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.

Survivor China: week 12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.