Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 12

It's almost impossible to underestimate Shane's impact on the entertainment value of this season. This week he found a piece of driftwood in the shape of a Blackberry. He sat on his 'Thinking Rock', 'sending text messages' and 'checking for email' and generally looking rather pleased with himself; "I'm communicating with people not on this island!" L Ron Hubbard might not be on the island, but the men in white who took Bruce away will be back soon.

This week's reward challenge was held in two parts, neither of which was the least bit original. What has been new is the number of reward challenges being played out in teams so late in the season. Survivors were clipped by the waist to a rope, which in turn was tangled around various obstacles (including the big hexagonal frames of marine-grade plywood left over from the Triominoes challenge a few weeks ago). Terry, Danielle and Courtney easily won, because Aras and Shane had to spend so much time hauling Cirie over and under the barricades.

With the losers out of the way, Jeff announced that the reward of a barbecue and chocolate cake on a private beach was stowed in the boot (sorry, trunk) of a car (sorry, GMC Yukon) which would soon be owned by Terry (sorry, the winner of phase 2). Jeff had a choice of people to throw the keys to, but cleverly he picked the girl with the nicest cleavage against which to display them for a gratuitous close-up shot. Danielle, Terry and Courtney had to use slingshots and marbles to break three tiles, with the winner getting the car (sorry, GMC Yukon). Gee, big surprise, Terry won and we were treated to forty seconds of careful camera work to show off the car (sorry, GMC Yukon) from every conceivable angle that could include a badge. Don't look so happy, Terry: the person who wins the car had never yet won the series.

With Aras on Exile Island, Cirie and Shane were left alone at camp. After some half-hearted strategy talk she decided to go fishing with live snails as bait, presumably because if she had to spend time with something slimy it may as well be something slimy and sane. Believe it or not, the girl voted last week as "least able to cope in the wild alone" caught the biggest and most edible-looking fish since the one that Tina found 'washed up on the rocks' in week 1. Perhaps it's just a coincidence that we only got one fleeting view of the water. Perhaps it's just a coincidence that a close-up of her stupendous bosom overwhelmed our attention as she 'hooked' the fish. Perhaps there was a scuba diver hiding in the water waiting to set her up. We'll never know.

Her contagious excitement lasted all the way through to Jeff's announcement that the immunity challenge would have each Survivor trying to hold their own body weight. In one of the most mechanically complex challenges ever, each person had to kneel on a long plank suspended over a pit of water, holding on to two ropes connected by a network of pulleys to a hook suspended above another platform on the other side of the pit. Hanging from the hook were sandbags, initially equivalent to 20% of each person's own body weight and increasing by 10% every 15 minutes. When the weight became too much the ropes slipped from their hands, the platform fell and they were catapulted into the water. First Triominoes, now Mousetrap.

Failing at the 13 minute mark, Shane didn't even last to the first weight gain. Cirie made a respectable 18 minutes, while Danielle's 19 minute effort gave us plenty of time to inspect what was surely more than a mere 30 days' worth of armpit hair growth. I wonder why we never noticed that before? Courtney and Terry both made it past the 30 minute mark before Terry won his immunity necklace back and the infighting began to decide which one of their own Casaya were going to vote out.

Terry, Danielle and Courtney had formed a strategy during their beach barbecue. It apparently involved Cirie as fourth place, but she had her own idea of an alliance with Danielle and Aras. Shane wanted to vote out Danielle, and everyone else pretended to just go along with that in case he used his Blackberry to send a barrage of abusive emails and text messages.

Actually Shane did say one sane thing this week, although it was right at the start in the recap from the previous episode so it doesn't really count. "Courtney is a dream to take to the final two. Anyone could win against her. Anyone!" Yes Shane, even you. With six people left it was surprising to see how much the focus was on the make up of the final two and not who to get rid of in the meantime. Danielle seemed to have a lot of trouble working out who she was actually voting for compared to who she was supposed to pretend she was voting for. I had just as much trouble keeping up with it all, so I was planning to cut her some slack until she announced at Tribal Council "My brain is, like, about to explode!"

In a very unusual move we got to see how four out of the six voted before Jeff did, and it was an utterly fragmented result. Aras and Danielle, Cirie's buddies from the spa reward last week, both received votes but the three of them stuck together to get rid of Courtney. Shane, who still mistakenly believes that he's the one controlling the game, was almost as shocked as she was. Like, I'm, like, so not going to miss her, like, at all.

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 11

One of the classic elements of the Survivor visual 'style' is the shots of the local wildlife going about its life in blissful oblivion. This week we had various scavenging creatures, including flies and a vulture, feasting on the rubbish left around camp and quite possibly the remains of Shane's dignity.

Aside from some footage of Terry complaining about his treatment by, and gloating at the merest hints of discord among, Casaya (neither of which was particularly attractive) it was almost straight into tree mail this week. Each Survivor had a large straw voodoo doll, which they had to dress up in their own images. Cirie stuffed the bra on her doll but had the padding up a little too high on the chest to be a true representation. Shane presumably wet the groin on his, and Bruce packed his to bursting point to represent the 12 days of constipation taking its toll on him. More – so very much more – on that later.

At the reward challenge, Survivors had to fill in a quiz about their fellow castaways. Jeff tallied the votes, then read out each question one by one and asked Survivors to show not who they nominated but who they believe most others would have nominated. Getting the correct answer provided the chance to put another person out of the game by cutting through ropes to set fire to their voodoo doll.

This type of challenge is fairly common at this point in the game, because it clearly highlights the alliances and grievances being otherwise hidden. As a clue, the correct answer to all of the following questions was "Courtney":

1. Who never shuts up?
2. Who is the biggest poseur?
3. Who is the most annoying person out here?

Shane totally missed the meaning behind being voted the person "who mistakenly believes they are running this game", thinking instead that he was being named the person actually running this game. He also missed the fact that it is a game, and took immense umbrage at each person who cut one of his ropes.

Cirie was the surprise under-the-radar winner. She elected to send Terry to Exile Island (giving him even more to sook about on top of being the first one ousted) and took Aras and Danielle with her on the reward of a helicopter flight to a resort with food, beds, masseurs, showers and most importantly a washing machine. She picked those two as the people she'd be likely to have most fun with, which was undeniably accurate given that Shane and Courtney were still upset about the game result, Terry was fuming by himself on Exile Island, and Bruce was doubled over with the pain of his blocked-up bowels.

By the afternoon Bruce was curled up in the foetal position, moaning. The reward winners were also moaning, but more with the pleasure of their mud massages and full bellies. Danielle confirmed my observation of sexual tension between Courtney and Shane, claiming "she has a major crush on him", and they all agreed that Bruce would be suffering stuck in the middle of the fights the two of them would be having.

Bruce was indeed suffering. Courtney asked "If I sing you a song will it help?" His"NO!!!" was very clear but she did it anyway (and to think she wonders why she was voted most annoying). In the end the medical team was summonsed, as much to rescue Bruce from Courtney as anything else. Personally I'd have dived face-first into the fire to get medivaced out rather than confess to an international TV audience of millions that I allowed a life-threatening case of constipation to develop.

If I were Shane I would probably have used the time between the medical team being called and their arrival to put on some pants. Or I could have used the twenty or so minutes after they arrived, but before they asked me to help with the stretcher, to put on some pants. He's right that it's a bad idea to sleep in wet pants. He's wrong to think that anyone else wants to see his naked form, particularly when he looks so much like Mr Burns stepping out of the shower in that episode of The Simpsons where Marge takes up painting. Maybe he was hoping for a second opinion about his nappy rash.

Anyway Bruce got taken off to hospital, presumably for at least one enema, and Courtney and Shane were left alone to snipe at each other and make alternating pledges of loyalty and death threats. By the time the others all returned to the beach the two of them were yet again worked up about being told they're annoying and moody and no fun to take on a reward challenge, and merely reinforced that opinion.

Poor Cirie had to suck up to Shane and convince him that she's absolutely true to their threesome with Aras, which makes them very strange bedfellows indeed remembering that only a couple of weeks before Shane and Aras told Cirie she'd be next voted off, and Shane has already voted for Aras at least once.

Eventually Jeff arrived to tell them all that Bruce is in hospital and out of the game. While there was no Tribal Council this week, the question now is whether his course of intensive colonic irrigation will be complete in time for him to rejoin the jury. We'll need to wait and see whether he is allowed to miss a Tribal Council and still vote at the end, or what happens if he's gone for good and the vote is tied? Sadly the rest of the world already knows since the final went to air in the US a week ago, but the remaining five episodes will still be exciting for some of us.

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 10

This week's episode had it all: exciting challenges, political intrigues and a medical emergency. Before you continue reading, just remember that last week you were warned of something deeply unpleasant requiring extensive pixelation (although perhaps not as extensive as he'd like to think he needs), and that it involves the baring of Shane's nether regions. And for once that doesn't mean Shane Warne.

Terry made another bold move this week by asking the remaining Casaya men where they saw him in the final six. Their blunt response of "We don't!" seemed to provoke him into telling all his Top Gun stories in one go while he still had an audience. Courtney the peacenik hippy was less than impressed, asking "How is any normal American person supposed to be the Navy air fighter pilot dude?" She must have missed the step-by-step description of what training he did at which bases. Sally listened in rapt attention and laughed in the right spots, since Terry winning reward and giving her the idol was clearly her only chance at coming home from the next Tribal Council.

The reward challenge was one of my annual favourites with the videos from home. In a clever move they showed each Survivor a 10 second sample clip so we at home got to check out all of the families instead of just the winners. Terry and Sally get my vote for having the cutest dogs out of the many that featured. Courtney's family all have little finger motions to show their love for each other, which had to be explained. Terry's daughter was like Drew Barrymore in E.T., while Aras's dad was riding a bike around the tee-pee set up in their back yard, which also had to be explained.

Remember how Sally told Austin a few weeks back that her family shunned her because she's divorced? She must have had some explaining to do after that episode went to air, because their waving and smiling and calling out "We love you, Sal!" was pretty convincing if it was an act. Unless, of course, they're not her real family…

Shane sobbed uncontrollably from the moment the reward was announced. His son looks like a real brat and his dog is kind of ugly. Even the mere existence of Boston's mother had conspicuously never been referred to on camera, but perhaps Shane gave us the reason when explaining why his son means so much to him. "I was only 21 when I had him. We grew up together. He's my brother. He is my son." The only interpretation of that which makes literal sense is too Oedipal to even contemplate.

The challenge itself put one person on a cradle hanging from a bungy cord in the middle of a large frame. The other three members of their randomly-chosen team had to use ropes to pull the cradled person around to collect numbered flags in order and slot them in a row. It was really, really close until Aras forced his team to back track when he knocked one of the already pegged flags out of its hole, and then made the same mistake again. It was enough for Courtney's team of Sally, Terry and Bruce to win and all let go of their ropes at the same time, violently retracting the bungy cord up and almost catapulting her over the jungle.

OK, this is the medical emergency and the bit I warned you about. It's probably best described in the participant's own words.
Shane: "I have an issue with my penis."
Cirie: "Can you explain it to me or do I have to come look at it?"
Shane: "You're a nurse!"
Cirie: "I don't want to look at it!"
Danielle: "I wouldn’t either!"
Shane (pants around ankles): "Don't laugh!"
Cirie (to camera, laughing): "Shane has this... funky... thing goin' on with his... uh... testicles."
Shane: "Why is it like that? You see how it's all red?"
Cirie (doubled over laughing): "That's because it's moist all the time. It's like diaper rash."
Shane: "Is that because I've been wearing those undies for 23 days?"
Cirie: (crying with laughter)
Shane (slightly desperate now): "How do I make that go away?"
Cirie: "Can you dry it out?"

Fortunately for Shane, Courtney and co soon arrived back from the video lounge with their luxury items having been returned to them as an extra treat. I don't think we've seen the Survivors' luxury items for the last seven or eight series, so it came as something of a shock to know they'd even been encouraged to bring something out to Panama in their bags. Bruce had a sketch pad, Sally had a journal, Terry had a queen doona sized American flag, and Courtney had her fire dancing equipment. If Shane is smart – and careful – he may have found a way to "dry it out". Interestingly none of the others bothered to ask why he was wearing his t-shirt as a skirt.

Aras proved yet again what a total tool he is. First he asked the girls to send him to Exile Island so he could look for the immunity idol. When he actually was sent he claimed Terry arranged it because he feels threatened. Once on the island he couldn't understand the clues, so he blamed his failure on everyone else already having turned over all the rocks, and eventually gave up because "Terry's probably already found it". Back at camp he explained his empty hands with a complaint that the clues are really hard, and the non-sequitur that "either the clue was really easy and Terry found it straight away, or no one's got it."

The Immunity Challenge provided yet another twist. Survivors got the choice between participating and eating, and everyone from Casaya except Aras chose the cheeseburgers. He looked pretty angry lining up next to Sally and Terry for the memory puzzle while everyone else squeezed around the table to cram in as much as they could before Terry won yet again and they had to stop.

Back at camp in the frantic hours before Tribal Council, Terry and Sally tried to convince everyone that he'd given her the idol so that neither of them could be voted off and whomever they themselves voted for would be going home. Terry even showed Bruce the idol in its roof-cavity hiding place (not in his bag where Danielle went snooping for it). Bruce once again looked like he'd been swayed until Cirie pointed out that Terry would be making the biggest mistake in Survivor history if he gave up the idol because he'd then be forced to win every single immunity challenge to make it through.

Sure enough, the vote went against Sally. There was an incredibly tense moment as Jeff asked if she had the idol, and every head snapped around to see what she'd do. Noticeably, Terry just looked at the ground so we knew he hadn't shared after all.

As Jeff pointed out, it's now six members of Casaya against Terry, and it'll be fun to see if he manages to keep winning the immunity challenges. Just not as much fun as watching Cirie trying to avoid any further medical consultations with Shane.

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 9

Maybe they were struck by lightning, but somehow this week Shane and Aras swapped personalities, or at very least transferred ownership of a bossy, arrogant streak. Shane was subdued and well behaved, while Aras indulged in such grown-up observations as, "These snails are like La Mina: slimy and hard to get out!"

He was specifically referring to Austin, who'd woken to the stunning realisation that he'd made a huge mistake at Tribal Council the night. Apparently he confessed to faking weakness in the challenge based on the incorrect assumptions that he was about to voted out and would somehow save face by proving he's not weak after all. He was wrong on both counts, but absolutely right in guessing that perhaps the others don't trust him much any more.

I've often described the tree mails as 'crappy', and this week I'd like to tender in evidence the following words painted onto the side of a coconut:

Skill can win a boat race,
And making tough decisions takes some guts
But in political battles,
You'll always deal with nuts.

No, it wasn't a reference to Budget Night, although that's what we were missing by watching Survivor instead of the ABC tonight.

The challenge separated the nine remaining contestants into teams of three competing against each other for a prize of breakfast in bed the next day. Each team had 100 coconuts, which they had to deposit in the boats belonging to the other two teams. Once finished they had to row their own boat out to a buoy (and it's frustrating me no end that we're up to episode 9 and Jeff still hasn't said the word boo-eee), collect a flag and a fishing net, and get all the coconuts out of their boat and back to the starting point.

The politics came in deciding whose boat to put the coconuts in, since more coconuts made the boat harder to row and the unpacking bit at the end take longer. Danielle and Aras were on different teams, but that didn’t stop him from instructing her to focus on the trio with two La Mina members – including Austin - to make them lose. Danielle was having trouble carrying anything else large and round at chest height, so it was no surprise that she, Courtney and Cirie came utterly last.

More politicking ensued when the victor's right to send a loser to Exile Island was doubled to one member of each non-winning team. Aras, well and truly in Shane mode, simply told the others that he would decide and picked Austin (no brainer) and Danielle (big surprise).

The reward for Sally, Bruce and Aras was defined as "breakfast in bed". No guarantees were made that the bed would be warm and dry. In pouring rain (which in an earlier scene had sent a lonely coconut floating across the frequent lake upon which Casaya built their camp), they climbed under the sodden blankets and tucked into rolls, toast, coffee, juice and a lot of bacon, which made it all OK again.

Just as cold and sodden, but nowhere near as well fed, were Danielle and Austin on Exile Island. Austin also has a mistaken belief that "hell" is an appropriate analogy for cold, but didn't seem to mind snuggling up to Danielle for warmth, companionship and a possible addition to La Mina's voting bloc.

Terry, meanwhile, was also doing his best for the team. He knew that success depended on finding out who occupies the bottom two rungs of the Casaya pecking order and proving it to them in the hope of creating a new five-person alliance. He also knew that it would be tough to get reliable information but seemed to be relishing the challenge, so it must have been a little disappointing for him when Shane simply coughed up the information without blinking. Shane obviously wasn't listening at the start of the episode when Aras told everyone they had to be really careful not to give any information away.

Not only did Shane answer Terry's question about who would be in the final four, he bet twenty bucks on it, giving Terry some convincing proof for his subsequent pitch to Danielle and Bruce that they are first on the menu when Casaya eventually begins consuming its own. Even more tempting for Danielle was Terry's offer of the Individual Immunity Idol, and safety for the next ten days, if she agreed to swap sides.

The Immunity Challenge was a typical combination of brain teasers, rope bridges, jungle gyms made of bamboo and the clear-felling of a few hectares of rainforest. The first obstacle was a fence they had to dig and drag their way under, which was guaranteed to expose some flesh and give the pixelating machine a workout. Interestingly the final three contestants were the sole remaining members of La Mina, with Terry beating Sally out in the final despite the advantage she had in the crawling-on-all-fours moments with the Jana Pittman socks pulled up like knee pads.

It's Logie week, and the award for teamwork goes to Aras and Courtney for the following exchange in the lead up to Tribal Council:

Courtney: "It's a real simple vote."
Aras: "Yep, Sally."
Courtney: "What?"
Aras: "Yes!"
Courtney: "No way!"
Aras: "You're crazy!"

Cirie proved that she has at least two primary school-aged children through the skill with which she broke up the fight and told Aras to go and play with Shane, while Courtney and Danielle headed off in the opposite direction and continued to say mean things about him and create hope that Danielle might vote for Aras out of sheer spite.

It was good to see the old Shane back at Tribal Council. He raised his eyebrows and pulled shocked faces as Bruce and Danielle made comments indicating a slight discomfort with their place in the pecking order, then boldly declared that he'd be stunned if one member of his alliance flipped sides but it's "impossible" that two would do that. Oh the rods we make for our own backs.

Jeff finally told us this week that if the person with the Individual Immunity Idol is targeted the person with the second highest number of votes is going home. Despite all the careful editing to suggest that Danielle and Bruce had indeed switched sides, Casaya stuck together to vote out Austin and make him the first jury member.

There's a chance that you're reading this after having recently eaten, so I won't tell you too much about the ad for next week's episode other than that it involves Shane and proof that sometimes it's better to simply not show a scene than to try and use enough pixelation to achieve standards of common decency.

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 8

The sexual tension between Courtney and Shane reached marital status tonight with an entirely conjugal fight over who had more than their fair share of the doona. Here’s a quote from Courtney about how cold it was in the shelter without blankets; "Like, just no warmth. I mean it was, like, seriously hell." You heard it here first folks: hell has frozen over.

In describing her cold night in hell, Courtney used the word "like" twelve times in a single minute, only one of which was an appropriate context. She, like, uses the word "like" as often as Judd in Guatemala used the word "man", man.

Sally, meanwhile, was oblivious to the cold in her happy place on Exile Island, safe from the vote at the previous night's Tribal Council. She did a little half-hearted digging for the Individual Immunity Idol and seemed very relieved to be dropped off by the production crew not at the La Mina beach but the Casaya beach, which is now home to everyone. Instead of the traditional "Drop your buffs" command from Jeff at a challenge, a crappy tree mail 'poem' had announced to Terry, Nick and Austin the much-anticipated merge. One tradition that remained, however, was the merge banquet. Casaya must have forgotten about it because they gallantly ate as much rice as they could once the boys appeared on the horizon, leaving little room for seconds.

Another tradition at merge time is coming up with a tribe name and painting a new banner. It's usually a group activity, but Bruce the art teacher (is there anything this guy hasn't taught?) took the initiative and actually did a really good job of it. The new name – Gitanos – is Spanish for gypsy. No points for, like, guessing who, like, came up with that one.

Actually there is something that Bruce probably hasn't taught: workplace safety. If you're going to cut a piece of rope by rubbing it on a machete, do it with the blade facing away from you. Nick, are you listening? Otherwise, when the rope cuts through, the blade will swing up and hit someone in the face. Bruce, pay attention! Oh, that's right, you're trying to find that piece of tooth Nick just knocked out of your mouth. Of course, if Bruce hadn't blunted the machete by using it to clean all the seaweed off his Zen rock garden every morning it might have been sharper, with less force required to cut the rope and fewer subsequent facial injuries. Karma in the Zen garden, huh.

The machete wasn't the only thing to go to Bruce's head this week. As soon as it became clear that the merge was imminent, Shane had gathered Casaya and notified them all that they are once again in an alliance, and that they must stick together. (Three days ago he pleaded to get out of an alliance with these same people, but don't worry about that.) Shane and Aras knew that Bruce was the most likely swing voter, but they waited until La Mina was ashore and Terry had started sucking up to Bruce to do likewise in the hopes of winning his allegiance.

What Bruce forgot was that he's only one of six potential swing voters, with Shane and Cirie also subjected to Terry's rough wooing. Since Terry could only offer a maximum of two weeks' safety at Tribal Council, plus the risk of joining the losing side, it wasn't a particularly attractive offer to anyone. And naturally, Shane was utterly graceless in his rejection of it.

The first individual immunity challenge was a straightforward stamina trial to hang from a horizontal pole, sloth-like. Cirie was first to fall, followed by most of her cocky Casaya tribe mates. The final three were the La Mina men, all of whom desperately needed immunity. Austin was the first of them to go, with Terry eventually beating Nick. We may as well just hand Terry the million bucks right now, since any time he doesn't win individual immunity he's got the idol as back up.

This week's prize for stupidity - from an incredibly strong field - goes to Austin. In his little private piece to camera before Tribal Council he confessed to having 'faked' weakness at the challenge so that Casaya didn't see him as a threat and vote him off. As strategies go that's pretty smart. Caving in at Tribal Council to a grilling from Jeff that wouldn't melt ice, and confessing your strategy to everyone, is not. When Courtney and Danielle are shaking their heads at your stupidity it's time to consider whether you really want to show your face in public ever again.

Bruce's facial expressions during Tribal Council were carefully edited to suggest he might be thinking of swinging after all. Shane had shown his class yet again by calling a Casaya powwow just before everyone headed off to Tribal Council so they could decide who to vote off. Doing it right in front of La Mina was cheesy enough, but making a flagrant effort to include Bruce in the circle of trust was pathetic.

Unfortunately it must have worked, because the 6-4 vote went strictly along tribal lines to Nick's detriment. Hitting the key swing voter in the face with a machete probably didn't help his cause and sadly for him he misses out on a place in the Jury.

Shane got the four La Mina votes and looked a bit like he'd also been hit in the face (bad Jeff for reading them all out first and falsely getting my hopes up that Shane was gone). I'd love to know who Shane thought they would vote for. Actually I don’t think I want to pollute myself with any more about what Shane thinks.

What he might want to remember is that in previous series the stronger team going into the merge gets rid of their crazy people as soon as the numbers make it safe to do so. And as Danni in Guatemala and Chris from Vanuatu will remind us, it's possible to win even as the odd one out…