Another Survivor All-Star Edition?
If the blogosphere can’t be about random pop-culture gossip once in a while, well, then what’s the point, right?
I was reading WWE announcer Jim Ross’ latest blog entry (yeah, I like pro wrestling — what of it? ), an came across this little info nugget:
“After The Funker boarded his plane, I met Fairplay, who is a huge fan as many know and is preparing to compete in the Survivor All Stars this September.”
What now?
Another edition of All-Star Survivor?
Hrm… that could be interesting. Enough time has passed since the first one (Season 
for enough other personalities to have emerged so that we don’t get overwhelmed by Borneo & Outback vets — not to mention that they could do it without Romber (as much as I love them, I don’t want to see them do Survivor again!). We’re currently in Season 14, which would provide 6 full seasons worth of folks to be added into the mix. Heck, we wouldn’t even have to worry about seeing Stephenie & Bobby Jon again!
Seriously, though, if they do a better job of casting this time, I could see another All-Star version of Survivor being a very entertaining thing. I’d really like to see something where they get the “best folks who never made the jury” playing again, or maybe just making sure that it’s either all 1st/2nd/3rd place finishers, or no high-placing folks at all, so as to remove the jealousy/class-warfare card from the game.
There are a lot of possibilities, and it’d sure be fun to talk about it…
-ghp
S:13 - Saddle up, Cao Boi
For a double elimination episode, there really wasn’t a whole lot of excitement and/or intrigue. The challenge was fun, as hand-to-hand combat is always an interesting thing to watch play out. Candice and Cristina (and to a lesser extent, Ozzy) were the standouts, as they proved to be double-tough.
In terms of game strategy, there were only two significant plot lines IMO…
1) Cao Boi’s “Plan Voodoo” to smoke out the hidden individual immunity — This was, surprisingly, a very lucid piece of strategy. That he wasn’t able to pull it off because he misidentified the possible owners of the immunity is secondary (although confiding in the person who did/does hold the immunity was a blunder…). It was a nice little piece of strategy, and given slightly different circumstances, he might’ve actually been able to pull it off.
2) Aito, quite simply, blundered when they “kidnapped” Nate instead of Cristina. I was stunned that they didn’t act on the info that Cristina was the scapegoat & desired elimination. IMO, the smart play would’ve been to save her, and force the Raro core to eat one of its own. It’s further proof that even smart tribes/players do stupid things in this game. Boneheads…
That Cao Boi & Cristina were voted off was not a surprise. Cao Boi was just an annoying little dude — entertaining to a certain extent, but undoubtedly annoying to the larger group (as evidenced by his misguided attachment to the group immunity idol). Cristina’s elimination, otoh, doesn’t make as much sense. That she annoyed Adam & Jenny is just a silly reason for elimination at this stage of the game. Frankly, the women would’ve been better served if they had put their petty annoyances aside & tossed one of the guys (Adam, if I had my way). But Raro, I think it’s clear, is populated by idiots.
It’s also fascinating to see how, at least for some folks, the race card is still very much in play. Cao Boi’s worry about the power of the Caucasian tribe was interesting. I’m not sure how it’ll continue to play out, but I do think that at some point before the end of the game we will see it rear it’s head again.
-ghp
S:13 - Invasion of the sanity snatchers
All things taken into account, this really wasn’t the most riveting of installments. Raro was generally stupid. Aito was generally competent. The producers threw some editing curves at us, or at least tried to do so in their largely predictable fashion.
Things started out according to form on Raro, in that the guys were pissed that the girls had actually, you know, used their numerical superiority to their advantage. Surprisingly, the guys reacted smartly by working hard & playing the socio-political game. The girls, however, almost hurt themselves by abruptly getting stuck on stupid, as they began to focus on getting rid of Cristina and forgetting that Parvati was being wishy-washy about committing to the whole girl-power strategy. If it were me, I’d have either gotten rid of another guy, or gotten rid of Parvati, so as to securely lock in the girl-power alliance. As it stands, however, Parvati could now just as easily jump over to the guys & get rid of the other girls. Dumb gameplay on the part of Jenny & Rebecca! It doesn’t matter if Cristina is annoyingly bossy, or if Stephannie is mentally checking out — they’re reliable alliance-mates who can be manipulated/led relatively easily. Parvati and the guys cannot. Unless they start winning some immunities, this will come back to haunt them.
As for Stephannie’s ouster, I can only say that it’s for the best, because she seems to genuinely nice and/or naive to be playing Survivor down to the bitter end. She obviously didn’t truly learn the lesson that last week’s near elimination should’ve taught her - i.e., keep your mouth shut & your feelings/fantasies to yourself! That said, I do think that Nate read way too much into the whole “mashed potatoes & gravy” comment. I took it more to mean that Stephannie was just acknowledging that she could easily be voted off and that, if it happened, she wouldn’t mind feeding her food craving. Not that it matters, though, because Nate did a pretty good job of taking a seed of weakness & sowing it into a crop of doubt…
Over on Aito, things were pretty much uneventful. I did feel sorry for Ozzy, though, because he seems to have hitched his wagon to the crazy horses of Cao Boi & Flissica, and that’s just not a good place to be. That threesome worked hard to get someone to go with them on their little expedition, but the others were rightfully wary of getting sucked into a vortex of lunacy. Yul did a great job of working to get Sundra locked into being the 5th vote that his alliance needs to stay firmly in power, although Sundra seems to be smart enough to see that her alternatives are kind of limited at the present time. Regarding the expedition, I can only say that I’m shocked by the lack of awareness on Ozzy’s part. Cao Boi & Flissica didn’t surprise me all that much, but Ozzy should’ve known better. It was truly an uncomfortable moment, and it made for great TV!
The immunity challenge turned out to be much more difficult than it looked, and it was nice to see Raro self-destruct at the last minute. Both tribes are dysfunctional, but Aito is a more appealing blending of the dysfunctional elements than is Raro.
Hopefully, things will pick up a bit next week…
-ghp
S:13 - Poor baby boobie
JP is dead to the game, and deservedly so — but more on that in a moment…
This started out to be a rather blah installment.
- Ozzy pouted & threatened to take his ball & go home
- Candice tried, and failed, to credibly act dumb in the face of Flissica having a reasonably cogent thought about why Raro saved Candice from Tribal Council
- The men of Raro preened & postured whilst the women worked & stewed — and the gods of Foreshadowing were invoked…
- Parvati continued to work her little-black-bikini spell on Nate
- JP acted as the alpha-male, and such behavior was noted by several of the girls
- Even the reward challenge was rather blah, although it hinted at the discord simmering just under the surface at Raro, with Aito winning reward & sending Adam off to Exile Island
- Cao Boi proved (and admitted) that he shouldn’t always listen to the mischievous little boi in his head, as doing so caused not insignificant upset to the poor mama & baby boobies (I did like seeing Jonathan’s honest emotions, though…)
While a bit overly complicated, the immunity challenge was fascinating in that it either hinted at, or laid bare many of the dynamics within both tribes. To wit:
- Raro’s young bucks aren’t as studly as they think
- JP got his doors blown off by Ozzy, who proved that he knows how to get his swim on! (and that JP ain’t the alpha he thought he was…)
- Flissica might not be smart, but she is tough
- Parvati doesn’t mind getting carried by the guys
- Cao Boi can’t help being a weird little dude - he’s gonna stand out no matter what, even though it might/probably will bite him before getting to the merge
- Aito seems to be a more solidly together tribal unit than does Raro
After Aito won immunity, however, is when things definitely picked up!
- Stephannie got stuck on stupid - you never, NEVER!, fess up to that kind of regret and/or responsibility (even if it’s true!)
- Nate quite coldly turned on one of his “Supremes”
- Jenny, Rebecca, & Cristina realized that the girls actually did have a numerical advantage over the guys!
- Stephannie got unstuck from stupid, got on board with Jenny, Rebecca, & Cristina, and did a nice job of working to get Brad on board in case Parvati flaked out
- Parvati’s “flirt to first” strategy got slightly rocked when confronted with the women’s rebellion, and she didn’t do much to solidify her standing with the other girls by hemming & hawing & asking for time to think
- Tribal Council was entertaining, as Probst bored in on a few interesting things, not the least of which was getting Becky to openly state JP’s “leadership” standing
In the end, it seems the only person not let in on the plot to dethrone JP was Nate. It will be very interesting to see just how he reacts, both to the tribe in general, and to Parvati in particular, as it would seem to indicate that she didn’t clue her ostensibly strongest ally in on the change in power…
-ghp
-
Analytics & Hosting
