S:13 - Dumbest. Player. Ever.
Let me go out on a very strong limb here — Jessica/Flica is the dumbest Survivor player EVER! Cao Boi is certainly a bizarre little man, but I don’t think he’s stupid. J/F, however, most certainly is. Last night she proved herself to be willfully ignorant of the hows & whys of playing Survivor. That she (and Cao Boi) ended up doing the right thing is almost irrelevant, given her conflicted confusion (and apparently permastoned state of mind) about proper gameplay.
I like what they did with the “twist” - both how they did the realignment, and the teams that resulted from it. It’s a bit too early to say exactly what will happen, in terms of interpersonal dynamics, although I think the new Aitu is shaping up to be a not-so-nice place for Ozzy. 
It would’ve been interesting to see whether or not Yul would’ve used the hidden immunity to save Becky had it become necessary - I think he would’ve, and I think it probably would’ve been a good use of it at this point in the game, as it would’ve helped solidify his alliance’s control of Aitu through to a merge.
Billy had to have hated watching Cece spill the beans to Candice re: the whole “love at first sight” debacle. At least now the embarrassment will subside until the post-finale reunion show…
The immunity challenge was kind of boring, as it was a basically the exact same challenge as was used during S:10-Palau (the only minor difference was the need to tackle rather than touch in order to win the challenge…).
Props to Nate for catching the octopus, but I’ve got to say that I wouldn’t have wanted to get anywhere near that bad boy — octopi give me the heebie-jeebies, unless they’re on the ice at JLA during the playoffs!
Parvatii is certainly very pretty, but I really don’t think that slutting her way to the final two is a strategy that will gain her the admiration of the jury, much less their votes. She may think she’s flirting, but she did not show any ability to be nearly that subtle — she’s about as subtle as she is ugly! 
Let’s hope they keep it up next week…
-ghp
S:13 - Fat, lazy, and stupid is no way to go through life
With apologies to Dean Wormer for replacing “drunk” with “lazy” in the title of this post, I think it sums up Billy quite nicely.
I really wanted the title to be “S:13 - Be careful what you wish for...” in honor of Ozzy getting his ass voted off for having been dumb enough to throw a challenge — you never, NEVER, purposely throw a challenge, because it always, ALWAYS, comes back to bite you — but he got really lucky that Billy is a complete & utter moron. Ozzy, however, is not quite the great player that he seems to think he is. The game will knock him down & out soon enough. I just hope that Cristina doesn’t get taken out in the process, as she is currently my favorite player & preferred winner.
Perhaps it was just good, persuasive, editing, but I really think that Cristina & Cece were on board to get rid of the oh-so-arrogant Ozzy - right up until Billy self-destructed in a fit of delusional babbling at tribal council. “Love at first sight”? Oh my… That was truly one of the more shockingly bizaare moments in Survivor history — it would actually make more sense if it comes out now that Billy was an actor and/or trying to get out of the game in a way that no one has ever tried before. If it’s truly on the up-and-up, however, it’s really just sad.
In the other tribes, there really wasn’t all that much going on, I don’t think. Hiki was lucky that Aito (voluntarily) imploded at the immunity challenge, and it was nice to see them get a break. Raro, was pretty quiet, other than Adam demonstrating that he’s both lazy and not too smart. Puka got some good coverage. I don’t think that Cao Boi’s seemingly annoying behavior was/is all that significant, especially as long as they keep away from tribal council. Yul has proven that he’s a very strong contender, especially now that he has the hidden immunity.
In all, an entertaining installment — a bit strange, but entertaining nonetheless.
Let’s hope they keep it up!
-ghp
S:13 - Song of the Sekou
The king of realitytv is back for a 13th installment - Survivor: Cook Islands (aka S:13).
Yay!
Let me start out by clearly stating that the controversial “social experiment” of initially splitting folks up based on ethnicity doesn’t bother me at all. I thought that it would be an interesting spin on things, and the first episode bore that out. It’s not controversial, at least among people capable of rational thought - which is probably why the PC Police on the left got so bent out of shape. A more important thing to note is this: as a result of the need to have four equally represented ethnic groups, the producers had to recruit participants. This is interesting because (as has been reported) it has resulted in (IIRC) a majority of participants who really aren’t familiar with the game of Survivor and how it’s played. That really hasn’t happened since the first three seasons, and it’ll be very interesting to see how it will play out.
The first episode struck me as being atypically “mature” & well formed. Usually the first episode has a very disjointed & hectic feel to it. Either the producers did an exceptional job of editing, and/or this is an exceptional group/cast. I tend to think that it’s a bit of both, leaning a little more towards the editing.
That said, this does seem like an enjoyable cast. No psychos like Shane, to be sure, but Cao Boi definitely has some potential in terms of entertainment value (his riff on the “old country” & removal of Brad’s “bad wind”/migraine was priceless!). I think that Ozzy could be a formidable player, along with Nick (if he can keep the three ladies happy & survive until a merge/twist of some sort).
No one did anything that was horrifically stupid or shockingly annoying (shades of Cirie’s fear of a leaf), although I must say that Jessica (aka Flicka, aka the-new-Courtney) didn’t help herself by letting the chickens (including Jonathan’s pilfered piece of poultry) escape. Billy looks like he’s well on his way to annoying the bejeebers out of his Latino compatriots, and Sekou certainly didn’t do anything to keep a low profile among the city dweller, er black, tribe.
At this point, my least favorite tribe is the white tribe, although Jessica’s exclamation that they were the “whiteys” was a chuckle-worthy moment. Parvati is probably the early favorite of mine to emerge from that group.
Finally, it was quite obvious that Probst is more than willing to stir the pot, what with his various pointed observations, like about how the black tribe made their decision to send Jonathan to Exile Island (btw, Exile Island looks absofreakinlutely brutal this season — it makes last season’s version look like a spa resort in comparison, if you ask me…).
In the end, Sekou’s fate was sealed when the black tribe couldn’t get their puzzle boat put together quickly enough in the immunity challenge. They worked together horribly, and then paid the price by not being able to make up the deficit. Sekou had the misfortune of being in a tribe with 2 men & 3 women, and being the more bombastic of the 2 men to boot. Thus, it didn’t really surprise me that he got voted out.
Let’s hope the quality continues nest week. At the very least, though, the fact that the preview showed a tribe contemplating throwing a challenge (in episode 2!) should mean that things will be interesting to watch…
-ghp
(btw, if you or your kids are Veggie Tales fans, then you should “get” the title of this post…)
A Banner Week
What a great week it’s been for fans of good reality tv (and, no, that’s not an oxymoronic statement, thankyewverymuch! :wink:)!
A brief recap:
- Monday - The Apprentice — Roxanne shines, Lee leads well, & Andrea gets the ziggy that her disagreeable personality has deserved all season long…
- Tuesday - American Idol — Good performances, Kat’s yellow dress, a decent theme, good celebs, and the weakest member of the top 6 gives the worst performance…
- Wednesday - American Idol — A 30 min. results show, a Frenchie that looks like my Hammie, and Pickler gets sent packing, yielding the best top 5 ever…
- Wednesday - The Amazing Race — Interesting locales, the Frat Boys return to their barely latent homo tendencies, the Hippies & MoJo get snarky, & the whiny, annoying old folks get elimnated…
- Thursday - Survivor — Terry wins another immunity & Cirie emerges with one of the best late/end-game strategic gambits that I’ve ever seen, cementing herself as being the only member of Casaya that is truly worthy of beating Terry based solely on merit…
Yup, a good week!
-ghp
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