Survivor Cook Islands: Finale

And so Survivor is over for another season.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Survivor Cook Islands: week 13

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Survivor Cook Islands: week 12

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Survivor Cook Islands: week 11

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

Dear Candice,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yours sincerely,
Tess

Survivor Cook Islands: week 10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Survivor Cook Islands: week 9

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

1. Aitu won both challenges;
2. Those members of Raro who sat out the challenge spent most of the time with their heads in the hands, groaning;
3. Candice got sent to Exile Island;
4. Jonathan worked really hard to keep his tentative new spot on Raro;
5. Adam and Candice spent what little time they had together either scheming or making out; and
6. The tree mail poem was really bad.

OK that last one is pretty much a given, but this week’s was noteworthily bad. How bad? Bad enough for me to pause the video, copy it out and reproduce it here for your own private moment of horror:

Any explorer knows
To study about where he goes
Disappointment shows
And for the losers…the "Tribal Council Woes".

Both challenges this week had required pre-reading, which automatically put Aitu at an advantage since they seem to hold most of the brains. The Reward Challenge featured treasure chests buried in the sand below various points of the compass, with nautical signal flags hidden in each one. The flags spelt out the word Victory (which could also have been "OR ICY TV" but I supposed Jeff did say it was a word, singular), and Aitu had it before Raro even had their fourth chest out of the sand. Highlights included Jonathan deciding that the first clue was NNW instead of NNE, Jonathan falling over, Jenny having to be told to help him dig, Candice telling Jenny to dig with both hands, Jonathan and Jenny tagging out too early and having to go back and touch the mat again, and Jenny getting the opportunity to VERY sarcastically tell Candice to dig with both hands.

It was far easier for Aitu to send Candice back to Exile Island than it was for her to understand why they did it. She’s now spent more of her post-Mutiny time on Exile Island than she has with her new tribe, and most of this visit was spent crying into her buff in genuine shock because the people she betrayed were mean to her. Maybe she’s not so smart after all.

Aitu, meanwhile, were being welcomed to a traditional Cook Island village in the manner of returning victorious warriors. Most series seem to involve this kind of event, but Aitu clicked with their hosts better than any tribe I remember. Yul and Ozzy each got sandwiched between a pair of grass-skirted, hula-dancing local women, with Ozzy’s seducers being on the young and slender side (much to his enjoyment) and Yul’s being on the older and more rotund side (much to everyone else’s enjoyment!)

The Indemnity Challenge also required study, with the subject this time being a map of the South Pacific including such familiar countries as Palau and Vanuatu. Since Rebecca had sat out the previous challenge everyone knew that she’d have to participate this time, and it wasn’t looking like she’d be much help to the tribe when Parvarti the cocktail waitress / model / female boxer came up with a simple mnemonic device and got an utterly blank look in return.

As you already know, Aitu won yet again and sent Raro back to Tribal Council, but not before Jeff sent them back to camp for a few hours holding a small glass bottle, sealed up with wax and containing a mystery note that would only be opened after the vote. Candice was spot on when she predicted that it must be something bad, because it would have been given to the winners if it were something good. And by now it’s very clear that Raro are not winners.

Sure enough, after a vote in which Rebecca’s lack of performance in challenges and housework around camp were punished despite her membership of the core Raro alliance, the note was read out: "You’ve just voted out one member of your tribe. You will now vote out another." Yep, without any chance to consult with each other the remaining six had to vote again, and yet again they voted out a member of their original alliance. If Rebecca looked unimpressed when her torch was snuffed, Jenny was positively ropable and I doubt either new Jury member will forget their betrayal in a hurry.

The ad for next week claims that "things heat up between Adam and Candice". That’s going to be something of a worry for the censors, since this week had them alone in the shelter doing that routine from Raiders of the Lost Ark, with Adam kissing Candice everywhere she had cut herself with the machete. Why am I’m not surprised those two couldn’t come up with something more original?

Survivor Cook Islands: week 8

Unless you regularly invest some quality time reading the TV guide (or somewhat obsessively researching a particular show, not that I do that or anything) you might not realise that each Survivor episode has a name. As in all things Survivor, sometimes the names are a bit naff. This week, however, the title "Mutiny!" was about as accurate as it gets because not one minute was spent on anything not in some way related to that theme.

In some more quality editing this week we had a really nice scenario set up with Jonathan talking at length about how important it is for the six Aitu members to stick together since there’s also six Raro members and the merge might happen soon. In the next scene we saw him talking to Candice and explaining that he really wants to slough off the rest of the tribe and get the two of them back with the remaining whiteys over on Raro for a Caucasian domination of the final four. Finally we got Candice’s piece to camera where explained quite clearly that she really doesn't want Jonathan hanging around her. She only just managed to keep from panting too heavily while thinking about getting back on the same tribe typically prophetic quote: "I think stuff’s about to happen, about to start moving."

She didn’t have to wait long. Before the start of the reward challenge Jeff gave everyone a ten second window in which to Mutiny! and swap tribes if they wanted. Candice spent eight of those seconds leering at Adam, then stepped forward. She was a second too soon, because Jeff stopped the countdown to express amazement and during the delay Jonathan to decide follow her. His thinking seemed to go something along the lines of, "If you love something set it free: if it comes back it’s yours; if it doesn’t, hunt it down and kill it."

Maybe the producers knew what would happen and planned the challenge accordingly. Maybe they were just lucky that not more people decided to Mutiny!. Either way, the challenge was still able to be run with only four people left in Aitu. The two girls had to climb into a barrel and be rolled down a ramp, over some speed humps and through the water to collect flags and raise them at the end, assuming they could still walk given the bruises they must have incurred. The best part by far was the frequency with which Jeff pronounced the word "buoy" as "boo-eee", something which has been almost as sadly missed in recent seasons as the gross food challenge.

Once again Ozzy was the Aitu Allstar. He managed to hold his breath underwater, the barrel by his feet and a rope with his hands, all while towing the entire team across the lagoon to an easy victory. Raro managed to get caught in a rip and were dragged so far off course they never had a chance of winning.

It’s easy to cheer for the underdogs, but it makes you even more warm and fuzzy to see the underdogs appreciate their win. The fine, upstanding folk of Aitu stopped and spent some time celebrating with each other instead of just rushing to get to the muffins, danishes, coffee and letters from home which constituted this week’s reward. Ozzy even cried, but then crying is a somewhat natural reaction when you discovered that your "loved ones" have given the producers your most embarrassing school photos and now the whole world has seen them. Mutinous traitors!

The other part of Aitu’s reward was getting to send someone to Exile Island, and they didn’t even have to consult before choosing Fletcher Christian herself, Candice. Jonathan, meanwhile, indentured himself into the service of his new Raro masters (so much for the white folks taking over). Between tending the fire, harvesting coconuts and doing the fishing, he chewed all their ears off, ignored them rolling their eyes at him, and reminded us at home during his piece to camera that, "This game is all about trust." Yep, and everyone now has conclusive proof that Candice and Jonathan are quite happy to Mutiny! and betray their tribe mates.

The Immunity Challenge involved paddling a glass-bottomed boat around the lagoon until the target painted on the glass lined up exactly with a target laying on the ocean floor. If timed correctly, one could drop a cannonball through a hatch in the front of the boat, land it in a basket attached to the target and release some more boo-eees. Raro got an early lead until Yul worked out that you could see the basket through the hatch, which was a far easier way of working than trying to line up the target by getting four people to paddle in different directions at once. Some might call it cheating, others might call it creative thinking. Jeff just called it a win when the collected buoys spelt out "Bounty" back on the beach, and Aitu’s four-person David had beaten the eight-strong Raro twice in a row. Success really is the best revenge.

Now is probably a good time to point out a couple of things from right at the very start of the episode. The recap from the previous week reminded us all how very lucky Brad the non-swimming puzzle solver was that his team didn’t go to Tribal Council or he’d have been voted off. Early this week he uttered a throw-away line that after the merge it’s every man for himself. He’s absolutely right, but it gave the rest of him team something new for which to be mad at him because they all wilfully misinterpreted that as proof that he's not a team player and is planning to overthrow them and needs to be voted off immediately.

However, Candice and Jonathan – especially Jonathan – gatecrashing the party threw a new light on things. Adam had a moment of very, very impressive political clarity when he pointed out that what’s left of Raro will never take Jonathan back to make up the numbers going into a merge, but they might be willing to take Brad into the fold if he chose to counter-Mutiny! for his own survival. Unfortunately this was soon followed by a very, very unimpressive change of mind when Candice got back from Exile Island and convinced Adam that Jonathan was a threat to his manhood. Stupid, over-reactive boy! And Nate agreed with him on everything. Stupid, over-reactive boys plural!

Tribal Council took place in a heavy thunderstorm. Brad needed only a tiny amount of prodding to admit that he doesn’t trust anyone on his team, but I suspect his fate had been decided long before that tactical error because he went out in a unanimous vote. Well, not quite out: Brad becomes the first member of the Jury in a very surprising twist this early in the season. It’s going to be lots of fun to see how they manage if it’s a ten person jury split five-five split in the final vote. Or will the million dollars be fought out by a final three instead of a final two? Or will the members of the jury have to set someone adrift in a lifeboat? Or will Jeff get the casting vote? Oh wait, the ad for next week promises another big twist. Gee, that’s never happened before!

For the next two weeks I’ll be away on holiday (no, not in the Cook Islands; I’m not that tragic). I’ll hopefully have internet access, but probably not email. If all goes according to plan there will be reports available on Thursday mornings at this site for you to keep up to date with what’s happening after any sane person’s bedtime.

Survivor Cook Islands: week 7

It may not have seemed that way early on, but the theme of tonight's episode ended up being "Brad’s lucky week!"

In fact early on it looked like Nate’s lucky week as he took the opportunity afforded by his kidnapping to learn more about Aitu without giving away too much crucial information about how things are at his own Raro camp. He certainly seemed more interested than anyone else by Jessica / Flicka’s complaints that she was the only one not in on the plan to vote out Cao Boi the previous night at Tribal Council.

Flicka’s complaints were interrupted by the arrival of tree mail, the first word of which was "Swim!" Oddly enough for tree mail that was a pretty good clue as to what the Reward Challenge would involve. The reward itself was also made about a clear as it could be, in the form of a Survivor Tree Mail Order Catalogue of Reward Items and instructions to pick two of them. For Aitu it was an easy and unanimous choice: a sack of potatoes to stretch out the carbs during the week, and some jars of peanut butter for immediate gratification. For Raro, Brad’s suggestion that they make the same choice on the same grounds was ignored in favour of a loaf of bread (which is going to last such a long time in the tropics!) for peanut butter sandwiches RIGHT NOW! None of this "planning for the future" stuff for Adam and Parvarti, huh!

And what did the winners have to do to get these lavish, unbranded and product-placement-free treats? Three members of each tribe had to do a lot of swimming while carrying something awkward, then the other two had to solve a puzzle. Remember those instructions; you’ll hear them again later.

For reasons known only to himself at the time, Brad volunteered to solve the puzzle instead of swimming. During the utter roasting he copped back at camp after they lost, he justified it on the grounds that he has very good spatial skills and is therefore good at puzzles. Trouble is that the "spatial puzzle solving" bit came after the "lots of hard swimming" bit. With Nate unavailable for selection, and Brad’s gloriously buffed pecs on stand-by to do spatial things with some lightweight puzzle pieces, all the physical work was left to Adam, Rebecca and Parvati. Rebecca didn’t even complete the first lap before failing as spectacularly as the supporting materials on her bikini top, giving us the season’s first truly justifiable pixellation.

Aitu’s combination of Ozzy the superfish, Candice the superbabe and Yul the superallroundniceguy finished the swimming part miles in front of Raro, and inevitably they had the challenge wrapped up and won long before Brad’s spatial skills were called upon.

In a nicely ironic twist, the Cook Islands had an unseasonably cold snap not unlike the one Melbourne is going through as I write this (ie it’s two weeks until summer and today we had snow falls down to 600m). Adam spent his night on Exile Island in the foetal position under a make-shift humpy trying to stay warm, while everyone at camp shivered together under every item of clothing and bedding available for use.

I deliberately didn’t write about this last week because I sensed there might be a better story at some point in the future, but the time has now come. Last week during the trip back from the reward there was a short scene of Candice walking along holding hands with Sundra, followed a few seconds later by a shot of Candice sitting between Sundra’s feet. This week Candice shared – nay, initiated – a "peanut butter kiss" with Flicka, whereby they each put a big blob of peanut butter in the middle of their pouts then mashed the two blobs together, then laughed. in another scene she had her arms wrapped around Yul, but that might have just been because she was cold. Or because she was flirting. Or because she was trying to punish Billy on his New Jersey couch by throwing herself at everyone else in camp. Or maybe it’s her strategy? All opinions on this are welcome.

Ozzy’s strategy has been to try and make everyone else too fat to compete during the upcoming individual immunity challenges. Aside from his daily reef-depleting haul of fish he this week caught a live seagull. Apparently a sleeping bird in a bush is worth an extra two days in the game, because everyone seemed pretty happy with dietary variety even if Yul was the only one brave enough to break its neck ready for consumption.

The immunity challenge was almost a direct re-hash of the reward challenge: three members of each tribe had to do a lot of swimming while carrying something awkward, then the other two had to solve a puzzle. Predictably enough, Brad was one of the swimmers this time, although Aitu had won the swim leg and was already started on the puzzle by the time Raro had collected all the pieces. Totally unpredictably, Adam was one of the pair doing the brain-draining puzzle solving part and his team actually came from behind to win! I’m still trying to work out how that happened, but it did. At least I think it did: maybe I fell asleep on the couch and dreamt it. After all, it was ridiculously past my bedtime.

For Brad, of course, it was justification of his theory that skill solving the puzzle can be enough to come from behind and win. If they’d lost he’d have been an absolute goner.

For Aitu, a second consecutive trip to Tribal Council meant a choice between:

• Jessica, whose paranoia about her lack of alliances was getting really annoying;
• Ozzy, whose fantastic efforts to win challenges and feed his tribe have only earned him the gratitude of being considered a future threat; and
• Jonathan, whose constant scheming means nobody trusts him anymore (reinforced by an editorial decision to overlay the sound of Yul’s observation to this effect with footage of a rat feeding on some discarded coconut).

Once again Jessica was left out of everyone else’s decision making, and she was unanimously voted off. Don’t worry Flicka: technically you’re not paranoid if everyone else really is out to get you.

Survivor Cook Islands: week 6

A couple of people pointed out to me today that if you live in country Victoria you get to see Survivor at 9.30pm followed by ER at 10.30pm instead of the other way around. The only reason for this I can think of is that country folk find the concept of 20 Americans stranded in the Cook Islands doing weird challenges and voting for each other more accurately representative of their own lives than an adequately staffed hospital in a functional health system.

Due to the late time, and reflective of the fact that this week’s events only spanned 24 hours instead of the normal three days, it’ll be a brief one tonight. In fact it was a pretty boring episode all around, with only the challenge – and yes we’re back to challenge singular again – providing any real entertainment.

Otherwise it was very much ‘business as usual’, especially in the scenes around camp. Cristina was bossy and domineering when criticising the others for calling her bossy and domineering the night before at Tribal Council. Ozzy caught lots of fish and Nate caught an octopus. Jonathan was a bit too focussed on his strategy, which creeped some of the girls out. Cao Boi said weird and inappropriate things. Yul was unfailingly diplomatic and Becky worshipped him for it. Nothing new there at all, really.

The challenge was the one bright spot. Two girls and one boy from each team wrapped themselves around poles. Two members of the same gender from the other tribe had to dislodge a person and try to carry/drag/roll them over a finish line. The first tribe to get all three people back over the line won. The producers must have been just loving the fact that the girls outnumber the boys because the challenge involved a LOT of very physical wrestling in the sand and myriad opportunities for pixelation. Candice showed a degree of resistance I’ve only previously seen when trying to get our cat into his travel cage for a trip to the vet. Cristina demonstrated the efficiency of certain police restraint holds, while professional Rollergirl Flicka also used her work skills with some excellent hair pulling.

Of course there was a twist, which was that both teams had to go to Tribal Council and vote someone out. Technically it’s not much of a twist since it was openly announced in the ad for this week at the end of the last episode, but since almost nobody was still awake by that stage it may have surprised someone not living in Shepparton or Bairnsdale.

The twist sent both teams into strategy mode back at camp. We saw almost nothing at Raro other than Cristina promising to be good and begging her tribe mates for another chance while they mumbled "Sure" and looked away.

Aitu’s deliberations were a lot more interesting. Crazy Cao Boi had a dream that he applied for an American Express card, which he interpreted as a totally foolproof way of working out who has the immunity idol, cunningly nicknamed Plan Voodoo. Here’s just a few of the flaws in that foolproof plan:

1. It assumes that either Jonathan or Candice has the idol, forgetting that Yul has also been sent to Exile Island (and as well all know, is the one who actually has it).
2. It assumes that Jonathan is more likely to have it since he’s been there twice.
3. It relies on three people voting for Jonathan and three for Candice, with the tied vote forcing the one who has the idol to use it.
4. It fails to take into account that if Jonathan votes for Candice and she goes down 4-3 as a result, Jonathan won’t have to use the idol - and remember we're supposed to think he has it - and nothing will be proven either way.
5. It assumes in the first place that Cao Boi has enough influence to get six other people to all vote exactly the way he wants.

Amusingly Cao Boi was getting the same mumbled "Sure" from his tribe mates as he unveiled Plan Voodoo that Cristina was getting over at Raro, so it was no surprise at all that the two of them got voted out.

As the challenge winners, Aitu had their Tribal Council first followed by a "feast" in the Jury Box of lamb shanks, bread and apple cider served in a genuine hillbilly earthenware jug. No product placement opportunities there!

Anyway, Aitu got to watch Raro’s Tribal Council up until just before the vote, when Jeff pulled yet another shock out of his khaki shirt. Aitu got to "kidnap" a member of Raro for a few days, effectively protecting that person from being voted out that night. Nate was chosen, and got an early start to his case of Stockholm Syndrome by getting to snack on a lamb shank with his captors. Apparently he’ll be part of Aitu for the next few days, even competing with them at the next reward challenge.

At this point I must mention Candice’s very strange behaviour towards Adam across the Tribal Council set while all this was happening. She started out blowing him kisses, and at one point seemed to mouth to him the words "I Love You." Hang on, have we not seen this before? Has she not learnt how easily such behaviour can be misinterpreted? Does anyone want to guess how long Billy sat at home on the couch and howled when he saw such behaviour from his true love?

Survivor Cook Islands: week 5

The editing on Survivor has always been good, but this week it was superb.

We started at Raro the morning after the night before and JP’s shock (well, to him at least) departure. The three remaining boys decided that a mammoth effort at gathering food, water and firewood would be the best way to show the five girls they still needed the men around. Yeah, that’ll show ‘em when they finally crawl out of bed around lunchtime! About the only thing it showed the girls was that the boys are desperate to remain relevant, and are every bit as easily manipulated as Parvarti predicted.

Things were remarkably similar at Aitu, with an alliance of five – mainly girls comparing underarm hair regrowth – lording it over the other three of Ozzie, Cao Boi and Flicker. Tonight’s first nominee for Excellence In Editing goes to the person who patched together a few comments from Cao Boi which made it sound like he’d said the girls were jeopardising their chances in the game by being annoying. Oh hang on, I’ve just watched it again and that’s pretty much exactly what he said. On the irony!

The reward challenge this week had some familiar elements and an even more familiar prize of spices to awaken the tongue and cheap wine to loosen it. Two members of each tribe were tied together side-by-side at the waist with one arm each held out to the side like strange Siamese crucifixes. The free arms were used to hold onto handle/rope/pulley/hook arrangements that got gradually heavier as members of the opposite team added sandbags, with the last pair still holding up both hooks winning for their team. It was essentially a test of brute strength, with Adam and Nathan winning for Raro and proving their worth to the women-folk far more effectively than with some light housework.

Back at camp, the Ozzie/Cao Boi/Flicker grouping (I hesitate to use the word ‘alliance’ since they’re more an accidental combination of the people not in the other alliance than a specific coalition of their own) decided to paddle out and explore a nearby island. Candice didn’t want to go because she had other important work to do around camp, when in reality she wants to conserve her strength; good reason. Sondra didn’t want to go because, quote, "That water is kind of freaking me out." Our second nomination goes to whomever thought to get a shot of a beach with the gentlest waves ever seen in the South Pacific. For all we know they took that footage three weeks later, but it doesn’t matter because it was just so amusingly pasted in.

The outcasts alliance set sail regardless of the others’ indifference, and were happily exploring the resources the new island had to offer when they stumbled across Raro’s camp. Nothing like this has ever happened before, and nobody quite knew what to do about it. Cao Boi to the rescue! He made a tactless comment proving that he’d done a mini stocktake of Raro’s equipment, then filled the ghastly silence which followed with a lecture on Chinese symbology. There may have been some prior conversation which naturally segued into that topic, or it might have been edited out. He might have only spoken for three minutes, but several shots of the sun passing slowly overhead were edited in to create the impression he went on about it for hours. The others might have paid him their full and rapt attention, but our third nominee managed to cram in footage of each one yawning or looking otherwise bored.

Eventually Cao Boi stopped talking. He tried to suggest a joint effort to harvest the natural resources of Raro’s island for Aitu’s benefit, and then tried to hit Raro up for some of their spices, having even less success with the second idea than the first. Eventually he even got the hint that he’d outstayed his welcome and they went home. Truly weird!

The immunity challenge kicked off with Jonathan’s return from a few fruitless days of digging on Exile Island and announced that he thinks he knows where the Individual Immunity Idol was, effectively telling everyone else that either Candice, Adam or Yul has already found it. Since two of those people are in his alliance, and everyone knows that Adam is barely smart enough to read the clues let alone decipher them, he’s pretty much just tipped it on the people he’s relying on to get him through the game, and Yul for one looked most displeased.

Amazingly the challenge was entirely new and original. Each tribe had to get two members with good balancing skills across a stretch of water on tiny round platforms high up in the air, and then get their entire team onto an equally tiny square platform even higher up. It was close right through to the end, but Aitu won out and sent Raro back to their second consecutive Tribal Council.

At first their decision of who to vote out seemed simple and unanimous: Cristina has stepped into JP’s bossy boots and been telling everyone else what to do. Some might call it ‘leadership’ but in this game it’s called ‘painting a big target on your back’. Everyone agreed it was time for her to go; there was absolutely no need for further discussion. Our final nominee tonight followed Nathan and Stephannie to the water store and caught a conversation where Stephannie actually confessed out loud an opinion that she wouldn’t mind going home because she could imagine herself eating mashed potato and gravy that night. Seriously, if you’re going to end your chances in the game make it for something a little more gourmet, possibly involving fois gras and caviar. At the very least make it something that tests the skills of the kitchen staff at whichever luxury resort you’ll be holed up in until they fly you home.

Yep, the Nathan to whom she made that comment is the same Nathan who voted for her last week because he can’t tolerate the idea of someone being there who is less than 100% committed to the game. Having caught Stephannie’s original comment on camera it was a simple matter for the winner of the Survivor Cook Islands: Excellence In Editing Award to continue the theme and highlight the words "mashed potato" spreading through the rest of the tribe like melted butted (and perhaps some chives, or a little freshly-grated Parmesan).

What looked like a unanimous vote against Cristina turned into a unanimous vote against Stephannie, but not before the boys harped on that little bit too long at Tribal Council about Cristina being bossy. She’ll come out fighting next week. Let’s hope they get it all on camera!

Survivor Cook Islands: week 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Survivor Cook Islands: week 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Survivor Cook Islands: week 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Survivor Cook Islands: week 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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