Amazing Race: week 4

I just love it when a team makes a statement: you know the producers wouldn't bother showing it unless it had big, sharp teeth and would come back to bite the speaker. This week the brothers kicked it off by declaring their ambition for the day was to not make any mistakes, then promptly getting lost.

The gay guys were first to the roadblock event, and judging by their squeals of delight at the cowboy horsie riding adventure challenge they were hoping they'd get to wear chaps. One person had to ride a horse through a slalom course of barrels in under 40 seconds. The token black couple declared they'd picked a "nice" horse (there's the declaration again): strangely they changed their minds after it bucked her off twice, especially when they found out they were stuck with their initial choice.

It was clear from the first episode of this series that Ray and Deanna are the new Jonathan and Victoria, and they cemented it this week. Ray declared (oooh goody, here comes his downfall!) that he was embarrassed to be stuck at the back of the pack with the 'bottom feeders' and people of the calibre of the gay guy and his Mom and the oldies. Naturally the oldies easily beat them at the challenge because Deanna's horse started shying away from her and she was clearly scared of it. I suppose it's hard to stay calm and not upset the poor beast (the horse, not Deanna) when your other half is screaming abuse at you. In the end, oddly enough, she recorded one of the fastest times of all. It didn't help them catch up though, because all three teams ended up on a plane so far after the first one that other teams were at the pit stop before they'd even taken off. Possibly my favourite scene for the week was Gretchen (one of this season's token old old people) referring to what Ray (aka Jonathan) calls the 'bottom feeders' as a menage a trois!

Somehow the gay guy and his Mom deduced that they must be ahead of the other bottom feeders when they were the only people to catch a particular train. The thought that the others had already left on an earlier train never occurred to them! And yet, somehow, they still made it to the detour before Ray/Jonathan and Deanna who decided to walk – in the wrong direction – instead of getting a cab. Scenes like that restore my faith in karma.

The detour involved cruising through a river delta in a rubber boat looking either for an island marked on a map, or for a specific shipwreck where their only clue was a photo of what the boat looked like thirty years earlier. The token black couple started looking for the boat but found the island by accident, and decided to grab the clue. I was actually quite surprised that they weren't penalised for it, but I guess the difference between the detour and the roadblock is that you can change your mind.

The key deciding factor for many of the teams was the seaworthiness of their boats. Either that or the crews were homophobic, because it was really only the gay couple and the gay guy and his mom whose boats needed to be replaced. Hmmm, interesting...

Rob declared at one point towards the end that he's always been lucky: "I was born with a horseshoe up my ass!" He's right, because this week alone:

• They got lost but still managed to find the roadblock site by accident;
• The first plane was held a few minutes so they could make it on and be saved a five hour wait for the next one, much to the horror of the others who had all just finished gloating that Rob and Amber were never going to make it;
• Their bags were last to be checked into the cargo hold so they were the first to be unloaded in Buenos Aries;
• They spotted that the gay guys had a map, and simply followed them to the detour site while everyone else got lost; and then
• Their boat actually sprung a leak, but it was still able to limp back to port while the others awaited a replacement.

Despite having taken a four hour penalty the day before, they made up the time and came in first for the second time this season. Can anything stop them? Ray took another step toward confirmed Jonathan-ism with the look on host Phil's face when they arrived at the pit stop: I can't work out whether it's better described as sheer disgust or "Please tell me I don't have to shake hands with this prick!"

Phil didn't seem much more impressed with the gay guy and his Mom; their names are actually Patrick and Susan but that's irrelevant now because they're out of the race. In many ways they are this season's Rebecca and Adam: she's tough and he's a girly quitter, although Mom is better than Rebecca at biting her tongue and not saying what she's actually thinking of her perpetually disappointing partner in the game. Somehow I don’t think Santa will be coming to Patrick this year.

The producers will be pleased that the token black couple are still in, because it looks like they're off to Africa next week and they'll be able to wring an emotional scene out of them recounting their slave ancestry: they do it every year, and the exploitation is ironic to say the least. The oldies also suffer the traditional severe injury that the oldies always seem to suffer, and there's plenty of blood: you'll just have to watch next week to see which one of them it is.

Survivor Guatemala news

Survivor fans: get out your diaries and a big, fat red pen! Apparently Season 11 - Survivor Guatemala - goes to air in September 2005, which matches the timing that Vanuatu went to air last year.
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,16559,00.html

Mark Burnett and his posse of Australian crew are also searching for the Season 12 contestants. According to the official CBS application page my lack of an American passport specifically excludes me. If you read the FAQ you'll see that there appears to be no minimum IQ. Auditions start in September, and they film between late-October and December. Presumably this means it'll go to air early March like Palau.
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor_application//rules.shtml

Host Jeff is only contracted for another two series (ie. Guatemala and whatever follows). Can we read anything into the fact that he's gone public with that info?

Where will series 12 be? I'm guessing somewhere on the coast of Africa. Inland Africa was a debacle last time they tried it, so I'm thinking perhaps an island off the coast or somewhere on the coast itself. They've done plenty of Asia Pacific, and plenty of Central America. It needs to be somewhere hot so that the buffed-up boys and girls can run around in virtually no clothing, and the exposed flesh ratings necessity effectively rules out the entire Middle East, Northern Africa and any other Muslim nation. Europe is too densely civilized to believe they're roughing it. There seems to be a fair bit of overlap between Amazing Race and Survivor production, and the AR guys did OK in Ethiopia, so perhaps it could be an option.

Your thoughts?

Anyone else want to take a guess?

Amazing Race: week 3

Watching Boston Rob manipulating his way through the Amazing Race is what I imagine it must be like to have seen Donald Bradman bat. He is just a master of the sport; a natural, a freak. As my friend Kiwi Andrew put it, "He takes the game to a new level. Of course that level is down here (*points at kneecaps*), but still…"

Last week we had him bribing security guards and bus drivers. This week he bribed a taxi driver to leave the Rollergirls stranded and then somehow convinced two other teams at the Roadblock that it's impossible to eat 1.8kg of meat and offal, just because he didn't want to do it. This is only my third season of Amazing Race, but it's still incredible to me to see anyone simply give up on a challenge, let alone the lemming-like exodus we saw this week.

Best of all was the incredible show-down between the gay guy and his Mom (sorry, but it's too early in the game to bother remember names). In case you missed it there was some seriously Fraudian action going down, with Mom telling him to eat everything on his plate and Sonny Boy threatening to quit. He looked like he'd really do it, too. From memory Boston Rob was still there when that happened, so it'll be interesting to see if he manipulates the hairline crack into a full-on crevasse when necessary.

The Rollergirls were supposed to be driving themselves east from Chile to Argentina. At least they had the sense to realise something was kinda wrong when they saw the Pacific Ocean. It was impressive how well they made up the time, although from the editing it's hard to tell how manufactured the tension might have been. The dusk gave some pretty good clues, and suggested that Mother and Son really did get lost between the BBQ camp and the pit stop.

The detour options of paddling downstream or riding mountain bikes along a railway track were a bit dull. We didn't get any real details of how one of the Rollergirls almost died a few months ago white water rafting, but it can't have been that bad if they chose it over the bike option.
In the end they couldn't make up the time, so that's the last of the all-girl teams out. Somebody at work said that "it's the last of the good looking girls out": I'm presuming that means he doesn’t find the gay guy's Mom attractive…

Next week looks like we get another couple of rounds from this season's Jonathan and Victoria, which could be interesting. There's definite shades of Lori and Bolo and a bit of Hayden and Aaron there as well. Let's hope they don't get knocked out too soon.

Survivor Palau: week 14

And so that's it. The race has been won, correct weight has been called and it's all over.

The double episode started out with Katie in fine form, completely overreacting to a breakfast hamper of fruit, bacon and (brandless) champagne that was obviously designed to liquor everyone up in the hope of some loose lips sinking ships. Unless Ian's had some kind of coconut still hidden out in the jungle (or found some not-so-native plants) he's been dropping clangers without the need for any chemical stimulants at all, and the champagne made little difference to his verbal control (or lack thereof).

The immunity challenge was a ludicrously complicated arrangement of knots, keys, flags, tyres, grappling hooks, more knots, a flying fox, a combination lock and more flags. In a predictable result Tom just beat out Ian, with Jenny (unlike Katie) a respectably close distance behind. Ian didn't win, but he really earned his 'loser' status back at camp. Tom publicly told Jen he had to stick by his alliance with Ian and Katie. Ian – and after the trouble his mouth got him into last week who knows what he was thinking: perhaps he wasn't – admitted he was relieved not to have had to make that choice because it would have been really tough. Given that Ian had no real alliance with Jen it was probably a throw-away line, but Tom grabbed it and – egged on by a delighted Jenny - didn't let go, hammering Ian into a stammering mess.

The grilling continued right through tribal council, with Jen looking more and more excited as the Tom / Katie / Ian trinity fell apart. It nearly worked for her: Tom and Jen voted for Ian, Katie and Ian voted for Jen, and two rounds of voting failed to break the deadlock. Once again the decision was made in an arson-off (much to Stephanie's amusement) that Ian won. You could just see enough through the hair to tell he was dreading the return to camp, and he was right to be afraid. Knowing that Tom had voted for Ian, Katie jumped on the bandwagon and joined the bullying session that reduced Ian to confused tears, wondering how it all went so horribly wrong. His best defence – "I was just playing the game" – was shredded with Tom's response of, "I thought we were all playing together." As scary as it was, ya gotta love someone who's that quick thinking!

Every season the tension of the final episode is destroyed by the cloying memorial trip that remembers each Survivor. Some of these people were in the game so briefly that nobody remembers much about them. In other cases the struggle for an appropriate response comes down to "if you can't say something nice…" In Kim's case they just all said "Kim!". My mother wouldn't have let me put it better!

Another tradition for the final episode is that the last immunity challenge is a grim test of sheer grit with vaguely Calvary overtones. In this one they had to cling to boo-ees (I'm going to miss that pronunciation) with the last person standing getting the luxurious choice of who to take to the final two. At the two hour mark the weather started getting rough, and the tiny buoys were tossed. At the three hour mark the wind died down and the rain started. At four hours the sun came out. By the fifth hour the sun had long set and Katie decided she'd had enough. At the eight hour mark Tom told Ian that he'd pick him if he'd quit, but not if he had to beat him. No deal.
At eleven hours and forty five minutes (and presumably with their bladders hurting as much as their legs) Ian did something unthinkable. He told Tom to take Katie to the final two, and quit. Just like that. His reason was that it was the only way he could win back their friendship and restore his own self-esteem. Jeff held an impromptu Tribal Council on the spot, Tom gave a verbal vote for Ian, and he and Katie paddled back to camp alone.

The final day ritual is to burn everything that's not nailed down. Since the production crew and not the Survivors had built the shelter it was safe, but the picnic table went up in flames in a major turnaround for a firefighter who in episode one refused to help light a fire for boiling water.

The next thing to go up in flames was Katie's chance of winning the million dollars. Her performance at the final Tribal Council was even more shocking than how much younger Ian looked without that sorry excuse of a "beard." The seven person jury each got to address Tom and Katie and either ask a question or make a statement, and the themes were far more consistent than we've seen in past series. The main gripe against Tom was that, contrary to his claims, he had told some lies to get where he was. Nobody really had much on him and he continued to think fast on his feet and say all the right things. Katie on the other hand copped a well-deserved hiding with several people pointing out that she hadn't bothered in the challenges, hadn't bothered to work around camp and hadn't bothered to be civil to anyone outside her alliance. If she'd stuck to her claim that her skill – and the reason she should win – was that she'd been smart enough to make a strong alliance early she might have done better. Instead, and proving that she's not that smart after all, she lied to Stephanie, refused to answer Janu's question on the incredibly arrogant grounds that it wouldn’t change anything, and was rude to Caryn.

The conclusion seemed certain even before Jeff walked off set with the vote box, and I was devastated that there was no cheesy sequence showing how he allegedly got from Palau to New York! The final tally was never revealed, but since they only read out one vote for Katie we can safely assume that the one we saw Coby cast was the only one (and even that was because he refused to vote for Tom).

The reunion show is always good for a laugh, and probably the funniest thing this time was the fact that Ian's post-Palau haircut is even worse than what evolved over the five weeks on the island! He really needs to find a hairdresser with a better selection of bowl templates to choose from. Coby is a hairdresser by trade, but won't be able to help because he's got his hands full with having adopted his cousin's baby girl, who he named – wait for it – Janu! Wanda is still singing, Gregg with two G's looks more like David Hasselhoff than ever, Jonathan is still shirty about not being picked for a team at all, Stephanie is still smiling, and Gregg/Jenny and Jeff/Kim are being coy about just how strong their "alliances" are off the island.

So, Tom won by six lengths and the sweep is over. Poor Nicole got knocked out of the money when Jenny's fire wouldn't light. Ian's bizarre moral stand cost him $100,000 and cost Simon at least $20 because he now picks up third place. Janet and Katie take second place, and Andrew picks up the first prize of $50. Congratulations to all the winners, and thanks to everyone for being in the sweep.

It has been my absolute pleasure writing this newsletter, and thank you to all the people who gave feedback on how much they've enjoyed it. The next series will be filmed in the Mayan ruins of Guatemala. Jeff Probst is apparently contracted for at least another two series, and I intend to be back too. For now though, collect your torches and head back to camp.

Survivor Palau: week 13

Day 34, and only five Survivors left. Maybe it's some kind of dietary deficiency, or just being cooped up with the same people for so long, but about this time they usually start going a bit crazy. Actually what it might be is a big case of hypocrisy, because alliances must break up and that means broken promises and broken friendships. It always means great TV.

This episode had two clear sub-plots. The first was the breakdown in Katie and Ian's relationship; the other was the yawning gulf in game skills between Tom and Caryn. As if we needed it, the evidence of Tom's strategic skills arrived with the tree mail. Knowing the reward challenge involved some overnight pampering, and that the girls were once again in the majority, he instructed Ian - quite clearly I thought - to take one of the girls if he won. Splitting them up would prevent them from ganging up on the boys. Perhaps Ian couldn't hear through all that hair hanging over his ears (and yes, the resemblance to Shaggy from Scooby Doo is undeniable).

Anyway, the prize was not just an overnight trip, but a little red Corvette as well. Literally (well, more literally than the Prince song at least). Apparently dolphin training doesn't pay too well, because after winning it Ian admitted that it was the first car he's ever owned. Apparently dolphin training doesn't help pull the chicks, either, because Ian really has no idea with women. Some time back he'd done a deal with Katie promising to take her if he ever won a reward. He'd made a similar promise to Tom to take him if the prize was a car. Hmmm; what to do now that it's both? How about making the decision out loud so that there's no doubt you remember both promises, one of which you're about to break? How about disobeying Tom, who said three days ago, "A reward is the icing and I'm here for the cake." How about upsetting Katie by not picking her, then leaving her behind to simmer with resentment and plot against me with the other two girls? Yeah, let's take Tom!

It was hard to pick whether Tom or Katie was angrier at him, despite their reactions being so very different. Katie made no secret of how betrayed she felt, and in the process revealed her long-standing alliance with Tom and Ian, much to Jenny's amusement. Tom managed to bite his tongue until they got back to camp, but spat out a terse "You just screwed up" after Ian froze when grilled by Caryn about the state of their alliance. Given the way Tom spent the rest of the episode telling other people what they should be doing, and the icy menace with which he delivered the orders, it seems he's been watching a lot of Mafia movies between Survivor series.

Katie and Ian had their showdown in a beautifully choreographed pas de deux on a remote beach. They accused each other of betrayal. They cried. Ian scratched his head quite a lot, and Katie knew she had him hooked as soon as he offered to quit rather than lose their friendship. Then he made a little joke, she laughed, they hugged and made up. Something like this happens every year, and it's always unintentionally funny. The question this year is just how unintentional it was on Katie's part. Perhaps she and Tom have more in common than I thought.

The immunity challenge was a combination of obstacle course and memory puzzle. In a repeat of the reward challenge, Ian and Tom dominated with Jen not too far behind and then daylight to Caryn and Katie. Tom won: boring. Tribal Council, however, was very far from boring. I don't know how many episodes of Survivor Caryn has actually watched. I don't know when a lawyer (albeit a human rights one) decided that honesty is the best policy. I don't know how much higher Coby can arch his eyebrows in shock and awe, but the jury was very amused as Caryn recounted every strategic move she's witnessed everyone else attempt. She accused them of lying. They accused her of lying. She recounted how Katie had schemed with Gregg with two G's and Jenny to vote either Ian or Tom off. Ian and Katie got sniffy at each other again. Jen sat back and said nothing at all.

By the time Jeff said "It's time to vote" it seemed that Caryn's disclosures had turned everyone against each other and dissolved all of the alliances. It certainly didn't save her, for she was outed in a unanimous vote (taking Mike out with her). I can't wait to see what questions she asks in the jury interviews!

Actually I won't have to wait too long at all. The final two episodes screen from 8.30 this Tuesday night, followed by the Survivor reunion where we get to see the early exits finish off their fifteen minutes. We've got two challenges, three Tribal Councils, and plenty of drama yet to go because the Tom / Ian / Katie alliance has to break up at some point. Gee I'd love to see Jenny win the next immunity challenge!

Survivor Palau: week 12

As tempting as it was to watch Peter Costello hand down his tenth budget, the tenth season of Survivor won out and paid my loyalty back handsomely with an exciting episode full of political intrigues worthy of a power struggle between a Prime Minister and his Treasurer.

With Stephanie gone the logical next target was Caryn, but Survivor is rarely that straightforward and the fulcrum of this week was the reward challenge. It was the Survivor Quiz one, where everybody answers questions about the setting for that series and getting the answer right gives you the chance to put someone else a step closer to being out of contention. It's a competition designed to show what the pecking order in camp is and in what order the torches will be snuffed. In a beautiful metaphor, each Survivor had a kerosene lantern that got closer to the water every time a lever was pulled and went in after three strikes. Hmm, subtle.

Tom, wearing his buff in a frankly alarming 'Rambo' style headband, cast the first stone and gave Caryn a hit. The others followed his lead and she was out before the first round was over. Eventually it was down to Gregg with two G's, his girlfriend Jenny, and Katie who for some reason he'd promised not to strike out. Forced to choose between them, Jenny's charms won out; who says men don't think with their anatomy!

We already knew that the reward would be a night of pampering on a luxury yacht, the SS Palau Aggressor II (the mind boggles wondering what happened to the SS Palau Aggressor I: attacked by Philippine pirates, or just locals with spears in outriggers?). We also knew from past series - and Tom stating it outright before the challenge - that the winner would get to take someone else on the reward. What we didn't know was that:
a) the winner would actually get to take two guests; and
b) the three of them would get to share the reward with their loved one.

This had several fascinating implications. One was that half the tribe was living it up while plotting and scheming, while the other half was back at camp collecting coconuts and firewood while plotting and scheming. It also meant that the other three didn't get to see their loved ones at all, instead of at least seeing them for five minutes as usually happens. I was a bit disappointed, because it's always quite revealing to see who turns up. For Gregg with two G's it was his friend Greg with one G. Jenny had her sister, and Katie had her sister's husband (the official story is that her sister has just had a baby and couldn't be there, but I reckon something's going on between those two).

The final touch to the reward was a swim with dolphins. How much would we all have loved to see Ian the dolphin trainer doing that? Unfortunately he was back at camp being misled by Tom as to how a tie-breaker at Tribal Council works. For someone who knows the challenges so well, Tom just has no idea about this crucial aspect. He thinks that the two targeted in the first round of voting get immunity, and the others draw a rock out of a bag and whoever gets the purple one is out. Wrong! They vote again, and if that still produces no result it goes to a count-back on previous votes (which, for the record, Caryn would have lost thanks to her vote from Stephanie last week).

Anyway, Tom and Ian kept Caryn on side and directed her to an Oscar winning performance as she sulked about camp using "sour", "dour" and "Janu" as her inspiration, making the others think she was the sure thing to be going home. Instead, Ian sprung the change of plan on Katie just before they left for Tribal Council and she went along with it despite having promised Gregg and Jenny to vote for Caryn.

Gregg didn't see it coming (sorry Judalyn; you're out of the sweep), and neither did Jenny judging by the stunned look on her face as his torch was snuffed out. In his post-eviction interview he admitted that he's looking forward to spending some more time with Jenny off the island, which must be some sort of euphemism judging by the leering look he gave as he said it. I don't think she'll be too far behind him, unless his departure frees her up for a girls v boys alliance. Ian won immunity again this week just ahead of Tom (I'm not going to talk about the challenge: balut was involved), but since they can't both win it next week they're vulnerable.

The ad gives a tantalising hint of a lovers' tiff between Ian and Katie, following some suggestions last night that there's more going on in that corner than previously shown in the editing. It also pointed out that the next episode is on this Saturday night, not next Tuesday. With only two episodes to go, and three people to get rid of, it promises to be action packed.

Survivor Palau: week 11

Survivor Palau, Episode 11: Stephanie Strikes Back

If someone were to ask what the biggest disappointment for me has been so far this season I’d have to answer, "Caryn". According to her bio on the web site she’s a human rights attorney and in her photo she looked really switched on, so I had high hopes of some masterful manipulation based on a superior understanding of the human psyche. I guess I was expecting Geoffrey Robertson in a skirt. Instead she’s run the emotional gamut from confused to perplexed, and possibly does the "rabbit in the headlights" look even better than George W Bush, which is really saying something. More on Caryn later.

This was one of those episodes where the challenges were boring because they were just the same old recycled ideas. Sure there were a few "twists", but they were about as predictable as the plot of a Steven Segal movie. Let’s get them out of the way and move on to the good bits:

Reward challenge: the auction one where Survivors get to spend $120 on an ice-cream sundae or $300 on plate of spag bol and garlic bread. The "twist" was that the lots were covered up so nobody knew what they were possibly wasting their cash on. Tom had already predicted that the last lot would be letters from home, so it was a bit of an anticlimax when that happened.

Immunity challenge: the tile smashing one, but set out horizontally like a disco dance floor and put far enough away that any precision lobbing of coconuts was next to impossible and most people smashed more of their competitors’ tiles than their own. Once again Ian and Tom dominated, only with Ian winning this time.

The one interesting bit at the reward challenge was an off-hand comment from Jeff to the effect that Ian was starting to smell like one of his dolphin buddies. Much to everyone’s relief and amusement Ian was embarrassed enough to finally take both the hint and a bath. The difference in the before and after shots once he’d washed his hair was so pronounced that you could pick the out-of-sequence editing, which made it a bit hard to trust how much of the rest of the episode happened in the order it was shown.

Deep down in his heart, poor delusional Coby might actually believe that people saw him as a threat, but it was clear this week that everyone is genuinely worried about keeping Stephanie around for too much longer and has only been temporarily thwarted by Janu’s dramatic surrender. As Gregg with two G’s put it, "Stephanie progressing in this game means Koror falls apart and starts to stab each other in the back." Derr, Gregg! That’s inevitable, and voting her out this week just delays it a bit longer. Don’t worry; we know what you meant, even with the awkward sentence construction.

Initially devastated at not winning immunity, it didn’t take Steph long to realise that Tom didn’t win either and they had their first – and possibly last – chance to vote him off. Having already managed to get Katie, and even more surprisingly Jenny, on side for a girls alliance against the boys it just remained to word Caryn up and the deal was done. You’ve been waiting for it, so here comes the explanation of why Caryn is going to be absorbing Janu’s full allocation of cheap shots from me from now on.

Katie tells Caryn about the girls’ alliance, in words of one syllable or less, but Caryn doesn’t give any indication that she understands what a strategy is or what to do with it. She immediately runs off and tells Tom about the girls’ alliance. Tom tells Ian, and Ian has a go at Katie. Katie lies to Ian and says it was just an idea she was floating, then in her piece to camera tells the whole world that "Caryn sucks" (although since the sentence had a subject and verb but no object we’re not sure what precisely it is that Caryn sucks. I could take a guess, but this a family newsletter.)

The funniest thing was that, like me, everyone held Caryn in far higher intellectual regard than she deserves. They interpreted her actions as some kind of complex reverse-psychology trap and refused to believe her. If any of us can believe the editing, at one point she was likely to be the one going home because nobody trusts her any more.

Unfortunately that wasn’t to be, and Stephanie’s valiant stand as the last member of Ulong was snuffed out along with her torch (and Warren’s chance in the sweep) in a unanimous vote. As Jeff pointed out, now it’s down to six Koror members who’ll be forced to turn on each other, so hopefully next week’s episode will be a bit more entertaining.

Let’s close with a quote from Caryn: "At any given time I might not know what’s going on." That’s out of context of course, but so was the editing this week, which makes it all the more appropriate.