Survivor Fiji: week 2

First, here's this week's haiku:

Be more careful, Boo!
Half a brain (times axe) equals
One eye, hand and leg.

It seems in recent years there’s been more and more instances of "the most [insert adjective and noun] in Survivor history." This week in his recap on the previous episode, Jeff referred to "the most elaborate camp in Survivor history". Another way to describe it might be "the most desperate grab for ratings in Survivor history."

We started with one of the most desperate searches for potable water in Survivor history at the Ravu camp. They won’t get flint until they win a challenge, and without fire they can’t boil water. It’s only day four and already they’re so dehydrated that they resorted to licking water drops off leaves. Anthony kindly pointed out that the palms taste best, as we cut to footage of Michelle staggering along and finally falling over from thirst and hunger.

By comparison, at Moto there was an earnest discussion on whether to eat or throw out the leftover rice, and did anyone want any more mango? Luxury, however, is no antidote to stupidity. Lisi has perhaps the most annoying laugh in Survivor history (triggered in this instance by her killing an ant with a hammer), and Boo performed the longest fart in Survivor history. One of his eyes is all red because he walked into a sign and dinted the eyeball. Alex tried to flush it out for him (lucky he’s in the camp with plenty of boiled water), but not long after being discharged from the makeshift field hospital Boo started chopping up things with an axe in what appeared to be his idea of fun. He dropped the axe right near his foot, which roused a chorus of "Boo, be careful!" from a few of the girls. This was quickly followed by a wet thud, a moan and a beautifully framed camera shot of most of the tribe looking up and wincing. In one stroke he had managed to cut his hand AND his leg. "I think I need medical attention" is perhaps the biggest understatement in Survivor history. But wait, there’s more! The hammock collapsing under him as he recuperated probably wasn’t his fault, but it was still funny. Thanks to Boo, this season will be the highest Workcover premiums in Survivor history.

Sylvia suffered a huge shock on her return from Exile Island. She received a warm welcome as she waded ashore, including three passionate hugs from Yau-Man who was actually just trying to see if the Immunity Idol was in her bag. Her complaints about how tough it is out there fell on deaf ears, but not the word ‘flint’ when she bragged about having managed to start a fire. To be fair we should remember that she was sent to Exile Island before Jeff announced that one tribe would keep the elaborate camp and the other would start with nothing, and had no idea that bringing the flint home would have perhaps guaranteed her place in the tribe more effectively than the idol.

Actually perhaps nothing can guarantee a place in a tribe. After days of – pardon the pun – fruitlessly searching their island for any kind of food, Erica stumbled across a batch of ripe, sweet, juicy pineapples and was instantly deified. The food and liquid gave Ravu hope for the upcoming challenge, which was again a combination of reward and immunity and yet again a combination of collecting puzzle pieces, undoing knots, completing the puzzle and raising a flag.

Despite their desperate physical state, Ravu were first back to the beach with all their boxes and first to start on the puzzle. It was only in the post mortem that we learned Ravu had decided at the start of the challenge who would do what, and that Erica was not assigned to puzzle solving (let’s face it; she’s not the sharpest machete in the archipelago). Despite an apparently clear designation of duties she tried to get involved, screaming – in piercing shrieks - that a particular piece should go in a particular place. She was wrong, but the effort of trying that combination once more just so she’d shut up and let them concentrate proved fatal to both Ravu’s chances of winning the challenge and to Erica’s status as Pineapple Princess.

Winning the challenge gave Moto a whole bunch of fishing equipment which they don’t need (and are probably too busy napping off a huge lunch to use anyway), plus the right to send one member of Ravu to the relative luxury of Exile Island and safety from Tribal Council. Jeff did warn Earl to watch out for the snakes, plural, but Earl seemed to feel much safer after killing just one with the machete. Perhaps Sylvia told him about the one that chased her last week and he figured once he killed it he was protected. He said he really doesn’t like killing animals, but then launched into a quote from Saving Private Ryan about how if you let one go it might come back and kill you later. He then gave us the worst Samuel L Jackson impersonation in Survivor history: "Snakes are misunderstood, but we have an understanding now."

Remember James/Boston/Rocky’s alliance last week with Jessica and Erica? He doesn’t. Erica’s meltdown at the challenge scuppered the earlier plans of voting out bossy Sylvia, with James/Boston/Rocky leading the change. Sylvia was a vocal supporter of this plan, and Michelle announced a decision to cast a protest vote for Sylvia anyway because she doesn’t like her and it wouldn’t change the outcome.

Jeff’s big announcement at Tribal Council was that the Immunity Idol will this year only get its owner through to the final five, not the final three. On top of that, if you want to play it you have to do so before any of the votes are read out, which will really shake things up a bit. Jeff asked Erica to justify her performance at the challenge, and spent a bit of time on how Sylvia is fitting in and whether she’s bossy. When asked if Sylvia is a leader, Anthony pointed out that she has a "wonderful" (his word, not mine) habit of throwing out an idea and saying "Let’s do it!" and not actually talking with anyone about doing it. Sylvia’s response was to say that she’s actually had an idea - which she hasn’t discussed with anyone yet - of assigning a leader. The argument formed a circle almost as perfect as Yau-Man’s eye roll.

Still, Sylvia will actually get the chance to raise that idea tomorrow just like she planned. Erica was voted out 2-6 in a decision that she didn’t see coming. Perhaps if she gets rid of the authentically-Fijian Afro hairdo her peripheral vision will improve.

Survivor Fiji: week 1

Here is a Haiku to celebrate the long overdue debut of Survivor Fiji on Australian television:

Survivor's back – yay!
No warning from Eddie – boo!
Someone should bone him.

This year we’re in Fiji: east of Vanuatu, west of the Cook Islands and south of Palau. It kicked off with the usual spiel about the remoteness of the islands, and how fear of the unknown was so strong that one Survivor quit "just moments before being set adrift". Um, I don’t know about "just moments"; Melissa quit the day before filming started, and in enough time for the producers to work out a solution to suddenly having 19 people instead of an even 20. It’s OK Jeff, I’ll allow you a little poetic licence because I’ve missed you. Please just remember that ‘poetic licence’ is a figure of speech, not an authorisation to write tree mail.

Much like last year it’s a pretty even mix of ages, races and people who have clearly never watched the show before. Case in point; everyone who filled their water canteen straight from the well, about an hour before the instructions arrived telling them not to drink it without boiling it first.

There’s plenty of others who have most definitely watched the show before. They were the ones who were really suspicious about being provided with blue prints, building materials and detailed site plans to build a shelter, kitchen and out-house complete with toilet seat. Oh, and flint as well as machetes and pots. Yep, something is most definitely askew.

Hang on, we have to stop and define ‘askew’ for James since he asked so nicely to have the big words explained to him. (James is also known as Boston for his tattoo, and Rocky for his resemblance to Sylvester Stallone in both his physique and his enunciation). Sylvia is a qualified architect, which made the project management side of building the shelter a whole lot easier. She cleared everything up for him by explaining that ‘askew’ is an architectural term meaning ‘not orthogonal’.

Despite the unprecedented beginning and all 19 Survivors working together, they still didn’t have the main shelter finished by the end of the first night. John Howard wants us to pray for rain to break the drought, but perhaps we should just ask producer Mark Burnett. Every series of Survivor has had a massive rain storm on the first night - before the shelter is built - so that everyone gets wet and miserable, and this series continued that proud and totally entertaining tradition.

There’s also always someone annoying who just can’t shut up and keeps everyone awake. This year it’s Dre, whose real name is Andre but he prefers to be called ‘Dreamz’. Apparently he grew up poor and homeless, "living out the back of a suitcase". His profession is listed as 'Cheerleading Coach'. He’s also a reverse racist, asking all the white folk to put their hands up during one phase of his inarticulate ranting. Since it was too dark to see without night-vision equipment I’m not sure what that achieved, other than letting the camera catch the looks of utter horror on the faces of Earl and Cassandra, who share his race but not his lack of social skills.

Having 19 people squeezed into that shelter was a bit too cosy, so the next morning at the first challenge Jeff kindly split them into two tribes. Actually he asked whether anyone had emerged as a natural leader, and when everyone nominated Sylvia the architect he made her separate the teams. He then sent her off to Exile Island while the new Moto and Ravu tribes competed in a pretty standard race: collect puzzle pieces in bags, solve puzzle, find knife, cut rope, raise flag, celebrate.

The winners got to go home to the amazing camp, which in their absence had been further kitted out with bone china, cutlery, hammocks and a couch. The losers got sent to a new beach with just a machete and a pot, not even flint. And they had to go to Tribal Council that night and vote someone out.

The real loser, however, was Sylvia. Exile Island is allegedly inhabited by thousands of sea snakes, although from the editing I think we’re supposed to believe it was the same snake that followed her out of the water, across the beach, 400 metres across the island and up a hill to the lookout post.

The snake was the bad news. The ‘good’ news was allegedly that:
a) she’s immune from being voted out at tribal council that night;
b) she’s still in the game because she replaces the person who does get voted out; and
c) she gets a clue to the location of the hidden immunity idol.
If that’s the good news then Jeff needs to take some vocabulary lessons with James/Boston/Rocky because she rejoins the losing team on the dud beach, and the ‘clue’ read (warning: crappy Exile Island ‘poem’) "Here you won’t find the idol you crave. Search back at your camp if you hope to be saved."

Even worse, the tribe she joins is comprised mainly of idiots. James/Boston/Rocky forms an alliance with Princess Jessica, and later adds Erica who is the walking definition of ‘glass half empty’. They decide to vote for Rita. Rita finds out and reminds everyone else that it was Jessica’s inability to solve the puzzle which lost them the challenge. James/Boston/Rocky makes Jessica promise to tell him if she hears that he’s at risk of being voted out. She’s not smart enough to extract a reciprocal promise from him. James/Boston/Rocky finds out that the rest of the tribe is planning to vote out Jessica. He says nothing to her. Jeff counts the votes. It’s six for Jessica, and one each for Mookie, Rita and Yau-Man.

The really sad thing? As the credits roll we see that the three odd votes out came from the James/Boston/Rocky/Jessica/Erica alliance. They couldn’t even manage to vote the same way!

The only thing we really saw of Boo (aka Kenward; I’d probably change my name to something less stupid like Boo, too) this week is that he can spell his own name, and from the ad for next week it looks like he's incapable of much more than that.