Survivor China: finale

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.