Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 7

For my money, tonight was one of the best episodes so far this season although it was missing the medical emergency promised in the ad. That recap filler episode during the Easter ratings break must have gotten them all confused down at Channel Eddie.

We weren't let down on the promise of a "huge" challenge. What made it "huge" (aside from the amount of grassland mown down to assemble it) were the twists. The first was that it was a combined reward and immunity challenge. The reward part was a barbecue at a nearby Panamanian fishing village for the entire winning tribe. As usual the reward winners also got to send a member of the losing tribe to Exile Island, and the second twist was that they were effectively granting individual immunity to that person since the rest of the losing tribe would have to attend Tribal Council that night.

The event itself was essentially a variation on the previous day's immunity challenge. Some tribemates collected puzzle pieces and the rest tried to assemble them faster than the other team. They even recycled the bit where the puzzle pieces are shaped like skulls, so the key difference to the previous day was that it was played on land and some production costs were saved by using regular grade plywood instead of the usual marine grade.

La Mina led from very early on and looked like a certainty to win because they had Sally and Dan the NASA engineer assigned to solving the puzzle. As soon as the game started they were trying to calculate where each piece would go, so they looked certain to win. Twist number three was that when the first skull turned out not to fit the way he thought it would, Dan fell to pieces and let Cirie and Bruce canter to an easy victory for Casaya.

The decision to combine reward and immunity challenges coincidentally freed up a good seven extra minutes to linger on Shane's descent into madness and confusion. The episode opened at Casaya's camp in the hours after Bobby was voted off, with the tribe all in bed and almost asleep. Shane makes an announcement: "We made the wrong decision tonight…Danielle. And we made that decision because of your personal feelings. Period. And it's a bad, bad, bad thing. Bruce is falling apart. It's not his fault, but he's 58 and nervous." And yes, Bruce was lying there the whole time pretending to just ignore it all.

Shane went on (and on and on, including the following morning) to say that he wants out of the alliance with Danielle, Courtney and Aras because he doesn't want to be beholden to people who make decisions based on personal feelings (entirely irrational decisions are OK, just not person ones). He also claimed that he can't leave the alliance "unless you guys allow me to take my son's name back" (?!?!) This was a strange burst of morality and blame-storming from someone who a few hours earlier voted against Aras, a member of his own alliance, and who was the one to first put the idea in everyone's head that Bobby should be voted out. Danielle just wanted him to stop, on the grounds that, "I came here to enjoy myself, not to be demeaned." Of course you did, darl, now just tug that bikini top down a little further.

Cirie has been a source of constant delight to me, both for the way her voice goes up three octaves just before she laughs and for the quiet way she plays a very strategic background game. She could easily make the final three at this rate. At the barbecue reward she was also the only one to really take some non-food nourishment from the fresh human contact. Sorry, that's not strictly correct. Shane managed to scab a cigarette from one of the villagers, offering most of his clothes and all of his dignity in exchange. His fervent consumption of it – which was just revolting to watch - very much fell into the non-food nourishment category because the nicotine suddenly made him sane. He apologised to Danielle, who seemed to actually believe that he was sorry and wanted to stay with her and that he'd never abuse her again. If she was hoping for some higher self-esteem out of that breast augmentation surgery she must be sorely disappointed.

You may have missed some of the subtleties of this week's episode if you haven't read Tom Wolfe's classic book, The Right Stuff . (It's a fantastic read, and one I recommend so much that I'm supplying a link to the appropriate page on Amazon so you can buy it. Or just rent the DVD.)

Americans worship their astronauts the way Australians worship those who are good at sport. This week Dan confessed his true role in the Shuttle program to Nick, who instantly fell to fawning and adoration. Since that went so well the secret was also shared with Austin, for whom the fact that Dan has merely dined with Neil Armstrong makes him a "stud", let alone his three space missions, four spacewalks and two visits to the International Space Station.

This hero worship is one of the key themes in The Right Stuff. The other is that those with the Right Stuff genuinely are heroes who behave with dignity and do the right thing (well, most of the time at least). With Sally relishing the safety of Exile Island, the La Mina menfolk had to pick one of their own to vote out at Tribal Council. Hero or not, Dan's failure to solve the puzzle at the reward/immunity challenge was the freshest sin in everyone's memory. As Terry broke the news to Dan that he would be voted out, Dan nobly accepted his fate (cue inspirational Hollywood music) and accepted responsibility for his mistake, or "my bad" as he put it. He expressed hope that it might come to a tied vote with the outcome decided in some little on-the-spot competition at Tribal Council, but the decision had already been made. Just in case we'd missed it, Terry reminded us in his piece to camera that "Dan has the Right Stuff."

The Jerry Bruckheimer music continued all the way through the walk to Tribal Council, the interview with Jeff, Dan's pointed observation that two people stuffed up the challenge but one of them has immunity (yeah Sally, take that!), his gracious acceptance of his fate and the reading out of the inevitable vote result. Austin, Nick and Terry all stood up as Dan's torch was snuffed, Dan saluted them (seriously, I'm not kidding), they all kind of saluted back and he strode off into the dark in slow motion.

That leave ten Survivors, the point at which the tribes traditionally merge, and if the ad is to be believed it happens next week. Also Bruce gets hit in the face with a machete, which apparently his karate reflexes didn't help him avoid. More fence painting and car waxing for you, Mr Miyagi!

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 6

Here's some highlights from last night's Survivor highlights show (with 17% brand new, never-before-seen-on-TV material!!).

• Courtney trying to open a coconut with a machete, and proving that she didn't watch Survivor Vanuatu, where the technique was demonstrated repeatedly.
  
• Shane declaring, "I like odd people!" Lucky for him Danielle picked him for the new Casaya tribe (bet she's regretting that now), because it's full of odd people.
  
• Misty getting absolutely grilled by the rest of her tribe about whether or not she really found the Individual Immunity Idol.
  
• Bruce insisting on using some of the Older Men's last half bottle of drinking water to wash his hands, despite his team's vehement opposition, despite all the water in the ocean being only a few feet away, and despite the rain pouring down outside.
  
• Courtney trying to cheer everyone up during a thunderstorm by singing. The trick worked every bit as well in Guatemala as it did in Salzburg in the 1930's, only they weren't quite a tuneful as the Von Trapp kiddies.
  
• Aras talking Shane into staying during those early days when he wanted to quit (bet he's regretting that now).
  
• Casaya tucking into a meal of roasted snake, and someone actually being surprised that it tastes like chicken. Everyone knows that every kind of meat you can't buy at a butcher tastes like chicken. Except human flesh, which apparently tastes more like pork.
  
• Casaya singing the most funereal version of Happy Birthday I've ever heard to mark the occasion of Shane's son Boston's 13th birthday. More noteworthy was the cheer at the end, which could have been either a genuine good wish for Boston, or relief that the singing was over. I cheered too, so it was probably the latter.
  
• Bobby tricking Danielle into taking care of the fire. She dragged him out of bed to help, so he played dumb and pretended he didn't know what to do. Cirie was in on the joke well before Danielle burst out "Oh, just let me do it!" Mission accomplished, Bobby headed straight back to bed.
  
• The soap scene. As we know, Casaya won Olay soap as well as the Charmin toilet paper. The girls quickly snagged one bar for girls' use only (the boys have two bars on which they are allowed to leave black hairs) and headed out to sea to clean up. Someone cried out "Thank God for that bar of soap!" It may have been Danielle, but I suspect it was a camera man or someone in the editing suite, because they suddenly had an excuse to show a very close-up shot of Danielle washing her lovely decolletage. In order to get a good view of the Olay logo (to keep the sponsors happy) they had to zoom in so tight you couldn't even see Danielle's head for once. Gee, sorry about that Danielle. Fortunately we didn't get such a close-up shot of Shane washing his butt and telling the girls he was doing it with their soap.

Probably the most noteworthy aspect of the show was that all the amusing footage came from either the initial four tribes or Casaya's camp. La Mina's only contribution was the dramatic counterpart when Sally confessed to Austin that her parents won't speak to her any more because she got a divorce. I felt bad for her, but I also felt bad for the producers that all the boring people ended up in the one tribe so now they have to create an episode like this to correct the balance between how much footage Casaya gives them and how much they can cram into each episode without it getting a little unbalanced. Bring on the merge!

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 5

Quote of the week goes to Aras. It occurred a couple of minutes into Scene II of Act I. Aras has announced that the day's objective for everyone – whether they like it or not – is to boil water. Bruce has decided instead to build a Zen stone garden. Aras tells Bruce he has to collect firewood. Bruce refuses. Nobody else is collecting firewood either, but Aras accuses Bruce of being selfish by claiming (here it comes!) "I'm working as a team!" There's no "I" in "team", Aras, but there is a couple in "dictatorship".

The reward challenge definitely required teamwork. Each tribe had to retrieve a bag of rice, a bag of beans and six huge tuna from a boat and pass them along a human chain, with the winner getting to keep all their food plus spices to flavour it and bottles of wine. Carbohydrates in bags is really easy to throw and catch. Tuna is not unless you're Dean Lukin. La Mina have generally struggled to catch fish, and Sally could only manage once it had fallen in the sand a few times and was less slippery. Just to make things gruesome enough for the 7:30 time slot, the last person in the chain also had to cut off the head and tail. Bruce the karate expert might, in theory, have had more luck with the side of his hand, but he persevered for stroke after stroke after gory, ineffective stroke with the cleaver to ensure we were all completely put off our dinner.

Bobby managed to win for Casaya in yet another close finish, which once again gave them the right to send Terry to Exile Island. La Mina at least got to keep their bag of beans as a reward, but without Mom supervising they didn't cook them long enough and ate too much, then spent the rest of the night wishing they'd won all those rolls of Charmin toilet paper the week before. May I just say a big thank you to Nick for doing his best to explain without being too graphic the effect of undercooked beans on his digestive system. Mine was still struggling to hold on to dinner after the fish decapitations.

Sickness was also a worry at Casaya. They returned from the challenge with 45kg of raw fish to discover an ankle-deep lake where their fire used to be, and no dry firewood for cooking. The Californians were all, like, totally cool with sashimi. Cirie is allegedly a nurse back in the real world, so I expected her to articulate her concerns at eating raw fish with a slightly more scientific phrase than, "I hope I don't wake up in the morning with some kind of … sickness or something!"

Bobby and Bruce did wake up in the morning looking kind of seedy, which could have been either the effects of drinking a bottle of wine between them or doing so in the toilet. Either way, the girls showed them no pity. Guys, never get between a woman like Courtney and a bottle of Chardonnay!

Maybe the immunity challenge tree mail had them all too excited, but nobody seemed to notice that Jeff failed to ask Terry on his return from Exile Island whether he'd found the Individual Immunity Idol. The challenge involved rowing out to sea, diving down to four timber coffins, opening them and retrieving from each one a set of four human skulls welded together in strange patterns. Back on land the teams had to assemble the skulls to form a pyramid. It was like one of those natty artistic timber coffee table puzzles that well-meaning guests pull apart the day after you forget what the one and only correct answer is, only slightly creepier because of the skulls.

Dan whacked his head on the bottom of their boat during the skull retrieval phase, but was able to shrug off the concussion enough to cheer when La Mina got it right and won their first challenge in weeks. More importantly they sent Casaya to Tribal Council, which put Shane's Alliance Of The Unwilling to its biggest test yet. His announcement, "Bobby. No other discussion. Bobby goes down today," had about as much effect as Aras ordering Bruce to collect firewood. Not surprisingly, Aras wanted to vote out Bruce. Bruce wanted to vote out Courtney because she desecrated the calm and sanctity of his Zen rock garden by practising yoga in it. Courtney convinced Danielle and Cirie (who a mere week early had been told she'd be next to go after Melinda) to vote Bobby out because he drank the wine. By this time, however, Shane had formed an alliance with Bobby and no longer wanted to vote him out.

Confused? Not as much as Jeff was at Tribal Council when four different people received votes, which is unheard of this far into the game. Shane's alliance of four voted for three different people, and in the end it was the new girls' alliance and their block of three votes against Bobby that prevailed and made him the first man sent home this season.

If quote of the week went to Aras, facial expression of the week went to Shane. If you've still got it on tape, watch the absolute bewilderment on his face when Jeff utters the word "honesty".

Don't forget that Survivor is on again Wednesday night as we try to catch up to the US in time for the final, although if the TV guide is correct it's a filler episode reviewing what's happened in the last five weeks. Shouldn't that happen closer to the end? How will we ever catch up at this rate?

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 4

The morning after is always an uncomfortable time for a man who has done a woman wrong, and both Nick and Austin were having a lot of trouble looking Sally in the eye following the Tribal Council at which they voted out Misty despite an alleged alliance with both girls.

In one of the strangest leaps of logic ever witnessed on Survivor, Dan the astronaut decided their alliance of four boys needed a fifth member to ensure their dominance after the merge. Here's just a few of the problems with that idea:

1. The merge usually happens with ten people left, so five isn't enough for security.
   
2. With six people left they can only afford to lose one more immunity challenge before the plan collapses.
   
3. Since they need to win the challenges they need the strongest players in their alliance.
   
4. Sally is by far stronger than Ruth Marie.
   
5. Dan didn't check with the rest of the alliance before making an offer to Ruth Marie.

At Casaya the inter-alliance arguments between Shane, Courtney, Aras and Danielle have reached such a critical – and utterly entertaining – stage they've had to implement a rule of "no arguments during dinner". Cirie is working her butt off, and Courtney and Danielle are at least in an alliance. Snoop-Bob (as he likes to be known) has no excuse for sleeping all day other than being too damn cool to really care.

The reward challenge involved two great Survivor traditions: marine-grade plywood and blatant contra. Each contestant had to retrieve a large triangular puzzle piece floating in the water, wrangle it into a frame and then work with the others to match the symbols on each side. It was basically a giant game of Triominos, which brought back my childhood almost as much as the "no arguments during dinner" rule.

The prize was a bathroom stocked with Charmin toilet paper, a nameless loofa, some nameless towels, five litres of nameless water and some Olay soap. The marketing folk at Olay obviously didn't pay as much as their Charmin cousins, because we only saw the Olay soap logo once whereas the timber portaloo was festooned with plenty of twee "Casa de Charmin" signage.

Casaya won the reward, and despite a team agreement that the portaloo be used to keep things like towels and firewood dry, Snoop-Bob declared – in quite specific detail –that he intended to christen it first. I think he just wanted to show off his impressive range of euphemisms for the number two. Hopefully he remembered to use both the Charmin and the Olay when he finished.

Of course the other part of Casaya's reward was getting to send Terry to Exile Island for a couple of days. Since the weather was perfect the whole time it was less of a problem for Terry than it was for the rest of his tribe, who couldn't cope without their SuperMom. Without him, nothing works in an orderly fashion and there's nobody who is completely in charge. Nobody knows how to use the flint to make fire. Dan even made all the kids promise that the place would be spotless when Mom got home.

Terry, meanwhile, was enjoying plenty of extra clues to the Individual Immunity Idol's secret hiding place. He very quickly picked up that two clues included the word "why", translated that into the letter "Y", deduced that it was referring to a specific tree of that shape, lifted a particular rock, dug a few feet and found the talisman. He's now pretty much safe until the final three so they might as well give him the million bucks now, but not until somebody asks some hard questions about how many hints the camera crew dropped. Maybe it was just skilful editing, but gee it looked rigged.

Since it wasn't dinner time, Casaya broke out into full-fledged war about Danielle's work ethic, or lack thereof. Shane took the not very subtle route of asking why she has, quote, "such an aversion to work." She was affronted because she has been a sports captain so he shouldn't speak to her like that. I'm not sure that I understand the logic, nor that I particularly want to.

The immunity challenge involved pairs roped together running along a balance beam course to collect water in little buckets. The water went into a drum as a counter balance to another tribe member sitting on a swing and waiting to be raised high enough to release a flag. The rain was enough to make things slippery but not help much with the bucket filling. In an exciting finish, Shane and Courtney's haphazard pouring was faster than Sally and Austin's more water-wise efforts, and helped Casaya to a narrow win and clean sweep of this week's challenges.

La Mina's pain at losing was eased by Mom being home and immediately taking charge. Sally made a no-nonsense pitch for survival, which obviously worked because Terry and Austin started looking for loopholes to vote out Ruth Marie instead. Technically only Dan had promised Ruth Marie membership, but Nick and Dan wanted to stick to the spirit of the deal more than the letter of the law. Austin declared himself the new messiah for pulling off the miracle of changing Terry's mind. Somehow I don't think Terry will share that opinion when he watches the episode.

At Tribal Council, Ruth Marie described being "small in statue" (sic) as the reason she feels on the outside. Sally admitted to having no idea which way it would go, but looked pretty relieve to be on the winning side when Ruth Marie was voted out 4-2.

Tonight's episode was brought to you by Charmin, Olay and the number 2.

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 3

This is the twelfth season of Survivor, and yet the contestants still manage to miss fundamental aspects of the game. For example, it's unwise to rush into an alliance with people you barely know, but it's idiotic to then tell the rest of the tribe of both the existence and precise composition of that alliance. Why? Because when your coalition turns out to be more dysfunctional than the cast of a Woody Allen movie you look like a loser to everyone else regardless of whether you leave the alliance or put up with it. And Cirie is laughing like a hyena all the way to the merge.

Melinda's spot in Casaya was barely cold before Mr Miyagi was in it, imparting wisdom and making character judgements. Bruce says he can see at least six different personality types within Casaya, but didn't indicate how many of them Shane accounts for.

His first pearl was that filtering water through three layers of t-shirt gets rid of 90% of the bacteria. He's taught backpacking to high school students for 30 years so he knows these things. Personally I'm guessing that 10% of the germs in a third world country is still more than enough to kill a healthy adult, let alone someone who hasn't eaten properly in a week. I also wonder how many germs are put back into the water by a t-shirt that hasn’t been washed properly in a week. Or by sharing the one water bottle between seven.

La Mina isn't faring any better on the food front because choking back tears of frustration that Sally lost their spear doesn't count as nutrition. Luckily Terry caught one small fish, which was enough to give them all a protein boost going into the reward challenge. There were blankets, pillows and a tarpaulin for the winning team, but there must also have been something on offer to the camera men for whomever got the best shot of Danielle's lovely decolletage. Seriously, watch in future how often she gets a lingering upper-body close-up whenever she’s in a bikini. There's surely a drinking game in it.

The reward challenge involved four tribe members on a balance beam out at sea trying to catch cannon balls fired from a slingshot on the beach by one of the other three. La Mina won and got to pick which member of Casaya would be deported to Exile Island to stay until the next immunity challenge. Since Casaya had spent most of the opening chit-chat with Jeff raving about how much better Bruce was making their lives it was a no-brainer. He’s now spent more time on Exile Island than with either of his tribes, and for most of that time it’s rained. He’s also only got one t-shirt through which to filter his water, which must be frustrating.

The only thing in Panama that turns faster than the weather is Shane's mood. In the ads we saw him sitting on a stump throwing a tanty to make a three-year-old proud. Surprisingly it was far more dramatic within the context of the episode, since the moments leading up to it were quite warm and playful before he suddenly snapped. Everyone in his tribe – and most specifically those in his alliance – thinks he’s a few analogies short of a metaphor. He thinks they’re nuts, too. The funny bit is that they’re all too busy complaining about the lousy deal they’ve struck to do anything about it and try making a new alliance with some sane people. Cirie, Bobby and Bruce only need to lure one member away to tip the balance in their own favour. Danielle is probably the prime candidate, because Aras is on his own after telling Cirie she’s dispensable and Courtney is just as narky and unpredictable as Shane. She also thinks that La Mina's choice to send Bruce back to Exile Island was the most evil thing she's seen people do, so she needs to read more.

Things couldn’t be more different at La Mina, where everyone is being very careful to be nice to each other’s faces. Misty, who wants us all to know she’s a natural born flirt, has been giving all the boys back rubs, because that way they’ll like her and won’t vote her off. For such a book smart girl it was an incredibly adolescent strategy, and it got an equally adolescent response from Nick and Austin: they lapped it up but still thought less of her for it. We even got a nicely spliced in shot of Nick out in the ocean trying to scrub the ‘girl germs’ off his shoulders.

The immunity challenge was one of the most novel ones the producers have ever come up with. Five wrestling rings were laid out on the sand, one for each round. Buried within each ring was a pillow-sized bag. Each team had a mat to mark its own home plate. In each round, a few members of each tribe had to race to dig up the bag and get it back to their home plate, while simultaneously preventing the other team from doing the same. It was essentially a cross between a pillow fight, mud wrestling and rugby. Well, when the girls were competing against each other it was more like pillow fight / mud wrestling and for the boys it was more like rugby. At least that seemed to be the editing suite policy, along with enthusiastic deployment of the pixelating machine.

Like the reward challenge it was a very close contest, but unlike the reward challenge Casaya won. Misty explained that it was because "they’ve got so much more weight than we have", while looking smug and rubbing her neck at the spot where Cirie sat on her. Most members of La Mina got their first taste of Tribal Council, and we got the third rendition of Jeff’s incantation that fire equals life on Survivor. Austin nicely deflected a question about what happened to the spear without mentioning Sally’s name. Ruth Marie agreed that she’s vulnerable as the only member of La Mina without another member of her original tribe for company. Misty looked smug again while talking about how close everyone is. The boys and Ruth Marie all agreed with her, and then voted her out regardless.

In the final humiliation she was forced to reveal that she had not found the Individual Immunity Idol after all. As the third person voted off she’ll be in the back row at the reunion special, so at least she’ll get another chance to show off those neck rub skills.

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 2

Last week we learned that Shane is a 'character' so the episode opened with him complaining non-stop about how "this place breathes bad luck". He was promptly rewarded with a massive lightening strike and accompanying thunder clap that could only be the work of a vengeful deity.

In fact the entire theme for this week's show was "self fulfilling prophecy". Either the world truly moves in mysterious ways, or the camera crew just shoot so much film they've got enough to create almost any scenario necessary when they get to the editing suite.

Tina's absence was felt at the older women's camp; her shelter kept them warm and dry (well, relative to those at the other camps) but lighting fire using the flint and machete turned out to be not quite so easy as she made it look. The younger women, meanwhile, found some papaya and will have trouble topping their ecstasy-faking performances when it's time for a proper food reward in a couple of weeks.

At the reward challenge the familiar phrase, "Drop your buffs!" rang out as the four tribes merged into two new ones with proper names. Danielle and Terry led the schoolyard pick and set the early tone for the composition of each team. Let's just say that as a rule of thumb the grounded, sensible people ended up in La Mina tribe, and Casaya is obviously Spanish for "dumb loud white folks plus the token black people".

Bruce was led through a slightly cruel, but nonetheless entertaining, emotional roller coaster. First he was sad because nobody picked him for their tribe and he was the last one left. Then he was happy because he replaces whoever gets voted out at the next tribal council and is therefore immune this week. Then he was sad again because he had to wait for tribal council on Exile Island. Then he was happy again because he got a chance to look for the Individual Immunity Idol.

If he'd been able to see the challenge site he'd have been even happier, because it was yet another checklist of classic obstacles, with the added visual frisson of very large and startlingly good fake snakes that had to be collected and carried along with the team. The only interesting bit was when Cirie jumped into a mud pool and landed on Bobby's head, which may explain why he didn't utter another word the entire episode. We also learnt that Sally's wardrobe of navy blue Jana Pittman socks includes versions that reach just under and just over the knee, both of which look absurd with a bikini.

In yet another predictable development the winners of the first proper reward challenge got fishing gear. We had some lovely camera shots of how many fish live off the Panama coast, just to rub in how pathetic it would be not to catch one. A few minutes later we saw Sally and Nick paddling back to camp empty handed. In between we watched with a horrified sense of the inevitable as Sally talked about how bad it would be to lose their one and only spear. The true disappointment was that the camera was on Nick while her 'practice' shot disappeared into the wild blue yonder, and it was sadly obvious that the producers had gone back later on with another spear to get some useable patch-up footage.

Meanwhile, back on Exile Island, Bruce (aka Mr Miyagi) showed off his impressive karate routine and talked about the mental strength it would give him to cope all alone with just a cameraman, sound guy, gaffer, best boy and second assistant director for company. He didn't look quite so mentally strong when it rained all night.

The highlight of the entire episode was Shane. He claims to not need the prize money, but it's hard to work out how a man so incapable of behaving appropriately could be that successful. Maybe it's the effect of his cold-turkey nicotine and caffeine detox, or maybe he's like that all the time, but he spent most of the episode making a fool of himself. He declared at the immunity challenge that his entire tribe felt utterly weakened. With a pep talk like that it's little wonder they lost, and Jeff made it worse by pointing out that La Mina only won because Casaya was – quote – "absolutely inept."

Back at camp, Shane asked his tribemates to vote him off because he wanted to go home. Then he let Aras change his mind for him and announced he wanted to stay. Together they initiated one of the clumsiest attempts at tough love I've ever seen on TV. Aras told Cirie and Melinda that he wanted to be honest and not deceptive about the fact he'd be voting for one of them – "I haven't decided which yet" – and that the other members of his alliance agreed with him. Shane consoled them with the news that it didn't matter which one was voted off first since the other would be next voted off anyway.

Courtney, who likes to, like, punctuate, like, everything in this, like, totally L.A manner, was clearly upset to have her membership of an alliance with Shane, Aras and Danielle exposed so early and so clumsily (or perhaps she was just embarrassed to be in an alliance with Shane). Nevertheless she stuck with them and voted out Melinda in a 5-2 decision.

Next Tuesday we get more of Shane's descent into madness, and in even better news we don't have to wait much longer to find out what happens after that because Channel Eddie will be running another episode next Wednesday night.

Amazing Race: week 3

Sorry not to have posted last week, but I was psyching myself up for Survivor.

I’d like to offer some advice to competitors on the Amazing Race: think about the challenges before you decide who will perform the Roadblock and which Detour you’ll do. For example:

1. If you're afraid of flying, don't choose the challenge that involves travelling in a helicopter (loud "gay" bloke take note).
   
2. If you're afraid of heights, don't volunteer for the challenge that involves climbing a building and rappelling back down the side (one of the Danielles - and I totally don't care which of you it was - take note).
   
3. If you’re at a swimming pool (even in Moscow) there’s an extremely high likelihood that the challenge will involve swimming. If you can’t swim, don’t offer to do the challenge before you know what it is (the wife in this year’s token black couple, take note).
   
4. If you’re at a swimming pool and you know the challenge involves jumping off a diving platform and then duck diving to retrieve the next clue, and you’re mortally terrified of deep water, don’t offer to do the challenge (Desiree, take note).
   
5. If you are the partner of one of these people, and you know that there’s a really good chance they’ll freak out and freeze, say something. Or perhaps don’t, because it does make kinda good television.

Some other observations:

1. The "hippies" are going to do very well on both the physical and mental challenges. They get a big tick from me for taking the time to stop and admire the Russian cathedral this week, and treat the place with the respect it deserved. From memory only one other team even bothered to look up.
   
2. The nerds are just adorable.
   
3. Phil really doesn’t like the frat boys. I haven’t seen such a tight cat’s bum mouth from him on the welcome mat since Jonathan and Victoria. Phil, I’m with you 100% on that one.
   
4. Lake’s wife either deserves a medal or sainthood or a good smack upside the head for putting up with him. Also that weird circular bandaid on the side of his neck has suddenly disappeared. I’d LOVE to hear suggestions from people on what it might have been concealing.
   

Next week we get the second half of the current Moscow leg. While this kind of programming tomfoolery normally gets up my nose, at least this week it means there's a chance the frat boys won't win it. There's also still time for the Danielles to overtake and show no sympathy when the boys stuff up. It hasn't happened yet, but it will happen. Even if I need to get involved to make it happen. They really annoy me.

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: week 1

Oh I've just missed that theme music so much!

Welcome back to another season of Survivor. As explained in the pre-season Form Guide, this year we have four tribes split down age and gender lines. Apparently they have proper tribe names, but everyone (including Jeff) is calling them the "younger men", the "older men", the "older women" and the "younger women". Bobby bestowed a far catchier nomenclature: the Beefcakes, the Love Boat crew, the Golden Girls and the Spice Girls (and if he's old enough to know about the Love Boat what's he doing on the younger men's tribe?).

In one of the most exciting opening scenes I can remember, the tribes each had to pick a member to participate for them in the first reward challenge before they'd even had a chance to meet each other. Austin's tongue was hanging out so far perving at the Spice Girls that he tripped over it as the race started. Terry was first to smash enough human skulls to find a hidden amulet. Danielle bragged about her athleticism, so it was no surprise when she lost and her team missed out on flint to make fire. The Spice Girls also had to leave a member behind on Exile Island, but more about that later.

On arrival at their beach the Golden Girls got stuck straight into making fire, finding water and building a shelter. The Love Boat crew did the same. The Beefcake guys played a little coconut baseball, then were led by Aras the yoga instructor in a meditation to help them start fire, which was far less effective than flint v machete. The Spice Girls found a dead turtle, which momentarily distracted them from the effort of avoiding making a decision about where to build a shelter.

A couple of individuals stood out early.

• Cirie is afraid of machetes and leaves, or more specifically what lives under the leaves and is left homeless by the machete. She's never been camping. It shows.
• Shane complained about his team mates being morons, but he was the only one wearing a woollen beanie on a tropical island. He's detoxing from his three-pack-a-day smoking habit. I hope for his sake he means three of those 15-packs Phillip Morris makes especially for school kiddies on limited pocket money.
• Dan the retired astronaut and Terry the retired F-14 pilot formed a Right Stuff alliance and promised never to lie to each other. I'm laughing already.
• Sally has been taking fashion hints from Jana Pittman and wears long socks with shorts, but otherwise seems pretty sensible.
• Austin's bum cleavage peeking out the top of his shorts wins the prize for the first body part to be pixilated this season.
• Misty is not a rocket scientist, she's a "missile engineer".
• Tina's hair is long, blonde, curly, and looks like Two Minute Noodles.

As mentioned, the Spice Girls had to leave a member behind on Exile Island overnight as punishment for failing the first challenge. In a riveting game of rock-paper-scissors, Misty lost and got the first chance to look for the Individual Immunity Idol hidden there. (Jeff claimed to have given her clues as to its whereabouts, but I rewound the video trying to work out what they were and I'm stumped.) The Individual Immunity Idol idea is alliterative and recycled, but the twist this year is that one may wait until after one has been voted off before unveiling one's possession of it, and completely throw the strategy of one's back-stabbing tribemates.

Since there's no fire and no fresh water on Exile Island, Misty had to eat worms to fuel her fruitless search for the Individual Immunity Idol. She played a pretty ingenious trick when reunited with the rest of the Survivors by pretending that she'd found it, but we all expected her to be smart because she's a missile engineer and brunette, which is Hollywood speak for 'smart' the same way that 32 years of age is 'older' for a woman. Now we have to wait and see whether anyone has the guts to call her on it, or whether they simply don't bother either a) looking for the idol themselves, or b) voting for her.

The immunity challenge involved the usual combination of diving under water to release hooks, raft paddling, marine grade plywood, sand digging, puzzle solving, grappling hooks and coloured flags to show who won. The Spice Girls had dug up the puzzle clue before the Beefcakes had even beached their raft, but in the end the Golden Girls lost the challenge in no small part thanks to Melinda just standing there doing nothing.

Luckily for her, nobody heard Jeff point that out because she survived the first trip to a magnificent cave-themed Tribal Council set. Everyone talked about how much tougher Survivor is in real life than it looks on TV, and Cirie's advice to her fellow Americans was "If you're at all like me, STAY ON THE COUCH!" (and for Tom Cruise that's stay seated on the couch). Since she's probably the most entertaining member of the Golden Girls it's lucky for the producers that she also survived a surprise vote that saw Tina the 'lumberjill' sent home first. Tina had started the fire, found the water supply and more importantly found a very large and very live fish stranded on rocks by the outgoing tide, but once she'd shown everyone else how to do it all she was dispensable.

Jeff, who seems to be getting more grumpy every season, was less than amused by their strategy, but he's got a new Crocodile Dundee hat to keep him company so he'll cope. Next week we get the traditional night 2 thunderstorm, which is guaranteed to both amuse and provoke immediate shelter improvements. I honestly don't know how the producers manage to arrange that every season...

Thank you Lake

Sorry seems to be the hardest word, which is a sad, sad situation in a culture where individuals no longer takes responsibility for their own behaviour.

Now, thanks to Lake-Like-The-Ocean, we have the next best thing and the phrase "That may be partially my fault" has already become a staple form of confession at our place.

Reality TV gives so much and takes so little.

Amazing Race: week 1

I probably should have taped the show since I was kind of planning to blog on it, but the contestants are just a blur of stereotypes in the first few weeks anyway, so who cares what their names are.

The last series (well, the last one we Oss-ies got to see, anyway, since Channel 7 decided to skip the series where familes of four raced around North America) had:

• an old couple;
• a black couple;
• a pair of roller girls;
• a pair of college room mates who bore a spooky resemblance to each other;
• a pair of frat boys who oggled the roller girls and the Barbie twins;
• a mother with her annoying offspring;
• a suspected wife beater; and
• a gay couple.

This season we have:

• an old couple;
• a black couple;
• a pair of roller girls who bear a spooky resemblance to each other;
• a pair of frat boys who are oggling the roller girl Barbie twins;
• an annoying mother with her offspring;
• TWO suspected wife beaters; and
• two blokes who claim to be just good friends, but take five syllables to pronounce the word "hello".

We also have a pair of self-confessed nerds and some middle-aged Texan "Glamazons", none of whom are taking the show the least bit seriously. The absolute prize for that, though, goes to BJ and Tyler, a pair of crazy cool cats who both have long hair and have been nicknamed "hippies" by the couple they nicknamed "Ken and Barbie".

There's some pretty funny names, too. The rollergirls are named Danni and Danielle. Wife beater number 1 is named 'Lake'. He introduced himself to the male member of the token black team in the following exchange:

Lake: "Hi, my name's Lake, like the ocean."
Ray: "Hi, my name's Ray, like the sun."

We saw Lake in medical scrubs, so the chances are he's not a lawyer and won't sue me for calling him a wife beater. I'm not suggesting that he (or Ken from Ken'n'Barbie ) specifically hits his wife, but you can just tell that the woman don't get a whole lot of respect or freedom. Abuse takes myriad forms, and far be it for me to laugh at such a serious issue. It's just scary that Jonathan and Victoria created so much interest - and such high ratings - that the producers now feel the need to include two relationships with that kind of dynamic.

We also got a whole lot of other typical Amazing Race moments. Yet again the teams are starting out in South America, this time Sao Paolo, Brazil. We had the token old couple staggering around and walking straight past the clue box, FIVE times, then claiming it had been moved to that spot after they walked past! Best of all we had someone not reading the instructions properly. Lake (I really don't like him, in case you hadn't guessed) started out in the back seat with the clue while his wife drove. He tells her to pull over at a phone box, and makes her phone the airport to reserve tickets on the first plane. They get back in the car with him driving this time. She reads the clue for herself and points out that they're specifically prohibited from phoning ahead to reserve tickets. He admits that the fact they're now running dog last due to the illegal roadside stop "may by partially my fault". I wonder which part wasn't his fault, and to whom the responsibility for that part rightly falls...

Survivor Panama - Exile Island: Pre-show form guide

Yes, series 12 of Survivor starts in the US on Thursday February 2nd, a mere nine sleeps away.

Here is the traditional pre-show form guide with its usual snap judgements about people I've never met, based on dodgy stereotypes about their jobs, ages, and favourite things. Remember, they provided the info: I'm just interpreting it.

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/survivor12/

Aras – 24, Yoga Instructor
Played one season in Lithuania, now claims to be a former professional basketballer. Probably not Santa Monica's only yoga instructor with an MBA.

Austin – 24, Author
His first book, Somewhere Beyond Here, sounds frighteningly Oedipal in its plot. His second and third efforts haven't been published.

Bobby – 32, Attorney
Grew up in South Central LA, made it to Stanford Law School, and then blew all his credibility by being a contestant on Blind Date.

Nick – 25, Financial Sales
Describes himself as over-analytical but applied for Survivor "to meet smart, beautiful women". Needs to spend less time in the frat house.

Bruce – 58, Karate Instructor
So many Mr Miyagi jokes, only fourteen episodes. Top-level black belt, but still managed to get bitten by a rattlesnake while playing golf.

Dan – 52, Retired Astronaut
Has five real and several honorary degrees, made three Shuttle flights, and can't think of a better name for his dog than "Windy". Über-nerd.

Shane – 35, Marketer
My early pick for this season's most obnoxious player. Lists his favourite sport to play as "all, flag football". No idea about anything useful.

Terry – 46, Pilot
High school sports star turned Navy aviator turned commercial pilot and solid family man. Favourite film is Top Gun. Utterly predictable.

Courtney – 31, Circus Performer
Hippy former elite gymnast who teaches fire dancing "as a tool of self-expression". Lives in LA and - naturally - is working on a screenplay.

Danielle – 24, Medical Sales Representative
Stephanie clone: has the same job, the same sports-crazy background and lists the same favourite scents (coconut and vanilla). Stalker.

Misty – 24, Electrical Engineer
Miss Texas Teen 1999, now an engineer studying for her masters and training for a marathon. Big self esteem issues with which to bore everyone.

Sally – 27, Social Worker
Big Survivor fan who finally made it on her fifth application. Has already completed a marathon, which will drive Misty nuts. Might be too nice.

Cirie – 35, Registered Nurse
Claims she can catch fish and do some carpentry, but probably just saw it on TV once. Won't cope with the jungle, flies, dirt, heat etc.

Melinda – 32, Singer
Misses out on the "younger women" tribe by a mere 367 days. Sang with Dolly Parton at Dollywood. Too sweet to survive long on Survivor.

Ruth Marie – 48, Director of Retail Leasing
Was South Carolina's "Watermelon Queen" and its first female drug cop. Completed a 7-day marathon, and will really drive Misty nuts.

Tina – 45, Logging Sports Promoter / Performer
Owner of the World Champion Lumberjills, "Chicks with Axes," a travelling group of female lumberjacks. I'll say no more.

Survivor Guatemala: finale

So it's all over for another season, and the faithful get their Friday nights back. In the best possible way, the theme for the final episode was tradition and keeping strictly to the prayer book and the established rituals.

The final four of Danni, Stephanie, Rafe and particularly Latina Lydia were treated to a visit from a Mayan family, who charmingly waved some incense around, blessed the campsite and then ripped the head off a live chicken before throwing it into a sacrificial fire. Rafe chose not to eat the chicken, but got just as wet as the girls who did after the gods sought their revenge by sending a massive thunderstorm. Well, that’s what it sounded like Stephanie was fervently apologising to them for, anyway!

The immunity challenge was set in the biggest maze yet built for Survivor. This one was in the shape of a Mayan eagle motif, and the only question was whether it took the production crew longer to assemble it or clear the hectares of virgin jungle on which it stood. Survivors had to find eight puzzle pieces from different locations in the maze, then bring them back one-by-one across a pond full of marine-grade plywood pontoons and up a rope ladder to the assembly area. With Lydia at a natural disadvantage as the only one too short to see over the partitions, it came down to a race between Stephanie, Rafe and Danni. Rafe won, and it then became a race to see whether Danni or Steph could leverage the most out of their alliance with him using his natural goodness and decency as the pivot point.

At Tribal Council the talk was all about the chicken, except for the bits where Stephanie and Danni subtly undermined each other in front of the rest of the jury. Lydia's outfit, as usual, was far too clean and neatly pressed to be able to convince anyone that she'd been working hard at the challenges, and she was voted out unanimously in a surprising decision that left the three toughest to fight it out among themselves.

One of the worst parts of making it to the final three is having to do the walk down memory lane and pretend to remember anything about those voted out early or try to say something nice about those voted out mid-season. While some weird black and white sketches of each person were ritualistically put in a fire we got some archival footage of that person (so we could remember what they really looked like, because the sketches were very little help) and their thoughts on the game. Judd actually claimed that the jungle had calmed him down, which is slightly terrifying.

The final three immunity challenge is ALWAYS a test of sheer grit and determination. Having learnt from last year's utter debacle in Palau when they lasted over twelve hours, this challenge was designed to be unbeatable. Survivors had to stand on a wobble board with two ropes to hold onto for the first hour. For the next half hour they only had one rope to hold onto, and all ended up leaning against one of the poles behind them. After that it was "look Mom, no hands!", with Rafe pushing himself into a more comfortable position in a momentary mental blank, and instantly eliminating himself. Danni's longer legs made the difference, but Stephanie didn't give up until she'd slid all the way down the pole and was weeping with the pain in her back, which could have been either muscular or sever splinters.

Rafe's mental blank turned out to be not so momentary as he released Danni from a promise she'd made to take him to the final two. Interestingly it was a unilateral promise, and there had been no reciprocal obligation on Rafe to take Danni to the final two. She actually admitted that her afternoon would have been easier had he held her to the promise, but having to choose she took the competitor she was more likely to beat, and in the process guaranteed Stephanie at least $100,000. Of course first we had to go through a full tribal council, including Rafe relating the story of telling Danni to follow her heart, despite her promise. The jury members might not be allowed to speak verbally at this point, but their body language was screaming that they all thought Rafe was an idiot. He probably agreed after Jeff went through the usual ceremonial script – in its once-a-season singular form – and read out the vote against him.

Another end-of-season tradition is the arson attack on anything not nailed down at camp, which was still impressive despite everything being soaked and mouldy, including the remaining food. With their final interviews to camera, Steph and Danni revealed their jury interview strategies. Danni's was to be the All American Girl who is nice to everyone. Stephanie's was to point out to the jury that she deserves to win simply because she's in the final two, and they're not, so she's better than them. Hmmm.

Sure enough, Danni answered like the beauty pageant pro she is, and Stephanie got a little bit too defensive. The jury members stuck to previous form with their questions. Bobby Jon talked about pride; Gary demanded honesty; Cindy asked one of the best questions in Survivor jury history ("If you could eliminate one person from the jury, who would it be and why?"); Rafe talking about strategy, and Judd (who the producers saved for last) just rambled and "man'd" and called everyone else liars.

Judd seemed most upset at Stephanie for lying to his wife, and once again needs to consult his dictionary to understand that if Stephanie honestly believed she had a strong alliance with Judd during that conversation with Kristen, and only changed her mind after finding out the next day that Judd wanted to eliminate the strongest players, she wasn't lying. He'll get it one day. Maybe. It didn't seem that way when Jeff called him on it at the reunion.

It was missing last season, but this year we again got the cheesy footage of Jeff's allegedly direct flight by helicopter from Guatemala to Los Angeles, which took so long that everyone else beat him there and had time to regain most of the weight they'd lost. Since only one vote for Stephanie was read out we can probably assume safely that Rafe's was the only one she secured, so Danni won in a whitewash and collected a new car (sorry, a Pontiac Torrent) as well as the million dollars. I hope she spends part of it on nutritious food. If she doesn't she can always get a job in a high school biology lab as the skeleton.

As usual the reunion special was a collection of Survivor Guatemala's Most Embarrassing Home Videos to remind the idiots what idiots they made of themselves. We got to see the missing footage of Gary finding the individual immunity idol and some of his illustrious football career (which I'm sure he was more than happy to provide to the producers). The question was asked whether the vote would have been different had Cindy given everyone else the cars (sorry, Pontiac Torrents), and Blake was asked for his girlfriend's reaction to having her breast size boasted to the whole world.

We also got the preview for the next series, which will once again be set in Panama but with the twist of a solitary confinement "exile island" and some new tribe formation.

Once again it has been my absolute pleasure to inflict my obsession on you all, and I hope that you enjoyed the season as much as I did. Now grab your torches and head back to camp!

Survivor Guatemala: week 13

Considering how relieved everyone was after Jamie got voted out it's just surprising that it took them so long to get rid of Judd. The jaunty xylophone background music matched the new goofy and "slightly dorkier" (according to Rafe) ambience now that Mister Mood Swing has been relegated to the Jury. Lydia says Rafe is just one of the girls. Rafe prefers to think of them as his 'angels'. Either way they're all a bit shocked that the most challenging, physical Survivor ever has come down to four women and a gay man.

We were spared the crappy tree mail poem about the reward challenge this week. Instead the mail box just contained a set of car keys. The car reward has been a feature at this late stage of the game since the first series' ratings success left Detroit's finest tripping over themselves for a share of the product placement opportunities. This season it was a Pontiac Torrent that had everyone drooling and dreaming.

The challenge was a rehash of elements of previous challenges, including balancing while untying things, throwing war clubs to break tiles, arranging puzzle pieces to form a Maya astral calendar and rolling down the hill in a mine cart. As well as the car the winner got an overnight stay, BBQ, and in yet another reference to previous challenges the company of a real life archaeologist (who, for the record, looked absolutely nothing like Harrison Ford).

Cindy just pipped Stephanie at the winner's post, and got the car (sorry, the Pontiac Torrent). Naturally she got to choose someone to go on the reward with her, which is always tricky politically. She stuck to her past safe pattern of picking the runner up, but not before having to make an agonising choice. Jeff pointed out that in nine previous series, the winner of the car challenge has never gone on to win the million dollars. She had the option to possibly break the curse by giving up her Pontiac Torrent and letting the other four all get a Pontiac Torrent each instead. In the end she rationalised that the car isn't the curse, it's being a strong competitor, and that giving the others a car wouldn't guarantee her safety and might just leave her with nothing, so she kept the Pontiac Torrent for herself. I'm sure the fact the others hadn't told her they'd all decided to suddenly vote out Judd instead of Lydia - which pretty much proved she's on the outer edges of her alliance, and hadn't gone down well - had nothing at all to do with her decision.

There were two distinct reactions to Cindy's decision among the other four. Stephanie and Lydia both applauded, agreed with her decision and were happy for her. Rafe and Danni were stunned that she hadn't shared, and it showed on their faces and was the topic of much discussion between them back at camp. The result was a firm promise between Danni and Rafe to take each other through to the final three, but Danni sounds like she still isn't confident enough that she's completely shattered the old Yaxhá alliance yet, and Rafe might be a little too nice in trusting her so completely.

Meanwhile, after several minutes of footage showing how much fun it is to drive a Pontiac Torrent, Cindy and Stephanie arrived at the archaeologist's camp and their BBQ. Sure they cooked steak and sausages, but why on earth did they cook the corn on the cob? Have they not had enough corn to last a lifetime? Was there not more than enough other food?

Cindy's lapse of good judgement continued back at camp, where she spent what was edited to look like hours rabbiting on about her Pontiac Torrent, and how nice it is to drive, and how good the suspension is, and how much she liked the shape of the tail lights. She was convinced that nobody at camp seemed to have any qualms about her winning the car. Well, they might not have when she first arrived back, but they sure did by the time she'd finished rubbing it in.

The immunity challenge was also a rehash of previous challenge elements. Survivors were tied to a rope, then shackled at the hands and feet and given a set of ten keys which they had to use to undo locks at various stages through the course, and free up enough rope to reach the finish line. Stephanie managed to win her first ever individual immunity challenge, and I suspect it's her first ever individual challenge win at all. Either way she was so happy she burst into tears, and we got our first glimpse of the old Stephanie from Palau, not the angry, power-hungry bully we've had this season.

The afternoon's politicking reached a new level of frenzy back at camp. Cindy pushed to vote out Rafe as the biggest threat, because he's won both mental and physical challenges. Danni pushed to vote out Cindy as the biggest threat, because she's never betrayed anyone and would be too tough to beat in the final two as a result. Stephanie worried about breaking yet another alliance and once again voting out the person who had just shared their reward. Lydia kept her head down.

At Tribal Council, Bobby Jon was resplendent in a pink shirt and Judd looked clean and clean-shaven for a change but still exceedingly cross. He seemed delighted when Cindy was voted out 4-1, which is strange considering she was the only one not to vote for him the week before. Perhaps he was just admiring her style when she farewelled the others with the words, "I'll think about you guys while I’m watching the stars through the sunroof of my new car."

Remember that the final is on TV this Monday night at 8.30pm. We'll get to see who's in the final three, the jury interview (always good for a laugh), the results and the cheesy reunion. We should also get a preview of where the next series is being filmed, and perhaps even a hint as to who the new host will be now that Jeff is hanging up his cargo shorts. I just want to see Jeff and Phil Keoghan from The Amazing Race in tuxedos presenting an award at the Emmys one more time. Grrrrrrlllll!

Survivor Guatemala: week 12

Well it's day 31 and only six Survivors left, all of whom are treading very carefully. Despite Judd having been outed as someone who willingly lies without provocation, everyone is ignoring it and saying nothing. Fortunately Judd had plenty to say by the end of the episode, but we'll get to that later.

The reward challenge was the classic Survivor auction, but with a couple of twists. The first is that Jeff didn't end his explanation of the challenge with the words, "Worth playing for?", which in itself was unusual. The auction opened with Danni paying $20 for a plate of beef jerky, Cindy paying $40 for a plate of cookies and a glass of milk, and Lydia – who you'll remember has been bitching and moaning non-stop about how hungry she is – spent $140 on a personal mosquito net.

Danni knew she was the next target as the final remaining member of Yaxhá, and paid $200 for an "advantage" at the next immunity challenge. The final lot was the somewhat predictable really worthwhile prize, which walked around the corner of a pyramid on cue in the form of loved ones, live. (Yes, I was wrong two weeks ago when I said it wouldn't happen now that the videos have been shown.) Judd, with a loan from Cindy, managed to outbid Stephanie and got to have his wife stay over in camp for the night. His bid also bought him the right to choose two other loved ones to also stay, so Cindy got her money's worth after all and once again Jersey loyalty saw Stephanie win just as big as Judd.

While Rafe, Danni and Lydia were exiled to the old Yaxhá camp (and spent the time constructively working out how to break up the Judd-Stephanie connection), Judd got to impress his city-girl wife with what a 'sexy camper' he is. Stephanie's boyfriend helped collect firewood, and oddly used Judd's "throw a large branch on the ground and hopefully it'll break in half" trick, with the same non-result. Must be a Jersey thing.

The immunity challenge was a kind of hexagonal, 3D chess board, which Judd seemed comfortably with until Jeff announced that it was a game which "requires smarts". Players took one step each turn by flipping a tile from white to red then standing on it. Since you could only stand on a white tile either directly in front or beside, people soon ran out of moves and were out of the game. Danni's 'advantage' purchased at the auction was the right to change places with any other player, once. She waited until Jeff announced out that Stephanie had carved herself out a nice piece of real estate then promptly took it. Strangely enough, Cindy and Rafe were out before Judd, but Danni's purchased advantage (and Stephanie's hard work) made the difference and she got to wear the immunity necklace the week she needed it most.

Back at camp she proved her listening skills again. Rafe had told her that they'd need to catch Judd in a lie to prove to Stephanie his untrustworthiness and break up their alliance, but it didn't even take that. Stephanie watched Danni listen in on a conversation between Judd and Lydia, then quizzed her about its content, obviously not trusting Judd. It was a real pleasure to watch Danni reel a big game player in like a marlin, slowly feeding out the lines then pouncing once it was clear she had her hooked. Rafe, too, managed to play it cool when Steph approached him with the idea to vote Judd out. Lydia, who'd told Judd he needed a plan, was running around camp offering her vote to anyone who wanted it.

Rather than say any more about tonight's episode I'm just going to present as series of statements from Judd, which tell you all you need to know.

1. Judd giving advice to a clearly worried Lydia after Danni won immunity:
   "Nobody's safe here tonight. If you think you're safe in this game you're crazy. You're absolutely berserk. You're never safe in this game."
   
   
2. Judd answering a question from Jeff at Tribal Council about how tough it is to vote someone out at this stage, after three others saying it's really hard because they're like a family, and you have to think about the jury and the final two:
   "I'll tell you what, to be honest with you. No matter what they all say, everybody wants someone to go home. They're sitting here making believe, like "Ah, man, it's gonna suck". That's not the case, man. Everybody wants someone to go home. That's the bottom line; that's what we're here for. The only way you move on is somebody goes home. No hard feelings, just deal with it."
   
   
3. Judd after being voted out 4-2:
   "Thanks guys. Hope you guys all get bit by a freakin' crocodile. Scumbags."
   
   
4. Judd's piece to camera during the closing credits:
   "I'm really pissed off. I mean, I feel, I…I was…pissed off, lied to, betrayed. It doesn't feel good being lied to. It sucks being lied to, man, because one thing I didn't do was lie to anybody, man. But hey, get rid of the biggest target and that's what they did, man, so I really believe you're a bunch of scumbags and I can't wait until the final two, man. I'll have a lot more to say than that, man."

Didn't I say that's all you need to know!

Survivor Guatemala: week 11

I've always had a sneaking suspicion that the producers must enforce a silence rule on the trip back to camp from Tribal Council and the challenges. It's strange that nobody discusses what happened until after they're all back on stage where the cameras can catch everything from different angles. I don't know what incentive they use to keep everyone silent, but it must be powerful; Judd was able to wait until they were all back at camp before exploding into a fit of pretending not to be upset (and some Tourette's frequency "man") that his alliance didn't update him on the decision to vote Jamie out.

According to my Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary, a lie is an intentionally false statement or something that deceives. I somehow doubt Judd has ever looked the word up, which is why he thinks that Gary telling Judd that Lydia and Cindy should be out of the game, and then asking Lydia for an alliance, is a lie (although to whom Gary had allegedly lied remains unclear, probably to both Judd and us). To me it's a damn fine strategic move now that Jamie's eviction shows there are cracks in the old Nakúm alliance.

This week's reward challenge is a Survivor classic, designed to show where alliances really stand. Competitors use big cubes to answer multiple choice and true/false questions about, in this case, Guatemala. A correct answer gives you a chance to put someone else out of the game in some symbolic way, which this season was three clay pots full of corn for each Survivor representing three strikes and you're out. The amount of strength required to smash the pot makes it none too subtle when someone has been targeted. Gary and Cindy hitting each other was to be expected, since they vote for each other at Tribal Council most weeks. Lydia targeting Stephanie, on the grounds that Stephanie always wins the food rewards and gets to eat, was perhaps good logic but poor strategy because Stephanie took it VERY personally that she was the first one out of the game. The fact Stephanie got none of the questions right is irrelevant. The fact that she almost had one answer right, then copied Judd and ended up getting it wrong, shows her not to be the master tactician some think she is.

As predicted in the pre-season form guide, Rafe did very well on the Guatemala quiz and got nearly every question right. Unfortunately he got one wrong when it was down to just he and Cindy, so she only needed to get the next one right to win. Unfortunately for Rafe it was a question was about crocodiles, and Cindy is a zoologist specialising in alligators, so the result was a given. Fortunately for Rafe, Cindy was cluey enough to pick the challenge runner up – ie. the person who second most deserves it – to share the reward, and avoid any further political ramifications.

Back at camp (and again, only once they were back at camp and the cameras were in place), Stephanie was furious at Lydia, and that fury blinded her to a few key facts:

1. Lydia wanted to win the food reward so she picked off the strongest competitor first, which is good sense.
2. Between getting to share Judd's win a couple of weeks back, and choosing to eat instead of participate in the post-merge immunity challenge, Stephanie has done the most public gorging in front of the others.
3. If you're going to try and mount a defence that others have eaten just as much as you, don't do it with a mouthful of corn.

The bad mood spread, with Judd starting up again about everyone else lying and Lydia retreating to eat her fish-leftovers gruel and behave churlishly when Rafe and Cindy returned from their feast. Lydia has either inherited Jamie's paranoia, or has finally twigged that the others are using her for her vote. Gee, we've never seen that on Survivor before!

The immunity challenge was yet another form of Guatemala quiz, with very similar results. Jeff told a story of a woman who left her first husband, was unfaithful to her second, then cheated on her new lover with his brother. As much as it sounds like modern Moe it was actually a Mayan fable about the moon goddess Ixchel. Survivors had to run around and answer questions about the fable by opening one of two answer boxes. The correct answer box had a flag, and the first to retrieve seven flags won. The incorrect answer box had a stick, which had to be returned to the start point and thrown in a fire before attempting to answer another question. Thanks to Judd, Stephanie, Lydia and Dannii the fire was burning nicely by the time Rafe beat Gary back with his seventh flag, and yet again won immunity. I can offer no better comment than to quote Rafe: "Who would see this little gay Mormon and think he would win most of the immunity challenges?"

Tribal Council was interesting for a number of reasons, not least of them being the fact that Jamie and Bobby Jon have apparently gotten over their differences and are now best buddies on the jury. Lydia made the mistake of answering in the affirmative when asked by Jeff whether Stephanie is running the camp, which didn't go down well. Judd made the mistake of using Gary as an example of how everyone else is lying all the time. As expected, he couldn’t define how Gary's days earlier assertion that Lydia and Cindy didn't deserve to be in the game was a lie, so Gary explained it to him is simple terms. "This is a lie: 'Hey guys, the idol is on the ground.' That's a lie." It was a beautiful television moment watching Judd, who'd only moments earlier claimed "I don't think I've lied yet", try and "man" his way out of it.

Of course, the only person truly amused by it (other than everyone in TV land) was Gary, but it made no difference to the voting. With Gary gone, the only secret exposed at Tribal Council that will matter will be Judd's so blatent lie about the individual immunity idol clue, and it'll be fascinating to see his alliance's reaction to that. We’ll just have to wait until they all get back to camp.

Survivor Guatemala: week 10

The reality of reality TV is that these people are out there doing this crazy stuff for the sole purpose of entertaining me. Be honest: if I'm not entertained I don't watch, advertisers can't try to sell me stuff, and the network doesn't make any money from advertising revenue, which is the whole reason for bothering in the first place. Lucky for them, I find it terribly entertaining to watch greedy people lining up to be starved and tortured and humiliated for the chance to win US$640,000 after taxes.

On those criteria, Jamie has been one of the most entertaining competitors this year. He started this week's episode trying to pick a fight with anyone who'd take him on. Trouble was, nobody wanted to. He accused Gary of lying, then accused Gary of accusing him of lying, despite everyone else assuring him that Gary said no such thing. He told Gary, "I'm just as mad as you" but his inability to get Gary even a little miffed just made Jamie madder. I suspect the absence of guns in the jungle made the case for gun control far better than Mike Moore could ever hope to, simply because if he'd had the access Jamie would probably have shot someone in lieu of the ability to logically and rationally express his feelings in an appropriate way.

The reward challenge looked like an equestrian show jumping course set in a mud pit. Survivors were tied together and had to work as pairs to get through the mud, over some jumps and under others, collect jars of corn and carry them back through the mud and the same obstacles in a joint relay effort with another pair. Each Survivor was tethered to someone of their own gender, and fortunately for the producers (and their efforts to attract the "breathing male" demographic) the draw ended up with Stephanie and Danni tied together, in bikinis, crawling through the mud. In another fabulous twist, Stephanie and Danni teamed up with Gary and Judd and won the reward, so we had both remaining members of Yaxhá on the overnight reward with about 18 hours to ingratiate themselves and suck up big time to those trying to vote them off.

And what a reward it was. Tick off the traditional reward elements:

1. Helicopter flight;
2. The chance to shower in fresh water (more lingering shots over Steph and Danni in the shower together, not such lingering shots of Judd stripping off and showering nude);
3. A large quantity of food;
4. Accommodation somewhere gorgeous, sleeping in a real bed on a mattress with pillows;
5. Produce placement food rewards (in this case Folgers coffer, in six delicious flavours, all rapturously devoured by people who haven't had coffee in over three weeks and would have reacted the same way to International Roast); AND
6. Videos from home of their loved ones.

Aside from an in-person loved-ones visit, which I now doubt will happen, about the only other reward in the classics library is the car someone will win in another product placement frenzy when we get down to the final four or five.

Fortunately for Gary his family video didn't reveal his secret past, although I think if you watched the tape really carefully there was bound to be a number of clues in the background. Gary's the kind of guy to have all of his trophies and media clippings on prominent display at home. Even more fortunately for Gary he had the chance to put his case forward to both Stephanie and Judd, and try to convince them that the biggest glory will come from bettering a genuine competitor, and not someone unpleasant who would be really easy to beat in the final jury vote.

Speaking of Jamie, he was back at camp in a state of total paranoia, nagging everyone for a commitment to the final six and stretching poor Rafe's honesty and manners to the limit. Cindy actually smiled when Stephanie brought her back some of the FOLGERS coffee (remember that name, folks), but Rafe was smiling even more when the others arrived home and gave him an escape from Jamie's constant company.

For the immunity challenge, Survivors were clipped at the waist to a ring threaded onto a rope. Each rope was then tied around three timber structures, and the object was to get through the puzzle fastest. The tight spaces and the complex winding of the rope around them was weighted against the gangly and the stupid, which left Danni, Gary and Judd behind after the first round. It was desperately close in the closing stages of the final, but Rafe managed to edge out Cindy to achieve a 2-1-0 record from three starts, and making him the most unlikely individual immunity threat in Survivor history.

Back at camp, Jamie once again started nagging Rafe to stick with the Nakúm alliance of six, and finally managed to get a "No" answer to the question of "Will you vote for me?" Rafe was smart enough to add the caveat, "But if you ask me about it again I might change my mind" and was thanked with the words, "I'm gonna kill you. I'm just gonna murder you. I mean seriously, I'm just gonna murder you." The fact Jamie was smiling when he said it just made it even creepier. See what I mean about gun control?

Rafe must have taken it seriously, though, because he put to both Lydia and Stephanie the idea of voting Jamie off that night. Danni and Gary had already made it clear that was their plan, and Cindy was also clearly sick of him and his paranoia. Obviously – and for whatever reason - the message never made it to Judd, who seemed more shocked by the vote outcome at Tribal Council than Jamie.

At least Jamie's consistent. As his torch was snuffed, he turned to the rest and screamed, "Blindsided! Nice! Now THAT'S how you vote somebody out." Then he mumbled something, which I suspect would have been beeped had it been articulated better. Once again, it was really hard to tell if he was joking or not. Either way, he gets to join Bobby Jon on the jury, although hopefully he won't be wearing white pants and a red shirt and looking quite as much like Peter Allen as Bobby Jon did. I also hope the producers remember to install a metal detector at the jury entrance to tribal council.

And the irony of all this: you're actually not paranoid if everyone really is out to get you.

Survivor Guatemala: week 9

This week confirmed for me that the words "white trash" only sound right in a Southern accent, and Jamie's pronunciation is Jerry Springer perfect. He's still got his nose out of joint ("I'm not angry, my feelings are hurt") about Bobby Jon calling him 'no class', and the combination of red-neck rambling and the onset of jungle paranoia makes him this season's James and Janu all in one.

Gary used the ongoing search for the Individual Immunity Idol as the opportunity to raise once again his glorious football past. I still can't understand how the story of his come-from-behind-win twenty years ago fits as a metaphor for finding the idol, but apparently it doesn't have to as long as everyone out in TV land remembers who you are.

The reward challenge was a large horizontal archery target with a big post representing the bulls eye. Survivors had to throw an arrow using a Mayan spear-thrower, with the various food rewards being assigned based on who landed their arrow closest (and yes, Jeff, the reward was worth playing for – they all are – so you can stop asking that every week). Judd went first, and while Jeff described his impressive throw as "the mark to beat" nobody managed to and he won steak, lobster, dessert and – scariest of all – a free open bar.

As is often the case at this stage of the game, Judd as winner got to invite two others to share in his prize, which usually shows up who has alliances and where the political fault lines fall. Judd was surprisingly canny and picked Bobby Jon and Stephanie to represent each tribe (although to be honest he made that decision before the bar opened and his judgement went out the window). The others all had to sit by and watch while the three of them got steadily drunker over a two hour binge. Gary, who won a single slice of pizza for coming fifth, stared at Judd with only slightly less intensity than the pet dogs living at the guest house where the feast was held.

Judd showed surprising nous in his choice of friends, but Jamie showed sheer rat cunning by relinquishing his fourth place burger and beer for the last place bowl of nuts and boiled lake water, allowing five others to step up a place. He said he was doing it to apologise for his behaviour the day before ("Nothing tastes better than my self respect"), but nobody seemed to believe it was from genuine remorse. Even the members of his own alliance can't stand him, and are expressing it with varying degrees of tact.

There were no tactful, but many colourful, ways to describe how drunk Judd got. He staggered, fell over, tried to collect a 30 foot tree as firewood, snored, and dreamt that he threw up (again) on a world heritage building when in fact he'd thrown up in the shelter.

The other part of Judd's reward was a clue to the location of the Individual Immunity Idol, and this segued nicely into the theme of the second act: lies and trust. He showed Stephanie the clue, which stated that the idol is off the ground, then told the rest of the camp that the idol is most definitely on the ground. Next, Gary talked to Jamie and said he'd vote with him. Jamie immediately told the rest of the old Nakúm that Gary was planning to vote for him, which despite much incredulity on everyone's part resulted in Gary being the targeted Yaxhá member for this week's vote. Stephanie lied to Gary when he asked if that was the case, and again when she promised to tell him when it was to be his turn. Even Rafe didn't quite manage to avoid lying in the face of Jamie's persistently paranoid probing about the state of their alliance.

Having seen that the immunity challenge involved ropes, balance and general physical prowess it was a shock to many (including Rafe) to see Rafe survive the early knock-out rounds and make it to the final race against Jamie over a rope bridge. Unfortunately ropes aren't Rafe's strong suit, and Jamie won the immunity necklace and a week's reprieve from the exasperation of his own tribemates. Gary set off into the jungle again in search of the Individual Immunity Idol, and was both lucky enough to spot Judd looking up in the trees and smart enough to realise they'd all been lied to.

If you've ever wondered how Jeff, who only sees the Survivors at challenges, manages to ask such pertinent questions at Tribal Council it's because the daily transcripts of what happens at camp are faxed to the production team every day (and yes, I have first hand knowledge of this; just don't ask how). To prove it, Jeff started with a question about trust, and then asked both Gary (the ex-quarterback who claims to be just a landscaper) and Judd (the recipient of the true clue as to the Individual Immunity Idol's whereabouts) whether they had told any lies at all. Considering nobody believes Gary's lie but everyone fell for Judd's it was funny to see how much more convincing Gary's body language was when they both said "No".

What Gary didn't hide at the appropriate moment was that he had found the Individual Immunity Idol, which made him safe from the vote that night. Jeff reminded everyone that they could not talk to each other prior to voting, but the odd thing was that it seemed to be the old Yaxhá's vote thrown most into disarray, with Bobby Jon and Danni both voting for Stephanie but Gary voting for Cindy (huh?!?) while everyone else calmly switched to Bobby Jon and made him the first member of the jury.

It'll be interesting to see next week whether the Nakúm alliance, which is now six against two, can resist the temptation to get rid of Jamie without losing its majority or whether they'll keep picking off Yaxhá. Either way, they're all on the jury now and need to start being nice to each other with the end game in mind. I'm sure Gary has a metaphor about end games he'd love to share, and now he's got at least one more week in which to do it.

Survivor Guatemala: week 8

By the end of this week's episode I almost – but not quite – felt sorry for Jamie. It must be tough having Bobby Jon tell you you've got no class, and even worse having Judd tell you to keep your mouth shut. Nah, he completely brought it on himself and it was very good TV.

Jamie's ostracism started when the remaining members of Yaxhá arrived at Nakúm's camp having just voted out Amy at Tribal Council. Nukum were already tucked up in bed and far away in the land of Nod, so it must have been a horrible surprise having the opposition turn up. Rafe is such a sweetie his first startled words were, "Oh my gosh!" Jamie's first words were, "Well there's no room in the shelter for y'all, so I hope y'all don't mind sleeping outside". Hmm, charming.

Of course, Bobby Jon appears to have attended the same charm school. In his piece to camera he told us that he can't be around Jamie for more than five minutes without wanting to knock him out. OK, those two have a 'history'. But he also said that he can't be around Stephanie without wanting to vomit. He then spent much of the episode spitting on the ground in front of himself at inappropriate times. At least he appears to have left the snot rockets in Palau.

Tree mail interrupted Nakúm's frantic efforts to ingratiate themselves with their new tribemates by collecting firewood and playing slaves. Comic relief Lydia took charge of the instructions to come up with a new tribe name and decorate a banner accordingly. The result – Xhakúm – is functional if not the least bit original.

And yes, we'll need to keep referring to them by their old tribe names because there is none of the usual bonhomie that accompanies a merge. That might be because there was none of the usual food and liquor generously put on by the producers to encourage merriment at the merge moment. Stephanie complained about that, too. I had really hoped that a few wins would snap her out of her misery, but apparently not.

There was no formal reward challenge this week, but there is a challenge out there in the jungle just waiting to be found: a 15cm tall Individual Immunity Idol which can be used up until the final four by whomever finds it. It was made clear you only had to declare your possession of it immediately prior to the vote if you wanted to claim immunity that week, but not how many times the idol can be used.

The Great Individual Immunity Idol Search was funny. Rafe is apparently a wilderness guide, but still stuck his hand in a hornet's nest and had to run away slapping his head. Bobby Jon wandered through the forest a lot, and in a lovely piece of editing we had a subtle jump cut that suggested he was standing right near it, but who knows. After eleven series we all know not to trust editing.

The immunity challenge was the classic "Who can stand on the spot longest?" In this iteration the Survivors had to stand on a small cube and balance a clay pot on their head. The producers have learnt from the debacle of the Palau final three challenge, and sensibly imposed a one hour time limit with a tie breaker if necessary after that time.

They've also learnt that some very interesting conversations happen during this type of challenge between those already out and those still in it and trying to stand still. To get that tension happening early they gave everyone the choice between participating in the challenge, or enjoying what could have been the merge feast. In a fascinating result, the four Survivors who started in Yaxhá and ended up in Nakúm all chose to eat: Stephanie, Jamie, Rafe and Lydia are obviously feeling pretty safe at this stage in the game, because everyone else tried for immunity and tried not to watch the others stuffing their faces.

It's meant to be his job, but Jeff clearly gets a kick out of asking pointed questions about how safe people feel. Jamie, being the short-fused loudmouth he is, was happy to tell everyone that Brandon and Bobby Jon would be picked off first since they'd be strongest in the individual challenges and therefore the biggest threat. It was only a question of who was going to crack first and smash a pot over his head, with even his own tribemates cringing with embarrassment and Rafe almost in tears at the incivility of it all.

The tie breaker was a simple race up the steps of a convenient world heritage site, again with pots on heads, which Gary won. He was at bottom of the eviction order determined by Yaxhá and was the one in least danger, so I thought he might have chose to give his immunity to Brandon to throw the vote into confusion at the last minute, but he didn't. Bobby Jon managed to fight back the nausea long enough to beg Stephanie to let him be on the jury, effectively sealing Brandon's fate.

By this time both Cindy and Rafe/Woody Allen were having deep moral dilemmas about their part in the 'axis of evil' that was about to vote out a solid guy like Brandon over a [insert favourite cuss word here] like Jamie. Judd was so upset about Jamie's behaviour that he called him 'man' at least seven times in three "sentences". It was enough to give Brandon some hope for a few hours, and even more motivation to look for the idol. It also made for some fantastically tense moments at Tribal Council and one of the closest votes all season. Bobby Jon formed the most profound and articulate sentence he's ever uttered as he voted for Jamie: "You talk about havin' Southern Pride. Well part of Southern Pride is bein' a Southern Gentlemen. And no, you don't have any class, at all."

Sadly, numbers count for more in Survivor than class or heart, and Brandon misses out on the jury while Jamie makes it through for at least one more week. Maybe the sight of Brandon quietly sharpening a knife on a rock was scarier than either Jamie or Judd's verbal bluster. I just hope there's a really good reason for it.

Survivor Guatemala: week 7

The opening 75 seconds of this week's episode featured Judd using the word "man" at an average of every eight seconds. At some point during this burst of eloquence he uttered the biggest understatement in Survivor history to describe his behaviour at Tribal Council that night: "I kinda had a little outburst." Ironically, if he'd just admit he's ADD he could probably use it as an excuse for forgetting how bad his behaviour really was.

It's hard to think of a Survivor who is more rude, self-centred, obnoxious and overbearing than Judd. "Johnny Fairplay" from Survivor Pearl Islands comes close on a few of those measures, but since he'd probably enjoy the attention I refuse to include him as a nominee. Jamie this week confirmed my sneaking suspicion of why the others are putting up with Judd at all: whoever takes him to the final two is guaranteed of winning the million dollars for themself. At least Judd can say his life has a purpose.

Christo inspired this week's reward challenge. First one person had to wind fabric off a pole and around their body by twirling and running at the same time. Then they had to run to the next pole, clip onto the next contestant and spool another piece of fabric around both of them. They then had to try and run like Siamese twins to the third pole where they did the same again, until finally there was four of them all trying to twirl and run simultaneously. The truly funny bit came when they had to unwind again and run to the finish line, because those at the middle of the pack were completely dizzy by the end and couldn’t run straight. Guatemala's Funniest Home Videos, here we come!

Jeff announced the reward and asked, "Worth playing for?" as he always does. This week it was a flying fox ride through the jungle canopy, followed by a chocolate feast (apparently the Maya were the civilisation who discovered chocolate and to whom we all owe a debt of incalculable thanks). Bobby Jon tried to describe the wide variety of forms the chocolate took: "There was cake, praline, cookies, strawberries; everything!" Um, strawberries are a member of the fruit food group, Bobby Jon, not the chocolate food group. Don't worry your pretty head about it, darl.

At least nobody got hurt this week. Amy's ankle injury from rolling under the big rock in last week's reward challenge was obvious, but the next day the only person in Yaxhá who didn't seem to have seven layers of skin missing off their shoulders was Gary (maybe he had his quarterback shoulder guards on under his T-shirt). One could easily blame the rock itself, but nobody in Nakúm seemed to have huge weeping sores sticking to their t-shirts and attracting small fish when they swam.

During their chocolate-induced sugar high, Yaxhá decided to paddle over to Nakúm's camp and invite them back to a pool party for Danni's birthday. Despite the unexpected invitation interrupting their game of Old Maid (played using a deck of cards made out of leaves), and deep reservations on the part of both hosts and guests about whether Bobby Jon and Jamie could be trusted to behave themselves, the invitation was duly accepted. Nakúm got to polish off the leftover chocolate, and much fun was had by everyone until Judd stripped down to his white t-shirt fabric boxer shorts and jumped in. Actually the jumping in wasn't so bad as when he got out again as they had become slightly translucent. Was white really the best colour underpants to choose for 39 days straight in the jungle?

In the immunity challenge the teams had to find big jigsaw puzzle pieces buried in a sandpit and then assemble them to form a replica of the Maya calendar. Heaven forbid they should have to do anything really challenging, like navigate using Mayan astronomy or solve problems using some of the mathematical principles the Maya developed. Actually that's being a bit unfair. Bobby Jon was able to work out all by himself that if Yaxhá lost the challenge they'd only have four people and Nakúm would have six, which would be bad going into the merge. Between his Alabama accent and the mumbling there were parts of his soliloquy at which even the subtitle people weren't game to hazard a guess, but that was the general gist of it.

Nakúm manage to take an early lead and keep it, despite Jamie dropping one of the larger puzzle pieces on Stephanie's foot. She wasn't complaining when they won immunity for the second week in a row and sent Yaxhá to Tribal Council. Amy, who looks more and more like a young Kurt Russell in drag every week, knew straight away that she was vulnerable but fought right to the end regardless. Gary promised to vote with her against Bobby Jon, but only if she got Danni on side. Obviously that didn’t happen, and it was yet another unanimous vote with Amy as the stoic victim.

This week's twist was Jeff's announcement at the end of the episode that the merge had just happened, followed by the distribution of red buffs for Gary, Danni, Bobby Jon and Brandon to take with them to their new home at Nakúm's camp. With ten Survivors now left, the break-down is five original Yaxhá (Stephanie, Rafe, Lydia, Gary and Jamie) and five original Nakúm (Danni, Cindy, Brandon, Bobby Jon and Judd). As Bobby Jon pointed out, however, it's 6-4 in favour for the new Yaxhá tribe. It's going to be very interesting to see how the numbers stack up.

It's also going to be interesting seeing how Stephanie and Bobby Jon cope over the next few weeks, with a lot of their tribemates saying that nobody deserves a second chance at Survivor unless it's an All Stars series. Bobby Jon is just hoping to make it to the jury, claiming that it has been a "lifelong dream" of his. Since the show only started in 1999 I somewhat doubt that. Don't worry your pretty head about it, darl.

Survivor Guatemala: week 6

I've had an entire week to come up with a metaphor or analogy or other allegorical device to describe the almost biffo between Jamie and Bobby Jon that occurred during this week's challenge. For those who didn't see the ads, the two of them went toe-to-toe and chest-to-chest screaming at each other. It was entirely Discovery Channel in nature, but what particular animals were they behaving like? Eventually it came to me: seagulls fighting over a chip. Although I've never heard a seagull walking way from a fight tell the other contestant, "That's not nice!" the way Bobby Jon did.

We were spared the pain of listening to the crappy tree mail poem, so only found out when the tribes arrived at the challenge site that there would be no tribal immunity this week since both teams were going to Tribal Council and voting someone out that night. In yet another very early departure from formula, the members of the winning team would get the reward and then compete in a second challenge for individual immunity. As a further twist, the person with immunity would sit in on the other Tribal Council and get some secret inside information about the other team.

Of all the challenges so far, this was the one most obviously lifted from an Indiana Jones movie. Two members from each tribe had to try and roll that big rock from Raiders of the Lost Ark across their goal line. At one point Jamie's team scored a win over Bobby Jon's team, and we had the seagull incident. Jamie later explained it as follows: "He's in my face yellin', and I'm from the South, and the only thing I know how to do is yell back." I think that explains much of George W Bush's foreign policy.

Amy rolled her weak ankle again, but still managed to help Yaxhá win the following round and earned considerable respect from both her team a certain couch here in Kingsville. In the end Nakúm won both the overall game and a meat tray which then sat out in the 45ºC heat while they competed for individual immunity.

The second challenge was a simple relay to collect three bags and rearrange the big Scrabble tiles they contained to make the words "Ancient Ruin". Judd couldn't even get his own bags open, but could see Rafe's tiles well enough to tell him the answer and hand him individual immunity. It’s pretty embarrassing to be standing there, close but utterly stumped, and have Judd of all people provide an intellectual leg-up.

While Stephanie mistook two consecutive victories for a winning streak, the rest of the tribe got stuck into their reward of barbecue and beers. The production crew had soaked the labels off the bottles (obviously the companies weren’t prepared to pay the exorbitant product placement rates), which made it a bit tricky to keep track of who'd drunk what. Judd was the obvious culprit when some beer went missing (or was that just because we saw so much footage of him drinking), but nobody else in the tribe seemed brave enough to directly accuse him. They didn’t have to, really: he protested his innocence with an unnatural degree of vehemence, and then claimed that he'd won the reward for the team so he'd earned the extra beer anyway. The prosecution rests, your Honour.

Yaxhá was first to Tribal Council, and it quickly became apparent that Judd had neither cooled down nor sobered up. He assured us all - twice - that he is a good sportsmanship, and his use of the word "man" in lieu of punctuation was so pervasive that I rewatched the entire episode and kept count: 43 that I heard, which is an impressive per minute average when you take out the ads, the challenges and the scenes of the other tribe.

Arguably the funniest moment in the series so far came when Margaret claimed Judd doesn't listen to other people. He interrupted her, then he interrupted Cindy answering his question "Do I listen to you?" Next he interrupted Rafe's answer to the same question (well, it was more a demand than a question) and the didn’t give the others a chance to answer. He even interrupted the normally unflappable Jeff, who has seem some pretty childish behaviour at Tribal Council in the past but still seemed shocked. Here's a hint, Judd: it doesn't help your claim that you're not ADD if you can't sit still or hold your temper.

Everything Margaret said about Judd was true, but equally true were Cindy and Judd's observations that Margaret was miserable about the tribe switch up, and that there'd be peace at camp so long as either she or Judd left. When she was evicted, in what to me was a surprise unanimous vote, Judd gloated like a smug eight year old and I fear he will make the next few days peaceful but unbearable for everyone.

Yaxhá, meanwhile, was a model of unity. Well, at least everyone was saying the right things, even if they didn't actually mean them. Bobby Jon was full of praise for Brian's gamesmanship, and indeed Brian has been a very skilled Survivor. He was spot on with his quote as he voted for Bobby Jon: "This is the outwit part of outwit, outplay, outlast." Unfortunately he was the one being outwitted, as Amy and Gary had sided with the old Nakúm to unanimously vote Brian out.
In yet another twist, however, Brian still had one chance to stay in the game. Immediately prior to the vote commencing, Jeff announced that Rafe, who had sat in on proceedings, would hand his immunity to the person of his choice by placing a name in an envelope in the ballot cookie jar. Who knows what would have happened if Rafe had given Brian immunity, but he gave it to Gary instead (why, I do not know), so the votes against Brian stood. Not knowing who couldn’t be voted out certainly added a degree of novelty to the voting process, and there's been some pretty good twists so far this season already. It'll be very interesting to see if the immunity idol has been retired or just given a rest this week.