Survivor Palau: week 6

Massive adj. 1 large and heavy or solid. 2 (of the features, head, etc.) relatively large or solid. 3 exceptionally large or severe (massive heart attack). 4 substantial, impressive.

1300 302 502 adj & number 1. the complaints and inquiries line for the ACCC. 2 the number I’ll be calling later today to dob Channel 9 in for misleading advertising, yet again.


The ad for this week’s episode promised a "massive betrayal". For 48 minutes I waited, breathlessly wondering what class of falseness could be of such scope as to deserve an adjective like massive; not large, not substantial, not significant, but massive. Surely it couldn’t be something as mundane as one Survivor lying to another about how they voted at the last tribal council, could it? Lying to one’s tribe mates is the great Survivor rite of passage!

After last week’s double eviction and sundry other tamperings with the formula, it was back to normal this week which means:

1. Product placement;
   
2. Ulong winning the reward challenge;
   
3. Ulong losing the immunity challenge; and
   
4. James being a red neck.
   

He started with a lecture about why Ibrehem should have been voted off instead of Angie: "You wasn’t payin’ attention today. That was your problem. You need to focus." Even with ears like a bat, James missed the irony of interrupting Stephanie’s impassioned plea that Ulong needs to have better listening skills.

Katie has sauntered into Kim’s vacated role of lazy blonde. While the rest of Koror had a working bee ("Idle hands are the Devil’s play thing", Tom reminded us), Katie made herself a macrame headband. Not even stopping to touch up her roots, she arrived back from collecting the tree mail to riddle her perplexed audience: "What starts with P and ends with L?" The answer, apparently, is Pringles. Not just any Pringles, mind you, but cross-promotional Pringles that take a proud traditional of Survivor product placement to new lows. These have questions about past series of Survivor printed on them - presumably in non-toxic ink - so now consumers all over America can enjoy such an incredibly desirable reward. Calm down Aussies: you can buy genuine Survivor buffs, caps and coffee mugs on the Survivor website but not these Pringles. I already checked.

The Pringles were part of the reward challenge prize along with cocktails and a swim in a lake full – seriously, creepily full – of fresh water jellyfish that lost their stingers in a bout of evolutionary downsizing a million years ago. Remember James’ advice to Ibrehem earlier about focussing and paying attention? James didn’t remember it, didn’t pay attention to how anybody else was doing it, didn’t focus and certainly didn’t aim very well because he didn’t hit a single target in a reward challenge that involved shooting a small replica WWII cannon to smash coloured tiles. Somehow Ulong won anyway, so Koror must really be regretting voting off Willard and his ‘Nam-era sniper skills last week.

As you already know, Ulong lost the immunity challenge yet again. This one required each team to first tie a Gordian knot themselves and then be fastest at undoing the other team’s effort. James seemed more worried about the knots holding his toga together (as if the CBS lawyers were going to let anything interesting be seen!), because as he told us all he was once in the navy and knows his knots. That navy news snippet explains much about his attitude to Coby, but doesn’t explain how three girls and Ian managed to get through his effort with relative ease to win a record sixth consecutive immunity.

Stephanie told Bobby Jon that she didn’t vote for him last week. That, gentle reader, was the ‘massive betrayal’ we’d all been waiting for. Gee, massive. James, in yet another bout of inept prescience, announced that "Ibrehem was meant to go last time and by the grace of Allah he didn’t go; my God says he is today". This statement was not only grammatically absurd (and demonstrated his ignorance of the fact that Christians, Jews and Muslims like Ibrehem all worship the same God) but was eventually proved wrong. It took another tie-breaker, but Stephanie backed down on her promise at the start of the episode to get rid of Ibrehem and joined Bobby Jon in voting James off. Fortunately his last quote was a fittingly memorable one: "My gut failed me, and I'm sad and depressed."

That’s the Alabama trio of James, Ibrehem and Bobby Jon broken up, and Michelle out of the sweep. The ad for next week promises more proof of Koror being winners and Ulong being losers. After this week’s massive betrayal by Channel 9, I’ll believe it when I see it.

Survivor Palau: week 5

The ad for this week promised "several twists that will throw them off their game", but that was only partly correct. Yes there were several twists, but fortunately people’s basic characters shone through and the tribes performed as we’ve come to know and love.

Ulong upheld their ‘loser’ tag by getting lost in the 300m of jungle between their camp and a cave that would have provided shelter from the drenching rain and lightening. James’s efforts at motivating them didn’t help, and the shattered looks on their faces set the tone for an episode that really wasn’t as much fun as previous ones.

This week’s challenge – yes, "challenge" singular - was the first big twist. It was a combined reward and immunity effort where both tribes would be going to Tribal Council regardless of the result. The winners would still have to vote somebody off, but would at least get to stay and gloat while they ate a full meal in front of the losers.

There’s just no limit to the number of times I’ll laugh at hearing host Jeff pronounce the word buoy as "boo-ee". This week the teams had to dive and retrieve sake bottles tied to a wrecked Japanese patrol boat in an oh-so-subtle reminder of who won WWII. The instructions were as clear to me as Palau’s water, but at least three of the Survivors looked in completely the wrong direction. (Ian, how is it that three weeks ago you could find a tiny metal box 80 metres off shore, but not a warship laying on its side almost directly under a boo-ee?) Ibrehem’s chiselled physique couldn’t manage to retrieve even one bottle, and he squandered the small lead Ulong had actually managed to eke out.

Koror won, but they were still forced to attend Tribal Council. Everyone, even Willard, knew that he’d be voted off. It was calm and rational and, aside from some distinctly Wanda-like warbling from Ian, very civilized. The tiny bit of alliance-broking that did happen meant Coby finally got a chance to camp it up and gossip for the cameras, pointing out the cosy relationship developing between "Ken and Barbie", a.k.a Gregg with two Gs and Jenny the nanny. Coby, next week I want you to extract at least six syllables from the word "please", please; four just isn’t up to hair stylist standards.

Katie got a real scare when Willard’s vote for her was the first one read out, but otherwise the Koror tribal council was totally boring. They voted, Willard left, they moved to the jury’s side of the fire and gleefully tucked into their unsponsored stew and root beer while they watched the car-wreck that Ulong’s tribal councils tend to be.

It started off as usual with the person most at fault for Ulong’s challenge loss trying to shift blame anywhere else. Then, SURPRISE! Jeff announced that Koror would assign immunity to one member of Ulong by secret ballot! Who knows whether it was an accident or some strategic kicking while Ulong was down, but somehow Ibrehem ended up with individual immunity. That threw into complete disarray the plan Stephanie, James, Bobby Jon and Angie had for getting rid of him. With no chance to discuss who to target instead, the first round of voting was deadlocked between Bobby Jon and Angie, causing a tiebreaker that our little tattooed butterfly eventually lost.

Interestingly, Angie and Willard were the last two picked for their respective tribes in the very first episode, so it was fitting that they go out together. That’s Rob and Jenny out of the sweep, and yet another member of Ulong gone. The remaining ones are so desperate for the merge and a chance to get away from each other that they brought their entire camp to tribal council. At the rate they’re disappearing there won’t be anyone left for Koror to merge with! Surely the Producers won’t let that happen. Let’s hope not!

Survivor Palau: week 4

Tonight’s episode of Survivor was brought to you by Home Depot, the number 7 and the letter K.

How stupid do marketers think we are? Product placement is a surging blight on our entertainment landscape, but seldom is it as unapologetically blatant as on Survivor. Every season at least a couple of the reward challenges are sponsored by big brands with deep pockets. Apparently we innocents out in TV land are supposed to believe that the Survivors get so incredibly excited about the reward because it’s Miller beer, or Doritos corn chips, but if it were Budweiser and CC’s they’d hardly bother. Couldn’t be that they’ve been living on coconut juice and live grasshoppers for weeks and just want some variety in their diets, could it?

In this week’s episode, Home Depot (or Dee-po as it’s correctly pronounced; marketers are sensitive about this kind of thing) was the logo that got the Survivors lathered up into a consumer frenzy. America’s version of Bunnings (which is Home Depot, just in case you missed it) turned up and gave them a range of building materials and a choice of tools with which to build a shower and a latrine. The best effort would be rewarded with yet another visit from the Home Depot barge, more product placement, and a top-notch shelter.

By the time the Home Depot (did you get that) barge arrived each tribe was supposed to have chosen a leader, and the rest of the episode really highlighted the differences between them. At Koror, Coby got his curling tongs in a twist because he wanted to be leader (as did several other people) but Ian bowed to public pressure and agreed to take up the sceptre. At Ulong, nobody wanted to be leader so James got dobbed in. At Koror they drew up some plans, considered everyone’s input and had plenty of group help. Meanwhile at Ulong James just took over, Kim complained that she was hungry, and Bobby Jon made an impassioned speech about winners and then tried to cut down a palm tree in the middle of a thicket where it had no room to fall clear. He was Alabama’s most eligible bachelor, not its smartest.

Needless to say, Koror won and jumped for joy when the Home Depot barge came back. They were even happier with the two bottles of champagne thrown in as a house-warming gift (obviously none of the champagne companies wanted to pay the exorbitant product placement rates, because the labels had been soaked off).

The immunity challenge was a cross between sumo wrestling and a pillow fight, cryptically described as a "David and Goliath" battle. James, dressed like an extra from a Charlton Heston epic in his self-fashioned tunic, stopped looking the part when he declared "We’re gonna be like wolverines!"

Kim surrendered faster than the French army and basically jumped over the side rather than do any work to help her team win. Angie and Stephanie both won both of their fights decisively. James lost twice to Coby including in the final do-or-die round which decided the eventual winner, and proved he’s as much a redneck as he is not a raconteur when he summed up losing to Coby using the following phrases:

1. "It felt terribly to have my butt whupped by a ho-mo-sex-u-al."
   
2. "A lot of gay folks is strong. They’all work out at the gym an’ all. Daymn. That boy right there has got some ass behind him."
   

Speaking of ass and gyms, the pixelating machine is starting to get a work-out disguising the slightest hint of bum cleavage whenever Bobby Jon’s pants ride down a bit, not to mention the constantly lingerie-challenged Angie. I just know that Janu will send it into overdrive at some point.

In the end though it was "ding dong the witch is dead" with Kim voted off in a unanimous decision. She went down in character though, blaming everyone else for everything that’s ever gone wrong and not taking the slightest bit of personal responsibility.

That’s Sharon finally out of the sweep after several tentative weeks, and Ulong’s fourth tribal council in a row. Unless they start winning some challenges the jury will be made up of all nine Koror members. Of course, the ad for next week promises "several unexpected twists that throw them off their game" so stay tuned…

Survivor Palau: week 3

Here’s some interesting facts about Kim:

• She earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree majoring in Middle Eastern studies, with minors in Psychology and Political Science.
  
• She is currently undertaking a Master of Humanities.
  
• She wants to do a Ph. D. in Political Science.
  
• Her career goal is to become a Professor of Political Science.
  

That’s really nice, Kim. I’m happy for you. Can I make a suggestion? How about you ditch the books and instead buy the DVDs of the previous nine series of Survivor because if you’re fascinated by human behaviour, group interactions, power struggles, voting intentions, and who gets what, when, how and why, it’s all there.

Every season somebody gets ostracised for either; a) not doing enough work around camp; b) not trying hard enough in the challenges; or c) getting cosy with a tribe mate. Kim, who is supposed to be an expert in knowing what makes people ticked off, has managed all of these and it’s only week three! Last week she didn’t participate at all in the immunity challenge, and it was only Ashlee’s meltdown that saved her. Kim's special friendship with Jeff is really getting up some noses, too. Don’t worry folks; James has vowed that he’s "keeping an eye on them" in case they start "y’know, sucking face and stuff". He’s not stalking them, he’s not a pervert, he’s just "keeping an eye on them" in case they do "stuff". He assures us, most earnestly, that he has ears like a bat.

Her third mistake was resplendent of another interesting fact about Kim: she was Ohio’s representative in the 2002 Miss USA Pageant. Only a beauty queen could pause from an exhausting session of sunbathing to bemoan Bobby Jon’s tireless work around camp with the words "He'll be of no use if he keeps doing this for two weeks and he crashes and burns." She claimed everyone has been trying to tell him to slow down, but I think she missed the subtle point that they did that by actually helping.

Koror is suffering the fate of the successful tribe: day seven and no opportunity to get rid of the annoying ones. If you believe the editing, Katie has been harping non-stop at Caryn for days about little stuff, and eventually she snapped. As tiffs go it was kind of boring because Katie’s cool indifference made it a one-sided battle and Caryn just kept repeating the one example of being told what to do. What was once a personal gripe is now a full-on source of animosity, so hopefully we’ll see some more impressive action from this quarter in coming weeks.

Far more exciting was the bit where the Koror boys found some highly poisonous sea snakes, which Gregg with two Gs pointed out "can cause cardiac arrest, coma … even death!" Thanks for that Gregg. The highlight was having Ian plead that he hates harming animals, then gleefully lopping the head off three sleeping snakes and using them as burly to have a better chance of stabbing a baby shark with a stick.

The challenges this week had the same outcome as last week; Ulong again convincingly won the reward but lost the more crucial immunity challenge to Koror. The reward was a sewing kit and fabric, which Angie thankfully used to make a dress. I was getting really sick of doing a double take every time a long shot made her black string bikini panties resemble a map of our most southern state.

They’d probably have had a decent shot at immunity, too, but personal trainer Jeff stood on a coconut the night before, rolled his ankle and had to pull out of a challenge that needed all the strength and stamina the teams could muster. Back at camp he pleaded to be voted off rather than hold the team back. Nobody wanted to do that since, as Ibrehem put it, "then we’d be down two people because Kim doesn’t help in the challenges, she doesn’t help around camp…" Even with a bung leg he was still opening coconuts while Kim watched. In the end, however, the majority followed his wishes and he hobbled off into the night.

That’s Cathy out of our sweep, and Sharon saved for yet another week thanks to the mysteries of a game where Kim can have three strikes and still not be out.

Janu, you got off light this week; next time I’ll have no choice but to mention those Nana Mouskouri glasses.

Survivor Palau: week 2

Memo to all Survivors: this is reality TV and there’s nothing real about it.

First a re-cap from last week: after winning the immunity challenge, Koror were given a choice between keeping their current beach camp site or colonising a new one from scratch. Hello people! Did it not occur to you that the producers were setting you up? In a scene straight from the Truman Show, the "elements" conspired against them with a "freak wave" flipping their canoe. Last night’s episode revealed that their new beach is overcome with "wild" rats. Then, before they finished building their shelter, a "cold front" came through and it started "raining".

Ulong, meanwhile, celebrated their freedom from the tyranny of Jolanda’s bossiness by deciding not to have a leader. Redneck James summed it up with the eloquence of George W Bush: "We can make our own decisions. We can be democratic about it. We’re Americans! We’re gonna do Democracy!"

Pierced and tattooed Angie looks like she’s usually pretty adept at dodging responsibility, but impressed everyone with her skill at dodging sandbags on a rope and planks course while collecting flags to help win the reward challenge for Ulong. Her tribe mates cheered for her almost as loudly as the makers of "Palau’s Funniest Home Videos" did when James lost his footing and hit the edge of the dock with his coccyx. Once again Janu called on her Las Vegas workplace skills, freeing up both hands for the rope bridge by stuffing the flag down the front of her pants like there was a dead president printed on it.

The other solo star of the show this week was the dolphin trainer, who decided to try and salvage the lost flint. "They call him Ian…Ian…blonder than Britney. No-one you see, swims deeper than he…" Not only did he locate a crate on the seabed hundreds of metre off shore, he managed to bring it to the surface! Is he interested in swimming for Australia at the next Olympics if that other super-fish named Ian chucks it in for a career in interior decorating?

No doubt inspired – if not educated - by Ian’s heroic efforts, Koror excelled at a challenge that involved moving a steel crate off the ocean floor and easily won immunity for the second week in a row. Of course it helped that the Ulong farmyard, having no animals more equal than others, couldn’t get organised enough to even copy what was working for Koror.

It’s traditional for Survivors to start pairing up into political alliances early on, and in recent series it’s become fashionable to pair up in a more romantic context. Never before, however, have they given the camera crews such juicy material so early on. At Ulong we had Kim and Jeff "keeping each other warm overnight", and hints of similar tactics at Koror for Jenny the Nanny and Gregg with two G’s. Surprisingly Kim, who is majoring in politics, doesn’t think that the others will feel threatened by this or that they will think she and Jeff have an alliance. Wake up and smell the seaweed, honey. Maybe she’s too caught up in the idea of encouraging people to vote for her, because she contributed no effort at all to the challenge and put her firmly head on the chopping block (for at least four minutes, if you can believe the editing).

Luckily for her, Ashlee came through as predicted in the form guide (thank you, thank you very much), struggled physically, lost the will to live, stopped eating and was voted off in sympathy, so Anthony Richardson is out of the sweep and Sharon Ritchie survives another week.

The ad for next week features a fin cutting through the water. Is it a shark, or is it Ian training his mates to catch fish for their tribe? Be watching next week to find out…