Survivor Cook Islands: week 9

The most remarkable thing about this week’s episode was how much it resembled the previous week:

1. Aitu won both challenges;
2. Those members of Raro who sat out the challenge spent most of the time with their heads in the hands, groaning;
3. Candice got sent to Exile Island;
4. Jonathan worked really hard to keep his tentative new spot on Raro;
5. Adam and Candice spent what little time they had together either scheming or making out; and
6. The tree mail poem was really bad.

OK that last one is pretty much a given, but this week’s was noteworthily bad. How bad? Bad enough for me to pause the video, copy it out and reproduce it here for your own private moment of horror:

Any explorer knows
To study about where he goes
Disappointment shows
And for the losers…the "Tribal Council Woes".

Both challenges this week had required pre-reading, which automatically put Aitu at an advantage since they seem to hold most of the brains. The Reward Challenge featured treasure chests buried in the sand below various points of the compass, with nautical signal flags hidden in each one. The flags spelt out the word Victory (which could also have been "OR ICY TV" but I supposed Jeff did say it was a word, singular), and Aitu had it before Raro even had their fourth chest out of the sand. Highlights included Jonathan deciding that the first clue was NNW instead of NNE, Jonathan falling over, Jenny having to be told to help him dig, Candice telling Jenny to dig with both hands, Jonathan and Jenny tagging out too early and having to go back and touch the mat again, and Jenny getting the opportunity to VERY sarcastically tell Candice to dig with both hands.

It was far easier for Aitu to send Candice back to Exile Island than it was for her to understand why they did it. She’s now spent more of her post-Mutiny time on Exile Island than she has with her new tribe, and most of this visit was spent crying into her buff in genuine shock because the people she betrayed were mean to her. Maybe she’s not so smart after all.

Aitu, meanwhile, were being welcomed to a traditional Cook Island village in the manner of returning victorious warriors. Most series seem to involve this kind of event, but Aitu clicked with their hosts better than any tribe I remember. Yul and Ozzy each got sandwiched between a pair of grass-skirted, hula-dancing local women, with Ozzy’s seducers being on the young and slender side (much to his enjoyment) and Yul’s being on the older and more rotund side (much to everyone else’s enjoyment!)

The Indemnity Challenge also required study, with the subject this time being a map of the South Pacific including such familiar countries as Palau and Vanuatu. Since Rebecca had sat out the previous challenge everyone knew that she’d have to participate this time, and it wasn’t looking like she’d be much help to the tribe when Parvarti the cocktail waitress / model / female boxer came up with a simple mnemonic device and got an utterly blank look in return.

As you already know, Aitu won yet again and sent Raro back to Tribal Council, but not before Jeff sent them back to camp for a few hours holding a small glass bottle, sealed up with wax and containing a mystery note that would only be opened after the vote. Candice was spot on when she predicted that it must be something bad, because it would have been given to the winners if it were something good. And by now it’s very clear that Raro are not winners.

Sure enough, after a vote in which Rebecca’s lack of performance in challenges and housework around camp were punished despite her membership of the core Raro alliance, the note was read out: "You’ve just voted out one member of your tribe. You will now vote out another." Yep, without any chance to consult with each other the remaining six had to vote again, and yet again they voted out a member of their original alliance. If Rebecca looked unimpressed when her torch was snuffed, Jenny was positively ropable and I doubt either new Jury member will forget their betrayal in a hurry.

The ad for next week claims that "things heat up between Adam and Candice". That’s going to be something of a worry for the censors, since this week had them alone in the shelter doing that routine from Raiders of the Lost Ark, with Adam kissing Candice everywhere she had cut herself with the machete. Why am I’m not surprised those two couldn’t come up with something more original?

Survivor Cook Islands: week 8

Unless you regularly invest some quality time reading the TV guide (or somewhat obsessively researching a particular show, not that I do that or anything) you might not realise that each Survivor episode has a name. As in all things Survivor, sometimes the names are a bit naff. This week, however, the title "Mutiny!" was about as accurate as it gets because not one minute was spent on anything not in some way related to that theme.

In some more quality editing this week we had a really nice scenario set up with Jonathan talking at length about how important it is for the six Aitu members to stick together since there’s also six Raro members and the merge might happen soon. In the next scene we saw him talking to Candice and explaining that he really wants to slough off the rest of the tribe and get the two of them back with the remaining whiteys over on Raro for a Caucasian domination of the final four. Finally we got Candice’s piece to camera where explained quite clearly that she really doesn't want Jonathan hanging around her. She only just managed to keep from panting too heavily while thinking about getting back on the same tribe typically prophetic quote: "I think stuff’s about to happen, about to start moving."

She didn’t have to wait long. Before the start of the reward challenge Jeff gave everyone a ten second window in which to Mutiny! and swap tribes if they wanted. Candice spent eight of those seconds leering at Adam, then stepped forward. She was a second too soon, because Jeff stopped the countdown to express amazement and during the delay Jonathan to decide follow her. His thinking seemed to go something along the lines of, "If you love something set it free: if it comes back it’s yours; if it doesn’t, hunt it down and kill it."

Maybe the producers knew what would happen and planned the challenge accordingly. Maybe they were just lucky that not more people decided to Mutiny!. Either way, the challenge was still able to be run with only four people left in Aitu. The two girls had to climb into a barrel and be rolled down a ramp, over some speed humps and through the water to collect flags and raise them at the end, assuming they could still walk given the bruises they must have incurred. The best part by far was the frequency with which Jeff pronounced the word "buoy" as "boo-eee", something which has been almost as sadly missed in recent seasons as the gross food challenge.

Once again Ozzy was the Aitu Allstar. He managed to hold his breath underwater, the barrel by his feet and a rope with his hands, all while towing the entire team across the lagoon to an easy victory. Raro managed to get caught in a rip and were dragged so far off course they never had a chance of winning.

It’s easy to cheer for the underdogs, but it makes you even more warm and fuzzy to see the underdogs appreciate their win. The fine, upstanding folk of Aitu stopped and spent some time celebrating with each other instead of just rushing to get to the muffins, danishes, coffee and letters from home which constituted this week’s reward. Ozzy even cried, but then crying is a somewhat natural reaction when you discovered that your "loved ones" have given the producers your most embarrassing school photos and now the whole world has seen them. Mutinous traitors!

The other part of Aitu’s reward was getting to send someone to Exile Island, and they didn’t even have to consult before choosing Fletcher Christian herself, Candice. Jonathan, meanwhile, indentured himself into the service of his new Raro masters (so much for the white folks taking over). Between tending the fire, harvesting coconuts and doing the fishing, he chewed all their ears off, ignored them rolling their eyes at him, and reminded us at home during his piece to camera that, "This game is all about trust." Yep, and everyone now has conclusive proof that Candice and Jonathan are quite happy to Mutiny! and betray their tribe mates.

The Immunity Challenge involved paddling a glass-bottomed boat around the lagoon until the target painted on the glass lined up exactly with a target laying on the ocean floor. If timed correctly, one could drop a cannonball through a hatch in the front of the boat, land it in a basket attached to the target and release some more boo-eees. Raro got an early lead until Yul worked out that you could see the basket through the hatch, which was a far easier way of working than trying to line up the target by getting four people to paddle in different directions at once. Some might call it cheating, others might call it creative thinking. Jeff just called it a win when the collected buoys spelt out "Bounty" back on the beach, and Aitu’s four-person David had beaten the eight-strong Raro twice in a row. Success really is the best revenge.

Now is probably a good time to point out a couple of things from right at the very start of the episode. The recap from the previous week reminded us all how very lucky Brad the non-swimming puzzle solver was that his team didn’t go to Tribal Council or he’d have been voted off. Early this week he uttered a throw-away line that after the merge it’s every man for himself. He’s absolutely right, but it gave the rest of him team something new for which to be mad at him because they all wilfully misinterpreted that as proof that he's not a team player and is planning to overthrow them and needs to be voted off immediately.

However, Candice and Jonathan – especially Jonathan – gatecrashing the party threw a new light on things. Adam had a moment of very, very impressive political clarity when he pointed out that what’s left of Raro will never take Jonathan back to make up the numbers going into a merge, but they might be willing to take Brad into the fold if he chose to counter-Mutiny! for his own survival. Unfortunately this was soon followed by a very, very unimpressive change of mind when Candice got back from Exile Island and convinced Adam that Jonathan was a threat to his manhood. Stupid, over-reactive boy! And Nate agreed with him on everything. Stupid, over-reactive boys plural!

Tribal Council took place in a heavy thunderstorm. Brad needed only a tiny amount of prodding to admit that he doesn’t trust anyone on his team, but I suspect his fate had been decided long before that tactical error because he went out in a unanimous vote. Well, not quite out: Brad becomes the first member of the Jury in a very surprising twist this early in the season. It’s going to be lots of fun to see how they manage if it’s a ten person jury split five-five split in the final vote. Or will the million dollars be fought out by a final three instead of a final two? Or will the members of the jury have to set someone adrift in a lifeboat? Or will Jeff get the casting vote? Oh wait, the ad for next week promises another big twist. Gee, that’s never happened before!

For the next two weeks I’ll be away on holiday (no, not in the Cook Islands; I’m not that tragic). I’ll hopefully have internet access, but probably not email. If all goes according to plan there will be reports available on Thursday mornings at this site for you to keep up to date with what’s happening after any sane person’s bedtime.

Survivor Cook Islands: week 7

It may not have seemed that way early on, but the theme of tonight's episode ended up being "Brad’s lucky week!"

In fact early on it looked like Nate’s lucky week as he took the opportunity afforded by his kidnapping to learn more about Aitu without giving away too much crucial information about how things are at his own Raro camp. He certainly seemed more interested than anyone else by Jessica / Flicka’s complaints that she was the only one not in on the plan to vote out Cao Boi the previous night at Tribal Council.

Flicka’s complaints were interrupted by the arrival of tree mail, the first word of which was "Swim!" Oddly enough for tree mail that was a pretty good clue as to what the Reward Challenge would involve. The reward itself was also made about a clear as it could be, in the form of a Survivor Tree Mail Order Catalogue of Reward Items and instructions to pick two of them. For Aitu it was an easy and unanimous choice: a sack of potatoes to stretch out the carbs during the week, and some jars of peanut butter for immediate gratification. For Raro, Brad’s suggestion that they make the same choice on the same grounds was ignored in favour of a loaf of bread (which is going to last such a long time in the tropics!) for peanut butter sandwiches RIGHT NOW! None of this "planning for the future" stuff for Adam and Parvarti, huh!

And what did the winners have to do to get these lavish, unbranded and product-placement-free treats? Three members of each tribe had to do a lot of swimming while carrying something awkward, then the other two had to solve a puzzle. Remember those instructions; you’ll hear them again later.

For reasons known only to himself at the time, Brad volunteered to solve the puzzle instead of swimming. During the utter roasting he copped back at camp after they lost, he justified it on the grounds that he has very good spatial skills and is therefore good at puzzles. Trouble is that the "spatial puzzle solving" bit came after the "lots of hard swimming" bit. With Nate unavailable for selection, and Brad’s gloriously buffed pecs on stand-by to do spatial things with some lightweight puzzle pieces, all the physical work was left to Adam, Rebecca and Parvati. Rebecca didn’t even complete the first lap before failing as spectacularly as the supporting materials on her bikini top, giving us the season’s first truly justifiable pixellation.

Aitu’s combination of Ozzy the superfish, Candice the superbabe and Yul the superallroundniceguy finished the swimming part miles in front of Raro, and inevitably they had the challenge wrapped up and won long before Brad’s spatial skills were called upon.

In a nicely ironic twist, the Cook Islands had an unseasonably cold snap not unlike the one Melbourne is going through as I write this (ie it’s two weeks until summer and today we had snow falls down to 600m). Adam spent his night on Exile Island in the foetal position under a make-shift humpy trying to stay warm, while everyone at camp shivered together under every item of clothing and bedding available for use.

I deliberately didn’t write about this last week because I sensed there might be a better story at some point in the future, but the time has now come. Last week during the trip back from the reward there was a short scene of Candice walking along holding hands with Sundra, followed a few seconds later by a shot of Candice sitting between Sundra’s feet. This week Candice shared – nay, initiated – a "peanut butter kiss" with Flicka, whereby they each put a big blob of peanut butter in the middle of their pouts then mashed the two blobs together, then laughed. in another scene she had her arms wrapped around Yul, but that might have just been because she was cold. Or because she was flirting. Or because she was trying to punish Billy on his New Jersey couch by throwing herself at everyone else in camp. Or maybe it’s her strategy? All opinions on this are welcome.

Ozzy’s strategy has been to try and make everyone else too fat to compete during the upcoming individual immunity challenges. Aside from his daily reef-depleting haul of fish he this week caught a live seagull. Apparently a sleeping bird in a bush is worth an extra two days in the game, because everyone seemed pretty happy with dietary variety even if Yul was the only one brave enough to break its neck ready for consumption.

The immunity challenge was almost a direct re-hash of the reward challenge: three members of each tribe had to do a lot of swimming while carrying something awkward, then the other two had to solve a puzzle. Predictably enough, Brad was one of the swimmers this time, although Aitu had won the swim leg and was already started on the puzzle by the time Raro had collected all the pieces. Totally unpredictably, Adam was one of the pair doing the brain-draining puzzle solving part and his team actually came from behind to win! I’m still trying to work out how that happened, but it did. At least I think it did: maybe I fell asleep on the couch and dreamt it. After all, it was ridiculously past my bedtime.

For Brad, of course, it was justification of his theory that skill solving the puzzle can be enough to come from behind and win. If they’d lost he’d have been an absolute goner.

For Aitu, a second consecutive trip to Tribal Council meant a choice between:

• Jessica, whose paranoia about her lack of alliances was getting really annoying;
• Ozzy, whose fantastic efforts to win challenges and feed his tribe have only earned him the gratitude of being considered a future threat; and
• Jonathan, whose constant scheming means nobody trusts him anymore (reinforced by an editorial decision to overlay the sound of Yul’s observation to this effect with footage of a rat feeding on some discarded coconut).

Once again Jessica was left out of everyone else’s decision making, and she was unanimously voted off. Don’t worry Flicka: technically you’re not paranoid if everyone else really is out to get you.

Survivor Cook Islands: week 6

A couple of people pointed out to me today that if you live in country Victoria you get to see Survivor at 9.30pm followed by ER at 10.30pm instead of the other way around. The only reason for this I can think of is that country folk find the concept of 20 Americans stranded in the Cook Islands doing weird challenges and voting for each other more accurately representative of their own lives than an adequately staffed hospital in a functional health system.

Due to the late time, and reflective of the fact that this week’s events only spanned 24 hours instead of the normal three days, it’ll be a brief one tonight. In fact it was a pretty boring episode all around, with only the challenge – and yes we’re back to challenge singular again – providing any real entertainment.

Otherwise it was very much ‘business as usual’, especially in the scenes around camp. Cristina was bossy and domineering when criticising the others for calling her bossy and domineering the night before at Tribal Council. Ozzy caught lots of fish and Nate caught an octopus. Jonathan was a bit too focussed on his strategy, which creeped some of the girls out. Cao Boi said weird and inappropriate things. Yul was unfailingly diplomatic and Becky worshipped him for it. Nothing new there at all, really.

The challenge was the one bright spot. Two girls and one boy from each team wrapped themselves around poles. Two members of the same gender from the other tribe had to dislodge a person and try to carry/drag/roll them over a finish line. The first tribe to get all three people back over the line won. The producers must have been just loving the fact that the girls outnumber the boys because the challenge involved a LOT of very physical wrestling in the sand and myriad opportunities for pixelation. Candice showed a degree of resistance I’ve only previously seen when trying to get our cat into his travel cage for a trip to the vet. Cristina demonstrated the efficiency of certain police restraint holds, while professional Rollergirl Flicka also used her work skills with some excellent hair pulling.

Of course there was a twist, which was that both teams had to go to Tribal Council and vote someone out. Technically it’s not much of a twist since it was openly announced in the ad for this week at the end of the last episode, but since almost nobody was still awake by that stage it may have surprised someone not living in Shepparton or Bairnsdale.

The twist sent both teams into strategy mode back at camp. We saw almost nothing at Raro other than Cristina promising to be good and begging her tribe mates for another chance while they mumbled "Sure" and looked away.

Aitu’s deliberations were a lot more interesting. Crazy Cao Boi had a dream that he applied for an American Express card, which he interpreted as a totally foolproof way of working out who has the immunity idol, cunningly nicknamed Plan Voodoo. Here’s just a few of the flaws in that foolproof plan:

1. It assumes that either Jonathan or Candice has the idol, forgetting that Yul has also been sent to Exile Island (and as well all know, is the one who actually has it).
2. It assumes that Jonathan is more likely to have it since he’s been there twice.
3. It relies on three people voting for Jonathan and three for Candice, with the tied vote forcing the one who has the idol to use it.
4. It fails to take into account that if Jonathan votes for Candice and she goes down 4-3 as a result, Jonathan won’t have to use the idol - and remember we're supposed to think he has it - and nothing will be proven either way.
5. It assumes in the first place that Cao Boi has enough influence to get six other people to all vote exactly the way he wants.

Amusingly Cao Boi was getting the same mumbled "Sure" from his tribe mates as he unveiled Plan Voodoo that Cristina was getting over at Raro, so it was no surprise at all that the two of them got voted out.

As the challenge winners, Aitu had their Tribal Council first followed by a "feast" in the Jury Box of lamb shanks, bread and apple cider served in a genuine hillbilly earthenware jug. No product placement opportunities there!

Anyway, Aitu got to watch Raro’s Tribal Council up until just before the vote, when Jeff pulled yet another shock out of his khaki shirt. Aitu got to "kidnap" a member of Raro for a few days, effectively protecting that person from being voted out that night. Nate was chosen, and got an early start to his case of Stockholm Syndrome by getting to snack on a lamb shank with his captors. Apparently he’ll be part of Aitu for the next few days, even competing with them at the next reward challenge.

At this point I must mention Candice’s very strange behaviour towards Adam across the Tribal Council set while all this was happening. She started out blowing him kisses, and at one point seemed to mouth to him the words "I Love You." Hang on, have we not seen this before? Has she not learnt how easily such behaviour can be misinterpreted? Does anyone want to guess how long Billy sat at home on the couch and howled when he saw such behaviour from his true love?

Survivor Cook Islands: week 5

The editing on Survivor has always been good, but this week it was superb.

We started at Raro the morning after the night before and JP’s shock (well, to him at least) departure. The three remaining boys decided that a mammoth effort at gathering food, water and firewood would be the best way to show the five girls they still needed the men around. Yeah, that’ll show ‘em when they finally crawl out of bed around lunchtime! About the only thing it showed the girls was that the boys are desperate to remain relevant, and are every bit as easily manipulated as Parvarti predicted.

Things were remarkably similar at Aitu, with an alliance of five – mainly girls comparing underarm hair regrowth – lording it over the other three of Ozzie, Cao Boi and Flicker. Tonight’s first nominee for Excellence In Editing goes to the person who patched together a few comments from Cao Boi which made it sound like he’d said the girls were jeopardising their chances in the game by being annoying. Oh hang on, I’ve just watched it again and that’s pretty much exactly what he said. On the irony!

The reward challenge this week had some familiar elements and an even more familiar prize of spices to awaken the tongue and cheap wine to loosen it. Two members of each tribe were tied together side-by-side at the waist with one arm each held out to the side like strange Siamese crucifixes. The free arms were used to hold onto handle/rope/pulley/hook arrangements that got gradually heavier as members of the opposite team added sandbags, with the last pair still holding up both hooks winning for their team. It was essentially a test of brute strength, with Adam and Nathan winning for Raro and proving their worth to the women-folk far more effectively than with some light housework.

Back at camp, the Ozzie/Cao Boi/Flicker grouping (I hesitate to use the word ‘alliance’ since they’re more an accidental combination of the people not in the other alliance than a specific coalition of their own) decided to paddle out and explore a nearby island. Candice didn’t want to go because she had other important work to do around camp, when in reality she wants to conserve her strength; good reason. Sondra didn’t want to go because, quote, "That water is kind of freaking me out." Our second nomination goes to whomever thought to get a shot of a beach with the gentlest waves ever seen in the South Pacific. For all we know they took that footage three weeks later, but it doesn’t matter because it was just so amusingly pasted in.

The outcasts alliance set sail regardless of the others’ indifference, and were happily exploring the resources the new island had to offer when they stumbled across Raro’s camp. Nothing like this has ever happened before, and nobody quite knew what to do about it. Cao Boi to the rescue! He made a tactless comment proving that he’d done a mini stocktake of Raro’s equipment, then filled the ghastly silence which followed with a lecture on Chinese symbology. There may have been some prior conversation which naturally segued into that topic, or it might have been edited out. He might have only spoken for three minutes, but several shots of the sun passing slowly overhead were edited in to create the impression he went on about it for hours. The others might have paid him their full and rapt attention, but our third nominee managed to cram in footage of each one yawning or looking otherwise bored.

Eventually Cao Boi stopped talking. He tried to suggest a joint effort to harvest the natural resources of Raro’s island for Aitu’s benefit, and then tried to hit Raro up for some of their spices, having even less success with the second idea than the first. Eventually he even got the hint that he’d outstayed his welcome and they went home. Truly weird!

The immunity challenge kicked off with Jonathan’s return from a few fruitless days of digging on Exile Island and announced that he thinks he knows where the Individual Immunity Idol was, effectively telling everyone else that either Candice, Adam or Yul has already found it. Since two of those people are in his alliance, and everyone knows that Adam is barely smart enough to read the clues let alone decipher them, he’s pretty much just tipped it on the people he’s relying on to get him through the game, and Yul for one looked most displeased.

Amazingly the challenge was entirely new and original. Each tribe had to get two members with good balancing skills across a stretch of water on tiny round platforms high up in the air, and then get their entire team onto an equally tiny square platform even higher up. It was close right through to the end, but Aitu won out and sent Raro back to their second consecutive Tribal Council.

At first their decision of who to vote out seemed simple and unanimous: Cristina has stepped into JP’s bossy boots and been telling everyone else what to do. Some might call it ‘leadership’ but in this game it’s called ‘painting a big target on your back’. Everyone agreed it was time for her to go; there was absolutely no need for further discussion. Our final nominee tonight followed Nathan and Stephannie to the water store and caught a conversation where Stephannie actually confessed out loud an opinion that she wouldn’t mind going home because she could imagine herself eating mashed potato and gravy that night. Seriously, if you’re going to end your chances in the game make it for something a little more gourmet, possibly involving fois gras and caviar. At the very least make it something that tests the skills of the kitchen staff at whichever luxury resort you’ll be holed up in until they fly you home.

Yep, the Nathan to whom she made that comment is the same Nathan who voted for her last week because he can’t tolerate the idea of someone being there who is less than 100% committed to the game. Having caught Stephannie’s original comment on camera it was a simple matter for the winner of the Survivor Cook Islands: Excellence In Editing Award to continue the theme and highlight the words "mashed potato" spreading through the rest of the tribe like melted butted (and perhaps some chives, or a little freshly-grated Parmesan).

What looked like a unanimous vote against Cristina turned into a unanimous vote against Stephannie, but not before the boys harped on that little bit too long at Tribal Council about Cristina being bossy. She’ll come out fighting next week. Let’s hope they get it all on camera!