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…