Survivor has already given me so much, and now it will provide a name for my unborn baby. We’re tossing up between Peih-Gee, Sherea, Janu, Twila and Lisi if it’s a girl, and Frosti, Cao-Boi, Mookie, Bobby John and Yau-Man if it’s a boy. Luckily we’ve got until the end of June to decide.
Enough reality, back to reality TV. At Crouching Tiger, Peih-Gee was still doing the math on the multiple, inter-related "ifs" that all need to align for her cunning plan to work. If they throw the next challenge and if they manage to vote out James and if the merge then happens when there’s ten people, there will be five from each original tribe so the numbers will be balanced if Frosti and Sherea both stay loyal and if they can get one other Hidden Dragon person into their alliance and if one of that six wins individual immunity every week until the end, so she might make it onto the jury. Honey, don’t ever visit Las Vegas because your comprehension of statistical probabilities means you’ll waste a lot of money thinking you’ll win the big jackpot.
The reward challenge was yet another example in a long and tiresome tradition of untying ropes, collecting puzzle pieces and assembling them correctly. This set was hidden in the buildings of an abandoned village (which might have been built and abandoned especially for Survivor). The presence of a camera crew in each room with a puzzle piece made the searching part fairly easy, so it was a narrow win for Hidden Dragon. Maybe PG forgot that it’s the immunity challenges she wants to throw, not the reward challenges.
Anyway, the prize was a visit to the Charmin Tea House. Charmin is an American brand of toilet paper, and the tea house featured two western style loos as well as showers, baths, Crest toothpaste and some shampoos and soaps which had the labels peeled off because apparently nobody wanted to pay the outrageous product placement rates they charge.
Hidden Tiger chose James as their kidnap victim to include in the reward, much to his own delight and even more to Todd’s delight when he convinced James to hand over the immunity idol clue on the promise of saving his life. James is smart enough to acknowledge that Todd is the cornerstone of every alliance in the Hidden Dragon tribe, and since he’s a dead man walking anyway he had nothing to lose.
Todd might be smart, but he and Amanda are both impatient. They were in such a rush to retrieve the brass plaque which is this year’s idol that they did it in full view of the others. Frosti decided to help, so they had to let him in on it (although saying "well I suppose we have to trust him now!" – in front of him – isn’t such a great way to ensure that trust). Then they had to tell James where to get the other one as soon as he got back to Crouching Tiger. Finally, Todd told Denise and Courtney that he’d found it and given it to James.
The plan was for Crouching Tiger to throw the challenge, let them all vote for James and for him to then dramatically reveal the immunity idol, cancelling out all of the votes for him so whoever he’d voted for would be gone. We never actually saw Todd give James the idol he’d found, and we never saw James back at camp after the immunity challenge to see if he searched for the one there, so there’s still a question of whether Todd was being honest – or very clever – telling the others that he’d given his to James.
Like all Survivor plans this one had its share of "ifs", the big one being the assumption that Hidden Tiger would win immunity, especially with James now quite happy to throw the challenge for his own benefit. Turns out that was a mighty big "if". Erik, Jaime and PG had noticed that neither Frosti or Sherea wanted anything to do with them at the reward challenge and decided they needed to win immunity after all. Yeah, because they’ll do so well in a 7-3 merge (assuming that there is a merge, and assuming that it happens when there’s 10 left, and assuming...)
As promised, it was the gross food challenge and it truly was gross. Round One was ten chicken hearts (the poultry type, not the guy who got voted off in week 1, because he had no heart). Subsequent rounds included eels, ‘thousand year old eggs’, baby turtles (including the shell) and our old friend balut (about-to-hatch dead baby chickens minus the shell).
The balut round was Denise versus James. She’s a school lunch lady and should be quite comfortable around inedible ‘food’, but then I guess there’s a big difference between dishing it out and eating it yourself. Even though her tribe had to win to save James, she just couldn’t swallow the feathers. Several looks of utter despair passed between them, before James decided to sacrifice his own safety to spare his darling the horror of having to finish. It would have been incredibly romantic, except for Denise puking up bits of half-chewed beak.
Crouching Tiger’s wholly unexpected win meant the destruction of Todd’s plans and an agonising choice between voting out Sherea based purely on numbers, or Jean-Robert based purely on who they can bear having around a minute longer. The whole thing was edited well enough that we had no idea who was going home until Jeff finished reading out the 5-2 result and snuffed Sherea’s torch. Even Frosti voted for Sherea, sealing his place in the Circle of Trust.
They might regret their decision, though. Next week features pictures of someone holding a meat cleaver by their leg, followed by Jean-Robert telling someone, "If I get screwed I’m gonna hold you responsible", followed by a shot of Todd looking pensive. I think we’re supposed to infer that the three scenes are linked. Oh, and it also had Jeff yelling out "Drop your buffs!" Damn, PG was right!
Monday, December 31, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
Survivor China: week 5
The title of this week’s episode was "Love is in the air". A more technically accurate title would have been "Unrequited love – thus far at least - is in the air", but that’s not as catchy.
At Crouching Tiger, Jaime and Erik were getting romantic in the lake. Erik is still a virgin so they swapped twee details like middle names instead of bodily fluids. Jaime did, however, say "I’m trying to make it with him all the way through". I’m surprised the producers didn’t edit that last word out and add a wacky ‘boing’ sound. Erik thinks that ‘Jaime Nicole Dugan’ is a nice little sweet Southern name. His later use of the phrase, "Jaime and I’s relationship" was a perfect example of nice little sweet Southern grammar.
At Hidden Tiger, meanwhile, James was checking out Denise’s work ethic. There’s a mutual appreciation society happening there, with James going as far as to say that if she were a couple of years younger and he were a couple of years older, "She’d be in trouble, hee hee!" Never mind the age or the racial differences; with a hair cut like hers I suspect they’re both into women, so their similarities might be the problem.
Actually their biggest problem is that they’re now in different tribes. Some fishermen turned up with a note asking them to circle the names of two Crouching Tiger members to become part of Hidden Dragon. The note was a little bit coy about whether this is a temporary mutual kidnapping, a permanent swap or some kind of substitute merge. Either way, Courtney immediately sussed that Crouching Tiger would receive exactly the same note and pick James and Aaron, whereas PG got all excited that they were about to get an extra two members without realised they would also lose two. Courtney was spot on, but the Crouching Sheep believed PG and so the second note telling Sherea and Frosti to pack their bags came as a massive shock.
While both tribes received a basket of fruit and alcohol to smooth the introductions, one pair of nomads clearly got the better end of the deal. My pick for scene of the week came when James asked Crouching Tiger, "Who is the brain of the group?" (and please note his use of the singular form of both verb and noun). There was silence for a bit, and then Jaime said in her nice little sweet Southern voice, "We kind of all are." James didn’t look convinced. Aaron just sat there and looked blond, bless him.
Frosti and Sherea had it much better at Hidden Dragon. Jean-Robert seemed to find either his work ethic or his survival instinct in the bottom of the fruit basket. The next morning he was up starting a fire, boiling water and cooking rice while the others took the opportunity to comment sarcastically on this sudden burst of hitherto unknown energy. Jean-Robert is supposed to be a professional poker player, but he looked like he’d been dealt a pair of twos when he asked Denise to set the fish traps with him and she replied "Yes, Tribe Leader". He claimed not to be the tribe leader, looking very nervous about how this was playing out in front of the new kids, so Denise simply asked why he was throwing around orders if he’s not a leader, and then explained the power of asking nicely. I’m starting to see what James likes about her.
The Survivor’s suitcases must have also been at the bottom of the fruit baskets because they all inexplicably turned up to the immunity challenge wearing proper swimwear (Denise’s perhaps being the ugliest in Survivor History). Two people had to alternate to dive under the water, release puzzle pieces (oddly enough by pulling out sticks, not untying knots), and return to the mat for three others to solve th puzzle. PG and Jaime had decided to throw the next two immuity challenges so that they could vote out Aaron and James and the numbers from the original tribes would be five-five going into the merge. Like most things PG says, there were huge gaps of logic in that sentence, the biggest being her assumption that the tribes would even merge, let alone at the point where there are ten people left.
Erik and Aaron had Crouching Tiger in the lead coming back to shore with the 12 Chinese zodiac puzzle pieces. PG and Jaime were so obviously trying to lose that Jeff noticed it, even if James didn’t because he was so obviously trying to win. When Jaime confessed to her Erik that they’d thrown the challenge he was really hurt, and decided that perhaps there’s some trust issues with his nice little sweet Southern belle. Unfortunately his only chance for survival now is to stick with the brilliant, failure-proof plan that PG and Jaime have conjured up and forced upon him.
At Tribal Council, Jeff grilled Jaime until she confessed to throwing the challenge, which left poor James in a moral dilemma. On one hand he hates quitters and doesn’t want to be part of a tribe that could willingly lose, but walking away would make him a quitter and he hates quitters so he has to keep living with them. Aaron seemed a bit confused by it all, bless him, until Jeff read out his name a lot and then said "Aaron, the Tribe has spoken."
Next week is the return of one of my all time favourites – the gross food challenge. Having seen what’s under the covers on the trolley our local yum cha usually doesn’t bother bringing to our table, it should be a season highlight.
At Crouching Tiger, Jaime and Erik were getting romantic in the lake. Erik is still a virgin so they swapped twee details like middle names instead of bodily fluids. Jaime did, however, say "I’m trying to make it with him all the way through". I’m surprised the producers didn’t edit that last word out and add a wacky ‘boing’ sound. Erik thinks that ‘Jaime Nicole Dugan’ is a nice little sweet Southern name. His later use of the phrase, "Jaime and I’s relationship" was a perfect example of nice little sweet Southern grammar.
At Hidden Tiger, meanwhile, James was checking out Denise’s work ethic. There’s a mutual appreciation society happening there, with James going as far as to say that if she were a couple of years younger and he were a couple of years older, "She’d be in trouble, hee hee!" Never mind the age or the racial differences; with a hair cut like hers I suspect they’re both into women, so their similarities might be the problem.
Actually their biggest problem is that they’re now in different tribes. Some fishermen turned up with a note asking them to circle the names of two Crouching Tiger members to become part of Hidden Dragon. The note was a little bit coy about whether this is a temporary mutual kidnapping, a permanent swap or some kind of substitute merge. Either way, Courtney immediately sussed that Crouching Tiger would receive exactly the same note and pick James and Aaron, whereas PG got all excited that they were about to get an extra two members without realised they would also lose two. Courtney was spot on, but the Crouching Sheep believed PG and so the second note telling Sherea and Frosti to pack their bags came as a massive shock.
While both tribes received a basket of fruit and alcohol to smooth the introductions, one pair of nomads clearly got the better end of the deal. My pick for scene of the week came when James asked Crouching Tiger, "Who is the brain of the group?" (and please note his use of the singular form of both verb and noun). There was silence for a bit, and then Jaime said in her nice little sweet Southern voice, "We kind of all are." James didn’t look convinced. Aaron just sat there and looked blond, bless him.
Frosti and Sherea had it much better at Hidden Dragon. Jean-Robert seemed to find either his work ethic or his survival instinct in the bottom of the fruit basket. The next morning he was up starting a fire, boiling water and cooking rice while the others took the opportunity to comment sarcastically on this sudden burst of hitherto unknown energy. Jean-Robert is supposed to be a professional poker player, but he looked like he’d been dealt a pair of twos when he asked Denise to set the fish traps with him and she replied "Yes, Tribe Leader". He claimed not to be the tribe leader, looking very nervous about how this was playing out in front of the new kids, so Denise simply asked why he was throwing around orders if he’s not a leader, and then explained the power of asking nicely. I’m starting to see what James likes about her.
The Survivor’s suitcases must have also been at the bottom of the fruit baskets because they all inexplicably turned up to the immunity challenge wearing proper swimwear (Denise’s perhaps being the ugliest in Survivor History). Two people had to alternate to dive under the water, release puzzle pieces (oddly enough by pulling out sticks, not untying knots), and return to the mat for three others to solve th puzzle. PG and Jaime had decided to throw the next two immuity challenges so that they could vote out Aaron and James and the numbers from the original tribes would be five-five going into the merge. Like most things PG says, there were huge gaps of logic in that sentence, the biggest being her assumption that the tribes would even merge, let alone at the point where there are ten people left.
Erik and Aaron had Crouching Tiger in the lead coming back to shore with the 12 Chinese zodiac puzzle pieces. PG and Jaime were so obviously trying to lose that Jeff noticed it, even if James didn’t because he was so obviously trying to win. When Jaime confessed to her Erik that they’d thrown the challenge he was really hurt, and decided that perhaps there’s some trust issues with his nice little sweet Southern belle. Unfortunately his only chance for survival now is to stick with the brilliant, failure-proof plan that PG and Jaime have conjured up and forced upon him.
At Tribal Council, Jeff grilled Jaime until she confessed to throwing the challenge, which left poor James in a moral dilemma. On one hand he hates quitters and doesn’t want to be part of a tribe that could willingly lose, but walking away would make him a quitter and he hates quitters so he has to keep living with them. Aaron seemed a bit confused by it all, bless him, until Jeff read out his name a lot and then said "Aaron, the Tribe has spoken."
Next week is the return of one of my all time favourites – the gross food challenge. Having seen what’s under the covers on the trolley our local yum cha usually doesn’t bother bringing to our table, it should be a season highlight.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Survivor China: weeks 3 & 4
The result for this week’s first episode was given away about three minutes in. When Leslie made the bold statement that "At least if we ever have to go to Tribal Council we don’t have to worry about who will go first because it will be Jean-Robert", you just knew that: a) her tribe would lose the Immunity Challenge; and b) she’d be voted off.
Apparently the two things creeping her out most about Jean-Robert are his silk shirt and his lack of underpants, and oddly I think she’s more worried about the shirt. I’m more worried by his complete lack of logic. James caught a small crab, and Courtney – who seems to have lot of culinary sense despite only weighing about 45kg – made the logical suggestion that the best way to give everyone an equal taste would be to make a crab stock and cook rice in it. Jean-Robert and Aaron poo-pooed the idea, said there was no way of making it feed eight people, but each wanted to share it around somehow, but each wanted to eat the whole thing, but didn’t think James should be allowed to eat the whole thing even though he caught it because that wouldn’t be fair. Denise pointed out that as a school lunch lady she knows nothing about food.
It was - somehow - even more annoying watching Crouching Tiger, where PG and Dave nagged each other incessantly while everyone else watched from the relative safety of their low profiles. PG nags Dave for working too hard around camp, using up all of his energy and then flagging in the challenges, but doesn’t do anything to help him. Dave nags PG to leave him alone, but then keeps right on slaving away and giving her ammunition for the next round.
The challenge was another wrestling one designed to shred the few clothes people still have on after last week. Dave decided to just go nude, which was revolting enough for those directly involved but must have been even worse for the editing guys trying to ensure they’ve pixellated everything.
Crouching Tiger’s girls had easy wins over the chicks from Hidden Dragon, but it was the reverse result for the boys’ rounds. The reward of blankets, pillows and a tarpaulin went to the first team to win three rounds, which was Crouching Tiger by virtue of the producers’ decision to start with the women and make sure they got in at least two rounds of girl-on-girl action. Forgive my cynicism, but after 15 series it’s getting a little predictable.
Crouching Tiger’s win gave them the chance to kidnap someone, and they picked Leslie. I suspect that Jaime was instrumental in the choice, knowing that Leslie would be given a clue to the Hidden Immunity Idol’s location, and being quite ready to remind Leslie of the return favour she owes her. Sure enough, Leslie couldn’t have been more obvious about dragging Jaime away from camp to do the handover.
Leslie found lots of people at Crouching Tiger who openly acknowledge their Christianity, and in their company she was quite happy to declare "My faith is everything!" But she’s not religious. She’s an utter hypocrite, but she’s not religious. Maybe now that she's been voted off and has her suitcase and Bible back she can re-read Matthew 26:69-75.
The immunity challenge was a classic example of cut ropes, collect puzzle pieces and solve puzzle. Courtney was still trying to cut through the first of seven pieces of bamboo each covering a rope by the time Crouching Tiger starting solving the puzzle. Luckily James – who is a dead ringer for the huge black dude in The Green Mile, and seems just as nice – was able to cut through both bamboo and rope in single machete strokes to help his team catch up. They didn’t win, but at least with Dave and Sherea struggling to solve the puzzle for the other side they were still in it with a chance for a while.
The most disturbing thing about the challenge was an utterly jarring decision to slo-mo freeze frame each scene where a person had to do a single horizontal machete cut through the final rope suspending the actual puzzle pieces. This is supposed to be reality TV, not a kung fu movie. The first time I thought maybe our TV was on the fritz, but no. Guys, please stick to the documentary style.
Leslie, who keeps her own religious views to herself because her tribe mates are really cynical, was quite happy to betray the devoted Christians in the other camp when she got home. The word "Judas" comes to mind. She’s so stupid that she bragged about how many friends she’d made over there, which put everyone on notice that she’d be a swing vote come the merge, and sure enough she got voted out at Tribal Council that night. I thought Jeff was pretty clear that the Tribe had spoken, but Leslie just thinks that God was ready for her to go home.
The night’s second episode started with footage of two pandas doing archetypically ‘cute’ panda things. The producers would like us to believe that this occurred somewhere near the tree mail box, but having seen the distance between where Survivor Vanuatu was filmed and the volcano they appeared to be camping on the slopes of (in reality a forty minute flight and two hour drive away) I was sceptical. Sure enough, Survivor is being filmed in north eastern China and pandas are native to the south west. *Sigh*
The tree mail summons to Tribal Council and the promise of food turned out to be misleading and deceptive conduct on a grand scale. It was just a challenge set in the courtyard of the Tribal Council pagoda, with the only food link evident on the night being the huge chopsticks they had to use to move flaming balls around and set off fireworks. Hidden Dragon won a tight competition, and were rewarded with a visit the next day from a family of fishermen. Since their fishing techniques involved equipment neither tribe possess – like trained retriever cormorants with string tied around their necks to stop them from swallowing the fish they catch – it was more a case of giving a man a fish and letting him eat for a day than teaching the man to fish so he can sit in a boat all day and drink beer.
They were also rewarded with the ‘pleasure’ of Dave’s as their kidnap victim company for a few days. At one point he approached James at speed with open arms and had to be warned "Oh man, I told you about the hugging." I’d love to have seen what went before for that to be a sufficient reminder of personal space boundaries.
Todd, knowing full well that Dave had an immunity idol clue that he had to give to someone, wasted no time in befriending Dave while at the same time acknowledging him to be a total nutcase. The third clue was somehow even more cryptic than the first two, but Todd now has more clues than anyone else in the game and seems savvy enough to put his advantage to good use.
The immunity challenge involved dressing up in traditional Chinese armour (the 12th century type, not the heavily-subsidised-by-Russia type) and throwing rocks at the other tribe’s collection of vases (the Reject Shop type, not the priceless-Ming-Dynasty type). The armour weighed more than Courtney, but Hidden Dragon still managed to win.
Back at camp, the prospect of Tribal Council brought out the worst in Dave. Frosti, the youngest player in Survivor History, showed remarkable tact in gently explaining to Dave that to be an effective leader you have to be able to work with everyone you’re leading. The key words there are "work with", not "work for and moan at".
Dave could sense that everyone had enjoyed - and coped quite well during - the time without him, and picked up that nobody was making eye contact. In fact the talk was around whether they were better off with Dave doing all the work around camp but failing in challenges and sending everyone crazy, or Sherea who does great in the challenges but no work at camp. In the end, a new sense of self sufficiency and peace won out, with Dave going home in a unanimous vote. At least he had the sense to blame his tribe mates for not seeing his alleged inner value, instead of thinking God wanted him out of there.
Apparently the two things creeping her out most about Jean-Robert are his silk shirt and his lack of underpants, and oddly I think she’s more worried about the shirt. I’m more worried by his complete lack of logic. James caught a small crab, and Courtney – who seems to have lot of culinary sense despite only weighing about 45kg – made the logical suggestion that the best way to give everyone an equal taste would be to make a crab stock and cook rice in it. Jean-Robert and Aaron poo-pooed the idea, said there was no way of making it feed eight people, but each wanted to share it around somehow, but each wanted to eat the whole thing, but didn’t think James should be allowed to eat the whole thing even though he caught it because that wouldn’t be fair. Denise pointed out that as a school lunch lady she knows nothing about food.
It was - somehow - even more annoying watching Crouching Tiger, where PG and Dave nagged each other incessantly while everyone else watched from the relative safety of their low profiles. PG nags Dave for working too hard around camp, using up all of his energy and then flagging in the challenges, but doesn’t do anything to help him. Dave nags PG to leave him alone, but then keeps right on slaving away and giving her ammunition for the next round.
The challenge was another wrestling one designed to shred the few clothes people still have on after last week. Dave decided to just go nude, which was revolting enough for those directly involved but must have been even worse for the editing guys trying to ensure they’ve pixellated everything.
Crouching Tiger’s girls had easy wins over the chicks from Hidden Dragon, but it was the reverse result for the boys’ rounds. The reward of blankets, pillows and a tarpaulin went to the first team to win three rounds, which was Crouching Tiger by virtue of the producers’ decision to start with the women and make sure they got in at least two rounds of girl-on-girl action. Forgive my cynicism, but after 15 series it’s getting a little predictable.
Crouching Tiger’s win gave them the chance to kidnap someone, and they picked Leslie. I suspect that Jaime was instrumental in the choice, knowing that Leslie would be given a clue to the Hidden Immunity Idol’s location, and being quite ready to remind Leslie of the return favour she owes her. Sure enough, Leslie couldn’t have been more obvious about dragging Jaime away from camp to do the handover.
Leslie found lots of people at Crouching Tiger who openly acknowledge their Christianity, and in their company she was quite happy to declare "My faith is everything!" But she’s not religious. She’s an utter hypocrite, but she’s not religious. Maybe now that she's been voted off and has her suitcase and Bible back she can re-read Matthew 26:69-75.
The immunity challenge was a classic example of cut ropes, collect puzzle pieces and solve puzzle. Courtney was still trying to cut through the first of seven pieces of bamboo each covering a rope by the time Crouching Tiger starting solving the puzzle. Luckily James – who is a dead ringer for the huge black dude in The Green Mile, and seems just as nice – was able to cut through both bamboo and rope in single machete strokes to help his team catch up. They didn’t win, but at least with Dave and Sherea struggling to solve the puzzle for the other side they were still in it with a chance for a while.
The most disturbing thing about the challenge was an utterly jarring decision to slo-mo freeze frame each scene where a person had to do a single horizontal machete cut through the final rope suspending the actual puzzle pieces. This is supposed to be reality TV, not a kung fu movie. The first time I thought maybe our TV was on the fritz, but no. Guys, please stick to the documentary style.
Leslie, who keeps her own religious views to herself because her tribe mates are really cynical, was quite happy to betray the devoted Christians in the other camp when she got home. The word "Judas" comes to mind. She’s so stupid that she bragged about how many friends she’d made over there, which put everyone on notice that she’d be a swing vote come the merge, and sure enough she got voted out at Tribal Council that night. I thought Jeff was pretty clear that the Tribe had spoken, but Leslie just thinks that God was ready for her to go home.
The night’s second episode started with footage of two pandas doing archetypically ‘cute’ panda things. The producers would like us to believe that this occurred somewhere near the tree mail box, but having seen the distance between where Survivor Vanuatu was filmed and the volcano they appeared to be camping on the slopes of (in reality a forty minute flight and two hour drive away) I was sceptical. Sure enough, Survivor is being filmed in north eastern China and pandas are native to the south west. *Sigh*
The tree mail summons to Tribal Council and the promise of food turned out to be misleading and deceptive conduct on a grand scale. It was just a challenge set in the courtyard of the Tribal Council pagoda, with the only food link evident on the night being the huge chopsticks they had to use to move flaming balls around and set off fireworks. Hidden Dragon won a tight competition, and were rewarded with a visit the next day from a family of fishermen. Since their fishing techniques involved equipment neither tribe possess – like trained retriever cormorants with string tied around their necks to stop them from swallowing the fish they catch – it was more a case of giving a man a fish and letting him eat for a day than teaching the man to fish so he can sit in a boat all day and drink beer.
They were also rewarded with the ‘pleasure’ of Dave’s as their kidnap victim company for a few days. At one point he approached James at speed with open arms and had to be warned "Oh man, I told you about the hugging." I’d love to have seen what went before for that to be a sufficient reminder of personal space boundaries.
Todd, knowing full well that Dave had an immunity idol clue that he had to give to someone, wasted no time in befriending Dave while at the same time acknowledging him to be a total nutcase. The third clue was somehow even more cryptic than the first two, but Todd now has more clues than anyone else in the game and seems savvy enough to put his advantage to good use.
The immunity challenge involved dressing up in traditional Chinese armour (the 12th century type, not the heavily-subsidised-by-Russia type) and throwing rocks at the other tribe’s collection of vases (the Reject Shop type, not the priceless-Ming-Dynasty type). The armour weighed more than Courtney, but Hidden Dragon still managed to win.
Back at camp, the prospect of Tribal Council brought out the worst in Dave. Frosti, the youngest player in Survivor History, showed remarkable tact in gently explaining to Dave that to be an effective leader you have to be able to work with everyone you’re leading. The key words there are "work with", not "work for and moan at".
Dave could sense that everyone had enjoyed - and coped quite well during - the time without him, and picked up that nobody was making eye contact. In fact the talk was around whether they were better off with Dave doing all the work around camp but failing in challenges and sending everyone crazy, or Sherea who does great in the challenges but no work at camp. In the end, a new sense of self sufficiency and peace won out, with Dave going home in a unanimous vote. At least he had the sense to blame his tribe mates for not seeing his alleged inner value, instead of thinking God wanted him out of there.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Survivor China: weeks 1 & 2
Ah yes, it’s back. The theme music; the logo; Jeff’s hat: it’s all back. And not just one episode but the two (and two more next week). I suppose like most addictions, at some point you need to up the dose to achieve the same effect.
Some things are the same as previous seasons, namely the traditional first-night lightening storm and torrential downpour before either tribe had built an effective shelter. Do they wait for a 'favourable' weather forecast before kicking off production every year, or does Mark Burnett have a line into the gods of multiple religions?
Everyone was put on notice that Buddhism - or ‘Boo-dism’ as Jeff pronounces it - will feature prominently as a theme. Leslie, a Christian radio talk-show host, claims not to be religious but refused to participate in the traditional welcome ceremony inside a 400 year old temple because "I have a relationship with Jesus Christ and the only person I’m going to put my face on the floor for is Him." But she’s not religious. Later on she also got jittery about not having had a chance to read her Bible for a few days. But she’s not religious. I mean, if she were religious she’d know enough of the Bible not to need it for constant reference, right?
The two tribes are named Zhan Hu (Fighting Tiger) and Fei Long (Flying Dragon). Sorry, but it’s Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon for me. Seriously, did they expect us not to notice the blatant plagiarism?
The welcome ceremony was one Buddhist element; another was being forced to leave behind all their worldly possessions, namely their suitcases. For the blokes, having to play the game in the clothes they are wearing is no big deal. For the girls though, including Sherea (who was wearing high heels) and Jaime (who announced that she was not wearing a bra), it's a far more confronting prospect. Actually Jean-Robert wasn’t wearing a belt with his jeans, with some nice bum-crack work leading to the earliest use of pixellation in Survivor History.
Other key milestones included:
The tree mail receptacle this year is a garden storage box guarded by a terracotta warrior, which the producers quite possibly picked up at Bunnings Highpoint because I swear I’ve seen the exact same things there. But it’s nothing compared to this season's Tribal Council chambers: a three-storey pagoda, built entirely out of marine grade plywood. If they’re planning to ever do Survivor Egypt they’d better get started on the Tribal Council set right now, because those full-size pyramids take generations to build.
Crouching Tiger lost the immunity challenge, which was a Moomba-style race to take a Chinese Dragon through a maze, and were first to paddle off to Tribal Council. Anyone who’s watched Survivor knows Jeff’s little speech about fire representing life, but I doubt some of these people had even heard of Survivor before being cast. I mean, Dave sat there in Tribal proclaiming himself tribe leader. I guess there was nothing about not volunteering to be a leader in the copy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War (which each tribe was given at the start), but anyone who has ever watched this show knows it’s a really bad idea in the Survivor context.
Dave, however, survived because Chicken had been so obstinate, Peih-Gee had been really bossy and Ashley (a female wrestling star of the W. W. Divas, who doesn’t want to disappoint her fans) got too sick to help around camp. All classic first-timer mistakes that earned them each votes, and which in Chicken's case proved fatal.
In the second episode we got the most pixellated challenge in Survivor history. In teams of three-on-three, each tribe had to try and roll an enormous ball across the other team’s goal line at the end of a mud pit. Needless to say there was much use of clothing to try and get a hand-hold on opponents, and many hours of work in the editing suite to keep it nice for the 7.30pm time slot.
Hidden Dragon won again, getting not only fishing gear but the right to kidnap one member of the losing tribe until the Immunity Challenge. Jaime, who they picked, was given a note that she was told to open in private. When she did she found it contained a sealed clue to the location of the Individual Immunity Idol, which she had to pass – unopened- to a member of her host tribe.
I’ve got Jaime in our office sweep, so I was very pleased to see her give it to the person she perceived as the ‘weakest’ (which is subtle for the stupidest). She handed it to Leslie, the not-religious person who promptly credited The Lord with giving her the clue. Leslie is so stupid she couldn’t understand the clue by herself and asked Todd (the gay Mormon flight attendant, who bears a fabulously ironic resemblance to a young Donny Osmond) to help. Todd is one of the savviest players out there this season, so naturally he was delighted with this turn of events. Leslie thinks she’s earned his trust; he’s now trying to get her voted out next so that he’s the only one left who knows the clue.
The tree mail ‘poem’ writers have turned to Sun Tzu for help structuring the clues: this week’s read "What is thought to be hidden may sometimes be seen. Though their eyes are not, yours must be keen." I suppose we at home had the benefit of none-too-subtle camera work to learn that this season’s idol is a disk adorning the archway into each campsite. In a beautiful piece of cinematography, it was visible between them in the background as Leslie told Todd the clue. Very nice.
This week’s Immunity Challenge involved using a battering ram to break through some screens (like those that discreetly hide the toilets at our local Chinese restaurant), solving a puzzle, and then using the battering ram to hit a gong. Hidden Dragon won their third challenge in a row, with James in the lead not so much striking the gong as running straight through it and a long way into the jungle on the other side.
Former model Dave’s few days as Leader of Crouching Tiger were noteworthy for his bossiness and refusal to change plans. It meant they spent a whole day building a fireplace and had no time left to cook any rice for their first food in four days. Any wonder they keep losing challenges.
Ashley spent most of her time squabbling with him and trying to look tough and up for a fight. Well, she is a pro-wrestler after all, has two scary lip piercings and the black bandanna she was using as a bra did have skulls printed on it. The one part of the costume that let her down was the very frilly red knickers, cut high enough at the back to require extensive pixellation. The pettiness of the arguments, and Dave's ability to keep his mouth shut, was enough to get her voted off in a unanimous result. She spent her final few minutes on camera paying out at Dave instead of more constructively thanking her fans. Judging by some of the stuff she said, her fans love her more for her fake breasts than her philosophical musings.
Some things are the same as previous seasons, namely the traditional first-night lightening storm and torrential downpour before either tribe had built an effective shelter. Do they wait for a 'favourable' weather forecast before kicking off production every year, or does Mark Burnett have a line into the gods of multiple religions?
Everyone was put on notice that Buddhism - or ‘Boo-dism’ as Jeff pronounces it - will feature prominently as a theme. Leslie, a Christian radio talk-show host, claims not to be religious but refused to participate in the traditional welcome ceremony inside a 400 year old temple because "I have a relationship with Jesus Christ and the only person I’m going to put my face on the floor for is Him." But she’s not religious. Later on she also got jittery about not having had a chance to read her Bible for a few days. But she’s not religious. I mean, if she were religious she’d know enough of the Bible not to need it for constant reference, right?
The two tribes are named Zhan Hu (Fighting Tiger) and Fei Long (Flying Dragon). Sorry, but it’s Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon for me. Seriously, did they expect us not to notice the blatant plagiarism?
The welcome ceremony was one Buddhist element; another was being forced to leave behind all their worldly possessions, namely their suitcases. For the blokes, having to play the game in the clothes they are wearing is no big deal. For the girls though, including Sherea (who was wearing high heels) and Jaime (who announced that she was not wearing a bra), it's a far more confronting prospect. Actually Jean-Robert wasn’t wearing a belt with his jeans, with some nice bum-crack work leading to the earliest use of pixellation in Survivor History.
Other key milestones included:
- Denise the lunch lady proudly sporting the worst fem-mullet in Survivor History;
- Chicken, the chicken farmer from Virginia, drawling in the deepest Southern accent in Survivor History;
- several competitors on both tribes (including the afore-mentioned Jean-Robert) giving this series the largest average bra cup size in Survivor History; and
- Courtney proving that girls named Courtney are, like, the ones, like, mostly likely to, like, use the word ‘like’ out of context, like, totally all the time and it’s, like, really annoying;
The tree mail receptacle this year is a garden storage box guarded by a terracotta warrior, which the producers quite possibly picked up at Bunnings Highpoint because I swear I’ve seen the exact same things there. But it’s nothing compared to this season's Tribal Council chambers: a three-storey pagoda, built entirely out of marine grade plywood. If they’re planning to ever do Survivor Egypt they’d better get started on the Tribal Council set right now, because those full-size pyramids take generations to build.
Crouching Tiger lost the immunity challenge, which was a Moomba-style race to take a Chinese Dragon through a maze, and were first to paddle off to Tribal Council. Anyone who’s watched Survivor knows Jeff’s little speech about fire representing life, but I doubt some of these people had even heard of Survivor before being cast. I mean, Dave sat there in Tribal proclaiming himself tribe leader. I guess there was nothing about not volunteering to be a leader in the copy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War (which each tribe was given at the start), but anyone who has ever watched this show knows it’s a really bad idea in the Survivor context.
Dave, however, survived because Chicken had been so obstinate, Peih-Gee had been really bossy and Ashley (a female wrestling star of the W. W. Divas, who doesn’t want to disappoint her fans) got too sick to help around camp. All classic first-timer mistakes that earned them each votes, and which in Chicken's case proved fatal.
In the second episode we got the most pixellated challenge in Survivor history. In teams of three-on-three, each tribe had to try and roll an enormous ball across the other team’s goal line at the end of a mud pit. Needless to say there was much use of clothing to try and get a hand-hold on opponents, and many hours of work in the editing suite to keep it nice for the 7.30pm time slot.
Hidden Dragon won again, getting not only fishing gear but the right to kidnap one member of the losing tribe until the Immunity Challenge. Jaime, who they picked, was given a note that she was told to open in private. When she did she found it contained a sealed clue to the location of the Individual Immunity Idol, which she had to pass – unopened- to a member of her host tribe.
I’ve got Jaime in our office sweep, so I was very pleased to see her give it to the person she perceived as the ‘weakest’ (which is subtle for the stupidest). She handed it to Leslie, the not-religious person who promptly credited The Lord with giving her the clue. Leslie is so stupid she couldn’t understand the clue by herself and asked Todd (the gay Mormon flight attendant, who bears a fabulously ironic resemblance to a young Donny Osmond) to help. Todd is one of the savviest players out there this season, so naturally he was delighted with this turn of events. Leslie thinks she’s earned his trust; he’s now trying to get her voted out next so that he’s the only one left who knows the clue.
The tree mail ‘poem’ writers have turned to Sun Tzu for help structuring the clues: this week’s read "What is thought to be hidden may sometimes be seen. Though their eyes are not, yours must be keen." I suppose we at home had the benefit of none-too-subtle camera work to learn that this season’s idol is a disk adorning the archway into each campsite. In a beautiful piece of cinematography, it was visible between them in the background as Leslie told Todd the clue. Very nice.
This week’s Immunity Challenge involved using a battering ram to break through some screens (like those that discreetly hide the toilets at our local Chinese restaurant), solving a puzzle, and then using the battering ram to hit a gong. Hidden Dragon won their third challenge in a row, with James in the lead not so much striking the gong as running straight through it and a long way into the jungle on the other side.
Former model Dave’s few days as Leader of Crouching Tiger were noteworthy for his bossiness and refusal to change plans. It meant they spent a whole day building a fireplace and had no time left to cook any rice for their first food in four days. Any wonder they keep losing challenges.
Ashley spent most of her time squabbling with him and trying to look tough and up for a fight. Well, she is a pro-wrestler after all, has two scary lip piercings and the black bandanna she was using as a bra did have skulls printed on it. The one part of the costume that let her down was the very frilly red knickers, cut high enough at the back to require extensive pixellation. The pettiness of the arguments, and Dave's ability to keep his mouth shut, was enough to get her voted off in a unanimous result. She spent her final few minutes on camera paying out at Dave instead of more constructively thanking her fans. Judging by some of the stuff she said, her fans love her more for her fake breasts than her philosophical musings.
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