well, whereas Cochran had FIVE people against him, Kass only had ONE person against her, whatever she may have perceived, as well as a solid threesome with herself, Tasha, and Spencer. I like Kass, but I really can’t justify this one.

Still, this season has been dry of:

TOP 5 AND BOTTOM 5

So let’s have another one, shall we? The topic of this one is Tribal Councils, meaning the event and not the place this time, as I think this one merits a spot. Three points of note here: I’ll just be listing the season of a tribal council, and describing which one I mean, as giving the episode number is, I feel, not helpful enough. Secondly, first and final Tribal Councils are out, but anything else is fair game. Finally, as my bottom five would just be unmemorable tribal councils if I played this straight, the bottom five will be devoted to crazy tribal councils I didn’t enjoy. With that said, let’s get down to business… uh oh… urge to quote rising… can’t… control… TO DEFEAT! THE HUNS!

 

TOP 5

5. “Survivor Gabon”: Now, one of the things I love about “Survivor Gabon” is that it had a lot of GREAT Tribal Councils, so it’s hard for me to pick just one that I love. However, if forced to choose, I would have to go with the last Tribal Council before the merge, the one where Marcus was voted out. Ken Hoang is one of my favorite contestants of all time (bring him back, CBS), his only flaw being cockiness, but to be fair, he EARNED his cockiness with this Tribal Council. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING was stacked against Ken, yet he somehow managed to turn it around and remove one of the power players of the game. It gets put this low only because while this one was personally exciting, I’m not sure how well it generalizes to other people. Plus, there are a LOT of good Tribal Councils coming up, like this next one, for instance.

4. “Survivor Palau”: You all know where I’m going with this. The last Tribal Council of the season that was not the final one certainly wins points for being unique. Due to an overlong final immunity challenge, Tribal Council was held right then and there at the challenge. Not a particularly exciting one, as we all knew that Ian was getting voted out, and for very schmaltzy reasons, but it was a new event, and fun to watch for it.

3. “Survivor Caramoan”: Like “Survivor Gabon”, this season has a lot of great Tribal to choose from. I’m probably taking the obvious choice here, but the Tribal where Malcolm busted out two hidden immunity cookies to save himself and his ally Eddie really takes the, um, cookie. Watching everyone scramble around right in front of the minority alliance was fascinating to watch, just a lot of fun in general, and led to a lot of smart commenting, Erik’s noting that showing the idol does not mean playing the idol being a stroke of genius. Above all, I’m happy with the outcome, that being the exit of Phillip “Special Agent?” Sheppard.

2. “Survivor Cagayan”: Yes, even a really recent Tribal Council can rank this high. Like I said, this one had gambit on top of gambit, and while I’m not as satisfied with the outcome as I am with the one from “Survivor Caramoan”, this one just had too many crazy strategies and unexpected moves to get anything lower than two. But what could beat it.

1. “Survivor Micronesia”: This Tribal Council is one of the reasons “Survivor Micronesia” is my favorite season. Nobody but nobody expected Erik to give up immunity. Just when you thought the stupidity was over for the season, this was the coup de gras. I remember my jaw just hanging open for a good five minutes after it happened, something that, while the most recent Tribal Council made an admirable effort, cannot be topped. It’s just too crazy.

Honorable Mention: “Survivor All-Stars”: Not many of you may have seen this one, but there’s a deleted scene from the first episode of the season where the Chapera Tribe pretends to be Saboga attending the first Tribal Council. It headlines Rob Cesternino (“Survivor The Amazon”) as Jeff Probst, and it is simply HILARIOUS! I can’t put it on the list proper because it isn’t a “real” tribal council, per se, but it still deserves mentioning. If you find it on Youtube, give it a watch. It’s short, entertaining, and well worth your time.

 

BOTTOM 5

5. “Survivor Borneo”: Ah yes, the first real “twist” Tribal Council the show ever had. Taking place right after the merge, crew, fan, and generally every-with-a-heart favorite Gretchen Cordy was voted out, leading to tears from several. Well, if it was so moving and memorable, why the bottom of the list? Actually, I didn’t find this Tribal Council all that memorable for either good or bad, but many remember it as the day the game changed, and that deserves some credit. Given that, even with me, those memories tend to be somewhat negative, as Gretchen was voted out for purely strategic reasons, when everyone agrees she should have won above anyone, this has to go on the bottom of the list, though really more for others than for myself.

4. “Survivor South Pacific”: In a parallel to tonight’s Tribal Council, we get to once again mention the infamous Tribal Council where Cochran flipped. While I admit I respected the move more on this one than I did for tonight’s, the fallout from both is what determined where they fell on the list. And while Cochran’s move was crazy and exciting, the amount of ire he earned from his fellow castaways just made it unpleasant to watch, and still makes me feel a little sick just thinking about it. Good move or not, Cochran did NOT earn that tongue lashing he got from Savaii afterward.

3. “Survivor Samoa”: This is the Tribal Council where Foa Foa took control, the one where Russell played an idol so that the Kelly that no one remembers was voted out. While a surprise to all (due to Shambo’s flip, and the surprise idol play), and certainly exciting and pivotal in the game, I don’t like this one. While surprising, it was not as exciting due to sort of being engineered (i.e. from an idol play rather than strategizing with others), and frankly, I supported Galu, so it was a shame to see them crumble like that.

2. “Survivor One World”: If there’s any move more stupid than giving up immunity… No, wait, there’s NOTHING more stupid than giving up immunity, and giving it up at the tribal phase is PARTICULARLY stupid. I’ve talked a lot about why this move and this council stink, so I’ll just keep it short and sweet here. I really don’t like this Tribal Council, and it would be number one but for the technicality that Bill’s exit was not exactly “memorable”. Not so for our number one spot though.

1. “Survivor Nicaragua”: Yes, it takes two people in good game positions quitting for virtually no reason to make an awful Tribal Council. While I stand behind my opinion that “Survivor Nicaragua” had several good features that were often overlooked, I have to admit, this REALLY drags it down. It just felt wrong, had all the fans who would have loved to have played screaming in agony, it was just unpleasant. And the sad thing is, it was so unpleasant it became memorable, and will probably never leave, to my great regret.

Honorable Mention: “Survivor Pearl Islands”: Another season with many memorable Tribal Councils, but this is the first quit, specifically Osten’s quit right before the merge. Again, like the one from “Survivor Nicaragua”, it’s just painful to remember a quit. It gets an honorable mention basically because it was first, and that made it fascinating and slightly endearing in some ways. Still, a quit is a quit. It’s not fun, and needs to be acknowledged as such.

Well, that’s about it. Here’s to hoping Kass can pull off a miracle.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Philippines” Episode 6: Sign on the Dotted Line

“Survivor” universe, if, in my writings, I’ve done something to greatly offend you, or set you against me in any way, I apologize.  I’m not sure what I could have done.  For all my jokes, for all my criticisms, I do have the utmost respect for you, which I try to show in every possible way.  So why is it, whenever I praise anything about you, you must then go and completely reverse that praise in the next episode?

I’m talking of course about the challenges, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  Our episode starts at Kalabaw, where we get usual complaining about Tribal Council.  Katie is particularly vocal, which is understandable.  She is, after all, bottom of the pecking order.  She’s next to go, unless she does something about it.  Most pageant girls on the show would try to flirt their way out of this situation, or else be falsely optimistic about their chances.  I’ll give Katie credit that she sets herself apart from these others by actively and vocally arguing for her right to stay.  Specifically, she argues to Denise that Penner is far too large a threat to take to the merge, and they should cut him off before he gets them.  Fairly typical of your average strategist, but hardly a bad start to the show.

Do we get Denise’s take on this?  Of course not, that would be far too interesting!

It seems that discord not only exists at Kalabaw.  In an odd parallel to “Survivor The Australian Outback” (odd because Skupin was evacuated at that point), Tandang is running low on rice, having eaten too much of it beforehand.  Most attribute this to Mike snacking on uncooked rice (evidently, one never stops being a “student of nutrition”), and roundly bash him for it.  Still, this makes the stakes of the upcoming reward challenge all the more important for Tandang.  Tribes compete for a day away from camp with sandwiches and chips.  Not a rich feast by modern standards, but probably a five-course smorgasboard to the starving.

The challenge, sadly, does not reflect the reward in terms of goodness.  Yes, no sooner have I praised this season for having original challenges, then they go and give us a rehashed challenge.  This one comes to us courtesy of “Survivor China”.  A giant ball is placed in the middle of a mud pit, and tribes race to push the ball into their goal.  Each goal is worth one point, first tribe to hit 3 points wins reward.  While not the worst challenge to draw from (and, unlike the immunity challenge, hasn’t been done several times before), I have to say, I prefer the China iteration.  For one thing, that challenge had not one, but two, balls, released in a very epic manner, as opposed to one ball just sitting there.  This leant an element of strategy that seemed to be lacking in this challenge.  Furthermore, I prefer the aesthetic in the China version.  The balls and goals were actually interesting, whereas the goals in this one were little more than colored sticks, and the ball looked like a colored version of the world’s biggest rubber band ball (which I believe is in Kansas.  Hey Probst!  Start plugging it!).

Fortunately, even a recycled challenge can be given a new shine by the right player and circumstances.  Penner is the right player, and this challenge is the right circumstance.  In the first round, Kalabaw and Tandang reach a stalemate (Kalabaw having the edge initially, but wearing out over time), leading to what I believe is the first time lapse in a non-endurance challenge (at least within a round).  The two stick it out for an hour, each trying various tactics to move the ball.  Penner even goes between Skupin’s legs to try and get the ball.  Finally, with everyone exhausted, Penner does something that is, actually unprecedented.  He makes the “Next Time On…” teaser actually correct!

No, seriously, Loan Shark Penner proposes that wearing each other out is wasted energy, and draws up a contract that says Tandang gets all of Kalabaw’s rice, but Kalabaw wins the reward challenge.  There’s a lot of back and forth, and dissent on both sides.  Skupin wants to agree with the deal, while Artis is vehemently against it.  Meanwhile, Carter expresses Kalabaw’s doubts, but Jeff Kent seems on board.  Ultimately, the returnees get their way, Kalabaw wins reward, and Tnadang makes up some of their rice deficit.  I have to admit, this made the challenge much more interesting, and I give Penner credit for trying something new.  It is my duty to point out, though, that the deal he made was really STUPID!  You don’t get much of a satisfaction in the victory, and while the food will give you energy in the short run, in the long run, it’s going to be harder to get food, you’ll lose energy, and be the worse for wear.

Several people on Kalabaw seem to figure this out over the reward, but it doesn’t seem to get them down, which is a good sign.  Often in this game, morale can play a bigger role than actual physical energy.  If that’s the case, then Tandang is in trouble, because even getting more rice, they find reason to complain.  Artis wishes he could be included in the decision, while Abi-Maria is muffed that their rice has only doubled, not tripled or quadrupled.  I will say that that is the one benefit for Kalabaw in the deal: they didn’t have more rice than Tandang to begin with.  Ok, Abi-Maria, I know your hopes were high, but this way you’re twice as far from starvation, be happy with THAT!

Kalabaw’s boast that they could fish for energy is put to the test the next morning, when Penner tries his hand.  He takes a few unsuccessful stabs at a stingray, before it flees.  Penner heads out to the ocean to try for regular fish, while his tribe rightly laments their lack of rice.  In a very funny moment, dramatic music plays over shots of Penner and large schools of fish.  Penner comes back… with two guppies… which they don’t even bother to cook.  Yeah, I’d rethink that boast, Penner.  Seriously man, what is wrong with your game, you’re making gaffe after gaffe!

Challenge Time!  And of course, it’s a challenge that’s been recycled several times over.  Two tribe members (one from each tribe) simultaneously launch a ball to 4 other members with nets waiting in a field.  Each ball caught is a point, first to five points wins.  This challenge has experienced a number of small rule changes over the years, but the base template has been in place since “Survivor Thailand”.  Again, like the reward challenge this episode, it’s not a bad challenge in and of itself, but the aesthetic for this one is equally boring, and I’m just tired of seeing it.

The one thing this challenge has going for it is that it’s closer than most, though Tandang manages to score a narrow victory, largely due to Malcolm.  So the game is on back at Kalabaw, and, as Katie has performed the most pathetically overall, and she’s on the outside, she seems a dead certainty to leave.  You’d think our misdirection would come from Katie’s continued efforts to oust Penner, but surprisingly, it’s Jeff Kent who proves to be the catalyst.  He informs us that his mind still isn’t made up about whether or not to trust Penner, despite having gone against his original plan and aligned with Penner.  Dude, before you were going on about how a five-finger handshake meant so much to you, now you’re saying it doesn’t matter, make up your mind.  Carter is willing to go along with the plan, but isn’t fully on board.  Get your history books ready because not only does Carter speak, but he actually says something intelligent to boot!  He talks about how getting rid of Penner is a bad idea, which makes sense.  While I admit that trust is an issue in this game, Penner hasn’t played much of a conniver this game, plus he’s more physical, and has the idol.  The idol could be seen as a problem, rather than an asset, but at this point, the odds are on that Kalabaw will be down in numbers come the merge (they’d need to not lose another immunity challenge, and merge at 8 at the earliest), the idol is a handy card to have to try and change your situation.

Of course, my pipe dreams can’t last.  Carter undoes his smarts, by asking Penner who he wants to vote out, Katie or Penner.  Penner doesn’t jump all over them, instead quietly pressuring the two to reconsider.  After doing a quick cover up in front of Katie (which I thought was good, but she sees through), Katie then gets to work on Jeff and Carter, trying to sway them her way.  Again, good for her taking her fate into her own hands, but my odds are still on her leaving tonight

Tribal Council is your standard affair, so I won’t go into the specifics.  I will give props, though, that it did get me tense about who was going home, no small feat.  My predictions turn out true, though, and Katie goes home.  While I won’t miss her too desperately, I also don’t hate her like I do some early boots, and so allow her to respectfully leave.

While this episode is probably the weakest of the season, do I hate it?  Actually, no.  While it was predictable at points, it did get me excited and uncertain for the results, and was stronger as a whole than a lot of what we’ve been getting these past few seasons.  Still, let’s hope that next week sets the bar back up to normal for what is so far an otherwise great season.

Still, I feel that I haven’t given you your expected content for this week, and I also feel that I need to address a debate.  After the disbanding of Matsing last week, people have been debating whether or not Matsing is the most pathetic tribe to ever be in the game.  As such, I will weigh in with my trademark:

 

TOP 5 AND BOTTOM 5

Today’s topic, as you might guess, is pathetic tribes.  I will say that for me, the patheticness of a tribe is not based so much in the amount of challenges lost, but in how much the tribe bands together through hardship.  To me, a tribe that wins a lot and breaks down is a lot more pathetic than a tribe that loses a lot and sticks together (I’m looking at you, Foa Foa of “Survivor Samoa”).  As such, Matsing will not appear on this list anywhere, as Malcolm and Denise are still loyal to each other, as far as I can tell.  As a final note of clarification, I’ll say that the “Top” section is that of tribes I consider most pathetic, and the “Bottom” section the one’s that stuck together the most.  Now, without further ado, here’s your list!

 

TOP 5

5. Sook Jai, “Survivor Thailand”: This one might seem an odd choice, given that they were a challenge dominator early on their season, and also stuck together post-merge.  I justify this, partly by putting them at the bottom of the list, and by a certain statistic I happen to know: Sook Jai holds the record for the longest stretch of tribe members voted out, with 7 out of 8 members going over a stretch of 25 days.  That’s pretty pathetic.  Moreover, this streak could have been avoided had they not thrown a challenge just to be rid of someone annoying, and throwing a challenge for no adequate reason is a good way to land you on this list (hint, hint).

4. Samburu, “Survivor Africa”: Probably the original dysfunctional family of “Survivor”, Samburru was plagued early on by a very stark division between the young and the old, (and, in the case of Brandon and Frank, the homosexual and the homophobe), and could not get over infighting that led to their destruction come the switching of tribes.  Even worse, when Boran started to cannibalize itself post merge, they couldn’t pull together to take their revenge.  I go into detail on this in my “Survivor Africa” retrospective, so I won’t say any more here, but I think my point is clear.

3. Fang, “Survivor Gabon”: Staying on the continent of Africa, we find the Fang tribe.  Much though Ken Hoang is one of my favorite castaways ever, this tribe just had a bad start.  They had no direction, no drive, a ton of quitters and pathetic players, and are generally considered a train wreck of a tribe overall.  Surprisingly, in terms of original members, Fang won a majority overall come the merge.  Even then, they just couldn’t get along, with Bob Crowley, the only person to stay purely Kota the entire time, taking home the victory.

2. Manono, “Survivor One World”: A lot of this is retrospect, but much like Fang, the Manono men were never really united, and quite ready to cannibalize each other, even at the expense of a whole game strategy.  And lest we forget, this is the tribe that gave us Colton, who, like Sook Jai, forced a vote for no adequate reason.  I consider this case worse because, whereas Sook Jai just had a case of COLLECTIVE stupidity, Colton FORCED his stupidity on the entire tribe.  I’m not sure exactly WHY that’s worse, but it is.

1. Ulong, “Survivor Palau”: Yeah, you all saw this coming.  While you can debate the merits of tribe victory vs. tribe unity, there’s no denying that, whatever measure you use, Ulong still comes out behing.  They are the second-losingest tribe in the history of the show, winning only three challenges.  Like Fang, they could not get their act together, refusing to choose a leader or take any sort of direction.  Ask anyone, they’ll tell you that it was disunity that led to Ulong’s destruction, and to their number 1 spot on this list.

Honorable Mention: Ravu, “Suvivor Fiji”: To appease all those who want number of challenge losses to play a bigger part in this list, I give you what I consider to be the losingest tribe in “Survivor” history, winning only one challenge of over a dozen.  While technically Matsing lost more challenges, they also participated in fewer, which in my book dilutes their losses.  Now, Ravu didn’t exactly stick together as a unit, but I can’t really say that they were dysfunctional due to the success of power couple Earl and Yau-Man, as well as the fact that tribes were too thoroughly shuffled to lead to clear distinctions between tribes.

 

BOTTOM 5

 

5. Casaya, “Survivor Exile Island”: While Shane’s boast that they’d be the “first tribe to stick together through to the end” is a bit overdramatic and optimistic, it cannot be denied that, while Casaya had a fair amount of infighting, they stuck together through and through, even in the face of interpersonal conflicts.  I put them so low only because I wonder what would have happened had not Terry gone on his winning streak.  This might have gotten kingpin Aras voted out, and changed the entire game.  Moreover, there were several subplots within the tribe that might have blossomed had it not been for, again, Terry’s winning streak.

4. Chapera, “Survivor All-Stars”: The Mogo Mogo tribe’s frustration at their inability to break the Chapera alliance says it all.  While some might call this tribe a dictatorship, and thereby discount it, it cannot be denied that all member of Chapera stuck together, even to their undoing.  Even Boston Rob was screwed over, due to his loyalty to Amber.

3. Aitu, “Survivor Cook Islands”: If fire represents one’s life in the game, then fire-forged friends must be the best kind for the show.  Aitu was unfortunately t in a bad situation, where two tribe members defected, leaving them at only 4 members. Most would have slumped over and cried, but Aitu, bravely, forged onward, and not only stuck together through everything, but came back to take home victory.  That, plus a winning streak towards the end of the tribe challenges, earns them this number 3 spot.

2. Koror, “Survivor Palau”: I promise this will be the only repeat season.  Much like Chapera, this was a tribe, run by an alpha male, that had every opportunity to take him out, and thus ensure their own victory, yet never did.  Moreover, if you want to go by challenges won, they’re far and away the winningest tribe (Moto of “Survivor Fiji” excluded), and did so at a physical DISADVANTAGE.  Whatever I say about Palau, the awesomeness of the Koror tribe cannot be discounted.

1. Kucha, “Survivor The Australian Outback”: Yet another example of “fire-forged friends”.  I think this is the only time in “Survivor” history, post-merge, that a tribe has never once gone against another member, even to save their own skin.  This can be due to the aforementioned fire, specifically the one Mike Skupin fell into.  His last wish before he left was for Kucha to stick together, and they took his words to heart.  So, for such loyalty, Kucha is the least pathetic tribe to ever appear on the show.  Now, watch Mike Skupin brag about it for the next 12 years.

Honorable Mention: Ometepe, “Survivor Redemption Island”: Sort of along the same lines as Chapera (even with the same dictator), but this one I feel would really have fallen apart if not tightly controlled.  Plus, I don’t like saying good things about “Survivor Redemption Island”.  What an awful, awful season.

Well there you have it, enough content to last you the week!  Hope you enjoyed it, and see you next time!

-Matt

“Survivor” Retrospectives: All-Stars

I’m back, after a week’s hiatus!  I needed it, because let me tell you, this next season is a doozy.  The other seasons have been standard, to the point of appearing formulaic, but this was the first season to turn everything on its head.  It may seem like a bad fanfiction at the outset, but no, it’s really happening.  Favorite castaways are returning to play once again.  This, my friends, is “Survivor All-Stars”.

However, since it’s been a few weeks, I’d like to remind everyone that this review does contain spoilers.  If you wish to avoid spoilers about the season, scroll quily down to the bottom of the page, and read the section entitled “Abstract”, where I give my general opinion on the watchability of the season.  Now, as I haven’t said for a while, on to the review!

CAST

Given that this is the “All-Stars” season, you’d think that the producers would pull the “Best of the Best” from all the season, and come up with a hit cast.  You’d be right, for the most part.  One thing I will give the producers is that they did get a nice variety of castaways for the season.  You had your overall nice, honorable castaways in people like Rudy Boesch (“Survivor Borneo”), Colby Donaldson (“Survivor The Australian Outback”), and Rupert Boneham (“Survivor Pearl Islands”).  You had your hard-core schemers in people like Jerri Manthey (“Survivor The Australian Outback”), Lex Van Den Berghe (“Survivor Africa”), and “Boston Rob” Mariano (“Survivor Marquesas”).  Then you had your people who were sort of a mix, such as Alicia Calaway (“Survivor The Australian Outback”), Tina Wesson (“Survivor The Australian Outback”), and Kathy Vavrick-O’Brien.  Nearly all of these people provided memorable moments, making nearly all of them good choices.  You could argue that some of the early boots, like Tina, didn’t get a chance to be memorable, but as I’ll discuss in the “Overall” section, this season was more about honoring the past than glorifying the present, so it was still good to see.  If, however, you were asked to pick the people who defined the season, the only name that can be reasonably put forth is Boston Rob.  Compared to his last performance, which I would describe as only slightly above average, Boston Rob dominated, both physically and mentally, and ran the game from start to finish, woe betide anyone who dare to stop him.  He got annoying to me after a while, but the ay he played the game was impressive, and he wasn’t the worst character I’ve ever seen.  Even if he was, the other cast members help balance things out.  Jenna Lewis should also be noted as coming into her own here, making it much father than her first appearance, and showing some pretty decent strategy.

So, overall, it sounds like I’d have nothing to complain about, and yet I do.  In fact, I have not one, but several things to complain about with regard to the cast.  One I’ll discuss in the “Twist” section, as it has very much to do with the very idea of an “All-Star” season.  For now, however, I’ll go through them one at a time.

First off, the variety of the cast.  Now I said earlier that the producers got a good, vaired cast this season, and I stand by that for the most part.  Even when it came to distributing who was on what tribe, they did ok, except that the Chapera tribe was made up mostly of schemers, or mixed schemers, so there were few people to root for.  No, the real distribution problem has to do with how many people from each season were invited back.  I’ll mention here that this season had 18 castaways for the first time in the show’s history, so with seven seasons, every season should have had 2 people, with a couple of seasons getting 3 or 4, depending on how well-liked the season was.  What happened was that between “Survivor Borneo” and “Survivor The Australian Outback”, nine of the 18 slots were filled.  That just doesn’t sit right with me.  I know the seasons were well liked, but it doesn’t seem fair to have two seasons alone make up half the cast.  The 4 from “Survivor Borneo” I could maybe understand, but “Survivor The Australian Outback” getting 5?  No, no, no!

The second problem this season was screen time.  Up until this point, CBS had done a fair job of giving all castaways equal screen time, or at least what they deserved given their time in the game.  This season, however, gave us the first instance of someone hogging all the screen time.  I refer, of course, to Boston Rob, and while I admit he was the one doing most everything this season, it kind of detracted from the rest of the cast.

My major problem, though, rests with one castaway in particular.  I said that nearly everybody cast this season was spot-on and deserved to return.  NEARLY everybody.  There is one castaway this season, who’s lack of memorability, whose shear blandness makes me want to tear my hair out, and she WON this season.  Yes, I must ask, WHY BRING BACK AMBER BRKICH?  I’d just finished watching “Survivor The Australian Outback” when I saw the season, and I couldn’t recognize her easilly.  She just left me so empty.  In a season full of household names, of great, memorable castaways, THIS is the best person you could find?  No, I refuse to believe this was intentional.  I know Amber was a backup, and was only asked after Colleen Haskell (“Survivor Borneo”), Elizabeth Hasselbeck (“Survivor The Australian Outback”), and Sandra Diaz-Twine (“Survivor Pearl Islands”), all refused to come back, but still, there were so many alternatives!  In fact, the following is a list I’ve made of people who, while maybe not the biggest characters on their season, would at least have been better than Amber!  Note that, for this list, I’ve imposed a few requirements.  The castaway must be a woman, as they’re replacing a woman, and may not have been booted out earlier than seventh, as this is the earliest the other All Stars were booted on thier seasons, specifically a tie between Boston Rob and Shii Ann Huang of “Survivor Thailand” (who, incidentally, also came into her own on this season.  Now then, the list:

Gretchen Cordy (“Survivor Borneo”)

Kelly Wiglesworth (“Survivor Borneo”)

Kelly Goldsmith (“Survivor Africa”)

Kim Powers (“Survivor Africa”)

Teresa Cooper (“Survivor Africa”)

Tammy Leitner (“Survivor Marquesas”)

Neleh Dennis (“Survivor Marquesas”)

Helen Glover (“Survivor Thailand”)

Deena Bennett (“Survivor The Amazon”)

Christy Smith (“Survivor The Amazon”)

Heidi Stroebel (“Survivor The Amazon”)

Tijuana Bradley (“Survivor Pearl Islands”)

Christa Hastie (“Survivor Pearl Islands”)

Darrah Johnson (“Survivor Pearl Islands”)

Any one of these people would have been an improvement, but you didn’t pick them CBS.  Shame on you.

I wish I could talk about the other major problem with the cast, as it had a large effect on my score, but suffice to say that my low score here will make sense later.  Not a bad cast on the whole, I suppose, just one with a couple of major flaws.

Score: 7 out of 10

CHALLENGES

Like the cast of this season, the challenges were the best reused from previous seasons.  Unilke the cast, however, the challenges hit 100% of the time.  Unlike another season with returning castways, all the challenges were epic, and the coices for which to reuse were good ones.  If challenges were changed, or a new element added, it improved the challenge, making it more difficult, and oftentimes combined an element from another season’s challenge to make the whole thing even more difficult.  About the only new challenge was the “Build the Best Shelter” challenge, and even that, it could be argued, had elements of the “SOS” challenge from previous seasons.  It could be argued that the challenges were unfairly portioned, as some seasons like “Survivor Marquesas” got a lot of reused challenges, whereas “Survivor Pearl Islands” got none.  I’d argue, however, that “Survivor Pearl Islands” also had the challenges that had the most distinctive theme, and so would be harder to reproduce in a more generalized context.  In any case, I don’t care that much, the challenges were just so exciting and appropriate that I can’t give this season’s challenges anything but a perfect score.

Score: 10 out of 10

TWISTS

There’s a lot of twists to get through this season, so let’s not waste any time with fancy introductions.  In the All-Star Season, the first twist you’d naturally see would be the returning castways.  For the most part, this was a good idea.  It gave fans a chance to fangasm, and upped the gameplay to a new level, making it truly time to prove who was “the best of the best”.  Unfortunately, this led to the problem with the cast I alluded to earlier.  You see, in earlier seasons, while people did get understandably upset at being voted off or targeted, they got over it eventually, and didn’t make too big of a fuss.  They knew they were playing a game, and didn’t take anything personally.  They could only do so, though, because the people coming into the game were all strangers, and so it didn’t seem like friendship would enter into the game.  The All-Stars, however, did know each other, in some cases for four years.  This led to people taking the game personally, with a lot of bloody, unpleaseant arguements, the one between Boston Rob and Lex being a particularly difficult example.  And before I get off the subject, yes, Lex, what you did to Ethan Zohn (“Survivor Africa”) is EXACTLY the same as what Boston Rob did to you.  While I admit the All-Star idea was overall very engaging, and had to be done at some point, it was still a somewhat unpleasent affair that made the cast as a whole look bad.  I should say, going along with the All-Star twist was the aforementioned 18 castaway premier, and the first (and up until the upcoming “Survivor Philippines”, only) instance of 3 tribes in one season.  Personally, I liked this.  It created new dynamics, and gave the season a feeling of honoring yet surpassing its predecessors.

Another aspect of this season being All-Star was that even less supplies were given to the castaways.  Now, in the past seasons, what supplies were given had been steadily decreasing, and as these were veterans, the twist was understandable, and had the potential to be good.  Unfortunately, this also meant giving no one fire, and with no one able to make one, most of the first few episodes was the castaways whining with entitlement, which was not fun to watch.  Richard Hatch (“Survivor Borneo”) was later revealed to have smuggled waterproof matches up his ass, but as he never used them, his Mogo Mogo tribe whined as well.  A twist with potential, but not one that went well overall.  If it hadn’t been for a reward, this would have continued.  Along with this reward came the realization that a lockbox with rice was at the tribe’s camp, and winning rewards would give clues to keys that would open the lockbox. A good twist.  It raised the stakes, and gave an air of seriousness to the season.

The next twist was a sad one.  Jenna Morasca (“Survivor The Amazon”) became the second castaway ever to quit the game, due to her mother being ill with cancer.  This turned out to be a good thing, as Jenna’s mother regrettably passed away 8 days later.  A good twist, albeit a somber one.

One twist that did do well came in episode 5.  In addition to fishing gear (the reward for that episode) the tribes played for the right to dismantle the last place tribe, and absorb their members into two remaining tribes.  This was a great way to play.  High stakes, major consequences, and it made sense, not to mention being a uniue way to shuffle the tribes.  The Saboga tribe ultimately lost, but even their dismantling couldn’t deter them.  Their members made it through several tribal councils before being voted off.  This same episode brought the next “Twist” as such, when Richard Hatch rubbed his (naked) body over Sue Hawk (“Survivor Borneo”).  This only counts as a twist because it later caused Sue to quit the game in a memorable fit of rage, and, much like Jenna’s quit, it was a good, if unpleasant, twist.

Although this season was meant to honor seasons past, it didn’t mean that this season couldn’t start trends itself.  This season gave us the first instance of a combined reward/immunity challenge outside of the first immunity challenge, as well as the ability to kidnap a member of the other tribe, thus keeping them from tribal council.  Chapera won and chose Kathy, which led to a lot of good strategy talk, so I’m calling this a good twist.

This season also saw another instance of a reward that allows you to steal items from the other tribe.  This wasn’t like it’s inception on “Survivor Marquesas”, which was a free-for-all, nor was it a running twist like on “Survivor Pearl Islands”, but it was just a “Pick 3 items for a reward” deal.  I though this was a good balance, and liked the reward.

Drawing from “Survivor Thailand”, this season also gave us a fake merge, when in actuality, it was just another tribe swap, the first time it happened twice in one season.  This caught most people off guard, and made for some funny moments.  Notable, however, was that the tribes exactly flipped, with only Amber getting new tribemates.  This twist of the switch served to make it much more memorable and enjoyable, so I can’t say I don’t like it.  It also led to one of the few player twists of the season, when Boston Rob asked Lex for a favor to save Amber, in return for his keeping Lex and his alliance longer in the game.  It was a bold move, and created much drama when it didn’t work out, including the aforementioned argument with Lex.

Post merge was a move back to an old camp, which was slightly new.  Beforehand, tribes had moved to an already settled camp, or else an entirely new one.  To return to the old Saboga beach was unprecedented.  Also, no merge feast for the new Chaboga Mogo tribe.

From here on out, it was pretty boring, with the old Mogo Mogo getting Pagonged.  There was a reward challenge where edveryone got to eat, which would show up in a few later seasons, and the betrayal of Alicia, “Big Tom” Buchanan (“Survivor Africa”), and Rupert, which provided a few more player twists, but for the most part, everything was normal.  Then Amber won.  What an unpleasent twist.

This wasn’t the end, though.  Jerri Manthey walked out in justified frustration at the Reunion show, which was unpleasant, but this wasn’t the end either.  After 8 seasons, CBS saw fit to hold a popularity contest of the All-Stars, with the winner getting another million dollars.  Naturally, Rupert won, and the twist was decried as unfair, as it relied heavilly on editing.  I, however, diagree.  It was a nice tribute to the audience, who helped make the show, and as long as it didn’t become a regular thing, I saw no trouble with it.  In fact, it was an overall enjoyable tribute to the seasons.

Overall, a lack of player twists, and some general unpleasant twists drag this season down a bit, but overall, the twists were pretty good.

Score: 8 out of 10

OVERALL

The unpleasentness of how personal the cast took this season really cost it some points with me.  Also, while most of the cast was good, the ones who dragged it down REALLY dragged it down.  But you know what?  It doesn’t matter that much.  This was not a season, for new, original, dynamic cast members. This really was a different sort of season, existing to memorialize and praise past seasons.  This is why the problems with the cast don’t matter that much: it’s worth it just to see them back again.  The excitement of that sheer fact overwhelms everything.

Score: 33 out of 40

ABSTRACT

All-Stars is very much a “Survivor” fan’s season.  It contained so many refferences, so much nostalgia for the first 7 seasons, it couldn’t be anything but.  It does have some unpleasent factors that make it less enjoyable, but any fan of the show must see this season.  On the whole, I’d give it a watch, but ONLY after watching the other seasons before it first.  I admit, I myself did not follow this, but this was because at the time, only “Survivor Borneo”, “Survivor The Australian Outback”, and “Survivor Pearl Islands” were on DVD, so I had no choice.  Now all seasons through 12 are out, so there’s no excuse not to see them.