EVERYONE HERE IS A THREAT. IF THEY WEREN'T THREATENING, THEY WOULDN'T BE HERE: A separated shoulder, a broken toe, blurred nipples, an odd showmance, Boston Rob doing something unexpected, free-range chickens and Rupert being bitter -- yes, Survivor is back with a blessedly double-length episode on the first three days. How badass, by the way, was the young lady who had her shoulder separated, popped back in, and then competed in the physically demanding half of tonight's immunity challenge?
The last twenty minutes of this show was one of the most fascinating sequences of strategy and theory I've seen in quite some time, and what makes this show so compelling: ten bright people who've played this game before, using what they know of each other's history to predict what was in their personal and tribal best interests. I can't say I was surprised by the outcome, nor do I think it was a mistake.
One interesting meta point: in all other seasons of Survivor, players are identified by their hometown and occupation; in an All-Star season, all that matters is your past history on the show. (What's Boston Rob's current occupation, anyway?)
Fienberg recaps ("[B]y the end there are blurred nipples everywhere, difficult to assign different body parts to different women, like Mark Burnett's version of a Picasso painting"), and then my spoilery thoughts after the break:
Heroes: Colby, did they not tell you that you were going to be on the show? Because maybe you could have done some homework. And I hope Cirie knows that everyone else already knows she's a threat -- because you're right: blindsiding Fireman Tom would have been a smart move, but for the target it would have put on your own back for pulling it off.
Villains: Russell, they're onto you. Rob, that fire was badass. And Sandra, keep staying under-the-radar.
I loved all of the Russell talking heads where it's obvious that he thought he had season 19 in the bag.
ReplyDeleteCould Jeff Probst slobber any harder over James? He sure has a type...
The first Survivor season I ever watched was Palau, which the awesome firefighter Tom deservedly won. That summer, my family and I were on the beach in the Outer Banks, and Tom was there! He was very friendly and graciously answered my 11-year-old son's many questions.
ReplyDeletePoint being . . . go Tom!
I wish they had made that clearer, that (a) the rest of them could only see a few weeks of Russell's season before this taped, and (b) Russell didn't know he had lost final Tribal. (Rupert, similarly, had most of Pearl Islands air after All Stars I started taping, and made it to Final Four the second time.)
ReplyDeleteDalton Ross's recap over at EW makes Stephenie's performance after her shoulder dislocation sound even more impressive.
ReplyDeleteTotally rooting for Steph, by the way -- I want that Phillies hat on national TV on the highest rated night of the week for a long time. But my picks (my wife and I have a tradition of each making two picks before the first tribal council of the season) are Cerie and Boston Rob.
Nightmare Fuel: The idea of Coach and Jerri together. *shudders*
ReplyDeleteOne other thing. I've only watched Survivor since the Palau season, which was five years ago; has there ever been a contestant creepier than Tyson?
ReplyDeleteAre we talking about the "shorts"? Because that was something. But the creepiest one ever was Peter from the Marquesas season (#4), with all the talk about the holes.
ReplyDeleteI think you have to include Scoutmaster Lil, from the Pearl Islands season, in any discussion about creepy Survivor contestants.
ReplyDeleteLil got redeemed by the final immunity challenge against Fairplay -- my second favorite final immunity of all time -- but, yeah, the whole "swear on my son," right?
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about the creepy uniform, but yeah, that too.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Tyson's creepiness is clearly (mostly) a put-on -- he does all that he does (the shorts, the nude/nearly nude gyrations during his season, the biting/snarky talking heads) to get a rise out of people and get more screen time. Lil was just odd (like Peter, but in a creepier way).
ReplyDeleteMy bad -- they started filming before Russel's season had aired at all.
ReplyDeleteIt's too bad he came across as creepy because Peter lives down the street from my parents and is a really nice guy. He and his brother run a wicked good liquor store.
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ReplyDelete<p>Having watched substantial parts of enough previous seasons to be familiar with some of the heroes/villains cast (Original Recipe, Australian Outback, All-Stars, Palau), is there a good site to faamiliarize one's self with the prior exploits of the cast of this edition? (And b good, I mean something that would be a 5 minute read instead of the hours it would take to go through TWOP recaps)
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</p><p>Is Boston Rob anything but a professional Reality TV show contestant? This is his fifth time on a CBS reality competition show in the last, er, however long it's been since he was first on Survivor.
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Wikipedia's general Survivor page has a link on the bottom to each of the seasons. They have charts on who goes when and short episode summaries. It's useful for a quickish catch up, but...it's wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteAdam, what was your first favorite final immunity? Tom v. Ian?
ReplyDeleteBella: yes.
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