The Queen of Kingsville

New Zealand; Day 14

2010-11-22T20:40:00.001+11:00

Sadly, the final day of our trip and it was a low key one.

We started with a visit out to the Model Boat Dockyard in Onehunga, where Bevan purchased the kit for a scale model of The Endeavour's longboat. Apparently this is a much, much more appropriate entry point to the hobby than the Endeavour itself that I bought for his birthday. He was also able to pick up some rather necessary tools, which I had failed to buy for his birthday.

While Bevan was there, Eleanor and I headed back to a playground we'd spotted, and I got a handy iPhone-based sourced hint from one of the other parents for a yum cha restaurant, Pearl Garden, where we ended up for a fantastic lunch. It overlooked the fish market, and with the humidity that day it both smelled and felt authentically Chinese. Since it was right in the heart of where we'd been shopping the previous day we were able to double back to a couple of stores and pick up a few extra toys to keep Eleanor happy on the plane. And guess who so utterly charmed the toy shop owner that he just gave her a bath toy as an extra freebie?

Our last planned stop before the airport turned out to be very conveniently located right next to it. Butterfly Creek is a butterfly house slash reptile zoo slash petting farm slash playground slash cafe. Eleanor was so enraptured with the trampoline that she ignored her last fluffy opportunity. She got to feed another lamb and take a tractor ride, along with lots of other animals to wave to. Have you ever wondered about the saying "Happy as a pig in mud"?

The butterfly house was huge and well stocked, which is why it's even more inexplicable that a five year old chose to poke the one butterfly sitting on a hibiscus that I was attempting to photograph. Bevan congratulated me on my tactical application of the death stare on a child who I couldn't yell at or throttle because the parents, while clearly negligent in their supervisory obligations, would probably have chosen to look up just at that point. And yes, watch this space in three years from now when somebody else is probably saying the same about Eleanor.

I ignored the spiders, but did admire their display of cockroaches in an absolutely filthy dolls house. Very nice touch. They also had a surprisingly large number of young American Alligators. I'm not sure what they plan on doing with them all once they grow to their full 4.5m adult length, although that's probably quite a few handbags so maybe they've got it figured. They were in glass enclosures about 1m off the ground, with a step up for the littlies. Eleanor obviously didn't realise that the place where she was clambering up for a look lined up perfectly with a baby 'gator looking straight out at us, but she got a huge shock when they came eye-to-eye. Of all the times for me to NOT accidentally hit the movie record button on the camera. D'oh!

Finally it was time to say goodbye to our "big car" as Eleanor has called it. We checked in with plenty of time to kill, but the airport has a nostalgically old-fashioned observation deck where we could all relax for a bit. While there one of the NZ airforce planes was on the tarmac, and another came in to land and taxied around behind it. I suspect my photo therefore depicts the entire New Zealand air force in a single frame, but I'll refrain from posting it in case that's some sort of terrorist act.

Eleanor got to burn off some more steam in the McDonald's playground (found without the help of any of the airport information staff, all of whom gave conflicting advice about the existence of such a facility), before some last minute shopping - including a Lego kiwi t-shirt for Eleanor - and we were on the plane home.

It's been a wonderful trip, and we highly recommend New Zealand as a holiday destination for families. Next time we travel we'll definitely go the self-contained option, as not buying breakfasts or using laundromats saved precious amounts of money and time. I'm sorry that we didn't get to see more of the South Island, but that gives us an excuse to go back.

New Zealand; Day 13

2010-11-19T19:48:00.000+11:00

Another quiet one today, and perhaps one of being in the right place at slightly the wrong time. But hey, with all the luck we've had with timing so far on this trip we're not complaining.

We started by heading out to Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter and Underwater World. It's an aquarium built in the old Auckland sewage works in the mid-eighties. Kelly was NZ's best approximation of Jacques Cousteau, and was one of the first to use acrylic tanks to allow visitors an eye-level, underwater view of the exhibits. Sadly for his family he died only 7 weeks after it opened. A tiny bit sadly for us, one of the best parts was only part open; there's a conveyor belt that takes you on laps of a massive ocean tank, and half of it was closed, but the open half was fantastic.

They've also got little snowmobile tanks that take you for a lap through the penguin enclosure so you can see them up really close. The cabins are fully sealed because the enclosure has sub-zero temperatures. Unfortunately that also sealed in the body odour of the teenager sitting in front of us. The fishy smell of the aquarium when the door finally opened was an unexpected relief.

Anyway, ten baby penguins hatched yesterday, so we got to see some very Happy Feet bundles of fluff up close. It was fantastic, and as the place wasn't that busy we went on the penguin lap a second time (thankfully having a cabin to ourselves).

After a bite to eat in the cafe, the location of which Eleanor remembered with GPS accuracy, we saw some crayfish and an octopus being fed and fought our way out through the ubiquitous gift shop. By this stage Eleanor was announcing that she was tired and wanted to go home to bed, but that all changed when she spotted the playground we stopped at. The shoes I only bought for her a couple of months back are now too small, so she insisted on taking them off, and it was lovely watching her run around in the bindi-free grass and daisies.

After a stop on Auckland's equivalent of Chapel St to pick up new shoes it was home for a nap, and then off to our 6pm dinner reservation in the Orbit revolving restaurant near the top of the Sky Tower. As mentioned yesterday, we wanted to be there for the transition from day to night. Great plan; we just didn't count on the rain coming in and the restaurant being in the middle of the cloud belt. Theoretically diners can see up to 80km, but the best we managed was an occasional glimpse five or six city blocks into the distance. Still, the food was great and Eleanor - who showed absolutely no fear at all of walking on the glass panels in the observation deck floor - loved being up high.

New Zealand; Day 12

2010-11-18T22:35:00.001+11:00

We've been offline for a few days. The Rotorua motel network went down late on our last night there (apparently it doesn't like the sulphur) and of course Hobbit holes don't have wi-fi, but we're back now and sad to be staring down our final few days.

This morning we did a tour of the Waitomo Caves. They've been running tours here non-stop for 110 years, and frankly some of the jokes the tour guide told are probably that old. Being a limestone cave it's full of stalactites and stalagmites, although since there hasn't been much rain lately they were much drier than we expected. One large cavern has amazing acoustics, and has hosted concerts by many famous singers including Dame Tiri Te Kanawa (who the guide claims is a Waitomo native but I can't find anything to back that up. Well, not on Wikipedia anyway.)

It's also where the local Carols by Candlelight are apparently held, although they don't need torches because the caves are full of glowworms. We'd seen a couple on the river banks in Rotorua, but nothing compared to here.

After walking down lots of stairs we climbed into boats, and the guide used overhead cables to slowly pull us through while our eyes adjusted. The boats are necessary because most of the glowworms are in the section directly above the river that flows through the caves as that's where their insect food comes from. It was an amazing experience, and yet again Eleanor took what could have been quite scary completely in her stride.

(That isn't us in the image below, but you can't take photos in there and this at least gives you the general idea. Actually it doesn't at all, because there are no worms on the cave walls and they're not all as bright as that and it's quite obviously been photoshopped, but the boat is a bit like ours at least.)

Next it was only a few hundred metres up the road to a stop I've been looking forward to for weeks; a shed where they do a daily demonstration of shearing enormous Angora rabbits, and sell yarn made of the bunnies' fur. It was quite freaky seeing how much the rack they tie them to for shearing resembled a spit roast, but the rabbit didn't seem to mind at all. They are incredibly soft, and I went slightly nuts in the retail bit.

We stopped at the Big Apple (no, not New York, just a really big apple) for lunch, before starting the 3 hour haul up to Auckland, arriving just in time for peak hour. Once a load of washing was on we headed back out to the Sky Tower to watch the sun set from a long way up. Well, that was the plan. The reality was that every street the GPS told us to turn down either wasn't there or was blocked with road works or police or a crane of some other impediment, and that's not including most of them being one way at the best of times.

The tower entry is in the casino, which apparently includes lots of restaurants. The only one we could actually find was a massively overpriced buffet, which although not the best food we've ever eaten at least meant we didn't have to wait for an a la carte option to be cooked, and Eleanor was starting to get a bit cranky. And after all that it was totally dark by the time we'd finished, so we've decided to have another attempt tomorrow night.

Obviously we did eventually get here, but otherwise our attempt to buy nappies on the way home almost ended in a Gilligan's Island-esque tragedy. The GPS gave us a list of local grocery stores, so we picked a supermarket name we recognised and started following orders. The aforementioned problems struck again, and at one point the GPS sent us on a full lap around Auckland University and looked like it was going to do the same to us again. After a few more very strange detours - and hearing Eleanor pipe up with "bugger" from the back seat, much to our bemusement/horror/relief that it wasn't something worse - we finally spotted the welcoming fluorescent glow of our destination, and thankfully it was still open. To put it in context, a 2.1km trip to the supermarket ended up taking 40 minutes. And we thought navigating around Wellington was bad...

New Zealand; Day 11

2010-11-18T21:20:00.011+11:00

Today was Lord of the Rings Day. We had a quick browse around down town Rotorua before heading off to the Alexander family's farm near MataMata. It was the site chosen by Peter Jackson to build the set for Hobbiton for the movies, and once there you can understand why; it can't be seen from the road, and from the site you can't see power lines, buildings or any other trace of western civilisation.

Our expectation was that all the movie set stuff was removed at the end of filming, and so the tour is simply an expensive way to see some holes dug into the side of hills. However, when we got there we were informed that the site is presently under the control of the movie production company and we had to sign confidentiality waivers. I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to disclose the existence of the waiver itself, but basically if I discuss any of what we saw, or publish any of the photos we were allowed to take for private use only, Peter Jackson will personally set on me not just his lawyers but possibly a few Nazgûl, and frankly I'm not sure which would be scarier. Therefore let me just say that it's public knowledge that pre-production work has commenced on The Hobbit, that we didn't see just holes in the ground like we expected, and OMG OMG OMG OMG did we time our visit right because they're probably not going to be able to run those tours for much longer before they have to stop for a few months.

The farm is still a working sheep property, and so at the end of the tour we got to see a sheep shearing demonstration and to feed two really young lambs, who understand the game by now and came tearing out of their pen towards us all looking for who had the bottles of milk. Everyone else on the tour could see the superb photo opportunity of letting Eleanor do some feeding, but we did share the bottles around, too. She just loved it.

After a second breakfast at the cafe / gift shop it was on the road again. I've been having a recurring dream about the Crowded House lyrics to Mean To Me, particularly the line about how "the sound of Te Awamutu had a truly sacred ring". I put it down to all the exposure to Maori place names, but had no idea of Te Awamutu is a real place or not, and if yes, where. So imagine my delight when we drove through it!

From there it was off to Waitomo and some Hobbit holes that I can show you photos of. Woodlyn Park is a slightly wacky motel with a train carriage, and plane and a boat converted to accommodation. They've also built two Hobbit holes into the side of the hill, and we'd managed to book one of them, which capped off our day perfectly. I'm guessing they're popular, because it looks like a couple more will be built next door to ours. Ooops, am I allowed to say that?

New Zealand; Day 10

2010-11-16T20:36:00.012+11:00

Today was one case of perfect timing after another, and more perfect weather.

We were up early ready for Bevan's 10am helicopter safari to White Island. Getting that far had been something of a saga; weeks ago I booked him for 1.30pm today, but there wasn't enough people for the minimum In fact there wasn't anyone else wanting to do it today, so he was booked for 3pm yesterday. Except then the weather was too windy and misty and it was cancelled and rescheduled for this morning. Except then the weather still wasn't any good, so it was cancelled and rescheduled for 2pm with a 1:45pm pickup, only 15 minutes later than my original plan. I'm so glad everyone - including the weather - agreed to cooperate with my itinerary.

So instead this morning we headed to Te Puia, which is another Maori sacred site, hot springs and geyser. We had enough time to browse through the gift shop before our tour started. Our tour -which covered lots of the Maori history and handcrafts that we didn't learn about last night - reached the geyser just as it started to blow. As we headed back the kiwi house was empty and we were able to go in alone for a better look than we got as part of the tour crowd. We got back to the cafe for lunch just before a few large tour groups. And as we walked past we could see the gift shop was absolutely teeming with people.

Back home for Eleanor's nap and confirmation from Volcanic Air Safaris that the 2pm flight was going ahead, which was a huge relief for everyone. Bevan headed off to the waterfront, Eleanor headed off to bed (and despite insisting she wasn't tired was crashed out cold within 10 minutes) and I headed to the couch for some TV and some more work on my sock knitting.

She woke to a choice between a visit to a lion park or a swim in the motel pool, and she emphatically chose the pool. The end with the steps was just the right depth for Eleanor and in the shade, so we spent almost an hour in there. Going to meet Daddy and see his helicopter land wasn't a strong enough incentive to get out, but the fact that there's a fantastic playground there was, otherwise we'd quite possibly still be in the pool.

Sadly we were about 5 minutes too late to see the helicopter land (OK, so not such perfect timing on that one), but just in time to see Bevan walking up the pier with the happiest, most satisfied look in his face. White Island was the one thing of our entire trip that he really had his heart set on, and I'm so glad it worked out. Apparently they had a smooth flight and plenty of time for a tour of the crater and the sulphur mine abandoned in 1914 when a larger than usual explosion killed all the miners in their sleep. As you can see in the photo, hard hats are compulsory and they even had to don gas masks a few times.

As promised, Eleanor got her time at the playground before we switched babysitting duties and I headed off to the Silver Fern day spa for a Rototua mud pack facial and foot massage, both of which were wonderful (thanks Louise!)

Dinner tonight was a steakhouse that we knew had a kid’s menu. Luckily, since it was Eleanor’s bedtime when we eventually got there, they also had a bucket of markers and some colouring in paper. As you can see, Eleanor has been so inspired by the Maori culture that she self-attempted a face tattoo before we could stop her.

New Zealand; Day 9

2010-11-15T21:04:00.010+11:00

Today was science education day: we learned lots about geology, particularly vulcanology, and Eleanor learned about the geometry of trying to get a picnic table and two chairs into a cubby house.

We started at the Volcanic Activity Centre, which had some really great displays on, well, volcanoes, but also tectonic plates, the various types of volcanic rocks and earthquakes. A lot of it was text-heavy and Daddy-perfect, but the little room that demonstrates what a 6.3 earthquake feels like was Eleanor's favourite thing since the Hagglund/Ninky Nonk back in Christchurch. As soon as she found the 'Start' button we had little chance of getting her out of there.

Next it was a half hour stroll through the fragrant sulphur fumes at Wairakei Thermal Valley, where steam just comes up out of the ground in all sorts of little patches. Forty minutes later we were in Rotorua, where the main down town park is full of fenced off patches and the eggy smell is really strong. Although that might be mostly because our accommodation here, just a standard little motel, has its own geyser and thermal pool. Happily for Eleanor it also has the above mentioned playground, which she had to be dragged out of kicking and screaming.

Our final activity was an evening at the Mitai Maori Village, where we got to see a traditional war canoe paddled up stream, followed by a great demonstration of the haka and dinner cooked in a hangi pit. As part of the same tour we went next door to the Rainbow Springs Kiwi Wildlife Park. By this stage it was 9.30pm and their four little kiwis were out of bed and wandering around their enclosure, where the fence is only knee high. Eleanor, who has a collection of toy kiwis and a new favourite book about a kiwi who is afraid of the dark, was delighted when one ran right past her.

By the time we got home it was late and Eleanor was exhausted, but she's had yet another fantastic day. We all have.

New Zealand; Day 8

2010-11-14T17:41:00.012+11:00

To sum up today, I went fly fishing and caught a 4lb brown trout, and Bevan went bungy jumping. Needless to say we're both now exhausted (although Bevan did get his second wind when he discovered the insinkerator in our hotel room, to the extent of encouraging me not to eat all of my pasta so that he had something to destroy).

My guide for the day, Craig, collected me from our hotel at 8.30am for a helicopter trip up the Mohaka River near Lake Taupo in the middle of the North Island. The chopper was a little white bubble model, just like the one on the cover of ABBA's Arrival album. Well just like, except that ABBA weren't wearing waders and I doubt either Frida or Agnetha needed a step ladder to get into the chopper, or made anywhere near as an undignified, uncontrolled exit at the other end.

After a quick refresher on my fly casting technique we started wading up river. All day we were casting into a head wind, and at times the wind made the river surface rippled and harder to see the fish, so Craig set some very low expectations on our chances of even spotting one let alone catching any.

However, about 10 minutes later I managed to hook a nice big brown trout. Sadly I misheard Craig's instructions as "hold the line" when he actually said "I'll hold the line", so me grabbing the reel just as the fish pulled meant that it skipped free of the net and disappeared down river with the fly. At this point I was happy simply to have a fishing story about "the one that got away". (Actually I was just happy that Craig had waders to fit me, so anything else for the day was a bonus.)

About half an hour later I got another nibble, and this time managed to reel it in. Apparently brown trout are quite lazy and rainbow trout are the ones that put up a fight, but as you can see this one really made me work for the trophy photos. It wasn't until after I'd released him back into the water that the adrenalin hit and I could really enjoy the moment. Craig's net has built-in scales, which is how I can accurately say it weighed 4 pounds.

For the rest of the day the wind was right up, and while we saw plenty of fish we didn't even get a nibble. Then it was a high-speed hike cross-country back to the chopper meeting point, another terribly undignified moment fighting the waders and my stumpy little legs to get up into cabin, and a bumpy ride home.

Meanwhile, Bevan and Eleanor had discovered a ride-on train near yesterday's playground, and visited the Craters of Moon which is one of the local thermal mud pools. Eleanor, observant as ever, saw all the mud and announced sadly that she'd left her gumboots at home.

By the time we got back to Taupo and I thanked Craig for one of the best days of my life, it was time for Bevan's bungy jump. Back when we first decided to visit NZ he announced that he wanted to see if he could actually throw himself off the ledge, especially without the sort of peer pressure that had pushed him to do abseiling and other action sports as part of group activities in the past. While the jump in Taupo isn't as high as Queenstown it is the world's highest water-touch bungy. Eleanor and I watched from the vantage point as he stood there for what seemed like ages - and he later confessed that he really did come close to backing away - before he lifted his hands above his head and went over. I was so very, very proud of him, and I suspect he's a bit proud of himself too.

New Zealand; Day 7

2010-11-13T19:54:00.015+11:00

One week down, one to go. It's hard to believe we're half way through already, but if the weather keeps up like this we'll be very lucky and very grateful.

No Night Garden on Saturdays, but we still weren't checked out and off on our walk until 10am. At 10.05am Eleanor declared that there was a big poo in her nappy, which was correct, so she had to suffer the indignity of a nappy change in the middle of the park.

Spent a lovely relaxing morning just wandering around Napier and admiring the architecture and retail therapy in almost equal proportions. We ended up down at the seaside, which as you can see wasn't quite what we're used to at home. "All Black" is both the name for a member of NZ's national rugby team and an entirely apt description of the beach. In this photo you can see Eleanor and Daddy making a pebble castle.

Next we went to see Train World, which is a very large upstairs room completely taken up with a number of model train sets, one of which was lovingly constructed in a middle-aged man's bedroom at his mum's place and donated when he suddenly "passed on". More cheerily there was a little ride-on train for the kids, which Eleanor went on twice.

Lunch was sushi and another nappy change back in the same park, before an eventful drive to Taupo that Eleanor slept through. At about the half way mark Bevan commented, "We probably should have filled up with petrol before we left." With 36km still to go the low fuel warning light came on, and it was a nervous wait to see whether the rest of the trip would be as hilly - and fuel chewing - as the first part had been.

Our accommodation here is another Quest apartment, again with a washing machine that's running as I type this. For the next two nights we have two bedrooms upstairs (ours with a view of the lake peeping between two other motels), meaning Bevan and I could actually watch some TV tonight; everywhere else Eleanor's bed has been either a sofa bed or wheel-away right in front of the telly.

We had about a 20 minute walk into town for dinner at an Italian restaurant where the chef can't tell the difference between rigatoni and macaroni, which wouldn't matter except that Eleanor would have eaten mac and cheese with a fork or spoon but decided that fingers were better for a larger pasta. Thank goodness for baby wipes!

We finished up the night with a visit to yet another fantastic kids' playground (in the shadow of a big trout to add to our visit to the big salmon) and promises from Daddy to take Eleanor back there while Mummy is off on her guided heli fly fishing expedition tomorrow. I'm really, really excited about it.

New Zealand; Day 6

2010-11-12T19:18:00.008+11:00

Today was our biggest single day of driving for the trip, all the way from Wellington to Napier. But, of course, it didn't start until after Night Garden was finished at 9.30am.

We started with a pilgrimage to Weta Cave, which is the museum/gift shop of Peter Jackson's Weta studios. Lots of LOTR memorabilia along with King Kong and other films they have worked on. Bevan bought lots of books, while Eleanor dressed up in the little kids play area. By the time we left she had it pretty much sorted out into Night Garden merchandise in the tub, books in one corner and puzzles in another. Throughout the suburb of Miramar are buildings that are obviously part of the empire, and it's all just starting to ramp back up again for pre-production on The Hobbit.

From there it was a slight downtown detour to see the Beehive and the Houses of Parliament on our way to Upper Hutt and a fantastic kids playground in some gardens that were included in Bevan's LOTR tour yesterday because part of Rivendell was filmed there. As he commented, life has changed when keeping an eye out for good playgrounds is an essential part of the day. Eleanor, as usual, had a great time and especially loved the ride-on bee. It's great watching how much more adventurous she gets every day.

We spent the rest of the afternoon on the road, with about a 45 minute stop in Woodville for afternoon tea at Yummy Mummy Cheesecakes and yet another playground. Fortunately Eleanor fell asleep after that for the last two hours up to the beautiful town Napier, which is the Art Deco capital of NZ. It was pretty much flattened by an earthquake in 1931 and completely rebuilt in that style. We're staying at serviced apartments that are very modern inside but behind the original art deco facade.

Tonight's dinner was Turkish: nowhere near as good as Sydney Rd, but very filling. Ordering was a challenge. I wanted a mixed grill, a mixed iskander and a mixed meze platter. You try saying "mixed grill" with an Australian accent and making yourself understood in NZ. I tried saying "muxed grull" and even "mexed grell", before giving up and just pointing to what we wanted on the register.

Finally it was bath night for Eleanor, who only agreed to let Daddy wash her hair if she could then wash his. This set a precedent where Mummy could only brush and dry Eleanor's hair if she could brush and dry Daddy's.

New Zealand; Day 5

2010-11-11T19:47:00.015+11:00

Today we followed a much gentler pace, starting with a bit of a sleep in and a leisurely breakfast. Oh, and the first of four loads of washing that I managed to get done in the combined washer/dryer. At least now we have some clean clothes for the next few days.

We wandered through the streets and squares of Wellington down to the waterfront and the incredible Te Papa museum. There were heaps of activities for kids all the way through. The first was an enormous granite orb floating on a layer of running water, which was so perfectly balanced you could spin it any any direction. I'm not sure if Bevan or Eleanor enjoyed that more.

Inside were fantastic displays of New Zealand's birds, animals, marine life (including a giant squid in formaldehyde and video footage of it being caught), rocks and social life. One of the kids' areas had lots of small things in resin for them to touch and play with, such as a drawer containing the life cycle of the Very Hungry Caterpillar from a tiny egg on a leaf right through to cocoon and butterfly. There was even a life size model of a blue whale's heart with a note encouraging kids to climb through the chambers. As you can see, Eleanor was happy to oblige.

There was also a large display on the changes between when the first humans landed about 800 years ago and today, both for those species that the Maori hunted to extinction before white settlement, and the species that have subsequently been endangered by the introduction of flora and fauna to make the place more English and the extensive land clearing for the timber and to create grazing land. There was one entire room showing what it would have been like before humans, with lots of the large flightless birds that were first to be hunted out. Eleanor really doesn't like birds and seems to be especially wary of pigeons and peacocks, and she'd been remarkably brave in front of a cabinet that had stuffed examples of both. However, the "this is how it used to be" room with recreated Moa and other really large flightless birds was just too much for her.

Equally educational, and more to Eleanor's liking, was the menu board in the cafe confirming that there's no such thing as a babycino in NZ, but one can order a "fluffy". That rather explains the funny looks I've been getting all week.

After Te Papa it was back to our hotel for Eleanor and Mummy to have a nap while Daddy went on his half day Lord of the Rings filming locations tour. He hasn't admitted whether or not he chose to wear the elf ears that are apparently available on the minibus for the more hard core fans, and it sounds like he had to bite his tongue during various comments about the books/films that didn't agree with his interpretations. He now has a better appreciation of how much CGI was involved and how much the government indulged every one of Peter Jackson's wishes. Need to dig up a national park? Sure. Just put the native plants in storage and plant them back in when you're finished. You want the army to build a road to give you access for eight days filming? Not a problem, Bro! Do you want a strictly-enforced no-fly zone with that? You're employing 25,000 people; do whatever you want. Apparently for one scene they cut down a pine tree, moved it to a new location, stripped it of its own leaves and then stapled on 250,000 new ones at a cost of $35,000 to help create the right look for just a few moments of film.

Honestly, I did spend less than $35,000 at the yarn shop Eleanor and I hunted out while Bevan was unable to stop me. They had a fantastic range of possum/merino blend yarns, which is a NZ specialty. Australian possums are an introduced species in plague proportions, and for the last ten years they've been part of a combination culling / recycling program. Possum fur is hollow, which makes it incredibly warm and it's very soft. It's also fairly labour-intensive to produce, and therefore not cheap. I'm trying to pretend that buying lots of the yarn is my contribution to the environment, and somehow offsets the carbon emitted flying us over here and back.

We had dinner tonight at a Korean BBQ restaurant. The place had a BBQ set into the middle of each table, and the smell coming from the other diners cooking their own dinner was incredible. Given Eleanor's seemingly unlimited arm length lately we forwent the pleasure and stuck with pre-cooked dishes from the menu. And yes, that is our two year old eating with chopsticks and making less mess of it than we generally do.

New Zealand; Day 4

2010-11-10T20:20:00.004+11:00

Up at 5am for the free local 6am shuttle to catch the 7am train. Ugghhh! However, the effort was totally worth it.

The Tranz Coastal train runs from Christchurch to Picton, up the east coast and along the north. Our ticket included the Interisland ferry to Wellington, which made the day incredibly picturesque and relaxing. We saw lots of cows and sheep, areas just north of Christchurch where the ground had cracked open during the earthquake, seals asleep on rocks in the water, vineyards, a salt processing facility, snow-capped mountains and a border collie chasing the train like his life depended on it.

Our seats were in the middle carriage, and we had four seats with a table in the middle all to ourselves. There was also an open-to-the-air viewing carriage near the front, which Eleanor loved. Despite the early start it's a trip well worth taking, and we commented several times how much easier and more relaxing it was than trying to drive.

The ferry was probably just as scenic, but Eleanor found the family area full of toys, TVs and other distractions and couldn't be budged. It was right in the middle of the boat, so while we could sort of see out the windows it wasn't that much of a view. Having got to bed late and up so early she was showing definite signs of a meltdown. A deck of playing cards bought us some peace for a little while.

Fortunately I found the nursery area, which was some of the original cabins converted to include a cot and two tub chairs. We put her in the cot and she cried and cried that she didn't want a nap, but by the end of the story her eyes were closing and she was struggling to remain sitting upright. After toppling over a few times and righting herself again Bevan made her lay down, and it only took 90 seconds of half-hearted sooking before she was out cold. Half her luck; I really wanted a nap, too.

Our car for the North Island is, once again, a Subaru Outback. However the Ferry Terminal car hire where we picked it up from didn't have any GPS units and the car didn't have a street directory, so we were on our own in down-town, peak-hour Wellington with only basic tourist promotional maps and waaaaay too many one way streets. It didn't help that most of them are only one way for part of their length, and that the two maps we had showed the arrows going in different directions on a key thoroughfare.

Fortunately we found our hotel, which is right next to a decent Chinese restaurant so we didn't have to think too hard about what to get for dinner. Frankly we were all just too tired to think too hard. Once Eleanor was in bed I headed out to the airport to pick up the GPS they'd put aside for us at the Europecar desk out there. And on the way back it was a quick stop at a supermarket to pick up some laundry detergent, ready to give our apartment's washing machine a thorough work out tomorrow.

New Zealand; Day 3

2010-11-09T18:31:00.019+11:00

Yet another great day in gorgeous, sunny Christchurch, or CH.CH. as the locals refer to it. They have such difficulty with vowels here that I really don't blame them.

Up earlier than expected at 6:50am when the fire alarm went off for a second time (turns out it was another room burning toast, again!) but it gave Eleanor the chance to have a bath and wash two days worth of chuppa chups out of her hair and watch Night Garden before we headed off to the International Antarctic Centre.

We were in time for the penguin feeding before taking a ride on the Ninky Nonk. Well it's really called a Hagglund, and there's warnings everywhere that it's not suitable for people with heart conditions, bad backs, broken bones or pregnancy. Basically it's a cross between a car/caravan, a snow mobile and a tank with windows. They take you for a drive on an obstacle course to show what it's capable of, which is rather a lot of very steep hills at high speed with no suspension. Eleanor was borderline old enough for it, but the driver assured us that if she freaked out he'd stop so we could walk back. No need! We convinced her that it would be just like the Ninky Nonk on Night Garden, and it was and she loved it.

We also did the six minute storm room, where you rug up in coats and experience -18 degrees plus windchill. Eleanor lasted pretty much to the end of that in reasonable humour, before finding a room full of stuffed toy penguins and a babychino in the cafe, both of which were more her thing.

While Eleanor had her afternoon nap, I read our car rental contract from cover to cover and put in a call to a windscreen repair service for an estimate. It paid off, because eventually the hire company just took my word for it on the repair costs and abandoned their original idea of wanting to get a quote and then stuff around with how to settle the bill in the tiny window between right then and their closing time of 5.30 - during which I'd be out of contact anyway - with the added complication of us leaving on the 7am train tomorrow before they reopen.

In the end the bill was only NZ$134 and everyone was happy, except the manager who managed to get a splinter of the broken glass in his finger when he rubbed the damaged spot. During the slight negotiations on how best to resolve the insurance claim situation he commented that the repair cost would depend on how much glass was still there, and he shut up when I pointed at his finger and noted that it's a bit less now...

We spent the last part of the afternoon on various Edwardian forms of transport. There's a city circle tram using antique rolling stock, and our driver looked so much like Eleanor's grandfather that she promptly informed him, "Bo, I've got a poo!" She was right with only one part of that statement.

We also went punting on the Avon river in gorgeous style. Our punter was named Godot and he was great. He stopped so we could watch two little ducklings that were diving under the water and popping back up again right near us, which delighted Eleanor almost as much as trailing her hands in the water over the side and catching floating leaves.

Dinner was some of the best Mexican we've ever had, at The Flying Burrito Brothers. I had a half litre apple and mango margarita, which counts as my two serves of fruit for the day. Eleanor ate her own body weight in corn chips and cheese, plus half my churros for dessert. As tired as she definitely was by the time we put her to bed, Daddy still fell asleep first.

New Zealand; Day 2

2010-11-08T21:04:00.010+11:00

Today we put some more miles on the hire car and, unfortunately, a stone chip in the windscreen. Need to check the paperwork to see if that's going to incur an excess (probably yes, but our travel insurance should cover most of that. Yay for travel insurance!)

The day started with Eleanor waking up at about 9.20am and resuming the previous evening's persistent requests to watch In The Night Garden... Bevan told her that it's not on in New Zealand (which he genuinely meant because we hadn't found it in the TV guide the previous day), and of course as he uttered these words he turned on the telly, just in time for the closing credits. D'oh!

Requests from the back seat for a playground were eventually silenced when we snuck into one at a small rugby club just south of Christchurch. She got to have a good run around, and she and Daddy had races down the big slides. I'm not sure who enjoyed that more.

Our next stop was Salmon World, home of the big salmon (yes, we're terrible parents forcing her to visit "The Big..." attractions at such an impressionable age) and a rather nifty aquarium full of Atlantic salmon, eels and both brown and rainbow trout of various ages in different ponds. Eleanor got to feed the medium sized ones, which she loved.

Then it was on to Ashburton, home of Ashford spinning wheels and knitting yarns. I got a little bit excited, bought even more sock yarn for my stash and some merino possum yarn for a practise project at knitting on double pointed needles, which is going well so far.

After lunch we headed off to the Banks Peninsula, which is an extinct volcano with a beautiful harbour right up into the middle of the crater. French explorers bought it from the Maori, but by the time they got back from France with a boat full of settlers the Treaty with England had been signed for all of NZ and they were too late. Akaroa is a gorgeous little town with a very strong French flavour; so strong they don't have a police station but a Gendarmerie.

From there it was back towards Christchurch and a trip up the gondola to the peak of Mt Cavendish. Amazing views all around, but the wind was icy cold. Eleanor loved the trips up and back, and we saw lots of rabbits and one poor, lost sheep, but the history cave was a bit too much for her. It was like a cross between the Ghost Train and a really bad wax works, all hosted by a Nicky Webster wannabe who kept popping up on video screens. I'm sure they meant well.

P.S. As I am typing this the evacuation alert just went off in our room. Luckily it seems to have been a false alarm, and better still Eleanor slept through it.

New Zealand; Day 1

2010-11-07T19:40:00.007+11:00

We're off on our NZ holiday, and so far have survived day 1. Hey, it involved a three hour flight with a toddler, so don't knock our efforts.

Up at dark o'clock and at the airport by just after 7am. Our Pacific Blue flight was remarkably comfortable, and Eleanor did better with her ears on take off and landing than I did with mine. By the time we commenced descent into Christchurch she was past nap time and getting ratty, but a Chuppa Chup from the bottom of my handbag solved everything. A big hello to Ashleigh the flight attendant, who spent about 10 minutes playing "tickle-me-Eleanor" with a very receptive participant.

Our hire car is a Subaru Outback, and nice to drive (although the Japanese-side indicators are a constant battle against our European habits). Installing the child seat turned out to be both faster and easier than getting back to where I'd agreed to pick up Bevan and Eleanor. As tempting as it was, sanity prevailed and I obeyed the "Authorised Vehicles Only" signs that prevented me from going where I really wanted to. Airports stopped being the sort of place where one could risk such a stunt a bit over nine years ago. In the end it was free to stop for 15 minutes in the short term parking, so it all ended well. And I don't know what it cost us, but with all the one way streets around where we're staying adding GPS to our car hire was money VERY well spent.

Our motel is just north of the city centre in Richmond, walking distance from Christchurch's equivalent of Lygon Street Carlton, which is just around the corner from Christchurch's equivalent of Grey St, St Kilda (that's just a guess, but we passed three girls just standing around on street corners for no discernible purpose wearing heels that were almost as high as their hemlines).

Eleanor claimed the couch as her bed straight away,which was lucky because it's a sofa bed and that's exactly where we had planned for her to sleep. She was out like a light within a couple of minutes, but all things considered she has put in an exceptionally cooperative day.

Our first impression of Christchurch is that the earthquake was very lucrative for both the scaffolding and temporary fencing industries. There's a lot of visible damage around; brick fences propped up with concrete blocks, restaurants that are closed and buildings with large sections covered in tarpaulins. It's actually worse that we expected.

We had a fantastic dinner at The Bodhi Tree, which is a Lonely Planet recommended Burmese restaurant. The tea and lentil salad had great flavours and an unexpected but delightful crunchy texture. The menu style is a bit like tapas; you order 2-3 small dishes per person and lots of steamed rice. We had tempura style vegetables, garlic prawns, pork dumplings and a mild chicken curry, which was a wonderfully broad range of flavours and textures. A really memorable dinner.

We wandered home along the banks of the Avon river, which is so shallow and clear that you can see the ducks rummaging for nibbles among the pebbles at the bottom, and huge black fish chasing them. Took lots of photos with the new camera, which I'm happier with by the minute.

Today's photos

2008-04-10T16:14:00.005+10:00

First, the laundry project from hell which is kind of getting there.

Next, proof that the dogs love their new bed, and the cat doesn't mind it either.

Survivor Palm Cove

2008-04-05T19:43:00.039+11:00

More reality than reality TV, this is a recap of our recent four-day trip back to lovely Palm Cove, 5km north of Cairns in FNQ, and reviews of the businesses which vied for our custom.

Why the holiday now? Well I'm six months pregnant, and it seemed like a good idea to take one last romantic, luxury holiday before even leaving the house involves a pram, nappy bags, kilos of paraphernalia and, of course, a screaming baby. It's such a good idea that the evil Marketing geniuses have given it a name; the "Babymoon". I refuse to call it that.

The flight there
Ah, Qant-arse. They now offer on-line check-in, allowing you to choose your seat the night before you jet out. Oooh, gadgets! Except there's a bug in the system, which they know about but haven't fixed yet, resulting in the hubby and I not being allocated seats together because mine was a FF rewards booking and his was a regular purchase. Never mind that I rang their reservations department and had our bookings linked two months ago to prevent this. Never mind that when I called Reservations 12 hours before departure it was apparently "too late" to do anything about it (other than arrive early and plead with the check-in desk) because I'd already progressed too far in the on-line process. Never mind that I specifically pointed out that I hadn't printed our boarding passes and asked if it was therefore too late to use the "Change Seat Allocation" function and was told "Yes".

Ignoring their advice I found that on-line persistence paid off, and I was able to change Bevan's seat to the one next to mine. I thought about trying to scab an upgrade out of it, and did point out on the phone that "I'm six months pregnant " but no luck. Apparently that only works on trains.

However, I will grant that flying Qantas does have some all-included benefits in the price. The headphones are free. The crappy movie was free. The non-alcoholic drinks are free. The hot chicken and rice "lunch" - served at 10.15am (which was actually 9.15am according to my watch, which I'd already turned back to Qld time) - was free, as was the complimentary "Splice" icypole for dessert to put one in a tropical mood.

Accommodation
The Sebel Reef House is a glorious place to stay. Our Brigadier Beachfront Spa Room was exactly that: a colonial, plantation-shutters-aplenty beachfront location, with a spa of such dimensions that one felt nervous about swimming in it less than an hour after eating. And NO WATER RESTRICTIONS! We cranked it up three out of the four nights we stayed there, and quickly learned not to add the complimentary bubble bath and run the spa jets. Of course, that was only when I could lever Bevan out of the two-seater wicker couch suspended from the balcony roof as a swing, or myself from the arm-chair and matching ottoman which elevated my pregnant ankles to swelling-proof height.

The staff are friendly, relaxed, professional and completely unobtrusive. We had a choice of sun lounges by either the fresh or salt-water pool (the fresh-water featuring a waterfall), although delivering a bowl of hot chips pool-side proved more difficult than imagined. The Reef House restaurant isn't the sort of place that does chips. It does a smoked-cheddar souffle, or a perfectly cooked minute steak, but not a bowl of chips. Never fear, Brigadier Bar to the rescue! The area between pool and lobby is a help-yourself, honour system bar with a range of chips, cashews, imported beers and lime wedges to satisfy mid-afternoon hunger pangs brought on by three lazy laps of the salt-water pool.

The Brigadier Bar also includes a range of magazines, newspapers, books in several languages that you can swap with whatever you brought with you and have finished, and a chess set which shall not be discussed ever again.

If lunch the first day was good, dinner the last night was fantastic. Local buffalo feta souffle this time for me, the saltiness of the cheese perfectly off-set by a scattering of sweet caramelised onion (which looked exactly like the chicken jerky we bribe our cat with, but presumably tastes a lot better). Turkey spring-rolls with cranberry and hazelnut salad had been an impressive entree, and the creme brulee for dessert was perfect. Bevan started with a magnificent duck salad before raving about the snow peas and mash accompanying his steak with pepper sauce. He can't remember what dessert was, other than that "it was beautiful!" (A check of the pdf menu on-line jogged the memory back to a pecan nut pudding with maple syrup anglaise.)

Breakfast the next morning was just as good, with Eggs Benedict for me (one of the best Bearnaise sauces I've ever had - just the right amount of cracked pepper) and roasted banana pancakes for Bevan, both of which efficiently replaced conversation with happy grunting.

But I just want a normal pedicure...
My toes were still wearing the scraps of polish from my last pedicure a couple of months before, along with the accumulated dead skin of that interval. I was too ashamed to turn up at the day spa for a full-body massage in that condition and decided to get a quick pedicure and new polish. Hey, Palm Cove is the self-proclaimed "Spa Capital of Australia" so how hard could it be? Hmmm. A quick look at the Sebel's in-house spa menu showed that they could do a Miji Jina Foot Treatment to "soak and sooth away tensions" for a mere $98, but I just wanted a normal pedicure with nail polish and sand blasting.

The main shopping strip had a hairdresser/beauty parlour, but their beauty therapist was in - of all places - Melbourne. A plea of desperation at one of the tour booking agencies revealed a dearth of common garden-variety beauty treatments. Fortunately someone knew that the Sea Temple spa does regular pedicures, but only because she'd had a visiting friend make the same plea and had done the research.

The Sea Temple is another Mirvac property, further off the main strip. I really wish I could remember my therapist's name - believe me, I've tried - because she deserves all the public recognition this humble blog can give her. Later it emerged that she'd delayed her lunch break to fit in the non-guest who wandered off the street without bothering to book, and she did a fantastic job. My toe nails are now a lovely shade of red and my heels bear a closer resemblance to skin than course-grit sandpaper. Hopefully she earned a nice fat commission on the ridiculously expensive - but utterly fabulous - bottle of Elemis Milk Bath I bought at her recommendation. This worked much better in the spa than bubble bath, and meant that Bevan got a little bit of spa treatment during the holiday, too.

Bevan was the hero of the day, and not just for remembering the Sea Temple's location. I got a bit hot and flustered on the way there, so he walked all the way back to our room to fetch my hat, and then waited patiently in the resort bar for me to finish. I'm proud to say that the bar's plasma set tuned to the Foxtel music video channel was the only television we saw during our entire time in Palm Cove.

Passions of Paradise
One cannot stay on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef without indulging in a boat trip. Last time we did the uber-touristy Quicksilver cattle muster out to Agincourt Reef. This time we looked for something a little more intimate.

We still don't know whether Passions of Paradise is the name of the tour company or their boat. I just know that it's not actually a brothel, because clearly none of our back-packer companions had any intention of paying to get lucky. On the other hand, the guy whose heart we watched stop beating as he was informed his 'extras' bill by the end of the cruise was $248 may well be selling his body by now.

Our catamaran joined the 8am peak hour rush of tour boats departing Cairns harbour, with a warning from the crew that it would be a rough trip out and sea-sick pills were available from the bar (at a modest extra cost). Being pregnant I decided to rough it out rather than risk a thalidomide-type catastrophe, and instead got a close-up view of the vessel's porcelain for several dignity-wracking minutes.

We had a very educational glass-bottom boat tour of the soft corals surrounding Michaelmas Cay on our arrival there ($18 extra per passenger) before donning our ultra-sexy stinger suits ($6 extra per passenger) and snorkeling gear for some up-close exploration. We knew the chance of stingers that far out was low, but since it's still officially stinger season through to May and I was snorkeling for two (and they provide better UV protection than any sunscreen was likely to) they seemed like a good idea. Besides, all the back-packers were wearing them so it was positive peer pressure for once. And a big howdie to the English back-packer wearing full-thickness makeup for her introductory scuba diving lesson.

Lunch was free, but if you wanted a drink it was $2.50 extra. And the on-board photographer took our photo underwater for free but charged $10 extra per photo for copies. As you can see, we coughed up for it. And no, that's not a basketball stuffed down the front of my stinger suit.

After lunch it was a short trip to another reef for more snorkling over harder corals. The fish life was amazing: we found Nemo, followed an Angel fish on a tour of the reef edge, were fascinated by a school of live cuttlefish and smiled back at the toothy Parrotfish which nibble the coral (ever wondered where reef sand comes from? It's fish poo.)

The sails went up for the return journey, which was smoother and less violently vomitous than the trip out, and actually rather pleasant sitting in the shade outside and watching the on-coming waves.

Out comes our inner John Lethlean.
Palm Cove offers a number of dining options. Some offered fantastic food and service at exorbitant prices. Others offered average food and amateur service at exorbitant prices. While the former was ultimately more enjoyable, the latter provided the better entertainment for those of us who've watched too many episodes of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

Bella Baci
To quote again from the Palm Cove Chamber of Commerce website, "The owners, Sam and Christine, will ensure that you and your guests are treated to a memorable evening in Palm Cove when dining at this lovely restaurant." Memorable is right, but perhaps not for the reasons they hope.

The decor and beach-front location were indeed lovely, but the staff were just that little bit too nervous and keen to impress. Bella Baci is the middle of three restaurants that essentially share the same open space, so we really can't blame them for the constant camera flashes from some idiot tourist at a table next door in Nu Nu. Why that man wanted seven near-identical photos of his partner sitting at their table is beyond me. I'd just like to be there when he gets the prints back from the chemist and sees the death stare I'm giving him in the background of the last six.

Perhaps I've been spoilt by the calamari rings available from the SouthEnd food court at Highpoint, but my entree was a little disappointing. Fortunately they came on a massive pile of salad mix, giving lots of options to hide all the bits that were too chewy to swallow.

Bevan's salad entree was spectacular only for its sheer size. For mains I had a second entree of goat's cheese and sun-dried tomato filo pastries sitting on yet more salad. The first mouthful was rich and magical, but by halfway through the third pastry it was all a bit too much. To be fair, eating some of the salad might have cut through the richness. Bevan's Osso Bucco was huge but good.

The whole thing would have been perfectly OK had they charged about 30% less. If you're in Palm Cove and want Italian, fork out the few extra dollars and go to Vivo instead (see below) because overall it's just better value for the money you're already spending.

Nu Nu
Despite waking up early Tuesday to the sound of tour buses grinding along the main street, getting out of bed and into the shower proved too much to manage before the Reef House brekkie menu stopped for the day, a la McDonald's. Nu Nu had been written off as a dinner destination the night before on a combination of their horrific prices and prominent bragging about winning Gourmet Traveller's 2008 Regional Restaurant of the Year award. However we had considered it as a lunch option, and were pleased to discover the breakfast menu still on offer.

Out of sheer perversity we sat at the same table as the previous night's Steve Parish and waited to be blown away, which really didn't take long. Our waitress knew that she worked at a good restaurant and didn't feel the need to keep asking if everything was OK. The fresh juices were great, and Bevan's lemon ricotta lacy pancakes disappeared very quickly.

My 'french toasted heidi raclette and gypsy ham sandwich' was terribly amusing to Bevan. Well, perhaps that was more the look on my face when it arrived. A small loaf of bread had been hollowed out, stuffed with filling, french toasted and wrapped in a large serviette. It measured approximately 15cm in each direction. It was huge. Somehow I ate most of it. I'm still wondering if they used a microwave to melt all that cheese properly before the french toasting.

For the record, neither of us approve of a restaurant with a page of closing credits thanking their interior designers and the people who supply them with "all things coconut". If the management is reading this, consider yourselves lucky that I didn't have a pen with me, let alone a red one, or you'd have been given a stern lesson in the difference between its and it's.

Vivo
Last time we were in Palm Cove this building was the sales office for one of the many new resorts that have sprung up. Now it's a very nice place for afternoon tapas while gazing out at the beach (which I'm slightly ashamed to admit we didn't set foot on once during the whole trip).

We still can't decide which was our favourite dish: the spiced baby calamari with lime aioli, the prawn (singular) which had been coated in flaked coconut, the crumbed and deep-fried olives stuffed with a veal/ pork mix or the super crispy smoked paprika fries. Maybe it was dessert: Bevan was very happy with the presentation and variety on his tropical fruit platter, and I somehow forgot to share any of my hazelnut and chocolate semi-freddo with berry compote.

Colonies
Apparently this was one of the first restaurants in Palm Cove. Allegedly in 2001 Jamie Oliver tried to claim royalty payments over their blatant use of one of his recipes and the owner sent him a stubby in response. Supposedly one of their goals is to provide 'affordable' dining. I can't personally vouch for the first two claims, but charging at all for bread and charging through the nose for everything else doesn't spell 'affordable' to either of us.

With fewer than 300 tables, Colonies is one of the smaller restaurants in Palm Cove. The staff consisted of two guys squeezed into a tiny galley kitchen, one girl manning the bar and a single waitress trying to do everything else front of house. As mentioned, not a crumb of bread was gratis, which they tried to justify by claiming that it was all 'home made'. One might point out that the garlic bread we had seemed 'home made' only in the same sense that the garlic bread I do can claim to be 'home made' because I slice the store-bought roll and apply garlic and butter that I've mixed together. And what happened to the promised mozzarella?

Following Gordon Ramsay's example, Bevan started with crab cakes that were OK (although neither of us could claim to be crab cake aficionados so we had nothing to compare to). His lamb main course was still a little too capable of saying "baaaa" for my liking, but he was happy with the amount it was cooked through, and it was his dish after all. My chicken scallopini had looked great on the menu, but in reality I was surprised to find that the prosciutto didn't go as well with the garlic cream sauce as I thought it would. The dill garnish was ho-hum, and the wedge of fresh cherry tomato on top was completely out of place for that dish.

White chocolate cheesecake was another option that sounded good on the menu but was actually a disappointment, being a little gritty in texture. My friend Erica's New York cheesecake is much smoother. Bevan's "mango three ways" had a very Top Chef title but unfortunately a somewhat RSL Club presentation: a cheek of mango balancing on a small scoop of mango gelati and a vague smear of mango coulis. The whole thing was jammed into an ice-cream sundae glass (which made the mango cheek hard to eat) and padded out with a heavy whipped cream. At $14.90 it should have been an anglaise at least.

With Bevan's two glasses of red (in awful old-fashioned crystal goblets) and my two LL&B, the bill was our second highest for the holiday and probably our least favourite meal.

Far Horizons
Thursday morning, and we still hadn't quite mastered the art of arriving at a resort restaurant in plenty of time to sample the breakfast menu. At least that's the impression I got from the sole waitress still on duty when we finally got to Angsana after running out of time on our last trip to Palm Cove. If I'd listened to what she said verbally instead of reading her body language I'd have realised that breakfast was still on for another half hour and we were welcome to sit at the ocean-view table of our choice.

The menu featured the near-ubiquitous range of exotically-named juice combinations, but also the more unusual option to create your own from a choice of any three fruits on a pretty long list. Fortunately our lovely waitress from PNG was paying more attention to what Bevan said to her than I paid when she spoke to me. She pointed out that the eggs-plus-extras plate he was designing was essentially the big breakfast less the sausage, which she was quite happy to do even though big breakfasts are usually pretty rigid and his original order cost more. Again, I wish I could remember her name to give her more credit.

My ham and cheese omelet was fine, and we got our first look at a newspaper in days. The good news was that the Reserve Bank hadn't raised interest rates. The bad news was that insurance premiums might go up instead after a massive wind and dust storm in Melbourne that brought down power lines, made people in tall city buildings sea sick and shut down most of the train network. Do we have to go home?

One of the top 10 spas in the world
With freshly-manicured feet I was brave enough to set foot in the Reef House's in-house spa. Their insistance on not performing any treatment on a women in her first trimester of pregnancy was a comforting sign that they know about certain risks, although it did get a little frustrating being repeatedly told "normally we'd do X but you're pregnant so you miss out".

My 2 hour session started with a traditional Aboriginal smoking ceremony performed without the slightest sense of incongruity by my lovely Japanese therapist. The promised 'special' pregnancy setup turned out to be just a regular body pillow covered in a towel, but it was still more comfortable - and physically possible - than laying on my stomach would have been. This massage was the first I've had in years that didn't leave me feeling bruised the next day, but was also the most expensive and least claimable on health insurance.

Baby put on a high-kicking performance to impress a line of Las Vegas showgirls when the therapist laid her hands on my stomach in a soothing and theraputic way. At least she calmed down so I could relax for the facial, which was one soothing potion after another. Unlike at Sea Temple there was no berry sorbet to finish up, but the cup of tea was nice even if I was limited to the normal range "because you're pregnant" instead of the exotics they apparently offer to the barren.

Phone us after you collect your bags
Finally a word in praise of JetPort Parking at Tullamarine. Not only was it less vast and cheaper than the airport's own long-term carpark - where you have to wait ages for the bus and then load your own bags - but it was under cover. Thanks to the RACV member's special we saved even more, and were very pleased with the door-to-door convenience and the speed with which they picked us up on the way home.

So, that's our travel diary. The camera didn't make it out of the suitcase but we don't care because it wasn't that sort of trip. We came home completely relaxed and wondering how much the place will have changed the next time we visit, although by then we'll be looking more for a two bedroom unit at a resort with a kid's club than a romantic ocean-view room for 2.5 people.

Survivor China: finale

2008-02-10T22:58:00.001+11:00

Well the final episode was traditional if not entirely exciting. Put another way it was predictable if not entirely entertaining. The reunion, however, was excellent so all is forgiven. Oh Survivor, as if I could stay mad at you for long!

It started with a recap of key moments from the previous seven weeks, including Todd and Amanda sealing their alliance on day one, Denise puking up the balut at the gross food challenge and Jean-Robert’s steady descent into madness. We also got a reminder of what they all looked liked before the boys grew beards and Courtney grew strangely dark roots that suggest she’s not a natural platinum blonde. Who would have guessed it?

It might be an urban myth that the Great Wall of China itself is visible from space, but I suspect the Survivor version of the Great Wall can actually be seen from the moon. The producers had built a massive replica section of the Great Wall using besser bricks, which was the set for this week’s reward challenge. Survivors had to collect blocks and assemble them to finish a section at the top of the wall. The bigger puzzle is going to be for some archaeologist in the year 4267 who finds a section of the Great Wall, thousands of kilometres from the rest and in a different building material, and has to try and work out why it’s there.

Amanda won the reward of pizza, beer, soft drink and brownies. Jeff said that it was only a single serve but she could choose to share it with one or two others if she wanted. To me a family-size pizza, three beers, a jug of Coke and a plate full of chocolate brownies is way more than a single serve, but then I remembered that it was an American portion.

Amanda chose to share it with Todd, and used the time to accuse him of backstabbing and scheming to get rid of her, which is exactly what she was doing to him last week. Back at camp Denise had a cry about never getting picked for anything, which I’m sure PG loved to see. Todd tried to tell Denise how much he loves all the remaining girls, but considering he’s gay and a total schemer it was less than convincing. More convincing was his paranoia that he’s getting paranoid.

Tree mail brought an invitation to another key element of every final episode, the walk down memory lane. This one took place in the shadow of a massive concrete statue of Guan Yin, the Chinese goddess of compassion and mercy. If the producers had either compassion or mercy for their audience they’d drop this because it’s just such bad television. As usual, it consisted mostly of the four remaining members of Hidden Dragon trying to say something nice about the early victims from Crouching Tiger – none of whom they knew – and eventually deciding not to say anything at all.

The final immunity challenge involved balancing a pile of classic rice pattern china on the end of a stick. As usual, Todd failed early and was out. Courtney is a waitress at home, but that didn’t help her either. Denise tried to negotiate some kind of settlement with Amanda, who quite rudely refused but then was all hugs and "Did you really think I was going to let you quit on me?" as soon as she’d won and could afford to be gracious. That’s really only an appropriate thing to say if one is the hero in a Jerry Bruckheimer movie who’s held someone’s hand and kept them conscious and alive until the ambulance arrived and is now trying to be modest.

In the hours before Tribal Council, Denise tried to convince her saviour not to vote her out next, claiming that Survivor is all she’s got other than a crappy job as a lunch lady, and that she needs the money. It backfired badly, merely convincing Amanda – who in turn convinced Todd and Courtney - that Denise could easily soak up enough sympathy to win the million dollars. Sure enough, it was a unanimous vote that put Denise on the jury instead of in front of it.

OK, what’s next on the final episode checklist: luxury, boozy breakfast to reward the final three in the hope they might do something vaguely interesting while drunk to spice things up a little. The hamper must have included that kerosene-soaked rag on the end of a stick to make sure they got a really good bonfire going as they burned everything not nailed down before heading off to the final tribal council.

Even the jury grilling this year was a bit lame. Nobody had an axe to grind. Well, Jean-Robert seemed peeved that he had to vote for either Courtney – who he hated from day one – or Todd or Amanda, both of whom he promised not to vote for if they backstabbed him. Jaime tried to make them turn on each other, but kept doubling back on her own questions until nothing made any sense at all.

Todd and Amanda both claimed to be huge Survivor fans who came into the game with a specific strategy, and were forced to hurt people they really, truly cared deeply about in order to successfully implement that strategy. Courtney just pointed out that she’s never been a Survivor fan, had no strategy and was written off by everyone, but made it to the final three anyway and so they should give her some credit for that.

In a very tricky piece of editing, Jeff collected the bucket with the who-gets-the-million-dollars votes. The camera cut to the final three, and when it cut back to Jeff he was in the CBS studio at the live Survivor Reunion! Oh the miracles of television. Oh the miracles of professional hair and make-up. Courtney and Amanda both suddenly had fringes, and Todd had a weird hillbilly faux-hawk with a bit of mullet at the back. Trendy yes, flattering not necessarily.

With seven of the eight votes read out, Amanda’s sole vote put her in official third place. It created a nice little three-all cliff hanger between the others until Todd’s name appeared on the last vote and he got to look shocked and cry and hug the others and do his best beauty queen routine before running off to hug his family.

A lot of the reunion focussed on James and the way Todd and Amanda managed to vote out someone holding two immunity idols. Jean-Robert – who was inexplicably wearing a beanie – still believes he was voted off early because he was the biggest threat. He’s treating it as a compliment, which Jeff amusingly pointed out is only a compliment if it’s true.

The entire world now knows that Courntey weighed 42kg when the game started, 39kg by the time it finished, but is now something over 42kg. Yep, Jeff essentially called her fat on national television. Mind you, she was wearing horizontal stripes and everyone knows they’re not becoming.

Leslie yet again said the exact words "I’m not a religious person" (arrgghhhhh!!!), and Chicken said one of the most profound things ever at a reunion: "If I didn’t win the money I’d want to go first."

James has had a good time since the show, being voted People magazine’s sexiest man of the week and getting hit on by grieving wives and daughters at the sides of graves he’s waiting to fill back in. Denise hasn’t been so lucky, getting sacked from her job as a lunch lady and being forced to work instead as a janitor at the same school. Some might suggest cleaning toilets and serving school lunches is pretty much the same category of materials handling, but on the bright side she can get a decent haircut now. She explained that the mullet keeps her hair short at the front under the work hair nets but long at the back so she can be more feminine for her husband and keep him happy. I’m not even going to touch that one.

Having picked on Courtney’s weight and Denise’s hair, Jeff next turned the blowtorch on Jaime and Erik, forcing her to confess that they’re dating and him to confess that he’s still a virgin. He gave the rest their token last few seconds of fame, and then announced that Denise, James and PG – WHAT!! – were the three who received the most votes in an on-line poll as this season’s most popular Survivor. James won the official $100,000 but then Jeff announced that Mark Burnett – whose name Jeff carefully dropped a few times – had decided to give Denise fifty grand to make up for losing her dream job. They didn’t say whether that came out of Mark’s own pocket or the production budget, but it was a nice gesture.

Finally we got a preview of the next series, Fans v Favourites. Ten die-hard Survivor fans who think they can do better will be pitted against ten players from previous series in Survivor Micronesia. They didn’t name the old timers, but a quick peek on the website shows they include Amanda and James from this series, Yau-Man and Parvati from Fiji, and past horrors including Eliza from Vanuatu and Johnny Fairplay from Thailand. I look forward to a massive tribal council chambers, hurriedly assembled to thwart the writers’ strike, falling on his head.

Depending on when – if – Channel 9 decides to run the next series (and series 17 after that, for which casting has already closed) I might be on maternity leave from both paid employment and writing the weekly summaries. For this series at least it has been my great pleasure to inflict on you my passion for certain reality TV. Now grab your torches and head back to camp.

Survivor China: week 12

2008-02-04T23:20:00.000+11:00

Well, next week is the grand final and the answer to who wins the big money, who wins the little money, and who (in your best Maxwell Smart) misses by that much.

After last week we know it won’t be Erik, although the unanimous decision back at camp was that he’s possibly the nicest person on the planet. Being ‘nice’ hasn’t helped him lose his virginity or improve his financial position, but it’s nice to be nice so that’s nice for him.

After the opening credits it was pretty much straight into this week’s crappy tree mail poem, which stressed the importance of being skilled and popular, or in other words ‘nice’. Each Survivor was given five arrows, and told to put them in vases belonging to the other people. The most popular person would have the greatest number of arrows to shoot using a replica 4th century Chinese repeating crossbow (available at all good weapons outlets).

The challenge worked on the basic premise that the person whose name on the target board got the most hits would win. Obviously having lots of arrows would assist in this endeavour: PG’s vase contained only one, confirming beyond doubt that she is not popular and giving her virtually zero chance of winning. It didn’t help that she entirely missed the board with that one arrow.

Courtney had twelve arrows but didn’t manage to hit her own name even once, which is presumably why the tree mail was so specific about the need for both popularity and skill. She's been told all series that she's hopeless at challenges, so perhaps people deliberately gave her arrows in the hope her failure would benefit their own cause. Sure enough, she managed to spray them evenly enough between Todd and Denise that it took until the final arrow for Denise to be crowned winner. It also made Courtney the easy choice for Denise to take with her on the reward of an overnight stay at the Great Wall of China. (Jeff tried to pump it up as a one of a kind experience, but I just did a Google search on "tour, great wall of china" and got 2 million hits.)

Anyway, Jeff then announced that Denise could take another person as well. PG laid it on thick that Denise should repay the favour of the Shoalin Temple visit. Instead, Denise repaid the favour of choosing the only two people to have given her arrows; Courtney and Todd. Denise knows that if PG doesn’t win immunity this week she’ll get voted out, and therefore has no strategic value. She’s been on a private jet with PG and knows how unpleasant it can be. She’s lived with PG for however many days now and probably relished the chance for a break.

Thanks very much for that, Denise. You might have had a 12 hour reprieve from PG’s whingeing, but we had to tolerate seemingly endless minutes of her complaining about not being taken on the reward and people implying that she’s unpopular. In fact PG probably would have complained about the arrow distribution even if Denise had taken her on the reward, which was yet another excellent reason for Denise to put as much distance between them as possible.

I’m almost glad this series is over, because there’s been some incredibly annoying moments. One of the worst was the way PG and Amanda, like, spent 12 hours alone at camp, like, trying to see who could, like, use the word ‘like’ the most often in a single sentence. I lost count because it was hard to focus and scream "SHUT UP!" at the TV at the same time.

The immunity challenge was a repeat of several past challenges, with one person being knocked out of contention each round. Todd couldn’t throw stars, Denise still couldn’t eat the balut, Courtney couldn’t bounce a tennis ball on a drum, and PG couldn’t chop through the ropes and solve the puzzle as fast as Amanda did.

Amanda’s immunity win put PG well and truly in the firing line at Tribal Council. Todd and Amanda had each been lobbying against the other while they were separated during the overnight reward, and with Amanda safe PG started a desperate effort to gang all the girls up against Todd. Unfortunately she forgot that she’s much less popular than Todd, and Denise especially was made so uncomfortable trying to give non-committal answers to PG’s grilling that she was quite happy to obey alliance orders.

The vote against PG might have been unanimous, but she’s convinced they voted her out because they were scared to death to go against her in the final three. No, PG, watch this episode again: they voted you out despite you being an easy beat in the final three. Like, that’s how, like, unbearable another couple of days with you would have been.

Survivor China: week 11

2008-01-28T22:04:00.000+11:00

So how did the biggest, strongest and not necessarily stupidest guy this season manage to get voted out last week while holding two immunity idols? I don’t get it either, but those who did survive Tribal Council were all very relieved to have pulled off the blind-siding. Personally I was quite impressed by how calm and rational James’ farewell speech to the video camera was, and thought the others were very mean saying they feared for their life if the plan didn’t work. Later he turned up for jury duty and glared at them. And then I understood.

PG – bless her – has decided that voting out James was not a masterful strategy by highly skilled players to get rid of the strongest person, eliminate both immunity idols and improve their own chances of winning the million dollars ($640k after taxes). No, it was certain proof that the original Hidden Dragon alliance is collapsing. If she can get just two other people to swing over to her side, and if she can keep winning immunity, and if there’s a lightening strike that kills Amanda, Todd, Denise, Courtney and Eric, she’s in with a chance.

As suggested in the ads, this week the loved ones turned up to participate in the challenge. Among much hugging and crying were frequent apologies for the body odour. Denise’s first words to her husband were, "Can I have your socks?" "Please" might have been nice too, but she apparently smelled so bad he was happy to comply as long as she didn’t breath on him.

Loved ones and Survivors were blindfolded and sent into opposite ends of a maze, with instructions that the first pair to team up and reach the middle would win. PG is a chip off the old block, with her Dad pointing to where he thought the middle was and saying, "We need to go that way". I’d like to point out that pointing is not much help to a blindfolded person, although it is slightly amusing to us at home. Amanda and her sister used freaky and annoying bird calls to cut through the shouting and find each other. Denise’s husband Robert just followed the smell and they won.

Long before Corey Delaney / Worthington forced himself uninvited into our media consciousness with his yellow sunglasses and even more horribly yellow hair, another ghastly little twerp named "Johnny Fairplay" competed in Survivor Pearl Islands and pulled off one of the worst stunts in Survivor History. In both cases the act itself was abhorrent, but the chutzpah with which they pulled it off had to be at least acknowledged if not actually admired.

When Johnny's best friend turned up as a loved one Johnny asked, "Where’s Grandma?" and was sadly informed that she had died. Trouble was, Grandma was so alive she answered the phone when Jeff rang the family off-air to express the production team’s condolences. The whole thing was a total lie, pre-planned between the pair of them to ensure that the challenge winner would give up the luxury overnight reward so that Johnny could "get all of the news from home" and "come to terms with his grief".

Why bring up ancient history? Because this week every Survivor fan was dragged back to the memory of that series when Todd came face to face with his little sister at the reward challenge. He pointedly asked how his even younger sister is doing, only to be informed that she had miscarried her baby.

Denise never explained whether it was sympathy or pure strategy, but she chose Todd and his sister (along with Amanda and her sister) to share the reward of a massive lunch on a boat. She also got handed a mobile phone to receive a call from home. The producers had chosen a phone from Sprint Communications because, just like Denise and Robert had to be to win the challenge, Sprint is known for speed and communication. It wasn’t subtle. Neither was the font size of Sprint Communication’s credit in the closing titles.

Oddly, Todd doesn’t appear to have mentioned his little sister's tragedy at all during the entire lunch. I suppose it’s hard to talk and cry and stuff your face with chocolate cake at the same time, so he focussed on doing that last one really well. In fact, poor Kimmy – whose unplanned teen pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage is now world-wide news – didn’t even get a mention until back at camp when Todd, Amanda and siblings went for a swim to gloat about how great the reward was.

For the record, Amanda’s sister’s butt had to be pixelated as she jumped in the lake. Either that family really likes skimpy swimwear or there’s a genetic birthmark that’s just too horrible for prime time. Eroc Giron and Brian Metz, who get closing title credits as ‘Digitizers’, deserve a bigger font even than Sprint Communications for their efforts. Possibly an Emmy, too.

Back at camp during the reward, PG was seriously peeved that Denise didn’t return the favour and invite her to share the reward, since she’d taken Denise to the Shaolin Temple a few days before. They all expressed total disbelief about Todd’s sister, and Courtney did a brilliant replay of Todd’s Oscar-worthy performance as a grieving brother, for which she definitely deserves an Emmy.

The immunity challenge involved wading back and forth through an obstacle course in a swamp, trying to decide which statements out of three pairs were true so that the right keys were picked to open a box and raise a flag. The questions this week were things like, "The Chinese invented barbed wire" and "The Chinese invented gunpowder". Once again there was a perfect opportunity to learn more about the reign of Emperor Nasi Goreng, and once again the producers passed it up.

As jokingly suggested last week, PG won immunity. Her family is Chinese so she kind of had just a little bit of an advantage getting the questions right. Erik knew he’d be targeted for elimination and did some nice work trying to convince the others that Todd was lying about his sister. He and PG both went to work on Denise, pointing out that the others will only take her to the final four. In fact at Tribal Council they both managed to talk generically about how there are ‘certain people’ at camp who can choose between being fourth in their current alliance or possibly winning the game. They may as well have said, "I’m not going to name names, but her initials might be Denise."

It didn’t work, so Erik got voted out in a four-two decision, and can now break up the jury box flirtation that seems to be happening between Frosti and his sweet little Southern Belle Jaime. Todd looked very happy and not at all grieving as he trotted out of the Tribal Council pagoda. Next week might be a different story though, because it looks like the girls plus Denise might gang up on him. With only five Survivors left now, and only a couple of episodes to go, it’s getting very exciting.

Survivor China: week 10

2008-01-20T21:44:00.001+11:00

So after spending the last week on the edge of my seat waiting to find out what the big post-Tribal Council surprise is, we finally know. Was it worth the wait? Nuh.

The bad news from Jeff was that there was ‘unfinished business’ and they wouldn’t be going straight back to camp. PG, who only escaped elimination minutes early because she’d won individual immunity, looked like she was going to puke. The good news was that it was a reward challenge, not another vote. The bad news was that "this is no ordinary reward". Actually make that good news, because it was a really good reward.

The winner got an overnight stay at the 1,500-year-old Shaolin Temple, birthplace of Kung Fu. In talking the reward up, Jeff made it clear (including to everyone at home) that this truly is an opportunity that very few people in the world will ever experience because outsiders are not invited. It begs the question of what influence CBS has over a Chinese government desperate to look good in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics, and what influence that government in turn has over the Shaolin monks. Or maybe CBS just offered them their own kung fu reality show as a way of getting around the writer’s strike.

The challenge itself involved questions about Chinese culture, like "True or false: China is credited with inventing the abacus." Having known the answer to that since about grade four, it was disappointing to see so many people get it wrong. I was waiting for "True or false: the Emperor Nasi Goreng built the Great Wall of China to keep out the rabbits", but oddly it didn’t come up.

PG, who last week was sooking that she never wins anything, won her second challenge in a row and took Erik and Denise with her. On the private jet taking them to the reward, PG started lobbying her fellow outsiders to form a new alliance against the four back at camp the minute the ‘Fasten Seatbelts’ sign went out. They were not impressed by the intrusion: Erik just wanted to eat the free pistachios in peace, and Denise was probably wondering whether hers is the worst mullet to ever travel by private jet. I think Bon Jovi collectively won that honour a few decades ago, but she can dream.

She’s actually a bit of a dark horse, confessing during the flight that she’s been studying karate and kung fu for eight years and is not far off getting her black belt. Between Denise loving a visit to the birthplace of her chosen sport, and PG loving a chance to learn more about her Chinese heritage, Erik was the odd one out. Denise even did a demonstration of her own after the Shaolin monks had finished theirs and a bunch of little kids taught the outsiders a few moves. I’m really glad to see someone get to go on a reward that’s so relevant and meaningful, and which there is no doubt they are truly the person most capable of appreciating.

The kung fu theme didn’t end there because the immunity challenge involved throwing stars. I was kind of hoping to see Erik knock himself out with some nunchakus, but throwing stars it was. Tree mail came in the form of a typically bad poem attached to a large placard by said throwing stars, so there was no excuse not to practise and absolutely no excuse for PG not landing a single hit when the pressure was on, other than that she’s pathetic and doesn’t deserve to win.

One of the biggest – and, as it turns out, most erroneous - assumptions this season has been that James would be a major threat in the individual immunity challenges. The producers keep listing his profession as ‘grave digger’, and he’s certainly built like someone who spends a lot of time in heavy manual labour. However, I suspect that might be a slight exaggeration because as I understand it his family runs a funeral business, which isn’t quite the same thing. I suppose grave digger sounds more interesting, plus they already had an undertaker on the show a few years back and don’t like to repeat themselves. Except with the rope and puzzle piece challenges.

And yet while James is such an obvious physical threat, none of the individual immunity challenges have suited his strength. This seemed to perhaps be the one, but Courtney – tiny little Courtney with the skeletal arms and Vampire-pale skin (and, I might point out, dark roots growing nicely through the bleached blonde hair after a month in the jungle) - did just as well in this challenge as James.

Erik managed to win, and the alignment of the (throwing) stars [sorry] allowed Amanda to put in place her brilliant idea of getting rid of James the alleged threat, and knocking both immunity idols out of play. Never mind that Todd and Jean-Robert both had the same idea a couple of weeks ago. Since Erik had immunity it was very easy to convince James that they were all sticking to the original plan of voting out PG next. And she played along, after a chat with Amanda in a desperate attempt to survive meant she was let in on the secret that James had been targeted instead of her. It was an enviable no-lose situation for PG: if James didn’t play one of his immunity idols in the crucial moment at Tribal Council he’d be eliminated, and if he did then whomever PG and Erik voted for would be gone.

Oddly enough she managed to last the remaining few hours until Tribal Council without stuffing up. There was a fabulously tense moment after the votes had been cast but before they were read out when Jeff told the remaining seven that if someone was going to play an immunity idol they had to do it right then. James looked at his bag, then back at Jeff and ... said nothing. He did hold them both up eventually, but that was during his farewell piece to camera as the credits rolled and they weren’t much use to him by then.

The ad for next week shows lots of people crying, so presumably it's the loved ones' visit. Either that or PG wins immunity again.

Survivor China: week 9

2008-01-13T21:47:00.000+11:00

This is the fifteenth season of Survivor, and this week not only did the creative forces behind the scenes manage to get through two challenges that didn’t involve ropes or puzzle pieces, they also did something new and actually original with the opening credits. Instead of still showing everyone in their original tribes, they showed the members of the merged Hae Da Fung tribe, then showed the members of the jury, and left the dearly departed to rot in obscurity until the reunion show.

The aftermath of last week’s Tribal Council was bitter for some, scary for others and elated for one in particular. Denise is furious that nobody thought to tell her that the original plan of voting for PG, with which she had faithfully complied, had changed to voting for Jean-Robert. James had a nasty scare receiving three votes on a night when he didn’t even bother taking either immunity idol with him to Tribal Council. And Courtney is just pleased that Jean-Robert is gone. Pleased is perhaps an understatement.

Jean-Robert might be gone, but PG stepped comfortably into his shoes as the camp nag and painfully annoying person just begging to be voted off. As one of only three remaining Crouching Tiger members there’s a huge target painted on her forehead and her behaviour this week just drew attention to it, while Erik and Frosti both took the somewhat more tactically advantageous approach of sucking up to those by whom they are outnumbered.

Part of PG’s complaint is that she’s a total loser. In her own unique grammatical style, she described herself as "the most losing-est Survivor left in this game right now" for having won the fewest challenges. However, this week’s reward challenge started well for her. She won the draw to be a team captain, and won the Rock Paper Scissors competition to get first choice of who was on her team, quickly snapping up James. From there it went completely pear-shaped.

Each team had to manoeuvre an obstacle course (featuring numerous Bunnings terracotta warriors) while bouncing a tennis ball on a Chinese drum. PG’s team just couldn’t get it together, and the other team completed the course three times and had won before her group got anywhere near dropping a single ball where it needed to be.

Back at camp she laid the blame squarely on James for dawdling instead of running back to the start mat each of the many times they had to do that because they'd stuffed up. She’s right that he wasn't putting in 100%, but he wasn’t going to take any criticism from someone who had deliberately thrown a challenge in the past, and he wasn’t giving up his moral high ground either.

Meanwhile, Eric, Frosti, Courtney and Amanda were enjoying a feast of fried chicken, mashed potato and gravy during an overnight boat cruise on the Lee River. The scenery was spectacular, meaning it’s probably due to be dammed for a hydro-power plant some time in the next few years. Courtney and Frosti’s flirtation continued unabated. He openly acknowledges that she’s out of his league, but if he keeps giving her back rubs like that he’ll make up the gap pretty quickly. Erik had some flirtations of his own, both with Amanda and some goats by the river’s edge. He really does an impressive goat impersonation. Scarily impressive.

Back at camp, James, Denise and Todd were all worried about how alliances might be shifting, particularly if Courtney gets too close to someone scheduled to be picked off. James did a rather Biblical lecture about the importance of resisting temptation and not eating the damned apple. I suppose there’s nothing in the Bible about not eating the cheeseburger and fries.

That’s the only way to explain his gluttonous reaction at the Immunity Challenge the next day when Jeff gave everyone the choice between participating in the memory challenge for immunity or eating. Courtney, Todd and Denise joined him at the banquet table, while all three members of the former Crouching Tiger went for immunity, along with Amanda (who it seems is not having a wardrobe malfunction but just chose a swimsuit that’s too high-cut in the booty for prime-time American audiences, which is why it’s being pixelated. Think Kylie’s gold hotpants and you get the idea).

To everyone’s unanimous horror, PG won immunity. Well, the ones who ate weren’t too upset initially. Courtney and Todd both tried to answer Jeff’s questions, but their mouths were so full that their answers were unintelligible even to the geniuses who normally do the subtitles when somebody mumbles. About the only thing that came out clearly was Courtney’s observation as she stood up from the table that she was covered in mayonnaise. Maybe that was her way of taking something back to camp for Frosti.

Her loyalty was soon tested. With PG safe the others had to pick whether to vote out Erik or Frosti to keep the numbers in favour of the original Hidden Dragon members. And Frosti and Erik both knew it too, each wishing the other good luck if he managed to survive the night. Frosti wrenched himself away from Courtney’s skeletal clutches long enough to lobby Todd and point out how nice Erik is and what a threat that makes him if he reaches the final three. Todd didn’t buy it, and pointedly asked Courtney whether she is committed enough to the game to vote against Frosti when the time comes. She was non-committal. Todd was frustrated. The editors were happy that they could build some tension going into the vote.

With Jean-Robert gone, Courtney had nobody left to insult so it was a pretty boring Tribal Council. Frosti voted for Erik and Erik voted for Frosti, each expressing dismay that they had little choice. Everyone else voted for Frosti, too, including Courtney, so that’s him gone. Jeff still had one surprise, announcing that "the ability to adapt, moment to moment, is what’s going to keep you in this game. And we’re gonna test that right now. Tonight you will not be heading directly back to camp. We have more business to attend to here." Roll credits. And thanks to Channel 9 for deciding to only run a single episode when it ends on a cliff-hanger like that.

Survivor China: weeks 7 & 8

2008-01-07T23:29:00.000+11:00

Firstly just to answer some questions from last week: yes I really am pregnant, and yes I was totally joking about those names. Although maybe Jeff for a boy...

Another double episode this week, which started with more of Courtney complaining about the way Jean-Robert treats her. Here’s a free hint, honey: he might be upset about you calling him a "really crappy person" at Tribal Council last night. That might have played a small part in your not being his favourite person either. Just guessing.

At Crouching Tiger, James listened to a seemingly endless string of sentences from PG, punctuated liberally with the word "like", until she ran out of meaningless things to say and wandered off to bore Jaime and Erik. He used the opportunity to discretely wrench both plaques off the gateway, keeping the one with the words "Congratulations – this is an immunity idol" in big letters on the back and leaving the other on the ground while he hid his treasure.

Jaime and Eric found the leftover plaque and decided that of course it must be an immunity idol. Later that night they showed what sweet little Southern Christians they are by going through James’ bag while he was away. They found two plaque-shaped lumps wrapped up in his pants but didn’t unwrap them all the way to check. And yet, despite knowing that James had already discarded it as worthless, they figured the one in Jaime’s bag must also be an immunity idol. The only people laughing harder than James did when he discovered someone had attributed value to the junk one, were the producers. No, let me correct that: I was laughing very hard later on when Jaime did a whole speech about how good she is at playing stupid, and that she might resemble Jessica Simpson but she’s not as dumb as she looks.

At the reward challenge Jeff yelled out "Drop your buffs: you are merged," then handed out nice clean black buffs for everyone to wear. James immediately wrapped his around his armpit, so it probably doesn’t smell so nice and fresh any more. The traditional merge feast included a floor show by some local acrobats and dancers. China might be a communist atheist country, but the dancing was decidedly liturgical.

Just before they headed off, Jeff reminded them – very pointedly– that "this game never stops." Later, back at what was the Hidden Tiger camp but is now home to Hae Da Fung (which, according to PG at least, means ‘Black Fighting Wind’), Jeff turned up unannounced and waving this season’s individual immunity necklace. He declared that the immunity challenge was about to start, and – oh gee, nobody could see this coming after what he said, only apparently none of them did – the challenge was a memory test about the floor show. The first three questions knocked out eight of the ten contestants, and Frosti was the only one to get the last question right so he won immunity.

Naturally the politicking kicked into overdrive. Todd and Amanda split up to improve their lobbying reach, with Todd drawing the short straw of ‘talking’ to Jean-Robert. It wasn’t so much talking to as being threatened by. His threat is to be a vocal jury advocate against Todd if he gets 'screwed over'. Since nobody takes anything JR says seriously, it was far less a threat than the machete he was waiving around as he said it.

Far more pleasant for Todd was having Jaime offer to tell him who has both immunity idols. He managed to keep a straight face, and so did Jeff when Jaime interrupted Tribal Council to present her ‘immunity idol’ and claim protection. Jean-Robert – who remember is supposed to make his living out of playing poker and keeping his emotions private – looked horrified, then openly laughed when Jeff tossed the plaque in the fire, and went straight back to horrified when the first vote featured his own name.

Poor Jaime, and poor me because her seven votes put me out of our office sweep. She thinks she’s out because she’s just too nice for Survivor. I think she’s out because she did something horrible going through James’ bag, did it poorly, and didn’t have a back-up plan.

Jean-Robert’s utterly crappy poker face, and the question over who has real immunity idols, were the dominating themes in the night’s second episode. In fact the entire episode was neatly encapsulated in an early quote from James: "We need to keep Jean-Robert’s dumb ass in line because we’re stuck with him now."

After a few scenes of Todd starting to panic about his alliances, and getting peeved that James hasn’t bothered to give back the immunity idol he was handed, it was straight into the reward challenge. Three people from one team armed with buckets of water tried to sink a small boat piloted by someone from the other team, who was trying to simultaneously paddle out of reach and bail out the water. Wow, no knots or puzzle pieces this week!

For once Courtney actually got selected as an asset for her team, since her tiny frame would theoretically stop her boat from sinking as quickly. The plan backfired when in the first round she just sat in the boat, neither paddling or bailing, and in the second round wasn’t strong enough to get any water in the other team’s boat. And she complains that they always leave her out of challenges!

The close-knit group of Todd, Amanda and James, plus Jean-Robert, won a reward of food and relaxation. They also won the last clue to – gasp! – the location of the real immunity idol! Jean-Robert was the only person actually shocked by this, but the others did a very impressive job of covering up the fact that every single other person in camp already knows James has both.

Doing a less successful job of covering up was Amanda. Something happened to her bikini bottom during the challenge, and her entire butt was pixelated for the rest of the episode, so there's obviously some kind of major construction failure down there.

PG was just as hard at work as the editing suite staff, pointing out that the five who didn’t get to go on the reward outnumbered the four who did and trying to form a new alliance. It was a noble effort, but the only agreement she got was that it would be horrible to be voted out before Jean-Robert.

Speaking of the great man, he spent most of the night idol hunting. He’s got every single one of the clues they’re going to give – and those production guys are not subtle – but it still seemed to take most of the night. In the end he collected up the three remaining plaques and decided that one of them must be it, and he just needed to figure out which one and not repeat Jaime’s mistake.

Todd, still snippy about James not giving back a real idol, decided to vote James out as soon as he didn’t win immunity since that would knock both out of play. Amanda had to yet again try and talk him out of changing plans mid-stream. Common sense didn’t work, but the horrifying discovery that Jean-Robert had come up with the exact same idea about James made it suddenly seem far less appealing. Funny about that.

Even funnier was that Jean-Robert got the idea of turning on his best pal James after Erik blabbed about the idols in James’ pants. He tried to trap James in a lie about what he knew and when, but even James – who is sweet, but confuses the words "immunity idol" and "immunisation idol" – managed to wiggle out of the not-very-cunning ‘trap’ set for him.

In a shock outcome, Courtney won the immunity challenge. It involved staying balanced on a barrel that was leaking water. She managed to remain perfectly still for nearly forty minutes, a feat she attributed jointly to sheer laziness and a desperate desire not to fall in the swamp.

Jaime graced the Tribal Council jury box in a dress and cowboy boots, looking more like Jessica Simpson than ever. Jean-Robert managed to wangle in a poker analogy, describing PG and Erik - the last remaining Crouching Tiger members - as having been dealt "the deuce-seven off-suit in a no limit game". Even I’ve played enough Texas Hold’em to know that means a really crappy hand, but I’ve also managed to keep a straight face holding a straight flush. In a repeat of the first episode, Jean-Robert’s face swung from horror at the first vote, to glee as James got three in a row (with Denise voting for PG for some weird reason), and back to despondency as the final four votes knocked him out of the game.

In his final interview he claimed that they voted him out because he was the best player and the biggest threat. The sad thing is that even if he watches the show and hears what they really said he’ll still believe it, which is precisely the personality flaw for which he was voted out in the first place. I bet he counts his money when he’s sittin’ at the table, too.

Survivor China: week 6

2007-12-31T16:00:00.000+11:00

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!

Survivor China: week 5

2007-12-24T10:29:00.001+11:00

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.

Survivor China: weeks 3 & 4

2007-12-17T22:45:00.000+11:00

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.

Survivor China: weeks 1 & 2

2007-12-09T23:45:00.000+11:00

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:

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;

As usual the campsites have a machete and a cooking pot – this year a wok to stay on theme – but no flint. There wasn’t any dry firewood anyway because it rained pretty much non-stop throughout the first two episodes. The Crouching Tiger tribe tried to get started on a shelter, but Chicken, who considers himself an expert outdoorsy-type, criticised everything the others suggested yet refused to answer when they appealed to him for advice. It seems he got upset because they wouldn’t listen to him; they were listening, they just couldn’t understand a word he was saying in that accent. Peih-Gee (pronounced PG like the rating) had a smart idea to get an answer, offering him two different suggestions about how to strengthen the floor, but he just answered "I agree with you". She tried to find out which suggestion he agreed with, and he just kept saying "Ah dunnow." Kudos to Peih-Gee for not decapitating him with the machete like his nick-name was just begging her to do.

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.

Survivor Fiji: Finale

2007-08-27T23:26:00.000+10:00

"Dreamz is a smart guy
But undisciplined in his
Thinking." Well said, Yau.

Well, that’s it for another season. Perhaps the most disappointing thing was that the finale turned out to be three hours of entirely predictable television. Perhaps the most exciting thing is that there will be at least one more series of Survivor. More on that later.

As usual, the final episode started with a recap of the series so far and then it was pretty much straight into an immunity challenge to determine the final four. Survivors had to work their way through five mazes while blindfolded. The drawbridges across shallow moats between each maze gave plenty of extra footage for the "people falling over" montage they ran in the reunion special, and once again showed that brains will beat brawn any day, and that Cassandra really isn’t that competitive.

Yau-Man won, which guaranteed places in the final four for both he and Earl thanks to the immunity necklace and immunity idols they held respectively. Dreamz made lots of noise about how worried he was going into Tribal Council, forgetting – or ignoring – the fact that his deal with Yau-Man of the truck for immunity in the next round made him rather valuable. Cassandra looked stressed, but since that was about the only look on her face for the previous 37 days it didn’t mean much. Boo, who was only still around because he’s won the previous immunities, was absolutely correct in being worried. He didn’t go down without a fight though, pointing out to Earl that the difference between first prize of a million dollars and second prize of a hundred thousand dollars is nine hundred thousand dollars. Somehow I doubt Earl needs Boo to do his math homework for him.

The next day brought an analogy from Earl about how Yau-Man’s the older Asian guy and he’s the young Black guy and they’re buddies and it’s like Rush Hour. Jackie Chan would probably be more flattered by the comparison to Yau-Man than Chris Tucker would be by the comparison to Earl.

Even more torturous was the stroll down memory lane on the way to the final immunity challenge. As many of you know I just hate this bit every season, although Yau-Man lessened my pain to some degree by picking up Jessica’s torch and saying "You were first to go: we hardly knew you" which was blunt and true. The awful, schmultzy Hollywood music playing in the background swelled to a crescendo as they lay all the collected torches on a canoe and set fire to it as it floated out to sea. That’s six minutes of my life that I will never recover.

Jeff cheerfully pointed out that the final immunity challenge would test everyone’s desire to win and tolerance for pain. Apparently Fiji is one of the CIA’s extraordinary rendition sites now, albeit specialising in medieval techniques (maybe the producers subcontract development of tree mail poems to the same torture specialists). Survivors had to hang by the arms while water dripped on their heads, with the angle at which they lay increasing by five degrees every five minutes. It was barbaric – the final immunity challenge always is – but at least the producers have learned from previous seasons and the challenge was over in less than half an hour.

As expected, Cassandra and Earl both went out early leaving just Yau-Man and Dreamz. There was almost no point in Dreamz winning: he’d just have to hand the immunity necklace over to Yau-Man anyway under the terms of their deal over the truck. I was waiting for Yau-Man to point that out and tell him to let go, but it didn’t happen. They both seemed to be looking forward to the inspirational moment at Tribal Council where Dreamz handed the necklace over, fulfilled his promise, set a fine moral example to his son and brought us all a little closer to world peace.

Only it didn’t happen. For days, Dreamz had been talking about how he intended the keep his word and be an honourable man, but he’d also been making noises about not being sure what he’d do until he got to Tribal Council. Dreamz is so infuriatingly inconsistent that nobody really took any notice until the point where Jeff asked if he was going to hand over the necklace and he said "I’m gonna keep it". He could have redeemed the situation by giving back the truck instead, but he didn’t even do that. Very, very disappointing but not very surprising.

What was surprising was Earl’s vote, which along with Cassandra and Dreamz’s made Yau-Man the final jury member and gave us an all African-American final three. They spent their last day burning everything in the camp (which I have to admit is one of my favourite final episode traditions) and enjoying a sumptuous breakfast. Earl’s mother might have been disappointed to watch him eating jam straight out of the jar with a knife, but she’d have been proud of his performance in the final Tribal Council.

Cassandra’s beige-ness and Dreamz’s betrayal meant that Earl was virtually guaranteed to win, and he made it easier still by asking for the respect vote, not the sympathy vote (Dreamz) or the underdog vote (Cassandra). Dreamz tried to claim he wasn’t playing for sympathy, but then reminded everyone about his underprivileged background and how many people he could help with that money and boo hoo woe is me blah blah tell someone who cares.

True to form the jury members’ questions demonstrated more about themselves than the people about whom they were supposed to be learning. Most of them used the opportunity to either simper to Earl and give him an opportunity to look even better, or to attack Dreamz and make him look even stupider. Edguardo did both by asking Earl how he knew about Mookie’s immunity idol, and all Earl had to do was say "Dreamz". Alex the lawyer didn’t so much ask a question as audition for a role on Law and Order. Boo went on an entirely unexpected rampage about whether Dreamz acted as a ‘Christian man’ in the best bible-belting tradition of the revival tent circuit. Rocky’s question was simply incomprehensible, Michelle giggled non-stop, and Mookie backed Dreamz into a corner where he had to try and explain how lying is not the same as betrayal.

Lisi inexplicably criticised Cassandra’s choice of footwear, and then asked Dreamz how many zeros there are in a million. She seemed to think she’d shown him up when he answered "six" until she looked at the jury, saw none of them was laughing and realised that maybe he’d got the answer right. She also created some serious tension when she pointed alternately at Cassandra and Dreamz, chanting "Eenie meenie minie mo, catch a...". It’s ok, she said "liar", but it was fun waiting to see whether Earl, Dreamz or Cassandra would have been first across the Tribal Council floor to deck her if she’d stuck with the traditional version.

And then it was Yau-Man’s turn. He told Dreamz that he felt personally responsible for the mistake of trusting him (which Dreamz answered by saying he’d always planned to go back on his promise, in direct contrast to the crocodile tears he squeezed out on the night). He also gave Earl the chance to admit that he only voted Yau-Man out because he couldn’t beat him, which made them both look good.

The most telling moment in the whole series came when a camera angle showed the votes were positioned vertically in the ballot box and Jeff was just pulling them out at random until he’d read out Earl’s name five times and could declare him the winner. If there had been a vote for anyone else in there the papers would have been read out in a specific order to create a bit of tension. Jeff later admitted that Earl is the only person to have ever won in a clean sweep, which made it even more amazing to learn that Earl doesn’t even watch Survivor and had no real idea of how the game works going into it.

The reunion special proved a number of things:

Dreamz is incapable of giving a coherent, consistent answer, even to a yes/no question;
it probably took the skill of every hairdresser on the CBS payroll to brush the knots out of Lisi’s hair, but they eventually managed to clean her up to a presentable standard;
Rita (aka Miss Venezuela) has a roll of double sided tape and needed most of it to hold her entirely inappropriate dress in place;
Papa Smurf seems to think that the trauma of three days in the luxury Moto camp justifies getting a tattoo of the Survivor Fiji logo which covers most of his upper arm;
Boo is either really tough or really stupid (or perhaps both) because he completely tore his ACL when he popped his knee a few weeks into the show, but sought no medical attention for it at the time and hasn’t had it fixed since he got back; and
Jeff has a natty dark blue sweater as well as the natty duck-egg blue sweater he normally wears at the reunion.

As mentioned earlier, there will be at least one more series of Survivor. Of course whether we get to see it – and if we do, how late we’ll have to stay up – is still uncertain. They’re finally leaving behind the tropics and heading for China of all places. I’m sure the Olympics has nothing to do with the Beijing Government’s decision to allow production of an American TV show for the first time. I’m just looking forward to tribes with names like Taiwan, Tibet and Falun Gong. Voting is too democratic, so perhaps the producers will choose a Survivor at random to be taken out and shot for the organ transplant black market. The gross food challenge will be a doddle, and there could be an entire reward challenge around who can eat the most Yum Cha in a one hour sitting.

Once again it has been my great pleasure to pick the juicy bits out of my favourite show for your Monday morning amusement. Now grab your torches and head back to camp.

Survivor Fiji: week 13

2007-08-19T22:48:00.000+10:00

Ford Super Duty;
It can haul three tons of stuff.
Buy one! (Pretty please?)

Apparently next week’s grand finale will be Survivor’s 200th episode. Before you decide to stay up for that milestone event I should warn you that it starts at 11.15pm and runs for three hours, including the reunion. That’s OK, I’ll stay up (*sigh*).

This week gave us one of the most paranoid reactions we’ve seen in 199 episodes. Boo is worried that the others are scheming against him behind his back. Ever the man of action he decided to build a short-cut trail through the jungle to the water well so that he can sneak up and listen in on conversations that take place there. In his foolproof theory he’ll know what everyone is up to and they won’t be able to do a thing about it. Gee Boo that’s, like, really evil. You da man. It’s just a pity that the whole time you were off alone working on this eighth wonder of the modern world everyone else was back at camp talking about you. There’s nothing left for them to say, either at the well or anywhere else.

The crappy tree mail poem was so blatant even Dreamz worked out it was the car challenge. He’s the only one of the remaining six who doesn’t own a car. He’s also the only one without a driver’s licence, but that didn’t stop him from embarking on a campaign of shameless begging to either just be allowed to win the challenge or be handed the prize by the actual winner. Even I thought he had more dignity than that.

Dreamz was wrong: it wasn’t the car challenge, it was a truck challenge. A Ford Super Duty to be precise. It can haul three tons in the tray and tow twelve off the back,. To prove this, after the challenge they hauled a huge crate of school supplies and towed a mobile staff office to a nearby school. I’m not sure if the producers or the Ford marketing team came up with this idea, but they used a hoist to suspend the crate of school supplies over the tray of the truck (sorry, Ford Super Duty) then dramatically drop it to show off the suspension. Not once but twice, from a couple of different camera angles. Wow, that’s a truck!

Despite his team having to go back to the start three times because he kept falling off the balance beam, Yau-Man won. There’s a number of horrible racial stereotypes about men in hats, the elderly and Asians being bad drivers. Yau-Man avoided them all - and simultaneously proved the stereotype about nerds being smarter than jocks - by offering to give Dreamz the car (sorry, truck. Sorry, Ford Super Duty) on the following condition: if they both make it to the final four, and Dreamz wins immunity to make it to the final three, he has to give it to Yau-Man. Of course Dreamz said yes. Of course Jeff looked stunned. Of course Earl just smiled wryly.

As reward winner, Yau-Man also got to pick whom to send to Exile Island. His choices should have been Dreamz, Earl and Cassandra as members of the losing team, but Dreamz had to drive his new Ford Super Duty to the school with its three ton crate of soccer balls and pencil cases. (Actually Boo had to drive because Dreamz doesn’t have a licence, but you get the point.)

In the end, Yau-Man sent himself to Exile Island. He said it’s because Cassandra isn't strong enough to cope out there, and Earl has already had to go too many times. In truth it meant he got the next clue for where Alex’s immunity idol has been rehidden (which he dutifully shared with Earl, who found it easily). He was also spared the pain of visiting the school and witnessing Dreamz trying to teach impressionable children how to speak English.

The immunity challenge was only notable for three things:

Jeff’s first opportunity this season to pronounce the word buoy as "boo-ee" (I love that so much!);
The editing team’s first ever opportunity to pixelate someone’s potty mouth (in this instance, Stacey); and
Boo winning immunity again and stuffing up everyone’s plans to vote him out next.

Many of you know that in my spare time I’m a Contracts Manager, and my inner bush lawyer cringed at the loopholes in the pact between Yau-Man and Dreamz. The main one, which even Dreamz spotted, is that the whole deal is conditional on them both making it to the final four. All Dreamz has to do is get Yau-Man voted out prior to the final four and he gets to keep the car and his spot in the final three. Likewise one might argue that Dreamz does not have the necessary mental capabilities to understand the contractual terms and give informed and binding acceptance of Yau-Man’s offer. Either way, Dreamz tried hard to get rid of Yau-Man this week so that he can honestly welch on the deal and not have the rest of the world think he’s untrustworthy. I mean, if this season has proven nothing else it's that Dreamz can be trusted with a secret, right?

The other pressing loophole is the car curse. Nobody has ever won the car and gone on to win the series. Perhaps it really is a car curse and not a truck (sorry, Ford Super Duty) curse. Is it the winner or the possessor of the car who is cursed? I guess we'll find out next week.

In the lead up to Tribal Council it genuinely looked like Dreamz had convinced Cassandra, Boo and Stacey to help him vote Yau-Man out. It was an easy choice for Stacey, because Boo had immunity and she was the only other unaligned person left for them to vote out. (Oddly, in his recap on last week, Jeff described Alex as the last member of the Four Horsemen alliance. I thought Dreamz was a member, too?) Cassandra had a tougher call to make, because if the plan backfired she’d have burned bridges with both Yau-Man and Earl. Boo just does what he’s told.

Maybe Yau-Man is psychic, or maybe he’s an excellent judge of character. Maybe he’s actually paranoid and says things like this all the time and they just end up on the cutting room floor, but it was oddly prescient when he said to Earl as they left for Tribal Council, "I have bad vibes." Either way he was alert for the hidden meaning when Stacey made a seemingly random comment to Jeff that she believed it would be a split vote that night. It was enough to spook Yau-Man into playing his immunity idol, and he smiled a little bit wider every time Jeff put a vote with his name on it on the scrap heap, leaving two votes for Stacey and none for anyone else.

That puts Stacey on the jury and me out of our office sweep. Next week we get to see if it’s a final three again this season, who those final three are, and who eventually wins. We’ll also see if Jeff wears the same duck-egg blue V-neck sweater to his third reunion in a row, and whether Lisi’s grooming standards are a result of poor suitcase packing or genuine lack of effort.

Survivor Fiji: week 12

2007-08-12T22:22:00.000+10:00

Here’s some advice, Boo:
When Dreamz sayz you’re talking crap
It’s time to shut up.

The worst part about tonight’s episode was that Mookie isn’t allowed to say anything from the jury box, so we don’t know if he’s worked out that Alex betrayed him. I still don’t know if Dreamz worked it out either; at one point he was standing there with a hand splayed out in front of himself and a very confused look on his face saying, "I’m trying to do the math quick." Since he was only using one hand and there were eight votes to be counted I think he was going to be there a while. Let’s just say the camera crew didn’t waste any film by hanging around until he figured it out.

Alex, meanwhile, was operating in ‘ninja mode’. This consisted of pretending to be asleep so that he could hear what people were saying. The obvious flaw in his plan was that it would only work if people talked within his range of hearing. Despite the odds they actually did. Entirely in keeping with the odds all he heard was Earl, Yau-Man and Cassandra in violent agreement that they would vote out Alex next and Boo after that.

The reward challenge can be summed up in the words "Try not to get food poisoning or catch a communicable disease." Various lumps of roast pork were hanging from ropes in the hot tropical sun. Survivors had their hands tied behind their backs and had to use just their teeth to rip off large chunks of the meat, then run back to a table and dump the meat on their plate. With everyone using their mouths on the same targets someone was bound to end up with at least one form of hepatitis. Several of them picked up meat they’d dropped in the dirt, and Stacey is going to have some nasty bruises from trying to crack the pork open like a pinata using her face as a weapon.

Frankly I didn’t think Boo would be able to resist the urge to just stand there and eat, but at the end of five minutes he had the heaviest plate with Yau-Man and Dreamz close behind. The three of them got to go white water rafting with a bloke who looked just like George Speight, while the losers had to try and use cold seawater to wash the grease and roast pig detritus out of their hair. No NEW! Olay Ribbons this week.

It was an hour and a half helicopter ride to the rafting location. Everyone had to wear headsets with microphones, so they all had to listen to Boo’s non-stop stream of verbal consciousness. See Dreamz, that’s an example of a soliloquy. It certainly wasn’t a conversation because everyone else was sitting there gritting their teeth and wishing he would just shut up so they could enjoy the ride. Same for the boat trip down the river. And probably on the flight home again. The horror, the horror.

The trip included a picnic lunch and letters from home. Yau-Man’s son apparently got six As and a B in algebra on his report card. He would have preferred his son to get 6a + b("Spanish or something") but he still seemed fairly proud. Dreamz got a letter from his sister that made him cry. Her grammar and punctuation probably would have made me cry too, but Dreamz said he was touched by something she said which was allegedly profound. The most profound news in Boo’s letter was that his Daddy’s horses are eating well.

Earl got sent to Exile Island, which he was very, very happy about since it gave him a second clue to the re-hidden immunity idol. He reckons he only needs two clues to find it, but we didn’t see him even looking for it let alone finding it. We did however get a single camera shot featuring two snakes at the same time, which is the first real evidence that there’s more than one out there. Jeff promised thousands of poisonous sea snakes. Why hasn’t anyone been bitten yet?

Boo’s extra reward for winning was a leg-up in the immunity challenge. Literally. Everyone except Boo had to wear themselves out digging through a patch of sand looking for three paddles, with the first two people to find all three going through to the final round. Boo already had his paddles - which actually turned out to be steps - in the nice purple drawstring bag he’d been given for winning reward. The only others to find any steps at all were the well-fed Dreamz and Yau-Man, and the utterly desperate Alex.

In the final they had to use the steps to climb up a power pole sticking out of the water with a flag pole sticking out of the top of that. Alex nearly won without even using the steps, but Boo’s combination of a full stomach, fresh arms and the comfort that his Daddy’s horses have been eating well was first to the top. He celebrated the win by holding the flag pole with one arm and waving his other fist around in the air while roaring. Luckily the camera helicopter didn’t get too close, because his resemblance to King Kong on top of the Empire State Building was already convincing enough.

By winning immunity, Boo put Alex’s head squarely on the chopping block. Yau-Man did a little piece to camera about how he feels very safe and can afford to keep the immunity idol for another week at least. You could hear the cheers from the editing suite as Alex the ninja chose Yau-Man as the person he would try to convince Stacey, Cassandra and Boo to vote out that night.

My vote for funniest scene of the episode goes to the bit where Earl spotted Alex a little away from the camp trying to win over Stacey. Earl told Boo to go and break up the conversation, and this is how it went:

Boo: Stacey, I think everybody wants to talk to you when you're finished over here.
Stacey: Who is 'everybody'?
Boo: Everybody besides you and Alex.

It was great TV because for a while there it looked like Alex might have pulled it off. Even better was Stacey totally sucking up to Cassandra and Dreamz, the two people who a couple of weeks ago were beneath her contempt. Cassandra has quietly become quite the little power broker over the last few weeks. She knows that Earl and Yau-Man are looking to take to each other to the final two along with some who isn’t a threat to them, and while they’ve already made a promise to her I don’t think it’s one they can afford to keep if they want to win.

Either way, she’s possibly lost Alex’s vote now. Her alliance dutifully voted for him, along with the Earl and Yau-Man. Boo also voted for Alex, although that might have just been a fluke since nobody seemed to bother briefing him. He’ll be voted off as soon as he fails to win immunity so his opinion doesn’t matter. Either that or everyone was afraid that engaging him in conversation would result in another soliloquy.

Survivor Fiji: week 11

2007-08-05T23:30:00.000+10:00

A word to the wise:
Remember past actions; they
Foretell the future.

That they do indeed, Alex, and this week was very much a case of your past actions biting you hard in the backside. Oh, and thanks for dictating this week’s Haiku.

So much of the episode was devoted to Mookie And Alex scheming with each other that I’m just going to use the acronym MAA to save keystrokes. It started out with MAA’s past actions towards Dreamz – and vice versa – coming to their entirely foreseeable conclusions. MAA were mad because he hadn’t come to apologise and explain that it’s just part of the game. Dreamz can’t understand why they don’t want to play with him anymore, even though he betrayed them and lied to them and voted for Mookie. He went to try and explain that they all got outsmarted the night before - which was exactly what they wanted him to do - and they turned on him for turning on them. The funniest part was Dreamz lying while attempting to make MAA believe that he hadn’t turned on them, then admitting that he’d voted for Mookie, but still absolutely insisting he was on their side.

The other person who hasn’t learned anything is Stacey. In the early days at Moto while she was in the majority she treated Dreamz and Cassandra appallingly, giving Cassandra the coffee dregs and laughing at Dreamz for thinking it was instant. Fate did its thing, and she hasn't been in a secure alliance since the reshuffle in week six. Yet the first thing she did this week on return to camp was gloat about MAA being unnumbered and declare "They’ll be lucky if they get fed." That was too hypocritical to be funny, although the night-vision camera made her eyes look totally evil as she said it, which was rather amusing.

This week’s Reward Challenge was brought to us by the good folk in Olay’s marketing department. Survivors had to play lacrosse in a mud pit, so they were good and dirty by the time the randomly selected green team of Stacey, Earl, Dreamz and Alex beat the orange team. Their prize, along with a night at a luxury spa resort, was a very nicely presented basket of the NEW! Olay Ribbons body washes range which comes in Aloe Lotion ribbons, Jojoba Butter ribbons and Almond Creme ribbons. It’s NEW! And it’s from Olay. And it’s called Ribbons. And all the Survivors were desperate to win it so it must be good.

Stacey is the only babe left on the show, so luckily for both the producers and Olay’s marketing department she was on the winning team and was happy to do a slow strip down to her bikini in the resort's outdoor shower. She spent several minutes applying NEW! Olay Ribbons body wash to a loofa while holding the bottle label-side out, then rubbing NEW! Olay Ribbons body wash all over herself and moaning "Olé! Olé!" (no, I'm not kidding.) We also had to watch Earl picking dried mud out of his armpit hair. At least Dreamz now smells like apples and strawberries, for which everyone seems grateful.

Boo injured his knee so badly during the challenge they had to call out a medic who – luckily for him but oddly for the tropics – was wearing gumboots. He helped Boo stand up and there was a distinctly audible and utterly revolting click as the knee snapped back into place. Lucky for Boo he was apparently fine and quite happy to finish the challenge. Unlucky for Boo he was on the losing team and got sent to Exile Island for a night, although that had the bonus of getting a clue to where MAA's Immunity Idol has been reburied. Hmm, if you had to choose the person out of Boo, Cassandra, Yau-Man or Mookie who would be least likely to understand the clue and find the turtle before you got a chance, who would you pick? Smart choice, Earl.

Alex spent the entire reward trying to, quote, "wiggle my way back into this alliance," which was strange considering he's never been part of that alliance to start with. His efforts were a complete failure, especially when he tried to convince Earl to vote out Mookie next. Yeah, that’s a great way to prove that you’re trustworthy.

Back at camp, MAA got the idea of going through Yau-Man’s bag to see if he had the other immunity idol. They thought they were so smart when they found it. They thought it was a big strategic win for them. They thought they’d be able to call him out publicly at Tribal Council and make him look like a snake to the rest of his alliance. They thought they’d be able to get Yau-Man’s friends to all suddenly change their vote. They didn’t seem to think it was strange that there was one camera crew focused on them, and another camera crew focused on the nearby bushes. Yep, Stacey and Cassandra had been having a little pow wow of their own right near where MAA decided to hatch their evil plans and it was only Stacey standing on a stick which gave away their position, not the aforementioned camera crew.

MAA ran off down the beach in a paranoid frenzy to confront Yau-Man. They were out of breath and puffing by the time they got there, which took some of the impact off their carefully rehearsed line "We know you have the idol. Do you want to tell the group yourself or do you want us to do it?" Yau-Man just looked at them, shrugged his shoulders, smiled and said "You guys do what you think you need to do."

Yau-Man is so smart. He just moseyed back to camp and told the others that MAA had admitted going through the bags and then tried to blackmail him when they found the idol. In the horror of wondering whether MAA had been through their own bags none of them reacted to the idol news at all.

The immunity reward was a game of Battleship where everyone had to pick three adjacent squares on a grid, tell Jeff in secret, and then try to hit everyone else’s positions. Dreamz dropped the first bomb: out of 25 squares to choose from he hit one of his own and put himself a third of the way out of the game. Cassandra was next and did exactly the same thing! Stacey wasted a chance by bombing a square that had already been declared empty but somehow managed to win anyway, proving Earl’s point that the immunity challenges are all about luck not strength.

MAA were still mouthing off and threatening that if they were going down they were bringing hell down with them. Um, according to conventional wisdom Hell is already down. We know what you mean.

Boo came up with a crazy idea of half his group voting for Mookie and half for Alex. It was unclear what a deliberately tied vote was meant to achieve, and Earl expressed some well-placed fears that the plan was too mentally challenging for some of them to cope with (he didn’t name names but their initials might be Boo and Dreamz).

Tribal Council didn't go as well for MAA has they'd expected. Alex stated baldly that last week the snakes and rats came out, and then Mookie played his trump card by announcing how he knows that Yau-Man has the other immunity idol. A clearly stunned Jeff finished off the job of pointing out what an awful betrayal of trust that is, even to the point of highlighting MAA’s hypocrisy at complaining about snakes and rats.

Dreamz, true to form, blabbed that his alliance was planning to split the vote. Alex, true to form, used the information to save himself by voting for Mookie to make sure there was no tie. And Mookie, true to form, doesn’t seem to have done the math and clicked that Alex voted with the others.

A word to the wise, Alex: Remember past actions; they foretell the future. And methinks your past actions foretell you getting voted out very soon.

Survivor Fiji: week 10

2007-07-30T00:03:00.000+10:00

And the winner is...
Earl! For Best Actor in a
Comedy/Drama

This week’s episode was all about the few hours from the end of the Immunity Challenge until after the tribe had spoken, so I’m going to skip over much of the first forty minutes, highlights of which included:

Dreamz trying to construct whole sentences in recognisable English to explain why he voted for Michelle when he hates Stacey so much;
Mookie trying to have a rational strategy discussion with Dreamz and eventually giving it up as a lost cause;
Alex trying to get Mookie to share the immunity idol with him and eventually giving it up as a lost cause; and
Boo trying to get on Earl’s good side and not realising it’s a lost cause.

The reward challenge was the one where each person who answers a question correctly gets to smash something representing another person in a none-too-subtle way of proving you want them out. The first layer of fun is in the catty nature of the questions, such as "Who would you be least likely to invite home for dinner?" (correct answer; Boo) and "Who smells the worst?" (correct answer; Dreamz).

The game was doubly cruel to Stacey. Not only is she the person nobody wants to see again (unanimously) and the person who others feel has most wasted this opportunity, but she was the first person knocked out of the game. It was hard to tell whether was more upset by the home truths or by being denied the chance to smash anyone else’s tiles in retribution.

Cassandra got every question right, winning a night on a luxury yacht and the chance to take three other people. She won because she’s politically smart, and she proved it by choosing to take Boo and Dreamz to bribe them into her alliance, and Yau-Man because he’s worked hard and deserves a break. Oh, and because he’s really smart and knew without being told that he was there to help brainwash Dreamz and Boo, even though that task would require very, very little soap to complete.

Poor Dreamz. Everyone knows he can’t be trusted with a secret because, as Alex so tactfully put it, he gets really honest. He promised the three other Horsemen (yes they’re all still carrying on with that rot) not to tell Cassandra about the idol they found. To be fair to him, technically he didn’t tell Cassandra; he told Cassandra and Earl and Yau-Man.

There needs to be a "Nobel Prize for Politics and Acting" just for Earl. Dreamz blurted out the news about the idol and Earl pretended not to believe him. True to form Dreamz kept on blabbing fact after fact to try and prove his credibility. And the look on Earl’s face as he said "What do you mean, it’s a turtle?" was just brilliant. It takes a lot of brains to play that dumb. And no, that’s not what Dreamz is doing.

Stacey desperately wanted – needed – to win the Immunity Challenge. She held on for a long time, but couldn’t beat Yau-Man in an endurance test that favoured those with strong arms and little feet.

The next few minutes was a mess of nine people trying to arrange how to vote and not be voted out. On one side was Alex’s alliance with Edgardo and Mookie. On the other side was Earl’s alliance with Yau-Man, Cassandra and now Boo. Floating in between and spreading disinformation in both camps were Stacey and Dreamz as the two least popular and most powerful on the beach, each desperately trying to prove they can be trusted by blowing the other alliance’s secrets. Yeah, that’s how to make people trust you.

Mookie was still furious at Cassandra for sending him to Exile Island two days earlier and wanted to punish her. But for some reason his preferred order to vote out the others is Earl then Boo then Yau-Man. And he wants to vote out Earl first because he thinks Earl has the idol. I’m going to assume that he’s assuming that Earl will assume they don’t know he’s got the idol so he won’t use it and that’s how they’ll vote him out even though he’s got the idol. Something like that, anyway. It didn’t make sense to me either.

Eventually – and it really did take an unforgivable amount of time - both alliances realised that targeting the person with immunity was perhaps a risky move, so we had a few more minutes of both sides changing who they were going to vote for, depending on the latest reports from Dreamz and Stacey.

Tribal Council was one of the best ever, and I’d love to know how many cameras they had to capture each look on each person’s face. At least one of those cameras was busy capturing a shot of the jury from behind, which necessitated a lot of pixelation to cover up Lisi’s bum crack.

Stacey and Dreamz (acting separately but with the same intent) had both convinced Alex that he’d been targeted for elimination, so he took the plunge and used Mookie’s precious immunity idol. Earl and his alliance managed to look worried. Mookie looked shattered that the idol was gone. Edgardo couldn’t keep the stupid grin off his face.

True to habit, Jeff had cunningly arranged the ballot papers so that he could read them out in the most ratings-grabbing order. Cassandra got the first three votes and looked worried. Earl and Yau-Man looked sombre. Boo looked like he normally does.

Then came a vote for Mookie from Dreamz, who thought he was voting with Earl’s tribe but had actually been left out of the last few plan changes. It’s going to be fun next week watching how he responds now that it’s clear he’s lost everyone’s trust, and whether he’ll understand how he brought that upon himself.

Finally came five votes in a row for Edgardo. It might have just been the editing, or it really might have taken him that long to work it out, but he kept grinning like an idiot for several second before it sunk in that he was a goner. Mookie was furious the idol had been wasted. Alex was horrified that the idol had been wasted and that he’s only got Mookie left on his side. Cassandra and Stacey both looked relieved. Earl and Yau-Man relaxed and looked smug.

Jeff just looked bemused, especially when he announced that the surrendered idol will be hidden again and new clues left on Exile Island. Perhaps Mookie won’t be so mad next time he gets sent there. Or perhaps the ad for next week was serious when it showed him going through Earl’s bags looking for the other one. How funny that Dreamz’s Lord of the Rings analogy about the idol being ‘precious’ was so accurate, and how unsurprising that he was referring to the movie not the book. Not that Dreamz would have known to call it an analogy. And Alex wasn’t really listening when he said it so perhaps it was a soliloquy, too.

Survivor Fiji: week 9

2007-07-22T23:23:00.000+10:00

"Not a good tree mail."
You just don’t watch this show much,
Do you Cassandra.

There simply is no such thing as a good tree mail. Well, it’s really more the crappy "poems" that come with tree mail that are the problem. (I do occasionally wonder what became of Pam Ayres; now we know.) This week we had four separate crappy "poems" inflicted on us, which surely breaches Fiji’s Charter of Human Rights.

The first one told everyone to pack up their personal belongings and paddle to Exile Island. They were not allowed to take any tools, flints or rewards. The scene had started with some loving camera shots of Moto’s bed, couch, crockery, coffee and toiletries just to remind us of what they were leaving behind. At the time it seemed like just an excuse to play some more wacky luau music, but it turned out to have a purpose. More on that later.

The note was very explicit about what they could take with them, but when they got to Exile Island there was nobody there to check their luggage, not even Jeff. Well, a few cameramen but we’re all supposed to pretend they’re not there. The person most conspicuously absent from Ravu’s boat was Lisi, and yet nobody on Moto bothered to ask where she was. They clearly didn’t care.

The look-out tower housed this week’s second note, along with new purple buffs for everyone. The note advised that the merge, which even Dreamz could see coming, has now happened and they are one tribe. It also told them to paddle back to Moto’s camp where they will all be living from now on. For Boo, Cassandra and Stacey this meant not having to experience life without a decent shelter and plentiful food. For Edguardo, Alex and Dreamz it meant a return to the good life. Mookie kept sooking about how he’s the only one who’s never lived there and slept in the bed. Either he doesn’t remember building the shelter along with everyone else on the first day, or he’s trying to garner more sympathy and therefore more pillows.

Which brings us nicely to the third note. It was sitting in the old Moto camp on top of the single set of fishing gear, the two pots, the one flint and the bare ground. While the contestants were paddling out to Exile Island the camp was totally cleaned out. There’s no shelter, no bedding, no food, no coffee and no toiletries. Nada. And we at home know exactly what’s missing because we got that little inventory at the start.

The one thing everyone – except Boo – understood was that it’s now or never for alliances. The Ravu boys each had people from their old alliances who they were supposed to target for membership of a new group. Dreamz was to win over Cassandra, Mookie was to work on Yau-Man and Michelle, while Alex was going to sweet talk Stacey. Apparently Edguardo doesn’t have any friends.

The crazy thing is that they keep referring to themselves as "The Four Horsemen". I wonder what they’ll call themselves when there’s eight members of their alliance if they all succeed in their missions? I wonder if they really thought that name through. I wonder which one sees himself as Pestilence, which as War, which as Famine and which as Death.

The names Alex and Edguardo probably use to best represent Mookie and Dreamz are Dumb and Dumber. Before leaving Ravu they grilled Mookie about whether they could trust him as the keeper of the idol, and reiterated their plan not to tell Dreamz about it yet because he couldn’t be trusted not to blab to Cassandra. It turns out Mookie can’t be trusted not to blab to Dreamz.

Alex witnessed the announcement with barely contained fury. Smooth as ever he managed to twist "You can’t be trusted" into "You just get really honest" when Dreamz quite naturally asked why they didn’t tell him at the time. As much as I love to pay out on him, the wounded look on Dreamz’ face was a bit heart-wrenching. And he got really honest in his next one-on-one to the camera pointing out how and why he doesn’t trust the other Horsemen any more.

The only person not frantically working on new alliances was Boo, who is planning to sit back, let things shake out and then take a leadership role with whichever group wins. Unfortunately for Boo, he was the top of the "first to go" list that came out of every clandestine deal-making huddle. Fortunately for Boo the Immunity Challenge shook things up again in yet another twist. And fortunately for us we didn’t have to see the tree mail notifying them of challenge.

Before it started, each person had to reach into a bag and pull out at random either an orange or green tile. This is where it gets a bit confusing. They are all still in the new purple Bula Bula tribe, but the new green and orange groups had to compete against each other for immunity and a reward. The winners would get a feast, and the losers would be punished with not just a trip to Tribal Council but another mystery note, which is a cruel punishment but not all that unusual this episode.

As twists go it was a good one but as challenges go it was unoriginal. Teams had to paddle their boat through a course, collect bags of stuff and solve a puzzle. True to the Milton-Bradley / Mousetrap / ‘For Ages 8 to 80’ spirit of the whole thing, the bags had to be retrieved from what others might have described as a coil but looked to me like the top off a big Totem Tennis(TM) pole.

Both teams reached the first one at the same time. Jeff called out that there’s a strategic technique needed to get the bags down. He need not have wasted his breath for our sake because that was obvious by the way Yau-Man was retrieving the second one for his team by the time Stacey and then Dreamz each struggled before Alex finally took over and worked it out.

Too little too late however, so the team of Alex, Michelle, Dreamz, Stacey and Mookie were forced to watch as Jeff handed over a big plate of raw steak and veggies to the winners (which is apparently their reward, even though it had been sitting out in the tropical sun for a few hours). The losers also had to brace themselves for the final note, which simply read:

You will not be going back to camp,
There will be no time to strategize.
We’re heading to Tribal Council right now.

The only question I really wanted Jeff to ask was "Lisi, you’ve been in a luxury resort for three days now; why have you still not brushed your hair?" Unfortunately his questioning consisted solely of "[Person A] give me a reason to get rid of [Person B]." Once again, Alex’s smooth tongue won the day. One by one he simply answered that he had no reason for getting rid of any of the people Jeff named until it got to Michelle, in which instance he said "I don’t know Michelle as well as I know any of the other people here." It sent a clear message to the others that leader Alex had tagged Michelle for elimination. Even Dreamz understood it, although apparently Alex also should have explained to him that ‘Michelle’ is not spelt ‘Mechelle’.

Either way, yet another girl is gone. We don’t know whether the orange and green teams will continue, but I’m sure the next tree mail will explain it in excruciating rhyme and metre.

Survivor Fiji: week 8

2007-07-15T20:14:00.000+10:00

Memo to Lisi:
Dreamz may be a bit slow, but
You’re an idiot.

Seriously, Lisi, you’re a fool of the highest magnitude. By the time tonight’s episode went to air in Australia the entire series was finished in the U.S., so you’ve already seen the difference between your perception of reality and actual reality. Well, the editor’s version at least. Let’s go back over some of your finest moments so you can relive the shame.

The episode started with a recap of last week and your decision to tell Edguardo and Alex that the individual immunity idol – the thing that gives you protection through to the final five - is buried in your camp right where you all sleep. I understand that you’re in an alliance with them, and that you think you can trust them, but it’s a million dollars at stake.

And it turns out you really shouldn’t trust Edguardo and Alex. They filled Mookie in on the clues, and the three of them managed to dig up the idol while you and Dreamz slept on in blissful ignorance (which is virtually a permanent state for both of you). They dug a foot-deep hole in hard ground a meter from where you dozed and you didn’t even stir. You stayed in the same foetal position, backside facing the camera. It was an unflattering angle because you were wearing light-coloured pants and had previously sat on something dirty, making it look like you’d soiled yourself. Embarrassing for you, funny for us.

You’ve done some one-on-one camera interviews that were cringe-worthy, but the best of them was when you recapped the story of waking up to find Mookie playing in the dirt near your feet. We all know that he was filling the hole back in to hide the fact that they found the idol and have no intention of even telling you about it, let along sharing. Your version of the story went as follows: "This morning Mookie was trying to be a little discreet, flipping leaves and playing with the ground, and I was like, ‘What, idol digging?’ and he had no choice but to say ‘Um, yeah’ and I’m like ‘Dude, you’re gonna have to get up really early in the morning to fool an old cat like me. What’s wrong with you?"

There may actually be something wrong with Mookie, because no normal person would have been able to keep such a straight face while diligently helping you re-dig the now empty idol hole, let alone when Edguardo walked up and said "I already checked that part. It’s not there." Hey, he was telling the truth!

The reward challenge, as you may remember, involved learning to dance the traditional Fijian Meke and then performing for the locals. You were hopeless, although it’s hard to tell whether that’s because you’ve got no rhythm or because you don’t take the challenges seriously and don’t see the point of getting psyched up to try and win. At least you had the sense to only express that view to the camera, not your tribe mates. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you didn't. Surely you didn't!

Earl was the star of the challenge, drawing on his inner Michael Jackson to get some cool black-dude dance moves happening and laughing at Boo’s "white guy thang". He needs to remember that Michael Jackson isn’t black any more, and hasn’t been a winner for a long time.

Moto is undeniably strong at collecting puzzle pieces, undoing knots and raising flags but it turns out they’re pretty good at dancing too. I’d love to have had subtitles during the judges’ deliberations at the end, but they were definitely not needed to understand the looks of disgust on their faces during Ravu’s lame effort. Jeff told them that authenticity would be one of the judging criteria, so it's inexplicable why Dreamz threw in a back flip at the end. I didn't see any Fijians doing back flips.

Lisi, the look of disgust on your face when you got sent to Exile Island again gets my award for Cat’s Bum Mouth of the series thus far. Earl explained that they chose you so nobody else in that tribe gets any clues as the location of the immunity idol. It obviously hasn’t occurred to him that you’d be so stupid as to tell anyone the clues you’ve already got. It probably hasn’t even occurred to him that the Ravu camp idol has already been found, since you’re the only one in your tribe to have seen the clues, and he knows you’re too stupid and lazy to have found it on your own.

Before you accuse me of being harsh, you’re so stupid you took shelter during a lighting storm in the lookout tower, the highest point on Exile Island. If it was just you I wouldn’t care, but you had the cameraman up there with you and he was holding a big chunk of metal. That makes you a dangerous idiot.

Yau-Man is exceedingly smart, so it’s lucky you’ve never been on the same tribe as him because it would make the comparison that much more stark. Ravu keep laughing at what a weedy little old man he is, but brains will beat brawn any day. Brains will also beat braggarts. Edguardo will never again refer publicly to his supposed archery skills after making a statement like "I never say I’m pretty good at stuff, but I’m pretty good at archery" prior to the challenge, and then not even reaching the target - let alone hitting it - when his tribe needed him to at least force a tie-breaker.

Teams took turns with a blow dart, then a spear, then a bow and arrow to hit targets. Contestants competed in the same order each time, and every time Yau-Man’s shot for Moto was so good – and Edguardo’s shot as the last person for Ravu was so bad – that Earl didn’t even need to have his turn. Yau-Man did simple but logical things like finding the balance point of the spear and choosing the straightest arrow in the quiver. Lisi, you did simple and illogical things like laughing at the failings of your own tribe.

I use the phrase "your own tribe" because you are part of that tribe whether you like it or not, and you’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t. You described "them" as losers and a sinking ship, including one pronunciation of ‘loser’ which you extended to five syllables. You probably thought that was funny at the time. I wonder if you still found it funny watching the episode at home?

At least you weren’t a total hypocrite, telling the entire tribe that you want to be voted out because they are all losers who would lose the next challenge and you’d get sent back to Exile Island again. There’s no ‘i’ in team but there’s two in Lisi.

And yet, ten minutes before Tribal Council, you decided to hang around after all. Why? Because you wanted another chance. You’d changed your mind. You’d decided to try and hang in there, maybe, sort of. All the way through Tribal Council your best – nay, only – defence was that you wanted another chance. You wanted the others to vote for Dreamz even though he really wants to stay. You accused Dreamz of quitting halfway through challenges but then couldn’t give a single example to prove your case. You don’t even understand the concept of a Yes or No question, so I’ll explain it. When someone says "Do you want to be here? Yes or No?" you are supposed to say either 'Yes' or 'No'. "Can’t I catch a break?" and "So now I’m at fault for being honest and saying I have to think for a minute!" are not correct answers, although the latter is at least true.

The two funniest non-Lisi moments of the whole episode were:

Rocky running up the stairs to the Tribal Council chambers like he was out front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the stirring da-daaa-daaaaaa of Gonna Fly Now was playing the background; and
Dreamz attempting to pronounce ‘soliloquy’ again, and saying ‘recipitate’ instead of ‘resuscitate’. Honey, stick to words of less that four syllables.

Last week Edguardo and Alex justified getting rid of Rocky because loyalty is more important than strength when the merge is nigh. This week they decided that mental stability is even more important. Since you’re loyal but unstable, and not a very smart game player (Edguardo’s description, not mine) you’re useless. Now you even know that the vote against you was unanimous.

As Jeff said at the end, if there’s one truth in this game it’s that;
"You have to want to
Win to make it to the end."
Suck on that, Lisi.

Survivor Fiji: week 7a

2007-07-08T22:39:00.000+10:00

It's the Wimbledon
Men's Final. No Survivor.
Early night for me!

Survivor Fiji: week 7

2007-07-01T23:16:00.000+10:00

A jury is made
Up of twelve good men and true;
And, it seems, Rocky.

Week seven, and still not even a hint of romance. Normally by now one of the buffed young guys would have been helping one of the blonde young girls stay warm at night by snuggling up to her in the shelter. The only three women left are all on the same tribe and none of them are blonde. Also the only buffed young guy on that tribe is Boo, and they all seem to value their dignity too much to go there.

The other tribe does have Lisi, who has sort of dirty yellow hair (where her last home bleach job grew out) and is young, and she is surrounded by buffed young guys. Trouble is she’s just as buffed as they are, as evidenced by the ease with which she carried three pint glasses of beer during the reward challenge. More on that later.

Actually there almost was some romance when Edguardo sat next to Rocky on a log and tried to talk strategy. The answer to Edguardo’s question "What do you think?" was answered "I think you should [expletive and pixelation of Rocky’s potty mouth] push over unless you want to make out with me." No romance there.

No, the real romance this week was at Moto’s camp. Earl once again got the rest of the tribe away so that Yau-Man could look for the immunity idol. Digging with a pick axe and shovel that were just laying around the Moto camp was much easier than trying to do it at the Ravu camp with just a machete, and he soon had a rather cute turtle necklace in his hands. He was a bit excited. Actually he was very excited. He started kissing the turtle and didn’t stop. He may have actually licked it. Not a good look.

In his excitement he also slipped from talking about the immunity idol in the plural form ‘we’ (which featured so heavily in his negotiations with Earl) into the singular form ‘me’ (for example, "This looks so good on me!") Their plan for sharing the idol is that if they hear Earl is about to be voted out he gets it, and if it’s Yau-Man’s scrawny neck on the chopping block he keeps it. Sounds fair. I just hope they put all this in writing because I really can’t see either of them wanting to share when the going gets tough and a million dollars is at stake.

Yau-Man is still a winner in my book, though. The reward challenge involved throwing flaming balls at targets. For once teams had to set a flag on fire instead of lighting a fire to raise a flag. Gee, where do they keep coming up with all these totally original ideas?

The buffed young men of Moto all laughed when it was Yau-Man’s turn. Mookie was especially cruel in him imitation of Yau-Man’s wobbly throwing arm. He might want to remember that Yau-Man is smart and knows his physics, as proven on day one when all the brawn in the camp couldn’t open a sealed timber box by hitting it with heavy things, while Yau-Man casually dropped it on its corner – the weakest point - and smashed it open. Naturally Yau-Man’s shot landed in just the right spot and Mookie ended up looking stupid and embarrassed. Mookie could easily be the Ralph Macchio to Yau-Man’s Mr Miyagi if he were more open to learning from little old smart guys.

Mookie was happy again when Ravu finally achieved their first win for the season. Reward was a trip to a games arcade on a nearby island with all the beer and hot dogs they could eat. The Kava Bowl (that’s seriously one of the best business names I’ve seen in ages) was true to its promise and featured intoxicating substances and ten pin bowling among other delights such as Foosball, billiards, video golf, unlimited hot dogs and the ultimate reward luxury of a nice clean china toilet to throw up in.

With his camp’s idol already located, Earl didn’t even bother reading the next location clue when he got to Exile Island. It was his third trip there so he figures it’s now his, and he spent the time productively designing a logo for his new tourism resort called Earl Island (sorry, that’s nowhere near is good as The Kava Bowl). Earl works in advertising so I was expecting a slightly more integrated above-the-line campaign than just a single televised product placement and no other media presence. At the very least I thought he’d avoid an obvious mistake like forgetting to give the website address or the reservations phone number.

Yau-Man also spent a productive afternoon creating a decoy immunity idol out of half a coconut and some yellow paint before burying it where the clues say to look. If Boo gets sent to Exile Island and manages to a) read the clues and b) work out what they mean, he might go digging and find it. I’m singling out Boo because he’s the only one in that tribe stupid enough to fall for it.

I should probably just stop for a second here and confess that Boo isn’t stupid just because he can’t tell left from right. Some of the worst navigational mistakes in my marriage have occurred because I sometimes do the same thing. To my credit though, I’d have self-corrected if my darling hubby was screaming "No, LEFT! LEFT! LEFT! THE OTHER LEFT!"

To explain why left and right is important you need to know that this week’s immunity challenge involved blindfolded contestants making their way across a course to smash pinatas (charmingly made out of a human skulls) and retrieve the obligatory puzzle pieces, guided by a team mate yelling out directions. Michelle did an excellent job calling for Moto - even falling off the look-out tower in her excitement, all of which was brilliantly captured on camera - until it was Boo’s turn. She quite possibly wanted to cave his skull in with the traditional Fijian war club when her repeated screams of "LEFT! The other way! Your left!" were ignored.

She was so hoarse by the time he got it right (pardon the pun) that Yau-Man could hardly hear her when it was his turn. Boo told her to swap out, got to the top of the look-out platform and only then remembered that he was blind for some reason that was never explained (although as I said, there’s been no romance - of any kind - this season). Boo couldn't even see Yau-Man let alone tell him where to go. Now do you forgive me for being so harsh on him?

I’ve perhaps been a little bit harsh on Lisi, too. After losing the immunity challenge for the seventh week in a row the mood at Ravu was low. Rocky did his usual temper tantrum. Alex and Edguardo did the math and figured that with the merge and the switch to individual immunity challenges so close, loyalty is more valuable than physical strength. They decided to keep Lisi since she still believes her original alliance is solid and is therefore easy to manipulate (wow, she must have been embarrassed sitting home these last few weeks and learning what those boys said about her behind her back!) They even manipulated her into telling them where the Ravu immunity idol is buried. And she fell for it!

Dreamz announced that he knowz Rocky and knowz that he don’t really meanz what he sayz an all that. Dreamz also believez that Rocky knowz that hiz head'z on the choppin block tonight. Oh Dreamz, you iz sadly mistaken and you do not know Rocky at all if you honestly believe that.

Lisi was also sadly mistaken. As Jeff read her name out on the first vote she did a big fake-terrified nail-biting pantomime that wasn’t nearly as funny as she probably thought it was. The stunned look on her face as the second vote was read out, again featuring her name, was much funnier than she could have ever intended.

Unfortunately she had a good reason to look smug by the end when Rocky was announced as the seventh person voted off and the first member of the jury. She wouldn’t look so smug if she knew that her description of having had a ‘spiritual enlightenment’ on Exile Island was accessorised in the editing suite by a ‘bo-ing!!’ comedy sound effect straight out of America’s Funniest Home Video. She’s going to look like an even bigger fool next week. More on that later...

Survivor Fiji: week 6

2007-06-25T00:15:00.000+10:00

"Drop your buffs!" said Jeff.
It’s Cassandra’s lucky day
And don’t she know it!

To this day I don’t know why a circle of brightly printed lycra is called a buff, but it is in Survivor land and it shows which tribe each person belongs to. "Drop your buffs!" means you’re about to get a new one and, ergo, a new tribe. If you’re really keen they’re available for sale on the CBS website. I checked a few seasons ago and then came to my senses and resisted the urge.

This week the order to drop buffs came only minutes into the episode, before the credits had even run. To ensure an even spread - and the complete eradication of all alliances - a person from each tribe stepped forward and then had to pick someone from the other tribe, who then also had to pick someone from the opposite tribe to them. All of Anthony’s high school nightmares came true as he was the last Ravu person to be assigned to a tribe. He managed not to cry, sort of.

Lisi was the last one left not on a team, which was a smart move on everyone’s part because she’s just the most awful person out there this year. In addition to the physical resemblance to Fergie the Duchess of York, Lisi is every bit as awkward and bumbling and inappropriate. She stupidly got it into her head that she’d be going home as a result, and even seemed rather pleased by that. She was not grateful to learn she’s still in the game, and distinctly displeased to be sent to Exile Island instead. Maybe the snake will get her.

The reward challenge for the week was a very simple one. Edguardo and Earl played Rock Paper Scissors to determine who picked a random buff out of a bag held over Jeff’s head. Edguardo won RPS but lost big time by picking the buff that sent his team back to the resourceless Ravu beach. Another way to look at it was that everyone got a reward as there was a feast of fruit, cheese and crackers waiting at each camp on their return, and the challenge for the original Ravu members was eating slowly enough to prevent a huge upset to their unaccustomed digestive systems.

The new Ravu tribe is comprised entirely of blokes: Rocky, Mookie, Alex, Edguardo and Dreamz. The blokes are delighted that there’s no girls in their tribe. They think girls are nice to look at and touch and make out with, but they’re too stupid and delicate for that kind of tough environment and therefore just a distraction. It’s an attitude straight out of 1953. It’s like Survivor Kirribilli House.

I should point out that Anthony is on the same tribe. He’s a little more enlightened than the rest, which in their eyes makes him a big girl. He even described himself as a black male Cinderella. They left him behind to tend the fire and boil drinking water and other women's work, while they did manly things like fishing and poking crabs with sticks and hanging out on the beach. As much as I despite their attitudes, I might feel more kindly toward Anthony if he didn’t complain so much about it not being his fault that he’s a nerd. Make an effort, not an excuse.

Knowing it’s a numbers game, Alex and Edguardo quickly recruited Mookie to their alliance and informed Dreamz that he’s in with them whether he likes it or not. In probably his smartest move all series Dreamz kept his mouth shut and in the process managed not to say something stupid. Rocky seems to think he’s in the gang too, but he’s merely being tolerated because he’s more masculine than Anthony, which is the most important thing in Ravu these days.

By comparison, the greatest friction between old and new at Moto came from Stacey imploring Earl not to get into the king size bed while he’s dirty. Earl, Yau-Man and Michelle couldn’t believe their luck at the luxury. Boo was smart enough to recognise that his cosy alliance is now history, but stupid enough to still be bragging that if it weren’t for this twist he was guaranteed to win the million dollars. Cassandra brought Earl and Yau-Man hot coffee in china cups while they fished, and ‘allowed’ herself to be talked into joining the three former Ravus at Boo and Stacey’s expense. She’s been waiting for that chance a long time, and was patient enough not to blow it. Slowly slowly catchee monkey.

Moto won immunity yet again despite its new composition. Yau-Man was happy to win for the first time and even happier that a few days of decent food finally gave him the strength to carry the team flag. The six members of each tribe were tethered together and had to move through an obstacle course, testing each team’s ability to communicate with each other. The outcome really wasn’t a surprise, because a team of silver backs each trying to out-brawn the others and justify his own place at the top of the pack was never going to win.

Tribal Council was little more than an argument between Rocky and Anthony about whether standing up for oneself is manly or proof of poor social skills. Anthony was rational and articulate and claimed that he’d bitten his tongue so the tribe could remain cohesive and perhaps win a challenge. It was an impassioned speech. Unfortunately it was also an extremely poor tactic because it reminded all the blokes that they’re losers and they immediately voted him out.

The good news for Lisi is that she’s still in the game. The bad news is that on her return from Exile Island she replaces Anthony in the Ravu tribe with no equipment and five boys who don’t want her there. The good news is that if they continue their strategy of voting out the most feminine tribemate she’s safe for several weeks yet.

Survivor Fiji: week 5

2007-06-18T01:03:00.000+10:00

Confucius (Yau-Man)
Say: Love many, trust few and
Do wrong to no-one.

Confucius (the real one), Sun Tzu and Machiavelli all had influence from beyond the grave this week as the politics and strategising heats up.

Earl joined forces with Yau-Man in the hunt for the immunity idol. Well, he deliberately got everyone else out of camp so that Yau-Man had a private chance to look for it based on the new info he got last week on Exile Island; he didn't do any actual searching himself. Between Yau-Man being such a nerdy little computer boffin, and a machete not being such a great digging tool, the opportunity was wasted. It was also unclear what direct benefit Earl will receive from his effort, although I’m sure the afore-mentioned philosophers would each have plenty to say about his tactics and Yau-Man seemed grateful.

To remind us that life there is just one big party, our first look at Moto for the week was accompanied by jaunty luau music that would be perfect had this been Survivor Hawaii. Just in case we hadn’t spotted the difference between the camps yet, Earl explained the disparity using an analogy that included The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Good Times. If there’s a future challenge based on ethnic minority television he’s got it won.

The disparity is also causing difficulties for the producers trying to come up with reward challenge prizes which will generate an enthusiastic "Yeah!" from both tribes when Jeff inevitably asks "Worth playing for?", which he has done before every reward challenge in all 14 seasons.

Tree mail brought a catalogue of prize options instead of a crappy poem (which was a reward in itself) and instructions to choose two items on the basis that the winning tribe would get both sets of goodies. Despite admitting they don’t really need any more luxuries, Moto went for toiletries and coffee. Despite some heavy-duty drooling over the chocolate cake, Ravu went for the highly practical cooking pot full of potatoes and the same set of fishing gear which Moto has now won twice.

Make that three times. The challenge was a mano a mano cross between Sumo wrestling and a pillow fight set on a platform above a mud flat. Competitors had to push each other into the mud using big cushions, with the first team to win seven bouts earning immunity. Yau-Man managed to beat Stacey, but since that was the only mixed-gender matching (and perhaps the only one where the heavier competitor lost) it was hardly worth crowing about. Actually the effort took so much out of him that he was incapable of doing much more than smile and laugh at himself for beating up on a girl.

It was to be the only bout that Ravu won, with Moto having a definite weight and strength advantage. A rematch between Rita and Cassandra presented another opportunity for Ravu since Rita simply had to sidestep and Cassy’s momentum would have sent her straight over the edge like a freight train, but Rita isn’t that smart. She wasn’t even smart enough to let go of the cushion to break her fall into the mud. Not even the second time. At least she remembered to hold her bikini top in place, although the pixelating machine wouldn't have been needed due to the mud.

Earl’s stay on Exile Island added another clue to the idol’s whereabouts, but nothing he didn’t already know. It seems like Earl wants to believe Yau-Man’s claim to have not found the idol yet but is finding it hard since the clues are so obvious. The question now is whether Yau-Man will help Earl find the idol, and who gets to keep any result of their joint effort.

At least Earl’s 24 hours on Exile Island spared him 24 hours of listening to Rita’s inane chatter. At Tribal Council she tried to justify the non-stop soliloquies as "telling little stories I think will entertain people and keep their mind off the dire situation we’re in." Hey don’t laugh, she’s right: when you’re that weak it’s hard to remember how hungry you are and at the same time quell the urge to choke someone.

Moto’s coffee fix meant they were having no trouble at all concentrating. For Lisi and Stacey this meant focussing on how best to completely ostracise the two remaining non-members of their alliance (both of whom are African American...). They teased Dreamz mercilessly for not knowing how to make coffee using a French press plunger (he thought it was instant and just added water to the spoonful of coffee in his mug then wondered why it had so many bits in it). Cassandra just got the dregs once everyone else had finished, Cinderella style. It was cruel and unnecessary, and way too high school for Alex and Edguardo’s comfort. They can see that even if Moto wins every remaining immunity challenge it will still be seven-three going into the merge, which equates to five-five if Dreamz and Cassandra change sides. After all, the enemy of my enemy is my friend and our philosopher pals would all have plenty to say about the current situation. They wouldn’t, however, have necessarily had any more luck banging the cold logic of the numbers into Boo, Lisi and Stacey’s heads than Alex and Edguardo did. Dreamz and Cassandra have done the numbers too, although in Dreamz’s dreams Moto wins all the challenges and he doesn’t get voted out before they even get to the merge. In his dreams there's also no sudden twist rearrangement of the tribes to stuff up everyone's plans and keep the ratings up.

Ravu almost did win immunity this week in a large-scale version of Kim’s game. Yau-Man got an easy one wrong, and then Lisi fell flat on her face - both literally and figuratively - in her excitement to show him up. She’s allegedly a customer service rep on a psychic phone line, which doesn’t explain why she: a) didn’t know where the correct match up was; and b) couldn’t read her tribemates’ minds when they all non-verbally told her - and then not so non-verbally moaned "NO" - as she tried to turn over the wrong match, disqualifying her in the process.

Cassandra, true to her name, did have enough psychic ability to win for Moto after Rocky missed an easy one. He accepted responsibility for the loss, but claimed that everyone else telling him what to do was really confusing and that as a tribe they all need to learn when not to speak. No Rocky, either you don’t have enough strength of character to believe in yourself or you have enough self awareness to know better than to believe in yourself. It’s not everyone else’s fault you got it wrong.

Michelle organised a quorum of people willing to vote Anthony out, but before anyone got a chance to brief the absent Rocky on the decision he’d started lobbying to get rid of Rita with apparent success if the editing is anything to go by, which it usually isn't. At Tribal Council Rita talked about talking, which provoked much eye rolling from the boys, and Yau-Man gave the basis of this week’s haiku as his personal philosophy in answer to a question from Jeff about trusting people, which Earl was fascinated by. Nobody produced the immunity idol, and Rita became the fifth woman voted out in what is by far the most misogynistic series in Survivor history.

The ad for next week features the chilling phrase "Drop your buffs!" and what looks like a reshuffle of the teams and a random draw for who gets the good camp. Didn't see that coming did we Dreamz!

Survivor Fiji: week 4

2007-06-11T22:48:00.000+10:00

A soliloquy
Is not an excuse to talk
When no-one listens

Mark Burnett and his fellow Survivor producers seem to have some sort of magical gag over contestants because they NEVER talk to each other during the return trip from a challenge or Tribal Council. It gives the camera crew time to get set up in camp before the recriminations start, and make sure not a juicy second is missed.

This week they must have been wishing they could gag Earl even after he was back at camp. Earl wanted a calm, rational discussion to clear the air and prevent social pressures from building to the point where someone explodes. Luckily for the ratings Rocky had plenty to say in a soliloquy at Anthony that was as illogical and sexist as it was one-sided. Apparently he’s not used to dealing with people who are emotional, unless it’s a ‘broad’ (no offence to the ladies). And (no offence to Anthony) but apparently he doesn’t deserve to be there as much as Jessica and Erica, with whom Rocky did get along even though they’re both ‘broads’ and Erica was ridiculously emotional. If they deserved to still be in the tribe more than Anthony why didn’t Rocky lobby harder to keep Jessica, and why did he lobby so hard to get rid of Erica? He finished with the words "some people got it and some people don’t". Presumably the ‘it’ about which he spoke was hypocrisy.

Poor Anthony. Apparently he got picked on in the playground as child, and here someone is picking on him in front of the whole world in the manner of a child. He assures us, however, that "If they want me off this island they’re going to have to push me off!" His performance in this week’s reward challenge suggests he’ll probably fall off before they get that chance. He couldn’t stay on the balance beam, which was enough for Ravu to lose yet again and for Moto to add a king-sized bed and a spice rack to their already impressive camp facilities.

Rocky’s reaction to losing yet again (once they were back at camp and the camera crew shouted "Action") was just as irrational and spectacular as his earlier outburst promised him capable of being. He threw coconuts, shouted, blamed Anthony – which was actually justifiable this time – walked around naked for a bit and then put on one of Rita’s many bikini tops and turned up for the next challenge in drag. Bless him.

As this episode went to air in Australia, Paris Hilton was being released from prison to home detention because she was crying a lot and has a bad rash. Papa Smurf Gary was evacuated from Moto’s camp to resort detention because he wasn’t breathing a lot and has a bad rash comprised entirely of insect bites. He’s had malaria and done a tour of ‘Nam but neither was as bad as the way his broken ribs were making him feel. Lisi’s laugh couldn’t have been helping either.

The decision that Papa Smurf was too sick to return to the game must have come through after the immunity challenge was all set up and ready to go, because in previous seasons they’d have just cancelled it and Tribal Council for the week. Instead the challenge went ahead, with a nasty little twist at the end.

This one had lots of swimming and unlocking each other from bamboo cages. Moto won of course, and then found out that they could keep either immunity OR their luxury camp, but not both. They chose luxury, so Ravu got a week off from Tribal Council and Yau-Man has an extra three days to try and dig up the immunity idol following his stay on Exile Island and receipt of the fourth clue.

Andre aka Dre aka ‘Dreamz’ is Moto’s version of James aka Boston aka Rocky. His strategic approach to their first Tribal Council was to talk at his tribe mates for over half a minute, with many references to snakes but no reference to anything intelligible about what they should do. Finally he announced his solution: "There’s two people we can afford to lose and – I ain’t pointin’ no fingers – (points at Lisi) it’s Lisi (points at Cassandra) and Cassandra." Logically what he said was correct because the double negative meant he was pointing at those two, but logic doesn’t really feature much in Dreamzland.

Lisi was bemused because she seems to have a pretty solid alliance with four of the others. Cassandra was just horrified because with Papa Smurf gone she’s the next oldest person in the tribe. Alex and Edguardo both refused to vote for Lisi and said they would therefore vote for Cassandra. Liliana – who has barely said two words on camera all season but has done a lot of bedtime massages for the buff young men in her tribe –told Cassandra that she had to vote for her to stay in good with the rest and protect her own interests. Oddly enough, nobody mentioned just getting rid of Dreamz instead.

Those who actually still watch the show will be familiar with the little moments of the local wildlife going about its day that get edited in between scenes and in the return from ad breaks. Sometimes it’s a dangerous beastie like a crocodile, sometimes it’s a little cutie like a fruit bat with big puppy eyes, and sometimes it’s a creepy crawly like a big spider. This week we had a twelve second close-up (yes, I rewound and timed it) of one snake sliding forward out of another snake’s mouth. There’s conjecture in our house that it was a snake shedding its skin, but they both had eyeballs and the one doing the regurgitating had a tongue. I don’t know how the other snake got in there. I don’t know why it suddenly wanted out. I’ve watched it too many times now and I don’t want to see anything like it ever again.

Anyway, back at Moto, Lisi and Stacey tried to convince the three boys in their alliance to vote out Liliana instead of Cassandra. The boys said it didn’t make any sense since Liliana is as strong as the boys in the challenges and Cassandra is bad at everything. What they perhaps meant is that Liliana gives really good massages and Cassandra is, like, old (for the record she’s only 42, but remember this is Hollywood).

Dreamz clearly has no idea what a soliloquy is but at Tribal Council he assured Jeff that he didn’t go off on one, which Lisi had accused him of doing. Actually he assured Jeff that he didn’t go off on a "shaquilla or whatever..." Boo laughed, but I suspect that’s just because everyone else laughed. There’s no way we’ll be hearing Boo doing scenes from Hamlet any time soon to demonstrate his extensive knowledge of English Literature.

Maybe it was a done deal before Tribal Council, or maybe what convinced people how to vote was the bit where Cassandra complemented Liliana on how strong she is and how far she’ll go in the game, but was really pointing out what a threat Liliana will be if she’s allowed to stay. Either way, the massage queen is gone (it's been all girls so far) and Cassandra lives another day. Actually if Moto keep winning challenges at this rate they won’t be back at Tribal Council for a while yet and she’ll make it onto to the jury!

Survivor Fiji: week 3

2007-06-03T23:43:00.000+10:00

Since Smurfs have blue skin,
To what colour do they change
When they cannot breathe?

James/Boston/Rocky, who is simply being credited as Rocky these days even by Jeff, started off this week by describing his tribe as "the biggest group of losers that Survivor’s ever seen". First of all, please use the correct terminology: "the biggest group of losers in Survivor history". Second, you’re wrong: that honour goes to the Ulong tribe from Survivor Palau which only had one member by the time of the ‘merge’. They managed to disintegrate through sheer lack of spirit, whereas Ravu have the quite valid excuse of no food, no water, no shelter AND no spirit.

They do have fire now, at least. The sun finally came out long and strong enough for Michelle to get one going using Yau-Man’s spectacles and some coconut husks. They were so busy celebrating their impending survival that the fire almost went out again. I’m sure Charles Darwin would have something to say about such stupidity.

By comparison, the Moto crew decided to paint the shelter floor a nice shade of duck egg blue, ostensibly to keen the ants out (what, their little legs will stick in the wet paint?) but probably because they were just bored with eating and napping. As Boo observed, it’s "thrival" more than "survival". Just remember Boo that you are camping in the tropics with multiple axe wounds, and are thus a walking candidate for septicemia.

This week we had separate reward and immunity challenges for the first time this season. The reward challenge, with a choice of prizes on offer, was a big slip’n’slide with numbered balls suspended above it and a basketball ring at the far end. Survivors went head to head to grab a particular numbered ball, with the first one to sink it in the basket at the end winning a point for their team. Did you spot the novelty? No knots to undo, no puzzle pieces to collect and no flags to raise!

Jeff did his normal thing with the commentating, but they really should have shipped in Fiona McDonald. Remember Jackie’s sister who hosted "It’s A Knockout" in the mid-eighties? Her catch-phrase was "And he’s fall-hall-hall-en over ha ha ha". There was a lot of that. There wasn’t a lot of Ravu winning. There was a lot of pixelation when Rita’s bikini top did some slipping and sliding of its own. And there wasn’t much grief when Sylvia got sent back to Exile Island for a second stint.

Moto’s Gary has been nicknamed Papa Smurf, presumably for his blue t-shirt and shorts. He took a very heavy spill on the slip’n’slide and broke at least one rib. Back at camp they had to call out the paramedics because he could hardly breathe and was getting dizzy and vague as a result. All the paramedics could do was tell him to take some aspirin and call them in the morning if it got worse, but he really seemed to be struggling. Cassandra was so worried she was in tears. Alex was also emotional, but more in the sense that someone else has shown weakness and he’s now much less likely to be the first Moto member voted off.

Of course, Moto need to lose a challenge before they vote anyone off and that didn’t happen this week. Sylvia came back from Exile Island just in time for the long overdue return of my personal favourite, the Gross Food Challenge. Last seen in Palau with the unforgettable balut, this was a more traditional Gross Food Challenge with a range of local ‘delicacies’ such as clams, peanut worms, octopus tentacles, sea cucumber, fish eyes and - for dessert - pig snouts. Ravu should have been a certainty to win since they’re desperate for both food and a victory, and Moto all looked kind of bloated after lunch.

Rocky and Mookie both won their rounds, and Anthony and Sylvia both lost theirs and were targeted for elimination in some interesting tribal politics. There was a genuine fear that Sylvia had found the idol during her most recent stay on Exile Island and would have immunity. If the vote for Sylvia was unanimous, and if she possessed and played the immunity idol, then whomever she had voted for would have the next highest number of votes and be eliminated. To prevent that from being someone in this week’s version of his alliance, Rocky arranged for a couple of people to vote for Anthony. I’m not sure whether Rita was supposed to vote for Sylvia or Anthony, but neither of those names is spelt E-A-R-L so who knows what she was doing.

Regardless, Sylvia didn’t have the immunity idol and enough of the others managed to vote correctly for her to be sent home. Anthony, however, was a bit upset by the votes he received and the ad for next week shows him with a quivering lip of which any petulant four year old would be proud. Anthony, your team might have fire and therefore drinking water now but you can’t afford to waste precious bodily fluids on tears.

Survivor Fiji: week 2

2007-05-28T14:02:00.000+10:00

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

2007-05-21T22:34:00.000+10:00

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.

Survivor Fiji: update!

2007-02-16T10:27:00.000+11:00

So I finally cracked and rang Channel Nine to ask whether they will be showing Survivor Fiji, and was told "yeah, around late March"!

Survivor Fiji: Pre-season Form Guide

2007-02-14T20:43:00.000+11:00

Once again, Survivor will be starting in America LOOOONG before it starts in Australia. Thanks for that, Eddie. Humphry B. Bear's publicist managed to magically get his contract extended with a well placed leak to The Age, so maybe I should try and do the same to get Survivor back on Channel Nine before it's too late to avoid internet leaks.

In the meantime, however, here's this season's Form Guide full of snap judgements about people I've never met, based on some dodgy stereotypes about their jobs, ages, and favourite things. Remember, they provided the info; I’m just interpreting it.

Alex: 28 - Attorney
Made it to Harvard on a scholarship, only to discover he doesn’t like law after all. Will over think and under perform.

Anthony: 32 - Expert Witness Locater
Made it to Yale on a scholarship but won’t admit it. Solid people skills so will do well. My early pick for this season’s winner.

Boo: 34 - Construction Worker
Real name is Kenward. Thinks he: a) has sex appeal; b) is Huckleberry Finn; and c) is a ‘cerebral athlete’. Wrong on all counts.

Cassandra: 42 - Civil Engineer Manager
In God she trusts, which is smarter than trusting Boo. This season’s Cirie, and could do just as well.

Dre: 25 - Cheerleading Coach
Finishes every second sentence with ‘You know what I’m sayin’?" Will get voted out early for being intolerably perky.

Earl: 35 - Advertising Executive
Is treating a few weeks without his laptop and mobile as a ‘right of passage’. Is way too serious to be as witty as he thinks he is.

Edgardo: 28 - Advertising Executive
Thinks the other guys will feel threatened by the effect his sex appeal will have on the women. Wrong on both counts.

Erica: 27 - Non-profit Fundraiser
Certainly has the hair for Fiji. Describes herself as both subtle and confrontational; huh? Will go early for making a crucial error.

Gary: 55 - School Bus Driver
A school bud driver who hasn't been institutionalised shouldn’t have any trouble keeping those youngsters in check. Definite jury potential.

James: 28 - Bartender
Has a ‘Boston’ tattoo like Shane, and is just as creepy. Quote: "I’m not putting a lot of thought into this." Um, yeah.

Jessica: 27 - Fashion Stylist
Is flighty and girly and obsessed with her own looks. Will beg to be voted out after her first contact with an insect, ie. day 2

Liliana: 25 - Loan Officer
Ex Marine Corp with five siblings, so won’t have any trouble on the social aspect. Will stay under the radar and could do well.

Lisi: 36 - Customer Service Rep
Is a CSR for a ‘psychic service company’ and once had a ‘hit’ in France with her ‘underground electro punk noise’.

Melissa: 28 - Talent Manager
Quit the night before filming started after suffering multiple panic attacks. Not all that surprising given her No. 1 fear is "being unable to get out".

Michelle: 23 - Student
Talks just like Bindi Irwin, which would be cuter if she were also 8 years old. Enjoys ‘things that are green’ and ‘pirates’. I'm not making this up.

Mookie: 25 - Loan Manager
Wants to get away from materialistic things like television, but extends credit to others to buy that stuff. Kooky.

Rita: 38 - Single Mom
Former Miss Venezuela entrant who now coaches for kiddy beauty pageants and believes there’s no such thing as ‘too sexy’. Eww!

Stacey: 27 - Interactive Internet Producer
Is most annoyed by people who are lazy and complain a lot. Wow, is this the wrong place for you to be!

Sylvia: 52 - Architect
Looks very smart on paper, backed up by learning to swim BEFORE arriving in Fiji. Early exit for being ‘too old’.

Yau-Man: 54 - Computer Engineer
Such a geek (self confessed – repeatedly) that he describes himself not as ‘old’ but ‘on the outer fringe of the bell curve’.

Survivor Cook Islands: Finale

2007-01-07T22:44:00.000+11:00

And so Survivor is over for another season.

We started with a recap of the entire series so far and a reminder of who flirted with whom as early preparation for the reunion special. Speaking of Candice and Parvati, Adam spent a cold and lonely night alone in the shelter, sleeping by himself for probably the first time in 37 days.

The Immunity Challenge involved the usual gig of collecting bags of timber puzzle pieces, which were tied up at the ends of various rope courses. Ozzy started with the hardest course first, so while he was the last to return with his first bag (giving Yul and Adam some hope of finally beating him) his incredible grace and athleticism saw him easily catch up and be the first to have all the bags.

Jeff had warned at the beginning that it was "the hardest puzzle ever in Survivor history!" It was a four-layer compass map that only fitted together correctly one way. If you’ve ever picked up a timber cube on someone’s coffee table and said to yourself "Oh, this looks easy" you’ll know the sort of puzzle I mean. (You probably also remember the look on your host’s face as you pulled it apart, which gave you an idea of how many hours it takes them to solve it every time a guest does that.)

Adam looked like he had a chance at one point, but yet again Ozzy got the immunity necklace back. He and his friends immediately started celebrating the fact that the underdog Aitu tribe had made it to the final four, hours before it was officially confirmed by Adam being voted out. That was actually a bit rude, but hey it was only Adam.

Despite the predictable outcome it was an interesting Tribal Council. Nate limped into the jury box on crutches – which was never explained – and Adam accused both Sundra and Becky of being boring – which didn’t need to be explained because it’s true.

Something that nobody will ever be able to explain to me is why our all-minority, mutiny-surviving final four were so excited about doing the "Rite of Passage". In case you’ve managed to repress the memory, this is where we get a little montage of each voted-out Survivor and a quote from them about their experience of the game, while the remaining players collect all the torches and then burn them. We already had the recap at the start of the episode; we don’t need another! If the producers want a twist how about getting rid of that bit?

Immediately following this touching celebration of failure, the four remaining Survivors went direct to the ‘final’ immunity challenge, which only made sense after Jeff explained that this year three people instead of only two would be in the running for the million dollars.

As in previous series it was a test of "who can hold their balance longest on a gradually shrinking foothold?" Becky went out first, with Yul a surprise exit next and Sundra a shock finalist, still hanging on next to Ozzy – who nearly fell but somehow recovered half a dozen times - at the 2 hour 30 minute mark.

The final elimination Tribal Council was a mixture of dignity and humiliation. Ozzy of course had won immunity but refused to decide who out of Becky and Sundra to vote out. His suggestion of an arranged tie-vote, with the subsequent fire starting challenge to decide a winner, was accepted by everyone involved, even by Becky who’d been offered the individual immunity idol by Yul but rejected it on the grounds that she wanted to win fair and square. So far so good: everyone knows that being able to make fire with flint and machete is a core Survivor skill, one which can be practised at home. Should be a doddle. Should be an exciting outcome.

Becky and Sundra take their places, flint in hand, with the jury on the edge of its seats. Here’s where the producers went wrong: instead of lighting a fire to burn a rope and raise a flag they had to burn a rope and ring a bell. The novelty put both girls off their game. Suspense background music changed to comedy background music as the words "30 minutes" came up on screen to explain why everyone was yawning. By the one hour mark, with still not even the suggestion of a flame, Ozzy and Yul both looked mortified and Jeff looked simply furious as he finally snapped "STOP! We’re switching to matches!"

The horror didn’t end there. Sundra got a flame going, then let it go out, then ran out of matches. Luckily for everyone (except perhaps Bryant and May shareholders) Becky finally got a decent fire going and put everyone out of their misery.

The changed up final-three format had a few implications. It meant an odd number of jurors (not the 10 we’d earlier feared), but still had the potential for a tied 3-3-3 or 1-4-4 vote. It means there’s no cursed car challenge this year. And Phil didn’t get to do his routine where the person with immunity chooses who they’ll take through, and he says with a wry little smile "I’ll go tally the vote." I always love that bit!

It also had me looking at my watch and wondering how they’d get through nine jurors asking three questions each instead of seven jurors only having two finalists to grill. The answer was simply that Nate, who went first, asked Becky why she deserved the million dollars and she couldn’t give an answer to match Yul’s puppet mastery and Ozzy’s physical dominance. After that nobody even bothered asking her any more questions, confirming that the previous night’s fire starting debacle had blown her chances even more than the perception that she’d been riding Yul’s coat tails the whole way.

The rest of the questions illuminated as much about the person asking them as the person answering. Nate waived his wrists around and used lots of words like ‘brother’ and ‘respect’. Jenny made up a new word; ‘strategical’. Rebecca managed to provoke responses about depictions of minority stereotypes on prime-time TV. Adam forced the boys to trash talk each other, and Candice forced Yul (who, remember, is a management consultant) to give a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer without any further explanation. It was a struggle, but he eventually managed it.

Brad pointed out that he doesn’t know Ozzy at all and tried to correct that by asking Ozzy to describe his most challenging life experience. In a real shock, Ozzy broke down in tears talking about his non-existent relationship with his birth father, although technically he didn’t answer the second part of the question about "and how you dealt with it". And Jonathan, naturally, snatched the dying seconds of his 15 minutes to accuse everyone being untrustworthy and arrogant. Yawn.

And so onto Los Angeles for the winner announcement and the reunion. Jeff started by describing it as one of the most enjoyable out of 13 seasons so far. By the time Yul and Ozzy had four votes each it was clear that Becky wasn’t getting any. Everyone knows that Jeff has already seen the votes before he reads them out, so he was teasing when he claimed that the final vote might be for Becky and might cause a tie. It wasn’t of course, so he declared her officially in third place before reading out the final vote for… YUL!

While everyone hugged and cheered, Jeff slipped off to change into the same natty duck-egg blue v-neck sweater he wore to last year’s reunion. Yul got more opportunities to be modest and self-effacing. Ozzy confessed that Robinson Crusoe is one of his favourite childhood books, which simultaneously explained why he looked to be living his ultimate fantasy while he was on the island, and like he’d pee his pants in front of the TV cameras and all those people. The goatee he’d grown during the series really gave him the look of a Spanish Conquistador, but clean-shaven at the reunion he looked more like a scared little boy. It was a bit sad, as was his own choice of v-neck sweater.

Jonathan got to mouth off some more, and Sekou followed a tradition started by Wanda in Palau of the person who composes a special Survivor song being the first one voted off; the difference was that Sekou didn’t unveil his song until the reunion, and got to play it with the band.

Candice tried to justify her romance with Adam, while he answered the question about their current status by starting with the words "You know, Candice is a great girl…" which absolutely confirmed that they’re no longer together and he had no intention of continuing the ‘relationship’ once she’d finished her usefulness. Nate got grilled about his interactions with Parvati and first denied but then admitted that he’d fallen for her flirting, which was uncomfortable for everyone except Parvati, who seemed to enjoy the attention.

Billy, by comparison, came out the reunion looking pretty good by explaining that his declaration of love for Candice had been a combination of heat-of-the-moment and trying to pretend he didn’t need the tribemates who’d thrown a challenge so they could get rid of him. Whether it’s true or not, he was able to laugh at himself, and well all love that. Ooops, I probably shouldn’t say "We love you" so loosely. Billy, if you’re reading this please know that I’m very happily married and I meant "love" in a totally platonic sense.

Ozzy won a car (sorry, a Mercury Mariner) in an on-line vote for who played the smartest game, beating Yul by less than 1% of the vote and proving that the car curse still applies even if you don’t know about it.

Finally, and most importantly of all (well, for some of us at least), we got confirmation that there will be at least one more series. Judging by the preview, Survivor: Fiji has already been filmed and is in the editing suite (and remember that they’ve just finished filming and there’s just been another coup in Fiji. Coincidence?) The new twists in a desperate bid for ongoing relevance include one tribe living the usual Survivor deprivations while the other lives in luxury, and two individual immunity idols on Exile Island. Apparently one of the most controversial decisions ever made by a Survivor will have America talking. We don’t know yet if it will have Australia talking, since Channel Eddie has lost its first dibs on CBS programs as of 2007 and who knows what Channel 10 will do with it.

Congratulations to the winners of the office sweeps, and thanks again for all the feedback from people who have enjoyed the weekly recaps. Now grab your torches and head back to camp.

Survivor Cook Islands: week 13

2007-01-03T22:50:00.000+11:00

I’m going to start this week with a quote from Parvati’s final video message after she was voted out: "I knew I could have worked it more in the hot tub if I wanted to, but I don’t think it would have helped my place in the game." Sure it’s putting the tart before the sauce to begin like that, but it just sums up her Survivor experience so perfectly.

Chronologically speaking the episode began with Adam and Parvati discussing how to stay in the game a bit longer despite the numbers being in favour of the still-solid Aitu alliance. Parvati pointed out that the two of them are in a position of relative weakness and that it would take a lot to achieve the goal of swinging one of the others across. She then went on to develop a strategy of doing this in a way that didn’t make it seem like that person was betraying their alliance, and planned to use lots of charm and smooth talking as her tactics. Adam's contribution was "Those four are tight. We’re gonna need to try something." Oh, and he said "Yeah, exactly!" to all Parvati’s ideas. It was like watching George W Bush at a Pentagon briefing.

This week’s tree mail ‘poem’ started with the line "It’s time to break out your swimwear…", and the rest was so excruciatingly bad that the producers left out whole lines of Yul’s recitation in a too-little-too-late demonstration of remorse. They did, however, quickly flash a glimpse of the paper so that those of us with either a deep susceptibility to subliminal messages – or a VCR, a remote control and no life – were let in on the obscure clue "Shirts will not be allowed" to go with the slightly less cryptic message of a small bucket of mud.

The winner of the reward challenge was the person who could collect the most mud without using their hands, shirts (a ha!) or any other vessel. Basically they had to roll around in a mud pit, go through an obstacle course, scrape the muck off their bodies into a bucket and then go back for more. Most of them collected between 8 and 9kg in the time limit. Parvati was third with 10 kg, and Yul just nudged into second with 10.2kg. Ozzy managed 20kg and genuinely scared the others with the proof of just how good he is regardless of what the challenge involves. The three of them, still covered in mud, got put in a small plane with plastic all over the seats for an overnight stay at a luxury resort. Sundra and Becky went back to camp to stew with increasing bitterness at their misfortune, while Adam spent a couple of days on Exile Island, eating raw shellfish and letting the flies nest in the open wounds on his leg. I’m so glad the show is on late and it’s hours since I’ve eaten.

The reward challenge provided those who wield the pixelating machine with plenty of opportunities to demonstrate their craft. Both Adam and Ozzy found themselves modesty-challenged as the combination of body weight loss and mud weight gain threatened their shorts’ tentative grip on decency. Bikini-clad girls covered in mud and rubbing their hands over their bodies also stretched a PG rating, even though the mud meant nothing was really on show (but then again an odd jewellery choice meant nothing was technically on show during Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction, either).

It got even more risque on the challenge reward. Parvati might not have realised that as she showered the mud off her silhouette was clearly visible to the camera crew through the shower door. However, there was no doubt she knew what she was doing as she slithered naked into the hot tub with a nude Yul and Ozzy after a champagne and candlelight dinner. All game-strategy of course. Not auditioning for a photo spread in Ralph magazine when she gets home at all. Nooooo.

While their tactics might be different, both Yul and Parvati are equally focussed on advancing themselves in the game. We already know that Parvati "worked it in the hot tub", with Ozzy quite clearly the main target of her flattery barrage. Yul was so serious in expressing his concern about the potential consequences of her success that he didn’t even realise he’d uttered the single entendre of the series with the line, "If Ozzy responds in some way something might come up."

Maybe it was the food and the comfortable bed, or maybe it was the rejuvenating power of the hot tub, but the immunity challenge was once again Parvati third, Yul second, and Ozzy first by a very large margin. That afternoon both Adam and Parvati separately had the same conversation with puppet-master Yul, acknowledging that one of them would be sent home and asking in the nicest possible way for it to be the other.

Last week after his torch was snuffed, Jonathan said to the remaining Survivors "And I’d like my hat back at some point." Yul, being such an incredibly nice guy, duly returned said hat at Tribal Council this week. Jonathan looked absolutely delighted that Yul had made the effort. He looked somewhat less delighted after Jeff pointed out that it was a clever act on Yul’s part to suck up to a jury member. Who knows whether Yul really was being that political, or whether returning the hat was a genuine favour and he simply felt it was better to agree with the accusation rather than deny it and be accused of lying.

Jeff was just as politically provocative during the rest of Tribal Council, asking Adam whether Parvati’s performance in the hot tub had increased her chances in the game at his expense. Adam mumbled something unintelligible about he and Parvati being mates from early on the game, much to Candice’s horror in the jury box.

Finally it was the predictable 4-2 vote, with Parvati as the loser. In a triumph for multiculturalism, this season’s racial supremacy experiment has left at least one member of each original tribe in the final five. It's a small world after all.

This Friday night - at the entirely reasonable time of 8.30pm - we get the last three hours of Survivor Cook Islands with lots of elimination challenges, the jury interrogation of the two finalists, and presumably the ghastly annual walk down memory lane. Don’t miss it!

Survivor Cook Islands: week 12

2006-12-27T23:12:00.000+11:00

Last week was all about Candice, but this week it was Parvati’s turn to shine. And squeal. Seriously, it was a very impressive array of emotions that she managed to display without the use of consonants.

As predicted, she and Adam were arm in arm by the time they got back to camp from the Tribal Council where Candice – his girlfriend and her best friend – had just been voted out. It was kind of like Paris Hilton hooking up with K-Fed, or something equally vacuous.

The squealing started when Parvati, who has to, like, work around camp because she is, like, in the minority now, sliced her thumb open with a rusty machete while cutting coconuts. Lucky she never bothered with a machete in the early days while it was still sharp or she’d have cut her thumb off completely. The medical team were called in, and to everyone’s horror they were quite happy to stitch it up in a deft piece of field surgery. Princess Parvati didn’t want her pinky to be patched in the dirty old jungle, while everyone else seemed to hope she’d be taken away never to return.

The next squeals came when she won the Reward Challenge. Jeff’s description of the challenge had a greater density of "But Wait There’s More!" moments than a Demtel ad. The original instruction was that Survivors simply had to scoop up sea water to fill a bucket and, of course, raise a flag. The next layer of detail was to bring out the Loved Ones and announce that they’d also be participating. I was so hoping Adam would have a wife or girlfriend stroll out of the jungle, just to prove him the cad I’ve always suspected him of being, but it was just his Dad. Next was the news that Survivors would have to throw water from their bucket to their Loved One’s bucket across a two meter gap, and finally the ultimate indignity that the Survivors would be blindfolded. Hey, stop complaining Loved Ones; some of your predecessors had to do the gross food challenge.

Jonathan’s wife quickly realised she was catching more water in her shirt and hair than in the bucket and started squeezing those out as well, but she wasn’t absorbent enough to win. As victor, Parvati’s dad got to choose two other Loved Ones and their Survivors to join them on the reward of a tribal village visit and picnic pig-out (more squealing from Parvati), with no political input from his daughter but lots of pleading looks from everyone else. At least now he’s met his daughter’s new boyfriend.

As co-victor, Parvati got to choose who spent a few days on Exile Island and had no hesitation in picking Jonathan. She later described it as a strategic move to show the others how good life in camp would be without him, but that might be 20/20 hindsight repackaged as insight for the benefit of the cameras.

What it clearly did show, however, was what the last few days for Yul, Becky and Ozzy will be like when they’re the final three. We all know it will be them because Yul has the immunity idol, Becky has Yul, and Ozzy is just a freak in the challenges. This week he’d done both laps of the boo-eee and marine-grade plywood obstacle course before most of the girls were even half way through their first, culminating in a coccyx-shattering tumble from Sundra that’s a shoe-in for the finals of Cook Islands’ Funniest Home Videos.

The cool mood change when Jonathan returned from Exile Island in time for the immunity challenge was noticeable, but back at camp it was a cold snap like Christmas Day in Melbourne every time he spoke. When Jeff asked whether anyone other than Ozzy felt concerned at not having immunity only three people reacted: Adam and Parvati raised their hands, and Jonathan leered and gloated. He smiled all the way through Tribal Council, although not as much as Candice was smiling at Adam (and was it just me, or did anyone else think she actually looked WORSE after a bath and wearing make up than she did au naturale at camp?)

It was one of the most predictable Tribal Councils ever. Jonathan and Adam kept up a fine and noble tradition of name calling, with the Jury cheering at everything Adam said, and Jeff stuck to his script to the point of pretending not to know Yul has the immunity idol even though it had just been discussed. Most predictable of all, Jonathan got voted out in a landslide and was indignant and spiteful in defeat.

With only six Survivors and a handful of episodes left this season, it’s now well and truly down to business. Next week looks like the start of the alliance collapses, which is always fun. There’s the cursed car to give away, and I’m still holding out hope for another gross food challenge. It’s been way too long, and it would really give Parvati something to squeal about.

Survivor Cook Islands: week 11

2006-12-21T00:43:00.000+11:00

MEMO
From: Tess
To: Candice
Subject: You're an idiot!

Dear Candice,

I’m glad you got voted off this week, an opinion which many other people would share if it weren’t for the fact that I’m possibly the only person in the country still bothering to stay up that late to watch the show.

You looked so smart on paper and such high pre-season potential. We all felt a bit sorry for you with the whole Billy "I Love You" crush thing. That was pretty embarrassing, but so was watching you then mouth the same words to Adam across Tribal Council a few weeks later.

We all felt a bit sorry for you when you got sent to Exile Island the first time. I had a slight twinge of sympathy when you got sent the second time, although that was just after the mutiny so you kind of deserved it. The third time you cried a lot because you were sad that people who you liked were being so mean to you. That’s because you were mean to them first. It’s called "cause and effect".

This week’s reward challenge was the auction, and Becky was able to outbid you on an item that would "give power in the game". She was able to do that because her platonic friend Yul was happy to lend her more money than your boyfriend was willing to give you. That kind of says something about how much Adam respects you. Becky’s reward was the right to take all your money AND send you back to Exile Island again. You cried a lot, said you needed a hug, and that the isolation of being there for a few hours with nothing but the camera crew for company was driving you almost to breaking point. David Hicks feels your pain.

I suppose Jonathan was a bit of a turncoat swapping sides to the other alliance, but don’t forget that you’ve been secretly campaigning against him for a while now. You might think he’s arrogant, but what he did bought him another couple of weeks in the game, which makes it a smart move. Another word for it might be something like, oh, maybe "Survival."

Speaking of survival, some of the basic elements include food and water. Food means catching fish and collecting enough firewood to cook that fish. Water means collecting the water from the source, gathering even more wood and keeping a fire going long enough to boil that water and purify it. Sure, shelter is another key element of survival but I don’t think "shelter" means laying about in the tent making out with Adam, while Parvati hangs around to form a very creepy quasi ménage à trois.

One of this week’s best scenes was the bit where the other five were too tired from catching fish, cleaning them, collecting firewood and doing all the cooking to walk up to the tent and let Your Highness know dinner was ready. Well that’s not strictly true: they’d actually just had enough of your laziness and made a conscious decision not to invite you to share the fish you'd had no part in acquiring. Here’s three interesting points which seemed to escape your notice:

if you’d been involved in the food’s preparation you’d have known it was ready;
perhaps you, Adam and Parvati had the tent rockin’ so much the others were reluctant to do any knockin’; and
it’s interesting how Adam and Parvati let you challenge the other five alone without any backup.

Granted, the three of you did surprisingly well in the immunity challenge this week, especially Parvati who won the first round and Adam who won the necklace and immunity (especially since math was involved). It probably would have been more impressive to see that sort of effort earlier in the game, not just when absolute self interest is at stake.

Yul is such a cool guy. It was cool the way he used the immunity idol last week to switch the game up by getting Jonathan to change sides. It was funny hearing you and Parvati tell Jonathan he was lying when he informed you that Yul has the idol. And it was absolutely hysterical when you declared in front of everyone that you were going to find it during your fourth stay on Exile Island and Yul just pulled it out of his bag. He's so cool.

Everyone now just assumes that Yul will be in the final two, and it was interesting the way your alliance offered to sell him all three of its jury votes if he’d agree to get rid of Jonathan. For a while there it looked like he might even do it. Do you think what changed his mind was the bit where you told Jonathan that Yul thinks he’s selfish and predictable, in front of the rest of the tribe? Personally I’d like to think Yul saw through you long before that, but there’s no doubting that little outburst sealed the deal.

That massive smooch you had with Adam as you collected your torch was undignified (although the way Nate was grinning and staring with his eyes bugging out of his head was just plain creepy). Jeff commented while he snuffed out your torch, "A kiss is nice, but maybe if it were love Adam would have given you the immunity necklace." It was one of the truest observations made this week, and you completely ignored it. Maybe you’ll remember it when the whole world gets to see next week how much (or how little!) Adam is pining for you, and how much comfort and succour he's getting from Parvati.

Yours sincerely,
Tess

Survivor Cook Islands: week 10

2006-12-14T00:23:00.000+11:00

This is turning into a cracker of a series, which kind of makes the staying up worth it. The best part is that it’s probably going to get even better.

It was an inauspicious start with Jonathan yet again doing all the housework for the rest of the frat house, which is essentially what the Raro campsite has turned into thanks to Adam, Candice, Nate and Parvati prancing about like an ad for Tommy Hilfiger’s latest. He tried to rev them up, but why get excited about collecting firewood and water when everyone knows Jonathan will do it anyway if nobody else does.

Luckily for Jonathan the reward challenge was cancelled in favour of the merge, which was accompanied by new – and, more importantly to him, clean – buffs. Also on offer was the semi-traditional merge feast, held this time on a traditional Cook Island catamaran. The feast was matched with complimentary alcohol in quantities only limited by the size of Adam and Nate’s bladders. Adam seemed to spend the later stages of the journey leaning over the stern with his head almost down in the water. And no, I don’t believe he was looking for fish. The water clarity probably wasn’t that great by the time he stopped anyway.

Between scenes of Adam and Parvati flirting and caressing shamelessly in the shelter, and scenes of Adam and Candice flirting and kissing shamelessly in the jungle, there was an immunity challenge. Survivors had to hold onto a pole for as long as possible, with only some rope as a toe hold. Adam lasted 9 minutes, with Jonathan and Nate not far behind. By comparison, Sundra was the first of the girls to give up at a respectable 32 minutes with Ozzy finally beating out Candice after two and a quarter hours up there. The guy is apparently a freak on land as well as in the water.

Also straddling the immunity challenge was Yul’s attempts to get Jonathan back to Aitu’s faction. A few hypothetical discussions about trust and possession of the immunity idol softened Jonathan from his initial avowal that he’d never betray Raro. Some or all of the following comments from Yul probably helped, too:

I have the immunity idol and if Raro votes for me I’ll use it to save myself.
If you don’t join our alliance, I’ll make sure that Aitu all vote for you so you’ll have the next highest number of votes and will be sent home.
I want to take you to the final two because I know I can beat you.

$100,000 as runner up is better than nothing, so Jonathan didn’t have a whole lot of choices and he knew it. He’s already betrayed Aitu with his mutiny, and while rejoining them looked to be his best hope of surviving a bit longer in the game it meant betraying the few remaining people left in the game whom he hadn’t betrayed already. And don’t forget that he stole that chicken in week 1. He used some choice words to describe his situation, which must have slipped past the producers who were busy wielding the pixelation machine for every time either the front of Nate’s pants or the rear of Ozzy’s appeared on screen.

In a very unusual move, not one vote or comment was shown to us on the couch out in TV land, which made the "has he or hasn’t he" tension about Jonathan’s vote rather fabulous right through the poorly-timed ad break. Yul and Nate also had to wait through all nine votes to see who got peel his hands off his eyes and lift them above his head in triumph and relief. Fortunately for the rest of the season that was Yul, and Nate slunk off into the night to begin a video message that was little more than a barrage of vitriol aimed at Jonathan for his betrayal. The looks Jonathan was getting from Adam, Parvati and Candice were silent but no less furious. It’s very clear that they won’t remain silent for long, so next week’s episode should be fantastic since none of them seems to have the nous to shut up and regroup. And we all know what great TV that makes.

Survivor Cook Islands: week 9

2006-11-27T00:17:00.000+11:00

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

Aitu won both challenges;
Those members of Raro who sat out the challenge spent most of the time with their heads in the hands, groaning;
Candice got sent to Exile Island;
Jonathan worked really hard to keep his tentative new spot on Raro;
Adam and Candice spent what little time they had together either scheming or making out; and
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

2006-11-22T23:17:00.000+11:00

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

2006-11-15T23:21:00.000+11:00

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

2006-11-08T23:30:00.000+11:00

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:

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).
It assumes that Jonathan is more likely to have it since he’s been there twice.
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.
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.
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

2006-11-01T23:29:00.000+11:00

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!

Survivor Cook Islands: week 4

2006-10-26T00:26:00.000+10:00

It is with a heavy heart, drooping eyelids and a caffeine I.V. drip that I write to you tonight. The signs are not good. Eddie Maguire has moved Survivor to 10.30pm on a Wednesday night, and with dropping ratings and American product placement sponsors not renewing their contracts for future seasons the end might be nigh. I think we should all prepare ourselves for the worst. I think I might need to start going to bed earlier on Tuesday nights.

This season is supposed to be the big moral lesson that we're all the same on the inside no matter what colour we are on the outside. It's a small world, after all. But no matter your race or religion, what this week proved is it's gender that really counts. At Raro the girls worked together to improve the shelter and complain about the boys sitting around the campfire talking and drinking coconut milk, while the boys sat around the campfire drinking coconut milk and talking about whether the girls were complaining about them. I think we can answer that one in the affirmative.

We actually had a proper Reward Challenge for the first time this week, with pillows, blankets and a hammock up for grabs. In yet another challenge based on previous efforts, two members of each team were tied by the waist to a long rope wound around various obstacles, with their remaining team members trying to help them through, under, over and around said obstacles as fast as possible. Obviously the best candidates were the smallest, lightest and most limber members of each tribe, which meant the girls. Jeff announced that "Teamwork is critical in this", by which he meant the girls being good sports and not complaining about the bruises being inflicted by their hyper-competitive male team mates throwing them about like crash test dummies. You think I'm joking? How else should one interpret comments such as "Don't worry about her, we'll give her a pillow tonight"?

There was some swimming and puzzle solving after the maze bit finished, but Aitu managed to keep the substantial lead they already had when Becky and Candice were tossed across the Stage 1 finish line first. Jeff made an effort to very clearly explain that a member of the losing tribe would be sent to Exile Island for two days but would be back for the Immunity Challenge and therefore not in any way protected from Tribal Council. He was so clear that I simply could not figure out why Adam grinned like he'd won something when he was picked. Perhaps the answer can be found in the fact that he was still grinning like an idiot when he came back again, and possibly spent the whole two days just sitting there grinning like an idiot, which is why they didn't show a single second of his time on the island.

Ozzy had been in a sulky mood ever since his friend Cecilia got voted off. At one point he seemed on the point of packing up his Hawaiian sling and going home, but Aitu's reward win lifted his spirits and instead he helped catch a small fish market's worth of food for the rest of the tribe. Now he likes everyone again because they all need him because he's strong and if they lose him they lose a lot of strength. Well, that's what he thinks at least: it didn't seem to occur to him that catching nine out of the eleven fish that day does not make him the "sole" provider.

Even more childish was Cao Boi's reaction to spotting a booby bird (and no, he didn't mean Parvarti) up a tree. He climbed the tree, tipped the bird out of its nest and almost killed its newly hatched baby. Then he felt bad and blamed his inner child for doing it. The man is 43 years old! Jonathan, who is allegedly a writer, was so horrified that the most articulate words he could use to describe the chick were "This thing is newborn, like today…just covered with its…stuff." Actually it looked a bit to me like Balut, but let's not go there. They managed to stick the baby and nest back up in the tree, but I don't think the rest of the tribe is going to either forget or forgive Cao Boi any time soon.

Parvarti's flirting with Nate seems to be working nicely. She's got him so besotted that he can see quite clearly what she's doing but is powerless to stop it. She was also smart enough to realise that JP has started behaving like a little deity, getting people to do everything for him by simply expecting it. Ooh, I can feel a big fall from a very high place coming up.

The immunity challenge involved assembling a stretcher, some more swimming, and the rescue of a fair maiden tied to a ship's mast that was for some reason sitting out in the ocean by itself and not actually attached to a ship. From there it was a straightforward fire lighting challenge to burn a rope and drop a flag (ho hum). Cao Boi employed a technique which for a long time was all smoke and no fire, leading Jeff to observe that he was either going to be a hero or look very silly. In the end it was probably both, because he managed to help Aitu win and to look very silly indeed.

Part of the blame for Raro's loss went to Stephannie, whose flint technique suggests she's never heard the quote that Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Another definition of insanity might be Telling your tribe mates that it's entirely your fault you lost the challenge. Drawing a big target on her forehead would have been less subtle. The boys were all quite happy to agree with her, but some of the girls realised that with a 5-4 numbers lead it was their one chance maintain a degree of power over the boys, so the race was on to get the necessary numbers before JP woke up from his nap.

Parvarti was resistant to voting JP off, perhaps because she hasn't had a chance to add him to her collection of victims yet. She might think her hold on Nate is well hidden, but the rest of the girls have already spotted it and they struggled to decide whether she could be trusted not to tell Nate, who might blab it to the rest of the boys. Even more interestingly the same need to keep the new plan secret from the boys didn't apply to Brad, who they were quite willing to drag into their new alliance.

Needless to say JP's God-complex meant he never saw the vote coming, so he made lots of fabulous statements during Tribal Council which proved how little he realised how much he'd annoyed the others. The final vote was 5-2 against him and I just assumed it was JP and Adam as the core members of the boys' alliance who had voted for Stephannie. But the closing credits showed that somehow, somewhere, with no hint to us at home, Adam had swapped allegiances and voted against JP. Hopefully next week we'll get some more explanation about exactly how that happened. Hopefully next week I'll still be awake for Tribal Council!

Survivor Cook Islands: week 3

2006-10-19T00:38:00.000+10:00

The final three minutes of last week's episode were some of the best TV Survivor has ever given us, so it shouldn't be such a surprise for this week to be a bit, well, dull in comparison.

Since I can't bear to let last week go just yet, mention must be made of Jeff's voice over summary of what happened Previously…on…Survivor: "Billy thought he and Candice made a connection." To quote JP, "If it's true it's true, but…it's NOT true!" If Billy had done a little more actual thinking and a little less wishful thinking he could have avoided the humiliation he's probably still feeling three weeks after the episode went to air in his home town.

Cao Boi has worked his way into his tribemates' hearts the way a deep vein thrombosis eventually works its way into its victim's heart. He's not dead yet, but one gets the distinct impression he'll mysteriously die in his sleep if he doesn't stop swinging wildly between unfunny jokes and unoriginal comparisons of the wars in Iraq and Vietnam. Using mid-sentence pauses to the same dramatic effect as JP, Brad explained in his piece to camera that "I don't think Cao Boi is all there…or ever will be all there…unless he's medicated."

The Reward Challenge was a blend of shock and the completely expected. The shock was Jeff's order to "Drop your buffs" and the subsequent affirmative action which split the races and genders equally among the two tribes. Cecilia was a team captain whose first pick was the other girl in Jana Pittman socks. Jonathans' first pick was the other guy who has also been to Exile Island. The process ended up with two teams each of boys and girls, and four team captains each holding an egg in their outstretched palm. Squeezing them as hard as possible on Jeff's order – issued from a dry-cleaning safe distance away - showed the stunt Easter eggs to have the dye on the inside. The two tribes now spattered in blue paint formed the new Raro tribe, and the two tribes looking like extras from a bad horror movie got the red buffs and the Aitu flag.

The no-shock-whatsoever was the lack of anything even vaguely resembling a reaction on Candice's face when Jeff pointed out that Billy was missing. Impressively she managed to continue not to react back at camp with her new tribemates when Cecilia explained why she should be very afraid of attending the reunion special without at least one bodyguard. It actually took a lot of explaining for Candice to comprehend how anything she'd said could have been so entirely transformed, but she looked suitably scared by the end.

Elsewhere on the beach the campaigning for alliances had already begun. Jonathan either grew up in the same neighbourhood as Alan Alda or watched way too much M*A*S*H in his formative years, because he talks exactly like Hawkeye and was very keen on joining the Korean alliance with Becky and Yul, and taking Candice and Jessica with him whether they liked it or not. Fortunately for him Candice was receptive to the idea. Fortunately for us, Jessica – who seems to be nicknamed 'Flicker' - was not. It wasn't so much a generation gap as a yawning generational chasm watching him try and use the logic of planning for the future to convince a Gen Y deadbeat to do something sensible for her own good. He instructed her on how to be non-committal if anyone else tried to get her into an alternate alliance, and I'd like to think she's a very fast learner because she used every trick he taught her to avoid agreeing with him. The funniest thing was the difference between Jonathan's assurance to Becky that "I can get Flicker to do whatever we want her to do" and his later piece to camera, by which time the story had changed to a more doubtful "I believe that I have Flicker."

Parvati's surname is Shallow. She's a cocktail waitress, and to quote her bio on the website "is most proud of being a female boxer for Perfect 10 Model Boxing". I don’t even know what that is, but it doesn't sound like part of the Mensa admission process. She is quite possibly the most overt flirt ever seen on Survivor. Nate caught an octopus, which then wrapped itself around his waist and effectively caught him right back. Parvati's response: 'That's a lot of meat [flutter eyelashes while looking at his groin]. It's good [glance coyly away to the side]. You could probably eat that whole thing yourself, huh? [blatant, smutty grin]. Later she pointed out that his pants were falling off. She has no shame. She'll probably make the final three.

To describe this week's Immunity Challenge as recycled would be to give it undue credit. 'Recycled' suggests that something old has been turned into something new and different. This was just a straight-out repeat of a challenge from a few years back, which in turn was a copy of a pursuit cycling race. Teams were tied together carrying heavy sandbags, running around a roped-off velodrome and trying to make up the gap to tag the tail of the other team. Raro won and got to send a member of Aitu to Exile Island for two days, effectively granting that person individual immunity. Who knows whether it was strategy or pity, but they chose Billy's true love Candice and promptly upset Jonathan's alliance. Cao Boi and Flicker seemed to form a new Tattooed Outsider faction who wanted to vote out Becky because of her 'vibe'. Jonathan's efforts to change Flicker's mind seemed to have the opposite effect from what he intended, but luckily for him Yul managed to convince Cao Boi to vote for someone else instead, and Cao Boi in turn convinced Flicker, so Cecilia ended up being the third person voted out.

The ad for next week looks really, really, good with Cao Boi up a tree doing battle with a bird. Considering how little defence he managed to put up during the challenge I've got my money on the bird.

Survivor Cook Islands: week 2

2006-10-12T00:22:00.000+10:00

This week was a lesson in how to catch fish, clams, chickens and the unsuspecting heart of a lazy but lovable heavy metal fan.

Making fire using flint and a machete has been a staple part of the last half dozen series, but apparently nobody in the African American 'Hiki' tribe was paying much attention. Sorry let me correct that: Nathan, their remaining token male, hadn't been paying attention. Despite what was either several hours of non-stop effort or some deceptive editing, he utterly failed to get a fire going. In what was either a couple of minutes or some deceptive editing, the girls got it going as soon as he gave them the chance. To be fair he was either too happy to get upset about being upstaged, or smart enough to realise that the last guy who crossed those girls disappeared.

At Raro, the Caucasian beach, Jonathan came back from his two days on Exile Island and immediately started complaining that nobody had done any work on the shelter while he was gone. Since Adam couldn't understand that raising the floor up off the cold damp ground would make them feel less cold and damp at night, he's never going to understand that "ya'all's's" is not the correct form of second person plural possessive.

At Puka, the Korean kids took the first tentative steps toward an alliance, while Cao Boi inflicted another of his "Bad Wind" bruises on Jenny after she stupidly admitted to having a headache. He also inflicted more of his racist jokes on the rest of the tribe, despite them making it very clear they felt it was inappropriate, and that while they themselves got the joke others might not. Thanks to their lesson in political correctness I'm still waiting to find out what one calls a Vietnamese man with 3 dogs.

Aitu, the Latino tribe, took the main focus and most of the best quotes this week. Ozzy managed to catch a wild chicken using a net. Cristina and Ozzy caught lots of fish and some really big clams. JP came to inspect their haul and asked, "Have you guys got crabs?" I couldn't even make this stuff up!

Displaying a climate-appropriate fashion sense second only to Shane's beanie last season, Billy kitted himself out for 39 days on a tropical island in head-to-toe black, including socks. Billy doesn't want to peak too early in the game. He says there's no point wasting his energy doing something he's not as good at as someone else. Billy spends most of his time asleep in the shelter, emerging only at dinner time to eat, which he appears to be very good at. As least he's sticking to his strategy.

His 3-digit-decibel snoring was the last straw for his tribemates, who hatched a cunning plan to throw the challenge, send themselves to Tribal Council and vote him out. Actually it was Ozzy and JP who came up with that idea; Cristina didn't want anything to do with it. She and Ozzy had a couple of run-ins early, so it's hard to know whether she felt it was unfair on Billy or whether she just wanted to annoy Ozzy more than she's already doing by always calling him Oscar.

Again this week we only had the one combined reward/immunity challenge, which came with the flip-side benefit of only one crappy tree mail 'poem'. Each tribe's members were tied together to complete an obstacle course littered with answers to a series of questions from a story Jeff read out at the start. The story was about Captain James Cook, which included him finding New Zealand, New Caledonia and Hawaii but made absolutely no mention of Australia or, more significantly, the Cook Islands.

It was clear form the outset that Aitu were trying not to try. In fact the most effort they showed was fighting over who got to sit out the challenge to balance up the numbers, with Billy burning more calories in that endeavour than anything else he'd done in the previous six days.

The ending was so close between Raro and Puka that Jeff had to ask the third umpire to check the video. It was eventually called a draw so they each got two tarps and a piece of the immunity idol. Hiki got the last piece and went over the top in celebrating their third place in a manner not seen since the Australian Olympic team in the early Eighties, before all that taxpayer money started flowing to the Institute of Sport.

Billy fell off the rope-bridge, but by that point his team had already succeeded in losing and he knew why. Standing next to the Raro tribe members he told Candice, "I'm next!" and she replied, "We love you." The key pronoun there was "we", not "I". Billy, however, responded "I love you!", then blushed and fluttered his eyelashes at her from under his death-skull bandana. Up until that point in my life I'd never seen something so creepy and yet so tragic at the same time. But wait, there's still 12 minutes to go…

Yul got sent to Exile Island and used his Management Consultant problem solving skills to find the Individual Immunity Idol at the bottom of the first hole he dug. Mind you he was also smart enough to kill two chickens with the one box using bait, a stick and some rope. It'll be very interesting to see whether he plays the idol to better strategic advantage than Terry did last season.

Oh OK I'll explain the rest of the Billy story. Please understand that Billy is slightly less articulate than Judd from Guatemala, so I'm paraphrasing heavily here. He knew he'd been set up to get voted off, despite some apparent support from the girls in his tribe. He doesn't get along with Ozzy and JP, and they think he's lazy and untrustworthy. He came on Survivor to play the game, which he's done even if only for a few days. And the million dollars no longer matters to him because his prize is that he's found love of the at-first-sight variety. With Candice, she of the throw away "We love you" line. Jeff had trouble pointing out to Billy how utterly unlikely it is that a babe like Candice - a pre-med student who was class president, captain of both the soccer and cross country teams and achieved a perfect score on her Math SATs - would fall in love at first sight with a heavy metal guitarist and part-time professional wrestler. She watched him fall off the rope bridge, for pity's sake! Mere words cannot do justice to the stunned look on Jeff's face, however "tittering like an eight year old" is a good description for how the rest reacted.

If Billy had any hope that Cristina would try to save him, even if only because doing so would annoy Ozzy, it evaporated at that point. In a unanimous decision Billy was voted off the island and straight into Courtroom Three for the restraining order hearing. Billy doesn’t mind; he thinks it's cool that a heavy metal fan got voted out by someone named Ozzy. See what I mean about creepy and yet tragic?

Survivor Cook Islands: week 1

2006-10-04T23:58:00.000+10:00

And they're racing in the Survivor Cook Islands (incorporating Exile Island) Office Sweep!

By now everyone knows that this season's big twist is that the Caucasians are the token minority, with entire tribes each of African-Americans, Asians and Latinos making up the rest of the extra-large 20 person starting line-up. In an echo of the young/old/male/female division last season we had much soul searching about what this all meant. One of the token white chicks wanted to know if it's "kosher" to segregate that way, proving she can't tell the difference between race and religion.

Billy, one of the Latinos, bragged that they'd have the advantage because "We all come from the Caribbean so we're used to the tropical heat." Yeah, it's real tropical in New York where you're from, Billy.

The African-Americans set out to represent their people and prove that black folks can swim, then promptly drowned in a sea of cliches; "cutting cotton" as a metaphor, indiscriminate use of words like "ghetto" and a really bad Martin Luther King impersonation.

At least the African Americans had several generations living in the same country as a starting point of commonality: the Asian tribe hail from as far north as Korea, as far east as the Philippines and as far south as Vietnam. Cao Boi – and yes it's pronounced Cowboy – is this year's comic relief, observing as they paddled ashore that it's his second time as a boat person. That joke went down a lot better on our couch than it did on his tribe's beach, and one gets the distinct impression that his team are merely tolerating him for now. While 'token minorities strike back' is this year's theme, at 42 he's still the token older person on his tribe. Ah, Hollywood's fickle youth culture.

In scenes reminiscent from Vanuatu (and Pearl Islands and Palau and a couple of other series) the Survivors had to clamber off an old sailing ship with just whatever rations and equipment they could grab in two minutes, then paddle to their respective camps on bamboo rafts. One of the Asian guys had a live chicken that was promptly colonised by Jonathan, a Caucasian guy who already had a chicken anyway. Unfortunately Jessica lifted up the box that both chickens were being kept under and they ran far, far away. Jessica is an amalgam of elements from last season: Sally's Jana Pittman socks, Shane's tattoos and Courtney's wacky hippy dreadlocks and, like, total cluelessness.

On the Asian tribe's beach (and yes they do have proper tribe names but I can't remember them all at this point so please forgive the labels I'm using) Yul had a sinusitis headache. Cao Boi's diagnosis was "Bad Wind" and his cure was a facial massage so vigorous that Yul was left with a prominent bruise between his eyes. Without a mirror the poor guy probably has no idea how bad it was, but comments from his tribemates like "Are you OK?", "It looks like a burn!", and "What the hell did he do to you?" probably gave him some guidance.

The combined reward/immunity challenge paid the first three finishers with flint and the last place getters with a trip to Tribal Council. It was the usual old combination of paddling and puzzle solving, although this time the boat to be paddled was itself one of the puzzles. The African-American team might have been the most united but they were also the most dysfunctional, with half the teams back on the beach before they'd even finished assembling their boat. The final puzzle slowed up the Caucasians enough that it was an exciting finish, but not enough for the African-Americans to get the one third of the immunity idol (which looks remarkably like a souvenir from my parents' 1974 holiday to Fiji) that they needed to avoid tribal council.

Exile Island is back this season, but it's not much more than a sandbar with part of a very fake shipwreck on it. For once it was the losers who got the fun job of sending somebody from one of the winning tribes for two nights of fruitless idol digging. Since none of them know much about the others they picked on Jonathan, who stood out because the Asian tribe had dobbed him in to Jeff for stealing the aforementioned chicken.

It seems that the creative effort which once went into new and original challenges has all been siphoned off into the design of the Tribal Council site. Only they've run out of ideas for that, too, and have just recycled one of the sets from Pirates of the Caribbean VII. As if the racial divisions weren't strong enough, the vote went strictly down gender lines. The three women ganged up on one of the two men, and crowned him with the indignity of being the first voted out. Jeff swapped them Sekou for a flint, which helped them get over his loss remarkably quickly. The explanation for their glee came in Sekou's video piece during the final credits: "My torch may be out, but my fire is still burning." Yep, a flint is definitely more valuable than listening to bargain basement philosophy like that 24/7.

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: final episodes

2006-06-20T23:57:00.000+10:00

Since Channel 9 stuffed up the beginning of this season it's only fitting that they also stuff up the end by sandwiching a repeat – a REPEAT!! - of CSI between the last two episodes and the reunion. At least they had the decency to show the result at the end of the second hour and not leave us hanging with another TO BE CONTINUED...

If the first 14 episodes of Survivor are like a church service, the final night is like Christmas and Easter rolled into one, with some of the regular stuff but lots of special once-a-year extras.

The "previously on Survivor" was a pithy recap of the series so far including many of Shane's 'highlights'. Next we got to find out whether Cirie or Danielle went through to the final following last week's tied vote. They had to compete against each other, with the first to build a fire hot enough to burn through a rope and – of course – raise a flag being declared the winner. Since fire represents life on Survivor it's a better solution to a tied vote than a countback, but to my disappointment it was Danielle whose fire was too big to put out, and Cirie whose torch was therefore snuffed. I've really enjoyed watching Cirie play the game, and if I ever get my hands on a US passport and a spot on the show she's my role model.

Back at camp the one-upmanship between Terry and Aras reached proportions almost as absurd as Danielle's cleavage (which you may have noticed sits in exactly the same spot on her chest whether or not she's wearing a bra: definitely fake). Terry caught more fish, but the three Aras caught were all bigger. And prettier. Terry got out the idol to prove he had it all the way along. They admired how much its hair looks like Shane's.

In a surprise departure from format an extra reward challenge was thrown in, which is what they tried to trick us with on the ad with all that running around. Terry, Aras and Danielle had to solve a couple of puzzles to collect bags of pegs, then use the pegs to rock climb up a steep slope and – of course – raise a flag. Terry came from behind to win a protein- and carbohydrate- rich meal plus a camp stretcher and pillows to get him in peak physical condition for the traditional final three endurance challenge. He also got to look smug, which was probably even more important to him.

Aras and Danielle went back to camp and ate all the fish, so the three of them had full tummies for maximum barfing during the awful walk down memory lane. This year each dearly departed got to voice-over their own montage with what they've learnt about themselves, which spared the three finalists from not having to say anything at all in the many instances where they couldn’t say something nice.

The producers have learnt from the disasters of final three challenges past, and created something that took endurance but also lasted less than an hour. Survivors had to balance on a marine-grade plywood hexagon for 15 minutes without using their hands or feet or falling off. In each round the lily pad was a bit smaller, making it harder to stay upright on. Terry never really got his balance on the third one, while Danielle's lighter body weight and efficient cantilever augmentation made a genuine difference and eventually won her the challenge and the right to choose whom to take to the final two.

Terry and Aras each used a very different style of campaigning on her. Terry went a gentler and more flattering "you do whatever you think is best" approach, while Aras employed flat out guilt and threats. She said she couldn’t make up her mind because she's a Gemini. Whatever.

In the end brute force won out, so Terry had to endure the dual indignities of a) failing to win the only challenge that really counts, and b) losing to not one but two 24-year-olds. The horror, the horror.

Aras started the traditional "burn everything at camp that's not nailed down" the second he and Danielle got back from Tribal Council that night, and created a bonfire of such ferocity that they couldn't sit anywhere near it. The next morning the producers kindly provided a champagne breakfast with eggs and pancakes and, most importantly, champagne. It's a little sad to see them resorting to the Big Brother trick of getting contestants liquored up to make things more interesting, but it paid off when Aras and Danielle went for a walk along the rocks and he slipped, landing not only on his coccyx but a bottle which was almost as smashed as its victim. He needed stitches in both his back and his hand, while Danielle tried to get the emergency medical team to dope him up with something that would last at least through Tribal Council. Hey look at that! Danielle made a joke!

Ah, the final Tribal Council and the climax of the entire series. Shane had finally shaved, but was wearing a hippy caftan that he may well have borrowed from Courtney. In their opening addresses to the Jury, Aras and Danielle both had the usual platitudes coming out of their mouths, but he was subtly holding up his bandaged hand like a hurt puppy and she was not so subtly leaning forward to display her best assets.

It was absolutely no surprise at all that Sally, Austin and Cirie all asked thoughtful and considered questions, while Bruce, Terry, Courtney and Shane used the flickering embers of their 15 minutes to embarrass themselves again. In a stale trick, Shane asked each of them to pick a number between one and a million. Aras said "four" and Danielle said "ten", both of which were safe bets since Shane was unlikely to choose a number where he'd have to actually calculate who was closer, and he possibly can't count past twenty at any rate.

Following the vote, Jeff headed off into the undergrowth and emerged in front of the live studio audience in New York for a finale which was filmed live all those weeks ago and we only get to see now that half of us have accidentally heard who won. With Danielle only able to score votes from Bruce and Cirie the million dollars goes to Aras, along with some very timely advice to him to pay his taxes.

Jeff used the one hour break during CSI to change out of his Steve Irwin costume and into a natty baby blue sweater and black pant combo. Danielle was also dressed out of character, in a jacket over a ruffled shirt that showed no flesh at all. Either she's embarrassed by the way she was portrayed on the show, or there's a non-disclosure clause in the contract for a bikini shoot she's bound to have signed with a lads' mag. Yeah I'm being harsh, but I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that it's not Penthouse.

Aras might have won the official prize, but Cirie was the real winner. Her fellow Survivors all respect her so much more after watching the show and learning of her behind-the-scenes puppetry that Terry had a fishing trophy for her. Better still, Jeff had the keys to a GMC Yukon based on the outcome of a viewer poll for favourite. You go girl!

Shane also starred, with much conversation about his "rubber room" moments, his extreme quit smoking campaign, and the fact that Boston does have a mother whose name is "Bird". Nobody mentioned the weird schoolboy outfit he'd chosen to wear to the reunion, although perhaps that was implicitly covered in the "rubber room" segment.

We got to find out more about the death of Tina's son just before she was due to appear on Survivor Guatemala, and Austin explained how one wet and miserable night stuck on Exile Island with Danielle made him rediscover his religion. Those in the back row each got a token 25 words or less in which to describe what we didn't get to see of them on the show, and as soon as that was mercifully over we had the seriously exciting preview for Survivor Cook Islands.

Again, it has been my great pleasure to inflict my obsession on you all, and congratulations to the winners of all the office sweeps. Now grab your torches and head back to camp.

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 14

2006-06-13T22:41:00.000+10:00

TO BE CONTINUED…

One of the ugliest phrases on TV, and one I never thought Survivor's producers would ever stoop to utter. That's right: nobody got voted off last night!!

For an atheist I actually quite enjoy a good church service. The ritual and recitation of familiar phrases can be incredibly soothing, with a sermon, a few readings and a couple of hymns (but only from a prescribed list) providing variety. I've always believed that's part of Survivor's success in appealing to something deep within us all: the ceremonial ratio of ritual and scheduled spontaneity. If you don't believe me, how about this for an order of service:
1. Review of previous week's episode
2. Opening credits
3. This week's scenes of life around camp
4. Reward challenge, where Father Jeff is guaranteed to utter every one of the following lines:

C'mon in guys!
You guys ready for today's challenge?
Wanna know what you're playing for?
Worth playing for?
We'll draw for spots/teams and get started
Survivors GO!
[Name] wins reward!

5. Scenes from back at camp after the challenge
6. Immunity Challenge (including many of the lines above)
7. Scenes back at camp as Survivors negotiate who to vote for
8. Tribal Council, where Father Jeff is guaranteed to utter every one of the following lines [this is the late-season version: delete references to immunity and jury in episodes 1-8 inclusive]:

I'll now bring in the members of our Jury;
OK, let's get to the vote.
[Name of person with immunity] is the only person you cannot vote for.
OK it's time to vote. [Name of person sitting bottom left of screen]: you're up.
I'll go tally the votes
Once the votes are read the decision is final. The person voted out will be asked to leave the Tribal Council area immediately.
I'll read out the votes. [In final episode, substitute "I’ll read out the vote"]
The [nth] person voted out of Survivor is …

There is no TO BE CONTINUED!

I've had my say now so I'll pipe down and fill in this week's variables, but before I do can I just point out that in the review of last week's episode we got a montage of Shane hugging and kissing his son during the loved ones' visit. Either he needs to cut the apron strings a bit, or his son is also a chain smoker and his clothes and skin are impregnated with nicotine, because the similarities between the way Shane handled Boston, and the way he handled that ciggie he scabbed off a villager in episode seven, were disturbingly similar.

I think something must have happened to Terry when he was 24. That's how old both Aras and Danielle are, and he keeps going on and on and on about how 24 year olds are supposed to behave. This week he declared that he didn't come here to make friends with 24 year olds, and last week saw his sermon about how seeing your mom doesn't matter to a 24 year old. Apparently he doesn't want to make friends with 35 year olds either, because Cirie copped a serve for leaving her torch in his path. Grumpy 46 year old man or what!

The reward challenge involved running around counting rocks, poles, shells, dead fish and some very much live-and-moving crabs and iguanas. The counts then provided the combinations for three padlocks, which had to be opened to release a winning flag. The added complication was that Survivors were clipped to ropes and had to navigate past each other. Terry did pretty well considering everyone else actively ganged up on him, plus he apparently missed hearing one of the rules and did more work than he had to. Lots of people think Terry's a bit of a hero, but when complaining to Jeff about it he sounded like a sook and a dobber and a bad loser to me.

Aras won an overnight trip through the Panama Canal on a massive motor yacht and took Cirie with him. The food, shower and sleep in a decent bed helped his physical performance in the immunity challenge two days later, but too late to stop him from clumsily making a toast with her to "the final three". "Don't you mean the final two?" "Yeah, yeah, the final two!" That's OK Aras; I'd also be more confident of beating Danielle than Cirie in the final two.

His other mistake was to ask Terry if he was going to "say something bad about women" when calling him a sore loser at the end of the reward challenge. Two days, a stint on Exile Island with Danielle and the Immunity Challenge later, Terry was still seething over it. He told Aras he had to apologise before they could negotiate any kind of truce, and Aras made such an abject and entirely sincere apology that it took Terry by enough surprise to leave him silent and not knowing quite what to say next. Go Aras!

The Immunity Challenge involved yet more digging in sand for a bag. These ones contained puzzle pieces, with each completed puzzle providing the coordinates for the next bag. For once somebody other than Terry won, so it was Immunity Idol - Terry and Immunity Necklace - Aras leading into Tribal Council.

Of course, first we had to go through the drama of the producers trying to confuse us about who everyone was planning to vote for. Danielle's time on Exile Island with Terry had included him showing her the idol in his ongoing desperation to form an alliance, and led to her declaring – without the slightest hint of irony – " It's 100%, and I know that he's possibly going to let me use it."

Both Aras and Terry spent the afternoon coaching Cirie and Danielle respectively in the art of fire lighting, ready for a tied-vote showdown and a competition to decide who would go home. At Tribal Council Jeff pointed out the neat coincidence that one member of each of the young/old/male/female tribes had made it to the final four. Judging by the dramatic eye rolls and tongue poking, Shane has obviously updated Courtney that Danielle had voted her out. Shane himself looks somehow even more unkempt than he did back at camp, and has apparently forgotten a) how to do up his shirt, and b) that it's inappropriate to wear a beanie in an equatorial country. He's not even slightly fly for a white guy.

And that was it. Terry hadn't shared the Immunity Idol with Danielle, and while Jeff was very clear that it's now out of play he didn't let on whether or not Terry gets to keep it. Cirie and Danielle got two votes each and were sent to sit behind two conveniently ready arson kits when suddenly those words, which I shall not repeat, flashed up on screen.

Next week is the big finale when we find out who goes through to the final three and who ultimately wins the million dollars. In an additional break from tradition it looks like the final challenge involves running instead of just who-can-stand-still-the-longest. If they're going to tamper with the formula, please – PLEASE - let them also get rid of that ghastly stroll down memory lane.

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 13

2006-06-06T22:54:00.000+10:00

Here's just a small selection of the incorrect statements Shane made this week:

To Cirie: " Me, you and Aras have the numbers now."
To camera: "There's five of us left now. Danielle goes next, and then we're in the final four."
To the rest of the tribe: "I'm so glad that chick [Courtney] is gone. It couldn't have happened to a loopier broad." (OK well that's technically true, but only because Shane – while undeniably loopier than Courtney – is biologically male, as confirmed by Cirie's medical examination of what's in his perma-moist underpants).
To Terry: "Danielle's depressed because she knows she's next." And later, "I'd like to see you and me in the final two."
To Cirie: "You, Danielle and Aras aren't dicking me: correct!? OK I fell pretty good. We're good to the three."
To camera: "I'm in a great space. I've set myself up so that I'm safe, and I feel like at this point I could beat anybody."
To Jeff at Tribal Council: "I've not lied to anyone. I've not cheated anyone. My integrity is 100% intact."

Other stuff happened this week, too. For a start we had the reward and immunity challenges, where Shane comes last as often as Terry wins. The reward challenge involved bits of previous challenges, starting with the one where Survivors had to dig up a pillow buried in the sand beneath a hexagon. The first four over a finish line went through to the next round: Shane didn't. Next they had to untie one of the big timber snakes from week 2 and carry it and the bag over a finish line. That knocked Cirie out, so only Aras, Danielle and of course Terry competed in the leg to untie a huge fish from the middle of a pond and carry it, the bag and the snake over a finish line. Running out of hands, Terry actually carried the fish by the tail in his mouth. Maybe nobody told him it wasn't the gross food challenge (which seems to have peaked and expired with the Balut in Palau). Finally Terry and Aras had to carry the bag, the snake and the fish through a maze of tunnels and towers, and still be willing to kiss their loved ones at the end.

Yes, the loved ones were there in person. Terry's reward was that he got to decide how to share out the love, but it was more about sharing out the punishment for those he thinks are working hardest against him. Aras was allowed to at least hug his mom, but Danielle and her mom only got to wave and call out inanities to each other before Danielle was sent to Exile Island for a few days. Cirie, who really is cruising under the radar, got to take her husband back to camp for a night of outdoor horror and slavery. Terry naturally took his wife on the conjugal visit, and invited Shane and his son Boston to also share in the overnight stay at a two-bedroom villa with a very well stocked fridge.

Boston has clearly inherited his father's tiny attention span. Well, either that or he was actually listening to Shane's minute-by-minute description of the previous 33 days and was just bored. Either is possible. What was absolutely indisputable is that he's inherited his father's knack for being vastly wrong: "I think my dad's doing really well in the game, 'cause he knows how to play the game and he's really smart and athletic." Fortunately we were spared their farewell, although we did have to sit through a whole lot of jokes about the sleep to 'snuggling' ratio Terry and his wife managed for the night.

Cirie's husband is even more of a city slicker than she is, if that's possible. How else can we explain his duck and cover reaction to the sound of a stick cracking in the fire. There's not too many cars at camp from which to commit a drive-by. After recoiling in horror at the level of suspended particulate in their drinking water ("What are you gonna do with that; drink it? I thought that was the basin y'all washed your feet in!") he spent the rest of the time hauling the stuff back to camp, as well as gathering firewood, scaling fish and not complaining about it too much.

The TV guide description for this week read "A fight between two castaways leads one to learn something important about the other." Aras learned that Terry thinks a wife's love is more important than a mom's. Aras pointed out that his mom is his 'rock' in the absence of a wife. They both got defensive and glared at each other over the fire. Cirie sat and watched, absorbed everything and said nothing, as she usually does. Hardly a fight, and she did all the learning.

The immunity challenge put each Survivor on top of a twenty foot high pole out at sea, trying to use a bucket on a rope to pour enough water in a tube to raise a flag. Shane came last and Terry won, but then Shane had completely misunderstood the instructions and was pouring water into the wrong hole.

With the immunity bauble around his neck yet again and the individual immunity idol in his bag, Terry is now guaranteed a place in the final three. Either the others still don't believe he's got the idol or they haven't done the math, but there is still absolute certainty in the mind of each person that their own alliance will make up the final three, and since most of those alliances don't include Terry someone is about to be rather disappointed.

As a contrast to Shane's rubbish, Aras made one of the most accurate statements ever heard at Tribal Council when asked about Terry's unchallenged ownership of the immunity necklace: "The challenges are just one part of the game. You can win all the challenges you want, but if you don't win the people over you don't win the million dollars."

As you probably guessed by now, Shane won't be winning anything. It was hard to tell whose face betrayed the most emotion: Shane's shock at being voted out, Captain Terry's fury that the crew disobeyed him yet again, or Courtney's realisation that she's now sequestered in the jury's hotel with Shane.

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 12

2006-05-30T22:31:00.000+10:00

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.