“Survivor” What-Ifs?: Samoa

Come on in, guys!  And welcome back to “Survivor What-Ifs”, where we make one little change in a given season of “Survivor”, to see how it impacts the rest of “Survivor” history.  And oh boy, what a season we have to consider today.  “Survivor Samoa” is arguably the most divisive season of the show, largely due to the fact that it could be more aptly titled “The Russell Hantz Show”.  “Survivor” is no stranger to having a “big character” of the season.  One could argue that Rupert took on a similar role for “Survivor Pearl Islands”, or Boston Rob in “Survivor Redemption Island” if we look to the future at this point.  

Samoa is a bit special, though, in that Russell takes up SO much screen time, he effectively pushes out anyone else who might want character bits or a story arc.  To put it in perspective, Russell has somewhere in the ballpark of four times the number of confessionals OF THE WINNER!  Yeah, dude was a bit of a screen hog, or just made into one by the editors.  Hence, the division.  If you, like a lot of the audience then and now, enjoyed Russell’s character on the show, having a season devoted to him was an interesting diversion, making for a distinctive season.  If you, like me, found Russell to be incredibly flawed as a player, and found that his schtick got old after about one episode, this season really has nothing else for you, and was at best a chore to get through.  So, let’s see if we can change that, shall we?  Can we make one little change that can make this season more palatable to everyone, Russell fans and Russell haters alike?  

Before we get into that, though, a couple of bits of business.  First, to give credit where credit is due, this particular idea for a “What-If?” did not come from me.  Instead, the inspiration came from YouTube channel “Once Upon An Island”, which does “Survivor”-related videos.  Recently, they did a history of people who got medically evacuated off the show, and if you remember “Survivor Samoa”, you can already see where this is going.  Still, since I wouldn’t have thought of this were it not for the video, I feel I need to acknowledge it here.  Moreover, though, be aware that this blog will contain SPOILERS, both for this season and future seasons, since we need to be reminded of our baseline before we talk about how a change would work.  Without further ado, though, let us change history.  

THE IMPACT

As you may have guessed from the lead-in, our change today concerns Russell.  No, not Russell Hantz, the OTHER Russell of this season, one Russell Swan.  Arguably the only character to actually get some note on the show other than the eponymous Hantz, Russell Swan was the leader of Galu, though perhaps most famous for his medical evacuation late in the pre-merge.  Possibly the most dramatic in the history of the show, Russell Swan worked himself through the rain to keep the camp orderly, but then just could not handle the challenge in this episode, leading to his scary collapse in the middle of doing a maze.  As a side note, this episode has a vivid personal memory for me.  I was in High School at the time, and well-known as the “Survivor” guy.  A girl in my theatre department had a family that was majorly into “Survivor”, but she herself had never watched it.  She was finally convinced to give it a try… In the episode where Russell Swan nearly dies.  Understandably, she was freaked out, and never watched the show again, for which I cannot blame her.  

Now, I initially would not have thought of a possible change for this scenario.  The only thing I could see being done to avoid it would be for Russell to not work in the rain, a change to his personality so drastic that it would violate my own rules for what makes an acceptable change to talk about.  The video mentioned above, however, reminded me of another, more plausible change.  I did not remember that Galu tried to get Russell to sit out, only for him to say that he was good to go, and they dropped the subject.  This is possibly because I try my hardest to forget that “Survivor Samoa” exists on a regular basis.  

But what if Galu didn’t drop the subject?  What if they insisted that they could tell Russell wasn’t doing well, and insist that he sit out such a low-stakes challenge.  Some may disagree, given his portrayal on “Survivor Philippines”, but I think Russell caves here.  The man could be stubborn, and could have a “my way or the highway” attitude, but he could back down in the face of a majority.  You’ll note that he had gone along with the plan to vote out Yasmin a few episodes before, in spite of the fact that he didn’t agree with the decision.  So the man clearly CAN give in to the will of his tribe.  In this timeline, the will of his tribe is that he sit out, and so he does.  

Going on with how it changes this episode, the winner of this challenge really is a moot point, since it was set to be a double Tribal Council prior to Russell’s collapse.  If you must know, though, I would guess that Foa Foa wins without Russell playing in the challenge.  With the possible exception of Dave Ball, none of the sit-outs would have made much of a difference, and Foa Foa did have a slight lead in the challenge even in our timeline.  With no medical evacuation, the Double Tribal Council takes place as planned.  As in our timeline, Foa Foa votes out Liz Kim, but Galu is a bit trickier, since in our timeline, we don’t get a lot of their internal tribe dynamics, due to only going to Tribal Council once.  That said, I think the best bet is that Shambo gets voted out at this juncture, if Tribal Council goes forward.  The tribe wasn’t overly fond of her already, she had already been to the Foa Foa camp and developed bonds there a couple of times at this point, plus she was the only person not to vote for Yasmin at Galu’s first Tribal Council.  

THE FALLOUT

So what happens now?  In the short term, Russell Swan gets better.  One major factor in his evacuation in our timeline was the fact that there were several straight days of bad weather in a row.  After the episode in our timeline where Russell collapses, the weather improves, thus allowing the rest of Galu to pick up the slack and let Russell get some rest.  So, in this timeline, Mike Borassi is the only medical casualty of “Survivor Samoa”.  Predicting the merge, however, is much tricker, largely due to an internal production decision that, as far as I know, we will never know the truth about.  You see, in our timeline, we had one more immunity challenge pre-merge.  However, it’s not clear if this decision was made due to the medical evacuation canceling the planned Double Tribal Council, or if this was always in the cards, and the merge was planned for the Final 11 instead of the Final 12.  Honestly, either one seems plausible to me, and there’s evidence for both options (the number of days played at this point make it seem like there was always another immunity challenge planned, but the odd number of players and start of the jury at Final 12 indicate a merge in the same episode).  

Ultimately, though, it probably doesn’t matter.  Even in the best-case scenario for Foa Foa, where the merge happens immediately after the Double Tribal Council, they’re still down 8-4.  Similar to out timeline, but now Russell Swan, rather than Shambo, is in the merge.  And that, dear readers, makes all the difference.  

The absence of Shambo, and the presence of Russell Swan, basically kills what little chance Foa Foa has of repeating the comeback they make in our timeline in this timeline.  There’s three major factors that lead to this conclusion.  Firstly, with no Shambo at the merge, there’s also no Shambo to flip to Foa Foa as soon as it hits.  Yes, even with Shamboo’s flip, Foa Foa was still down 7-5, but clever idol plays and a narrower majority put Galu in much more peril than they are in this timeline.  Second, there’s Russell Swan as a uniting factor.  The man has his flaws as a “leader”, there’s no doubt about it, but when it came to bringing the tribe together against a common enemy, the man knew how to do his job.  Look at how they devolved into infighting after his evacuation in our timeline.  A united Galu front, rather than a fractured one as we saw in our timeline, is hard to overcome.  It’s true that hidden immunity idols are a factor here, and for all of Russell Hantz’s many, MANY flaws in his game, the man is good at finding hidden immunity idols, which could give Foa Foa more of an edge.  That said, this feels like the sort of trick that only works once.  Maybe at the merge, Russell out-predicts Galu, and sends one of them home.  Galu doesn’t let that happen again, and pulls the “Edgardo Maneuver” from “Survivor Fiji”, voting for a member of Foa Foa no one expects, and Foa Foa is screwed once again.  

Really, though, the big factor is that this time, the votes are out of their system.  It’s an interesting pattern on “Survivor”, but for whatever reason, tribes that only attend one or fewer Tribal Councils tend to vote for one of their own immediately after the merge.  From Koror on “Survivor Palau” to Bayon on “Survivor Cambodia”, if you largely avoid Tribal Council pre-merge, you’re more than likely going to turn on one of your own come the merge.  Granted, this pattern is more prevalent in seasons with only two tribes, but as “Survivor Samoa” is one such season, the point stands.  Even in our timeline, despite losing two members, Galu only went to one Tribal Council, and they turned on each other at the merge.  The reasons for this pattern are varied, but I hypothesize that people get irritating, and all you think about is voting them off to the point where you jump the gun once you have the opportunity.  Galu going to just ONE MORE Tribal Council helps clear up those internal divisions, and unite the tribe.  From there it’s just a numbers game.  Barring someone from Foa Foa going on an immunity streak a la Brett in our timeline, or them playing their hidden immunity idols PERFECTLY, someone from Galu wins in this timeline.  The factors are too many to say who it would be with any degree of confidence, but that the winner is an original Galu, I can say with confidence.  

THE LEGACY

A Galu victory naturally changes the way the entire season of “Survivor Samoa” is edited.  Don’t misunderstand, Russell Hantz is still a big name, if only for his aptitude and finding hidden immunity idols without clues, before such things were common.  But without leading his tribe back from the brink to victory, Russell isn’t the only game in town.  He has to share screen time with a bunch of the Galus, so they get more character development.  A necessary change, as this season is untimely just a boring Pagonging in this timeline.  

Surprisingly, the season that probably changes the LEAST as a result of this new timeline is “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”.  Russell Hantz, despite not being as legendary in this timeline, still revolutionized the finding of idols, and had already talked about “Russell Seeds” and sabotaging his tribe before our timeline change.  We in our timeline might be inclined to say they bring back Russell Swan on the Heroes Tribe, since he saved Galu from collapsing.  However, remember that we only know that because of OUR timeline.  In this timeline, the destruction of Foa Foa seems inevitable, and while Russell is well-regarded, particularly in comparison to Mick on Foa Foa, he’s not legendary enough for such a season.  I’m sure he comes back at some point, just probably more in the area of a “Survivor Game Changers” than “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”.  The only possible change is that Russell Hantz is MAYBE more humble in this timeline with the knowledge that he definitively did NOT win his season, but I doubt it.  With the rivalry between himself and Boston Rob still intact, “Survivor Redemption Island” remains unchanged, along with the “Russell-proofing” of idols, and Russell’s impact on “Survivor” History as a whole.  

The cast makeups of some future seasons are hard to determine without knowing who the winner is, though I’d imagine we get more returnees from Samoa in general due to it no longer just being “The Russell Hantz Show”.  Some characters on Galu, like Erik and Dave, get more screen time, and I could see them or another member of Galu coming back on something like a “Survivor Game Changers”, or even “Survivor Caramoan”.  Monica, however, probably fares worse than she does in our timeline.  Without even the flimsy “She put fear into Russell Hantz” justification that she got in our timeline, I doubt Monica is up for “Survivor Cambodia”, or if she is, she’s not voted in.  Now, you might be inclined to replace her with another young, attractive woman from the show.  Someone like Baylor from “Survivor San Juan del Sur” could take her place.  However, I’ll go out on a limb and say that T-Bird from “Survivor Africa” gets on instead.  Yes, T-Bird is a completely different archetype, and was in the vote in our timeline and still lost, but so help me, I want T-Bird to return, and I’m still salty she didn’t win the vote in our timeline.  Just let me have this, ok?

Of course, no medical evacuation for Russell Swan makes him ineligible to return on “Survivor Philippines”, meaning he’s replaced with their original plan… *shudder* Colton Cumbie of “Survivor One World”.  Yeah, I don’t even have to go into the details of how that would change the season to know it’s a change for the worse.  

“Survivor Winners at War” is really the only other major returnee season to discuss here, and again, without knowing the winner, we can’t really say if they’d be on or not.  If the winner was one of the bigger characters of Samoa, like the aforementioned Dave or Erik, yeah, they probably get on.  If it’s someone less exciting, like John Fincher or Kelly Sharbaugh, perhaps not.  As to whether a John Fincher win prevents him and Parvati Shallow from marrying, there’s just no way  to know.  

So, once again, to the ultimate question: Does this change make the season better?  Ehh… If I’m being objective, it really doesn’t.  Even as someone who loathes “Survivor Samoa”, I have to admit that it’s memorable.  Lopsided in the edit, and centered around an annoying egomaniac whose voice has become like sandpaper in my brain, yes, but memorable.  But as mentioned earlier, without the Foa Foa turnaround, the season is ultimately a predictable Pagonging by the tribe that was obviously going to dominate, with only a few interesting characters to be found.  In the end, I suppose it’s better to be polarizing than to be forgettable, and in that sense, yes, this change is a change for the worse.  Sorry, Russell Swan!  

And that about covers the major changes that result from Russell Swan not being medically evacuated.  Of course, with 20 years of “Survivor” History to go through, there’s a lot more changes to discuss, and I want to hear what you want discussed!  Leave a comment on this blog, or wherever it’s posted, of what timeline changes you’d like to see me discuss next!  To help, the guidelines for what sorts of changes I’m willing to examine are below:  

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 guidelines, there are two what I call “Flexible Guidelines”.  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.

Hope everyone is doing well, and getting vaccinated!

-Matt

“Survivor” Retrospectives: South Pacific

And so we come to South Pacific. No, not the musical, the “Survivor” season. I have to admit, when I started doing “‘Survivor’ Retrospectives”, I wasn’t at all sure I was going to do this season. Not so much because it’s a hard season to analyze or anything. In fact, this one might be one of the easier seasons to get through in terms of all that goes on. No, I wasn’t sure I was going to do this one because this is where I come in. “Idol Speculation” stated with South Pacific. “Survivor Redemption Island” was just that bad that it caused me to start blogging about the show before anyone had any reason to give a damn about my opinion. But this also meant that I’d kind of already given my thoughts on the season, why go over it again? I’m doing it now, partly because I’m so obsessed that I need to finish EVERY season, regardless of whether or not I have much of anything to say about it, and partly because when I blog about a season, I talk about it on an episode-by-episode basis. True, I try to give some overall thoughts in my final blog of the season, but that’s still my knee-jerk reaction. Time and space let you see things you couldn’t before, and so, since I might have something different to say about it. So here we are, South Pacific. Was my first blogging season good? Bad? A little of both? An obvious “Guardians of the Galaxy” reference? Perhaps all of the above. Read on to find out.

Before commencing the reading on and finding out, though, I should give fair warning about spoilers. From this point forward, I write these blogs as if talking to someone who was already familiar with the outcome of the season, or at least didn’t care about knowing the major plot points of said season. If you just want to know what I generally think of the season, without any of these spoilers, scroll IMMEDIATELY to the bottom of this web page, where I have a section labeled “Abstract” that will give you just what you’re looking for. For everyone else, who wants to know what I think about this season in nauseating detail, it’s time.

CAST

Surprisingly for a season with returning contestants (a fact that will be talked about a LOT in later sections), the big star of this season is not one of said returning contestants, but the little red-haired nerd himself, John Cochran. Much like David Murphy on “Survivor Redemption Island”, Cochran (as he annoyingly insisted on being called) was built up BIG TIME pre-season. Not so much for his smarts, although that was a factor (Harvard-educated lawyer and all that), but for his superfan status. He was pitched as the uber-“Survivor” nerd, the one who actually got off the couch to play the game he loved. And, to some degree, he did not disappoint. He certainly had an encyclopedic knowledge of “Survivor”, certainly showed how happy he was to be in the game, and did, in my book, have a few moments of good strategy (which will be talked about in the “Twist” section). But what Cochran was most definitely was a character. While David Murphy seemed to fail to deliver in many ways, Cochran made sure he would not be forgotten. He was a caricature of a nerd, pathetic at challenges (even puzzle-based ones), cracking self-deprecating jokes about using the tribe machete, and falling victim to amusing injuries. He sort of floundered through most of the game, but did flounder in such a way that he would not be forgotten. Note that I say “not forgotten” instead of “liked”. This will amaze people who did not join “Survivor” fandom until “Survivor Caramoan” or later, but Cochran was not universally loved or respected like he pretty much is now. We’ll talk about the changing perceptions of Cochran when we come to that season, but for now, let’s focus on South Pacific. While it would be unfair to say that Cochran was universally hated or disrespected back in the day, and it would be fair to say that he was the big name people remembered from this season even then, Cochran was considered the “villain” of the piece. The trouble with Cochran being a caricature of the “Survivor” fanbase was that Cochran did not get shown in a positive light, largely. He did very little strategically, at least compared to what people expected of him, and there were many confessionals in which the Savaii tribe relentlessly berated Cochran and how pathetic he was. Given Cochran’s general performance, these could not be refuted, so he seemed like an insult to the “Survivor” fanbase. When he finally DID make a move that was purely his own (which will be gone over in the “Twist” section), it was seen as being so poorly executed and stupid that the fanbase grew even more insulted, and while he had a few supporters even then, the rallying cry was largely “Cochran sucks!” This softened somewhat by season’s end, due to the clip show “Survivor” used to do. Lest you think that what’s shown in the clip show never has an impact on the show, let South Pacific stand as the counterargument. Remember all those confessionals about how pathetic Cochran was? The clip show gave us how the tribe was treating Cochran to his face. Suffice to say, it wasn’t very nice. This gave Cochran a lot of sympathy, and while many still didn’t agree with his move, they could better understand why, and so Cochran became somewhat more popular. He still wasn’t particularly beloved, that wouldn’t come until “Survivor Caramoan”. At the very least, though, Cochran was acknowledged as being the big character of the season, and seen as somewhat put upon. For my part? I loved Cochran! While the whole “caricature” thing did get a bit old, I identified with how put-upon Cochran was by his tribe a lot. It seemed to me like he had some brains that he didn’t really get to show, since Savaii kind of cut him off at the knees before he had a chance to shine. He was somewhat funny, and had a lot of potential. Did he let me down from what I expected? Sure. Was he more annoying than I would have liked? Kind of? But was he still enjoyable, and did I like watching him? Yes. If you were going to have a flagship character for South Pacific, you could do worse than John Cochran.

But, of course, Cochran wasn’t the ONLY big name to come out of South Pacific. No, for all that we got the pretty cool John Cochran this season, we also had endure yet ANOTHER Hantz this time around! The producers obviously realized that they couldn’t use Russell again, after this last performance, but they couldn’t let that gold-mine die. So, we had a season where we had to endure his nephew, Brandon Hantz. While maybe not as hated as on his return on “Survivor Caramoan”, Brandon was still seen as annoying and hypocritical on his season. He was one of the annoying “moral crusaders” who wanted to play the game honestly, which we were sadly getting a LOT of at this point. On top of that, Brandon went back and forth on how he wanted to play. First he said he would hide his heritage from his tribe (something I thought would be difficult to do, given that the name “Hantz” was tattooed on his arm), but then goes out and reveals it in a big, cheesy confession that ate up valuable strategy time. He said he was going to take care of people, but then went on an attack against Mikayla Wingle for no apparent reason, only getting her voted out. I’ve been more of a Mikayla fan than most, but even I will admit that apart from being “the girl pursued for no reason by crazy Brandon Hantz”, she’s not memorable, and didn’t contribute much to the season. But back to Brandon. While we hadn’t seen the worst of him at this point, the audience still wasn’t big on him. He was preachy and stupid, and I completely agree with the audience here. Though not nearly as bad as Russell Hantz (“Survior Samoa”), in that he was somewhat more polite overall, Brandon’s schtick of morality and stupidity just got old really fast, and while he was remembered after the season, it wasn’t much fun to watch, and he’s part of what drags down the season.

Fortunately for “South Pacific”, for every Brandon-type character we had to endure, we had a good character to love, like Dawn Meehan. Once again, this is a case where the character became more well-known after a future appearance, but even during and after South Pacific, you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who disliked Dawn, and many people remembered her fondly. Somewhat similar to how I viewed Cochran, Dawn was seen as someone who could potentially have good strategy, but got cut off in their prime. She also drew a lot of comparisons to Holly Hoffman (“Survivor Nicaragua”) as an older lady whose emotions got the better of her early game, but came back to do well. These comparisons are nor surprising, since Dawn was actually supposed to be on “Survivor Nicaragua”, but got cut for Holly instead, meaning the characters are so similar that CBS didn’t want two on one season. Still, Dawn was a great addition. You could tell that she had gumption. She was likeable, and for my part, it’s always fun to see an older lady on “Survivor”. I, like a lot of the audience, tend to feel they’re more interesting than the generic good-looking bikini babes “Survivor” likes to give us, and so Dawn was a great addition to the cast, and another part of what makes it stand out.

Before we delve into the returnees for this season, as well as those popular at the time that seasons since have made us forget, we must discuss someone who, while not HUGELY popular at the time, did make a big splash afterward. I’m talking about our winner for the season, Sophie Clarke. Sophie played a very quiet, snarky game. She was noticed on the season, giving a fair number of scathing confessionals about her fellow tribemates, but also showing a bit of personal growth, opening up more as the season went along. “Survivor” very rarely does story arcs with character development, at least over the course of a single season, but when they do happen, they usually show people developing strategically. Watch Kathy Vavrick-O’Brien on “Survivor Marquesas” if you want an example of a season-long story arc. But Sophie was a very rare case, since she developed socially. For a lot of fans, including myself, this was kind of fun to watch, with her snark keeping us entertained over the more boring parts. On top of this, Sophie was also always involved in strategy. Whenever you had a plan to flip, or a discussion of who to vote out, Sophie was there, which sort of quietly showed her intelligence. Oddly, though, Sophie is respected as a strategist, even though she never made an overt move. And here in lies the conundrum that is Sophie: she never actually made a move in the game, apart from getting into the winning alliance and giving a good Final Tribal Council Performance (one of the best of all time, in my opinion). And yet, unlike other winners who basically made no moves in the game, Sophie is generally respected as a good winner. Part of this, of course, is due to the fact that she wasn’t another returning contestant winner. Beyond that, however, one could see that by her not making a move, she actually dictated the course of the game. By her not flipping, others didn’t flip, and while this made for a fairly predictable game (which I’ll discuss the drawbacks of in the “Overall” section), it also meant that Sophie knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth. She knew that, if she stayed the course, she’d go to the end with people who were easy to beat, and so stopped those people from flipping, and potentially screwing her game up. One has to look closely to see (explaining why Sophie’s game is really only visible on rewatch), but Sophie did play the game really well, and this combined with her growth and wit made her a fairly good winner. Certainly better than her two predecessors. And she won the final immunity challenge against Ozzy Lusth (“Survivor Cook Islands”). That’s pretty cool. One thing that I also personally like about Sophie is that fact that she was a young woman on the show (22 at the time), yet clearly was not a dumb lady who looked good in a bikini. She was cast because she was a good character. Don’t get me wrong, Sophie is hardly unattractive, but she’s not the stereotypical model of feminine beauty that “Survivor” loves in their young women. I love that fact that arguably the most respected young winner of the show is the one who isn’t just a brainless beauty. Just goes to show that casting CHARACTERS rather than MODELS usually yields better season results.

Who, exactly, was this goat that Sophie wanted to take to the end. None other than the Dragon-Slayer himself. Benjamin “Coach” Wade was on this season, this time rambling on about both Christianity and Greek Mythology! While there was a certain amount of “Coach fatigue” by this point, Coach had been spaced out a little better than Russell Hantz, and so people were generally accepting of him. Coach played a better strategic game this time around, which people liked, and was arguably somewhat less irritating with the preachiness, but like Brandon Hantz, he contributed largely to the negative feelings most people have about this season. I won’t say that I liked Coach, but then I’ve never been a big Coach fan. Personally, I was more a fan of him on “Survivor Heroes vs. Villains”, where he seemed to have some personal growth and was better than Russell Hantz, but while not the highlight of the season, he was still memorable. But even Coach pales in comparison to Challenge Jesus himself, the aforementioned Ozzy. Unlike other recent returnees, Ozzy had had a long hiatus from the show, making people happy to see him back. And Ozzy delivered exactly what people wanted to see. He was good outdoors. He was good in challenges. He was an overall nice guy. He brought a bit more strategy than in his previous incarnations, and as I’ll be discussing later, he was a nice monkey wrench in a season that was ultimately pretty predictable. Even so, I actually found Ozzy to be a bit preachy in a different direction, and I wasn’t a big Ozzy fan to begin with, so while I acknowledge his importance as a character, I don’t consider him a highlight of the season.

That’s where the currently notable characters end, but there are a couple more people who were semi-popular at the time that are worth talking about now. The first of these is supposed strategist Jim Rice. Similar to Dawn, Jim was seen as someone who had a lot of potential as a strategist (and even showed it by deposing Ozzy in a pretty fun manner, which I do give him points for), but got cut off at the knees by Cochran’s twist. He was also one of the people on the receiving end of Cochran’s move, and did not take it well. He got a lot of love as the voice of the audience when Cochran was hated. As Cochran became more popular, Jim Rice became less popular, due to his being rightly seen as a major bully of Cochran, and taking his vote-off too hard. I quite agree with the latter take on Jim Rice. I certainly respect that he had some strategic potential, particularly for his taking Ozzy down a peg, but the bitterness he had towards Cochran for a fair game move was one of the more unpleasant aspects of the season, and therefore, I think it’s only too right that he’s largely forgotten. He could have been great, but his actions made things uncomfortable, so good riddance. In a similar vain, Whitney Duncan was another potential strategist who fell from grace at least in part due to her treatment of Cochran. She had a few subtle strategy moments that both I and the audience rather liked, but again, once she was on the receiving end of Cochran’s move, she became pretty hard to listen to for how hard she was on Cochran. I did admire that, despite being another one of the “hot girls” of the season, she seemed to have a few brains, but like with Jim Rice, I can’t get beyond her treatment of Cochran. As if Whitney didn’t have enough of a hard time for this, her reputation was further tarnished by a scandal after the game. During her time, she had formed an alliance with fellow contestant Keith Tollefson (who isn’t remembered at all) via flirting. Most viewers assumed this was strategy on Whitney’s part, but afterwards, the two became engaged. This would be fine, another romance from the show, if it weren’t for the fact that Whitney was TECHNICALLY married at the time. This didn’t look good, and a subsequent appearance on “The Amazing Race” made her and Keith look like desperate reality-whores, the final nail in the coffin. It’s a bit of a shame. While I was never a big fan of Whitney’s she had some potential (more even than Jim, I’d say, since she was more subtle), and even though I don’t like her personally, she could have been a good all-star.

Most of the rest of the cast is pretty forgettable, and it’s a majority, unfortunately. Still, credit where credit is due, this season produced a LOT of good, memorable characters. Some you wish you could forget, and I do have to detract points for those people, but this season had many standouts who were good, and a decent amount of strategy besides. Is it one of the best casts the show has ever had. No, but it’s pretty decent, with a lot of excellent standouts, so I’d say this is one aspect of the season that does a good job.

Score: 7 out of 10.

CHALLENGES

Usually when I say a season is not beloved by the audience as a whole, I can at least say the challenges are good. This is not the case here. The challenges are complete crap. When they aren’t reused, they either fail to stand out or are just lame overall. Shall I remind you of the “Jack and Jill” challenge of matching masks, or the “Hold the coconut in ropes” challenge? Yeah, not the stuff of “Survivor” legend, or are just stupid and poor to look at in the case of the latter. This season had a couple of good challenges. One involved dismantling a cart to use it as a slingshot, and another had the “building a house of cards” challenge, but with an added balance component. But for every one of these, there’s a “toss the coconut in the hole” challenge. Yeah, this season wins virtually no points in the challenge department. Bland, forgettable, and often not that challenging.

Score: 2 out of 10.

TWISTS

I know I made the joke “A Tale of Two Twinnies” about the finale of “Survivor San Juan del Sur”, but I’m sorely tempted to reuse a similar pun her. “A Tale of Two Twists” this really is, since nearly every player-implemented twist does an incredible job, while the producer implemented twists suck hard. Want to know how bad the producer twists suck? Put it this way: THEY’RE THE SAME AS LAST SEASON! Yep, we’ve got two returning players, Redemption Island still in effect, merge at 12 after the Redemption Island duel, someone comes back at the final five, end of story. Now, if you thought these didn’t work last time, if you think people thought they were a bad idea at the time, imagine how bad they seemed done back to back. This season therefore got off to a bad start in the twist department, since it seemed like a lame rehash of “Survivor Redemption Island”, a season that, to put it mildly, did not go over well with the audience. While Coach and Ozzy were probably ok choices to bring back, people didn’t need to see them, and Redemption Island still had the same problems as it had on its inaugural season. Literally, only two things were done differently. First, only two people were in duels post merge, rather than the three of “Survivor Redemption Island”. Technically an improvement, but that’s like saying a shit sandwich is made slightly better with the addition of ketchup. You’re correct, but you’re still eating a shit sandwich. The other change was that, rather than combine reward and immunity challenges post-merge, the winner of Redemption Island Duels (or occasionally the immunity challenge) chose a member (or members) of the merged tribe to get reward. This is actually not a bad concept, adding a new layer of politics to the game, and, in the case of the duel winner dispensing reward, kept the people on Redemption Island more involved in the game. Sadly, nothing much ever came of this use of politics, and it hasn’t been tried again. A good idea, but one lacking in execution. Also, while a good idea, Redemption Island was not needed to execute it, so suffice to say, the negatives of reusing twists, and particularly THESE twists, greatly outweigh the positives. Oh, and if you thought the Redemption Island twist was stacked in favor of Boston Rob (“Survivor Marquesas”) it was not nearly as bad as being in favor of Ozzy. After all, which contestant holds the record for most individual immunity wins? Ozzy.

But that’s only one half of the coin. We got some good contestant twists, but they were a while coming. Actually, most of the vote-offs were predictable, and the only real surprise, such as it was, was the revelation of Brandon Hantz’ true identity to his tribe, something the audience had known about since before the season, and was so over-the-top that it was hard to take seriously. As you can tell, this was not a season with an auspicious start. Our first real twist comes in episode 5, when Jim and Cochran conspire to overthrow Ozzy, and do so. This is where Jim shines as a strategist, and Cochran starts to come out of his shell. We also get some really good, subtle gameplay from Whitney here. A pretty standard twist in the game, but still a good one.

In episode 7, things really start to get crazy. Basically, the first woman voted out of Upolu, Christine Shields-Markoski, had been winning Redemption duel after Redemption duel (inadvertently showing how broken the Redemption Island twist often is: winner of the first duel usually has a streak of wins), which made Savaii scared. They feared she would go back to Upolu if she won one more challenge, and so they hatched one of the craziest plans ever. They INTENTIONALLY voted Ozzy out at this juncture, after he hands his hidden immunity idol to Cochran to ensure it stays in the game, so he can beat Christine. Let me state here and now that this is a STUPID plan! Sure, it worked out perfectly, and so goes down as brilliant, but imagine, just for a moment, if the winner of the duel HADN’T gotten to go back into the game. Savaii would have been SCREWED! I like Cochran, but he’s no good in challenges (this season) versus Ozzy, the challenge beast. Not to mention that if you DO merge, you’ve offended the guy with the hidden immunity idol, and the most likely swing vote, by berating him for his challenge performance. Not a good position. All this on top of the plan being pointless. Anyone who could listen to and understand English, and read body language, could tell that Christine was NOT happy with Upolu, even going so far as to call Coach “Benjamin” just to piss him off. CLEARLY she would have been on your side. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy Cochran stayed in the game, but this plan could easily have backfired, and it’s pretty much a miracle that it didn’t. While a stupid plan, I will admit that it’s fun to watch the stupid chaos ensue in hindsight. A highlight of the season, but nothing compared to what would happen next.

Episode 8. After a double immunity challenge in which Ozzy and Dawn both won immunity, and with a hidden immunity idol in play, Savaii seemed set to dominate after an even merge between the tribes. Cochran was to play the role of the swing vote to find out what Upolu was up to. Except that he was ACTUALLY a swing vote, and turned on his aggressors. Yes. The biggest moment of South Pacific is Cochran betraying his tribe on a re-vote and getting rid of Keith, after planting false information that Upolu was targeting Whitney. And it is glorious. This is also where the Cochran hate came from, as this was seen as a stupid and cowardly move, done primarily to avoid drawing rocks. I maintain that this was the smartest move Cochran could have made at the time, given the information he was getting from his tribe. Generally, one should not trust the people who were just saying earlier that you should have been voted out. I see waiting for the re-vote to flip not as an avoiding of the purple rock, but a misguided attempt to make the betrayal sting less. It didn’t work, obviously, either for the tribe or for the audience, but an attempt nonetheless. As I said, when it came out how badly Cochran was bullied, he was eased up on, but Jim’s repeating of the word “coward” and Whitney’s “You disgust me.” speeches really took their toll. Still, whether you agree with Cochran’s move or not , it set the tone for the rest of the season. Coach’s alliance was not able to run the table for the rest of the game. There was a surprise double Tribal Council in there, but for the most part the season from there on was predictable.

Well, mostly predictable. There were enough crazy people in the game for random things to happen. The big game-changer was Brandon giving immunity to Albert Destrade, a contestant of absolutely no note, and getting voted out for it. It’s the crowning moment of stupid for Brandon, and while we’d seen this sort of stupidity from Erik Reichenbach (“Survivor Micronesia”) before, and it lost some impact, it was still kind of funny, and a fitting end to Brandon.

Oh, and Ozzy, there was the monkey wrench of Ozzy.

Yes, Redemption Island did its job this time, keeping Ozzy in the game long enough to come back twice (making him the only person voted out three times in one season), and give us a possible foil to Upolu’s plans. After all, if Ozzy makes it to the end, he wins, no question. Quite a bit of drama for the end there. Drama only topped by Ozzy making the final immunity challenge, only to lose on the puzzle to the lovely Sophie, thus explaining part of why she’s beloved. Again, while I’m not a big Ozzy fan, it was nice to see this possibility play out, but not to the obvious conclusion of Ozzy winning.

Not sure if this should count as a twist, but I love the moment, on the aforementioned “house of cards” challenge, where Sophie screws up, and then demands that Albert come over and help her win to beat Ozzy. Didn’t come to fruition, but a fun idea, and a great bit of humor for the final episode.

I’ll talk more about this in a minute, but also a twist is that, although this season played out much like “Survivor Redemption Island”, with a Pagonging by an unsinkable alliance led by a returnee, it did not conclude with a returnee win. Sophie won. She was the best player of the final three, I’d argue. Good twist.

While maybe not jam-packed with contestant twists, South Pacific had a lot more hits than misses in that department. Most contestant twists were good game-changers, and even those that weren’t as good were usually fun to watch. Long dry spells, and predictable Pagonging, and the reusing of twists no one wanted to see again really drag this season’s twists down, though. The degree of goodness of the contestant twists keeps this one above average in the twist department, but just barely.

Score: 6 out of 10.

OVERALL

In terms of theme, you couldn’t be more screwed than being named “South Pacific”. I’ve talked about the problem “Survivor” has with seasons with a theme of “Generic South Pacific Island”, but when your season is actually NAMED “Survivor South Pacific”, you’ve got problems. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the reusing of twists hurt the season in terms of theme as well. As bad an idea as it was to bring back Boston Rob and Russell, you could at least argue that they were connected in some way, tied into the “redemption” idea of Redemption Island. What unified Coach and Ozzy? Nothing. Add that onto the fact that the blatant twist reuse made it seem like the show was out of ideas, and you’ve got a season that’s seeded for failure. And yet it didn’t fail. True, it’s not a beloved season, but it had some good characters and moments that stand out. Maybe not as much as other seasons, and I’d never say this is “Survivor” at it’s best, but on it’s own? Pretty good season. Low end of average I’d say.

So, what are the bad points, apart from the inauspicious start? Well, first off, over time this season did develop a theme. It was a theme about the “morality” of the game, and how to play within those morals. This is not a good theme. It’s preachy and annoying. No one liked it. Having no theme would have been better than this. Additionally while this season had a lot of stand-out characters, it also had a lot of duds, and that can really drag. Remember Rick Nelson? Of course you don’t, he’s almost as forgettable as “Purple Kelly” (“Survivor Nicaragua”), and he was the “Fan Favorite” voted on again! Yeah, no wonder they stopped doing that after Rick. Now, you might say that the number of good characters who made it far is a good thing, since everybody who was memorable made the merge at least. The problem is that by the time you get to the final six, apart from Ozzy, who’s on Redemption Island at this point, the only people who are memorable are Coach, Sophie, and Brandon. This seems fine until you consider that the only LIKEABLE person of these people is Sophie. Not a very auspicious final few. Thank goodness Ozzy was there to give people someone to root for.

Which brings us to possibly the largest weight on the season after the reused twists: the Pagonging. We really needed an unpredictable season, and Cochran’s move was one in the right direction, but the boot order was predetermined after that move. Upolu was the tribe that had one rock solid alliance that would not budge, while Savaii was a lot more willing to cannibalize it’s ranks, thus making for a more interesting end of the season. But Upolu dominated, and so the rest of the season became relatively predictable, especially in hindsight.

With that said, it’s worth noting that this season did a good job of keeping us guessing with the Pagonging. If you’re going to have a Pagonging, play up how likely it is for a flip to happen. And there was talk of flipping, and there was Ozzy the monkey wrench, so while the season ended up a boring Pagonging with a highly unlikeable final 6, it did the best with what it had.

That’s really the best way to sum up South Pacific as a season. It had a lot working against it. Reused twists. An unlikeable ending group. A boring Pagonging. Yet it took those things, used good marketing techniques, mixed in some good characters and contestant twists, and made a season that was perfectly ok. With a few more good characters and less reused twists, this could have been a great season. As it stands, it’s definitely in the lower end of “Survivor”, but I say it’s still a pretty good season.

Score: 22 out of 40.

ABSTRACT

South Pacific is not one of your great seasons, but it does a pretty good job. You’ve got some stand-out moments and people to root for. It is one of your more predictable seasons, but it does a good job covering that up. While not essential to understanding “Survivor” history, I still recommend watching it a couple of times. It’s entertaining enough for the first watch, and there’s some subtle pleasures upon rewatch. If you’ve got the time, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Survivor Retrospectives: Samoa

Well, folks, this is where it starts. You’ve heard about the “Survivor” great downward spiral. This is where it begins. Strangely, I put it a lot earlier than most, so let’s take a look at why Samoa seemed at the time to be the beginning of the end.
However, it should be noted that this review will contain spoilers. Those who want to know my opinions on the season, but don’t want to know the specific events that inform my opinion, can scroll to the bottom of the page, where I will have an “Abstract” section that will briefly summarize my opinion on the watchability of the season in a spoiler-free manner. Oh, boy, this is going to suck, so let’s jump right into the season.

CAST
Samoa’s cast is very unique, and not in a good way. There’s been a variety of casts thus far in “Survivor” history, and while the quality varies widely in those season, you can usually count on at least 3 or 4 interesting people to a season. Samoa did not have that. Samoa had Russell Hantz, and if the marketing was to believed, no one else.
In fairness, it’s pretty easy to see why marketing would latch onto Russell as a cash cow. A big time strategist who was good at finding idols, Russell would have made good tv just for that. But Russell had to go farther than this. He had an ego that rivaled even Richard Hatch’s (“Survivor Borneo”), and could turn out cocky soundbytes with the best of players. He even had a few deeds to back it up, managing to overcome a 2-1 deficit for his Foa Foa tribe come the merge (they lost all but one immunity challenge). Yes, I have no quarrel in a sense with them centering the season around Russell, as he made it so easy. What I DO have a problem with is making him the ONLY thing to watch on the season.
In an odd twist, Samoa seems to have been cast with only Russell in mind. So many non-entities, so many bland people, so many sheep who would just kowtow to Russell that they may as well not even have been there. Apart from getting old very fast, this meant there was no break from the Russell, no reprieve from the supposed new “mastermind”. And make no mistake, while I do acknowledge Russell’s accomplishments, he is no mastermind. In fact, he’s so inflexible that I’d go so far as to call him one of the DUMBEST players ever. While it would become much more evident in his later seasons, Samoa still showed that while Russell was incredibly good at finding hidden immunity idols and calling the bluffs of others/finding their weaknesses to make them flip, he was completely ignorant of the social aspect of the game. Russell bullied, Russell put down others, and worst of all in my mind, Russell was INCREDIBLY chauvinistic. His first alliance was dubbed, by him, the “Dumbass Girl Alliance”. That does not sit well with me, and did not sit well with the audience either. Compounding the problem, Russell even refused to acknowledge that he MIGHT need to be nice to people, insisting that he deserved the win on merit alone. Rather than take responsibility for the one part of the game he DIDN’T do well on, Russell chose to ignore it altogether. People praise many of his moves (which I’ll get to in the “Twist” section), but I maintain that for all his good strategizing, Russell’s ignoring of the social aspect of the game makes him a bad player, and perhaps even does an injustice to the game as a whole.
Here we see the crux of the problem with having only Russell to support the cast: he was a polarizing player. Again, this makes him good tv, but with any polarizing player, about half the audience is going to dislike him, and with no one to fall back on or challenge Russell, this means you lose about half your cast. Moreover, Russell’s hype and ego really wore thin as the show went on, largely due to the fact that while Richard Hatch’s ego was tempered by a lot of self-deprecating humor, Russell seemed to really believe the narcissistic confessionals he was putting out. For me, he wasn’t pleasant to watch, and there being no recourse from him made it all the worse. Bottom line, while his dynamic nature made him good tv, he was polarizing, wore thin, and hinging an entire season on him was not the way to make a successful season.
Ok, ok, I suppose if you want to get TECHNICAL, Russell wasn’t the only person Samoa had to hinge on at the time. Notably, his rival from Galu Russell Swan was remembered, though mostly due to the twists he was involved in which will, of course, be taken up in the “Twist” section. In any case, he was a nice guy, if a bit of a bumbling leader. Swan I actually like, but he was out fairly early, and that really just left us with Hantz. Russell Hantz’s other rival, late in the merge, was one Brett Clouser, a t-shirt designer who decided to go on a winning streak late in the season, that made him the only foil to Russell. It failed. While Brett seemed a very nice guy, he was such a non-entity for the majority of the season that he kind of fell flat later, and didn’t have any sort of strategy, and so just didn’t work. Shannon “Shambo” Waters, the mullet-sporting ex-Marine was occasionally delightfully crazy, but mostly came off as whiny and entitled, milking the “my tribe picked on me” card for too long. Laura Morrett had the potential for strategy, and had a nice immunity run early after the merge, but was too mean-spirited, and shoved aside too much for Russell Hantz. Here was the FIRST person who maybe had potential outside of Russell, and she barely got any screentime. Not a good business model. Finally, there’s eventual winner Natalie White, who falls into a similar category as Brett. She ended up a foil to Russell, but only because she was nice at the end, and had almost no impact on the season as a whole. She, Laura, and Russell Swan are the only people talked about outside of Russell Hantz, and with the exception of Natalie, only for their performance on later seasons, or their manner of exit. As to Natalie, despite being nice, she’s usually talked about negatively, seen as costing Russell his richly deserved win. I don’t agree with this, but we’ll get to that in the “Twist” section.
Even now, Russell Hantz dominates the conversation, and that’s not a good thing, as especially late in the season, everyone else just wasn’t there. As I said, other people are talked about, but usually for things outside of the season itself. Taking the season on its own, there’s just Russell, and that’s not ideal. Take, for comparison, “Survivor The Amazon”. Yes, in a lot of ways it was mainly the “Rob Cesternino Show”, but it was backed up with a good supporting cast for if and when Rob got annoying, as well as giving Rob a few foils. One person does not a cast make, what few supports existed were lackluster at best, there’s just no salvaging the cast of Samoa.

Score: 1 out of 10.

CHALLENGES
At the outset, it seemed like Samoa would have good challenges. Not a lot of puzzle emphasis, but that’s ok sometimes. A lot of epic, very physical competitions, but perhaps too much so, due to the number of injuries on the season (again, wait for the “Twist” section). Apart from that, the seemed to lose something right around the merge. Competitions started becoming more home-grown, more board game like than before. Put it this way, this was the season that gave us bowling. BOWLING. On “Survivor”. No. No, that’s not how you do challenges. Not trying to knock the pre-merge competitions, those were still awesome, but the post-merge game really drags everything down. Stronger than the cast, but that’s not saying much. Still, points need to be given for the coconut “Ker=Plunk!” challenge towards the end, that was pretty fun to see.

Score: 4 out of 10.

TWISTS
One thing I’ll say about a cast with Russell on it, there’s no shortage of twists. This, and not Russell himself, are what really hold up the season and again, they’re stronger than Russell, but that’s not saying much. Let’s take a look.
Starting things off, this season decided to have each tribe formally pick a leader without any information. Not a bad concept, but awfully similar to what they’d just done on “Survivor Tocantins”, only you’re looking for positive first impressions rather than negative first impressions. On top of that, I hate the concept of a formal “Leader” on a tribe in “Survivor”. It didn’t work for the Morgan tribe on “Survivor Pearl Islands”. I remain unconvinced it will work for others. This leader would make many important decisions over the game, starting with which three tribe members would participate in the challenge, and this is how they would be judged. Russell Swan was chosen for Galu, and while he was an effective motivator, he made a few stupid decisions in his time, notably taking pillows and blankets rather than a tarp for one reward to “take care of the ladies” (chauvinism was just a major theme of the season). Still, he was better than his counterpart on Foa Foa: Mick Trimming. The man so bland Wonder Bread makes fun of him. He was basically neutered by Russell Hantz, who made all the real decisions. Plus, Russell controlled the tribe by dumping their supplies at night. While it was amazing to see anyone go there, it felt unpleasant and wrong. But we’ll talk more about Russell later. As to Mick, like I said, a non-entity. Still, the one decision he did make, who to put in the opening challenge, paid off, in that Foa Foa won.
This would not be a trend that lasted. While not quite as pathetic as the Ulong Tribe from “Survivor Palau”, Foa Foa was abysmal in challenges, winning precisely one immunity challenge the entire time. Like with “Survivor Gabon” seeing one tribe get decimated wasn’t nearly as fun the third time around, though for once it lead to a great bit after the merge.
This season eliminated Exile Island, instead option to do a variation on the “kidnapping” twist from “Survivor China”. Now the winning tribe sent someone to the losing tribe to hang around. The person sent had a note that told the location of their own tribe’s hidden immunity idol. While I admire the show for not sticking to what had become formula, this twist never really worked for me. Some interesting cross-tribal strategizing went on (it’s what got Shambo to flip), but it just never clicked like Exile Island did, mostly due to the hidden immunity idols getting found without clues. On top of that, it was the death of Exile Island as a twist, and I was sorry to see it go. As such, I can’t get behind this twist too much.
Episode two also saw the first of two medical emergencies. During a violent basketball-style game called Schmergenbrawl, Foa Foa Player Mike Borassi began to have trouble breathing. As such he was pulled from the game. Sorry to see him go, but he hadn’t made a huge impact. A fun fact, though, is that he was originally going to be on “Survivor Tocantins” in place of Spencer Duhm, and was only pulled at the last minute for sleep apnea. This was also the point where Russell started his blindsides. I won’t be covering the pre-merge ones, just due to the sheer number and lack of reason to each, but let’s just say that wherever Russell was not blindly followed, there was a blindside.
Some would argue that I’m ignoring the twist of someone being ejected from a challenge. Ben Browning was thrown out of Schmergebrawl it’s true, but he was not the first. The majority of the Sook Jai tribe on “Survivor Thailand” was thrown out due to excessive violence on the pirating challenge. Probst just called it a first due to his wanting to forget “Survivor Thailand”.
Contrary to popular belief, this season also gave us the first “Probst-less” challenge. A cool novelty, but nothing really came of it.
Our next twist is the next medical evacuation, as well as the first time a challenge went unfinished. During a reward challenge for what would have been a double tribal council, Russell Swan collapsed from severe dehydration. The worst storm in the show’s history, which lasted for days on end, had prevented him from making fire and thus boiling water. However, he kept up his normal workload, and this did him in. This was a tragic moment, and as Russell Swan was the “Big Good” of the season, I consider it a low point.
Russell’s evacuation led to the picking of a new leader for Galu. Shambo was chosen in a popular vote, due to the majority alliance wanting a puppet to hold up the tribe. One of the few non-Russell-Hantz strategic moments on the season? Sign me up!
During this time, Russell Hantz went on his idol-finding run. Say what you will about the man, he had a knack for finding idols, and started the trend of people looking for idols before getting any clues. That he was successful three times speaks to his brilliance in this area. Just not in the area of social skills.
Eventually the merge came, with Foa Foa at the greatest deficit ever of 8-4. This in itself was pretty cool to see, but was ruined by the fact that this made the merge happen at 12 people. I’ve stated before that I hate this, and stand by it here. It’s just too many people to keep track of, in my opinion.
Still, the merge was to be the start of Russell Hantz’s blindside reign. He managed to make the single greatest comeback in “Survivor” history. First, he and Natalie (see, she did do stuff), convinced Galu to vote out the cocky, idol-bearing Erik. Then, though skillful hidden immunity idol and the flip of Shambo, Russell knocked out Kelly Sharbaugh and then Laura, earning him a majority all the way to the end. It was cool to see, but as after that the blindsides ended and I supported Galu, it was just painful to watch. Especially since it made Russell so cocky. Still, his finding of idols was impressive, as I’ve said.
It should also be noted here that this season also gave us the first ever post-merge double tribals. I’m not a fan of them. While it feels appropriate at the tribal phase (an eye for an eye, and all that), it just felt rushed post-merge. Admittedly, it did have the benefit of helping us get to the good stuff faster, plus seeding for Brett’s immunity run towards the end, but overall, it just felt wrong.
The final twist, and the best, is that Russell didn’t win. Natalie did, and deservedly. She made moves, she recognized that Russell was a divisive figure and latched onto him as an easy win at the end, and played socially very well. Natalie as a social player is underrated, and strategically, it was HER that took out Erik, helping give Foa Foa its majority. Plus, after episode upon episode of Russell’s cockiness, it was good to see him brought down. The look on his face after he was not declared the winner was PRICELESS.
A couple winners, when you look at the twists and not who was perpetrating them, and this season didn’t do a half-bad job. It even had a few little firsts, such as Jaison Robinson bidding $500 immediately at an auction for an immunity advantage, and John Fincher having to chose between a piece of pie for himself, and the rest of the pie for the tribe. Still, there were a number of flops, and when you consider who INITIATED those twists, they tend to drag.

Score: 6 out of 10.

OVERALL
The strongest of locations would have had a hard time compensating for the amount of Russell on this season. Samoa did not have that luxury. While the culture was somewhat unique (I particularly liked the design of the Tribal Immunity Idol), the season suffered from a great deal of Generic South Pacific Island. Again, not the worst case of it, but it does the season no favors.
One overriding theme of the season is overcoming chauvinism. The big players of the season were sexist to varying degrees, and this season had a shortage of strong women. I think it great, then, that the most quiet, demure woman triumphs over all these brash guys. Still, this does not change the fact that the cast overall was lackluster, Russell Hantz really ran the show, making everything very one-note. A cast needs to be more than one person, and when that person is Russell Hantz, you’re in trouble.
For once, it’s not so much that the season doesn’t come together. It very much does. The trouble is that when it comes together, all it has is Russell Hantz. And whatever innovations he brought, that’s a bad thing.
Score: 9 out of 40.

ABSTRACT
Whatever others will tell you, Samoa is an unpleasant season whose hype makes everything, even the underdog stories predictable. I would say avoid this one, but unfortunately, this season introduced a few new concepts and ideas that carry on into future seasons of “Survivor”. This makes this season essential if you want to understand future seasons, and while I hate to say it, it’s a must-watch. Just get it over with quickly, and then never watch it again.

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 Blood vs. Water” Episode 9: Cheeseburger Debates

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

MATT’S MESS-UP!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.

Idol Speculation: “Survivor Philippines” Episode 12: Justice of Disturbing the Peace

Nombre Exhaustima Penneris Requiem.  Oh, sorry, I was just performing last “Survivor” rites for Penner so that I could watch the episode (I would say “enjoy”, but there wasn’t much to enjoy) with a clean conscience.  Also, I have to review it, so let’s get on with it.

Trite storylines are not only for daytime tv anymore, I see, as we get back from Tribal Council with a very subdued mood, broken by (here’s a shocker) Abi-Maria complaining some more, about how she’s “misunderstood”, and that the reason everyone hates her is that she’s “too honest.”  HEARD IT!

On a more tragic note, I have somber news.  It looks, dear friends, like we’re going to lose another castaway to disease.  It’s a shame.  They seemed to be recovering from a case of acute morality, and were making great strides in terms of underdogness and gameplay, but it looks like this is going to be a terminal illness.  The castaway is Lisa Whelchel. The disease is the recently discovered Dawn Meehan (“Survivor South Pacific”) Disease.  As this disease is a relatively new discovery, there’s been little research done on it, but what conclusions we can draw are very consistent.  Tragically, those who contract Dawn Meehan Disease are of perfectly sound gameplaying mind.  Indeed, our studies suggest that oftentimes their strategies and ideas are better than a lot of “normal” contestants’.  Sadly, their body then turns on them, refusing to cooperate, insisting on forcing them to behave “morally”, even at the expense of their gameplay.  As yet no cure has been found, but our scientists (and their loved ones) are working around the clock to find one.

Well, it seems we’re at the loved ones challenge already.  That was rather abrupt.  What’s the matter, Probst, no Sprint Phone to repeatedly and annoying plug this season?  No obvious lead-in to the loved ones challenge that has become so predictable over the seasons?

Admittedly, there’s little drama with this particular batch of loved ones, which is surprising, since Probst called it as one of the selling points of the season.  It wasn’t a bad set of reunions, per se, I just think the hyperbole was unjustified.  These people seemed only mildly happier than other seasons to receive their loved ones.  Personally, the ones that stand out most in my mind are Keith Famie proposing to his girlfriend on “Survivor The Australian Outback”, and Rupert Boneham getting to see his wife after almost 3 straight months of roughing it in Panama (“Survivor All-Stars”).

One thing I’ll say for this season, though, it does have some of the funniest name for loved ones ever.  Lisa’s brother is named “Justice”.  Really?  What kind of a person names their kid “Justice”?  Well, I suppose they’re from Texas, so anything will fly there (apologies to Texans EVERYWHERE, mostly because they can kick my ass).  Also, we have Mike Skupin, whose son shares a name with him.  This might bug only me, but I personally HATE it when parents name children after themselves.  To me, it’s almost the height of ego, which is ironic as my family has a tradition of naming children Charles Lysander, and I myself was almost named after my father (shot down by my mother when it was suggested that to differentiate us, I be called “Sandy”).

Our other loved ones with unfunny names (which will therefore not be given) are Malcolm’s brother, Carter’s mom, Abi-Maria’s mom, and Denise’s husband.  Only a couple of comments about a couple of them.  First of all, seeing Abi-Maria’s mom makes me a little more sympathetic towards Abi-Maria.  She may be a bit of a bitch, but she comes by it honestly.  Her mom is just like her: whiny and terrible at challenges.  My other comment deals with Denise’s husband, not so much about him personally as I wonder what having sex with a sex therapist is like (since they have at least one child, who I assume is biological [though I can’t rule out adoption], I’m going to say they’ve had sex at least once).  On the one hand, you’d assume that a sex therapist would have some idea of the “dos” and “don’ts” of the dirty deed (that should be a pamphlet!), and so would provide a better quality experience as a result.  On the other hand, it could be that a sex therapist over-analyzes everything, and as “The Big Bang Theory” tells us so bluntly, during sex “Stop talking”.

But this isn’t a blog about “Dr. Phil” this is a blog about “Survivor”!  And now I’m sure you want me to talk about one of my favorite topics, Challenges!  Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t have a whole lot to say about this particular challenge (nor will I about the Immunity Challenge, so don’t get your hopes up).  It’s original, at least, which I like.  Castaway and loved one are paired up, as is so often the case.  The castaway dis through a mud pit, trying to find bags to toss to their loved one inside a rope square.  The loved one (hilariously covered in mud) then tosses a bag at a series of posts with bamboo stalks on them.  The first to get all 6 posts knocked off wins a day at camp with their loved one.  Not a spectacular challenge, but solid.  Mud is a plus, the lack of interesting visuals is a minus (enough with the bamboo already!), overall, just a solid, but forgettable, challenge.

Not too surprisingly, in a challenge with little in the way of brains needed, the most athletic team takes the entire thing.  This team is Malcolm and his brother, and while Malcolm is elated, he faces the dreaded “take two people” decision.  FINALLY!  Sadly, there is little drama, as Malcolm makes the smart decision and comforts his two new Tandang allies Lisa and Skupin by allowing them to have a day with their loved ones.

Back at camp, there’s some supposed drama about how Malcolm’s brother, by being so comedic and up front, is ruining Malcolm’s game, but personally I’m not buying it.  Yeah, Malcolm, I know you’re trying to fly under the radar, but just having a brother who’s funny is not going to drag you into the spotlight yourself. This is particularly undermined by the fact that all promotion for this episode was about “Malcolm’s brother screws him over!”, making this actual scenario fall even more flat.

WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG FOR A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

There has been a breakthrough in the Dawn Meehan Disease!  An intravenous cure has just been developed, and successfully tested on patient Lisa!  We call it the “J.U.S.T.I.C.E.” vaccine, which stands for Justifiably Undermining Stupid Tactics In Castaway Engagements.  Already we’re seeing great results, as Lisa’s body is allowing her to realize that this is a game, she can be as dastardly as she wants!  In fact, she’s so free that she’s going for primary threat Malcolm!  What a stunning discovery!  Once it can be massed produced, we can hopefully administer it to future castaways, thus wiping out Dawn Meehan Disease!  We now return to our regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.  We apologize for making you miss a portion of it, but frankly, it was just the blogger ranting about bringing religion into “Survivor” again, which you’ve seen a million times before anyway.

Challenge Time!  Today’s immunity challenge is a marginal improvement over today’s reward challenge, in that it’s more challenging.  Castaways cross a bamboo balance beam on the water, then use a grappling hook to retrieve 3 life rings under the water.  Once a castaway has all 3 rings, they race to shore where they untie 3 bags attached to the rings, use the supplies inside to improvise a pole, and make it long enough to touch a disk, releasing a flag.  The first to release their flag wins immunity.  While the pole building part is unoriginal, at least the goal is slightly different (that is to say, not retrieving a key), and I like the balance beam and especially the life ring retrieval.  It’s something that’s never been done before, and is especially difficult when one has to account for the defraction of light in water.  Not a spectacular challenge, put a pretty damn good one if I do say so myself.

In a race in which Abi-Maria appears not to try (despite still evidently being in danger), it comes down to Carter and Malcolm, with Malcolm narrowly taking home the prize.  This also undoes the first half of the episode, as all strategizing was about taking out Malcolm.

Back at camp, things are pretty bland.  Lisa moans about God’s will in the game, and there’s some discussion of getting rid of Carter of Abi-Maria, which makes sense, as Carter is more well-liked, and more of a physical threat.  It would send any pretense of Lisa playing a “moral” game out the window, but it would be smart.  Carter, MENSA candidate that he is, tries to get out of this using the tried and untrue method of “You should take me because it’s the right thing to do.”  Kiss his torch goodbye.

On the other hand, perhaps he doesn’t have to do much, Abi-Maria almost makes his case for him.  If her normal personality wasn’t bad enough, she insists on harping on this “4^th immunity idol” gambit, when almost no one believes it.  Also, dear, might I add that your fake idol is the most PATHETIC one I’ve ever seen.  I mean, not everyone can be Bob Crowley (“Survivor Gabon”), but I expect something better than a STICK!  I mean, I know Ozzy (“Survivor Cook Islands”) tried it, but at least his stick had a face.  He at least put a MINIMUM of effort into it, whereas yours…

Just go to Tribal, this is making me sick.

At Tribal, we hear Lisa say that she’d rather take someone she could beat to the end than someone honorable, thereby cementing her hypocrisy and sinking her chances of winning.  Also, Carter is sent home.  It’s the smart thing to do, and this season we’ve had people making smart moves pretty consistently (Jeff Kent excluded), but it’s still shocking.  Not that I’m sorry to see Carter go, but he’s had practically NO screentime.  We’re talking “Purple Kelly” (“Survivor Nicaragua”) levels of screen time here.  Wait, Purple Kelly actually had a memorable name and exit, at least.  We’re actually talking Kelly Sharbaugh (“Survivor Samoa”) levels of forgetableness for making it so far.  Don’t remember who she is?  Of course you don’t!  She had all of maybe two sentences the entire season!  To put the issue of who she is to rest, she’s the one Russell Hantz got out with his idol (the first one).  No, I won’t be doing a Top 5 and Bottom 5, partly because I’m on a time crunch tonight, and partly because while Carter had very few interview, he did at least get shown in a few challenges, which does count, and in my book just BARELY puts him out of the Top 5.  Besides, the finale is almost here, and when the finale comes, there will almost certainly be a list then, so better to save myself for that.

Does it bother anyone besides me that people named “Kelly” on this show tend to be uncommonly forgettable?

While this episode was a blindside, it was not a particularly exciting one, making for what, in my opinion, is the worse episode this season.  Again, though a blindside, one of the two people on the outs went, and I feel cheated given all the buildup for this episode.  Doesn’t ruin the season, just not the strongest episode.  Hopefully, next week will live up to the hype.

-Matt

Title Credit to Jean Storrs.