Mon, September 29, 2003

(Apologies for the late posting; due to a trip out of town, I didn't see Survivor until Sunday night this week.)

This week's episode of Survivor evaluates the question of what happens when the teams turn out to be pretty severely unmatched and the cockier, better supplied team is off to a strong early lead. Many times, this seemingly good fortune can turn against the leading team if they start getting too sure of themselves; we've seen a veritable shot-for-shot remake of the Tortoise vs. Hare scenario in past seasons. Last week, the Morgan tribe pretty much exemplified unpreparedness and failed to coalesce as a team operating under one vision, even after taking the dodgy step of appointing a "leader." This week, would Drake continue to dominate? Or would Morgan get their (bare) asses in gear and turn things around?

Um... the former.

It's been my ambition to set my Survivor columns apart from Television Without Pity's brilliant recaps of The Amazing Race by focusing more on strategy than synopsis. (As if the fact that my readership is an infinitesimal fraction of theirs isn't enough to avoid any confusion between the two.) Last week I was a little punchy, so I ended up barfing out a fair amount of synopsis. This week, Morgan's continued nosedive created a situation where there's virtually no strategy to speak of. Morgan still has no plan, and Drake has yet to need one, because even if they sleepwalk through every challenge they still best Morgan by at least half a minute. (I'm estimating here. I assume Morgan was close to unearthing their flag in the highly complex immunity challenge, though there's no footage to suggest it. They didn't finish the reward challenge either but it's safe to guess that, if they had, it would've been about three hours later.)

The imbalance that resulted from Morgan's ouster of Nicole last week did bring one recurring Survivor aggravation to the foreground: benching one member of the larger team. See, since Drake has eight members and Morgan is left with only seven, one member of the Drake team has to sit out for each challenge this week to give the teams equal numbers. I still don't see why this is. My feeling is, if one team has been successful enough to keep all its members, then it should have the advantage of all hands on deck. They've earned whatever advantage this could give them, and if the producers are worried about it tipping the scales so much that the other team simply never wins immunity, that's poppycock. Plenty of challenges on Survivor don't depend on numbers at all. In this week's reward challenge, eight people wouldn't have made any difference until the final part where they had to pull the treasure chest ashore, and even then the impact would have been minimal. Same goes for the immunity game, too, really. I just think it bites that someone has to sit out because it needlessly complicates the strategy: you have to try to pick who sits out since the same person can't sit out twice in a row – it ends up punishing the team that should be rewarded.

On the other hand, the new element of placing the tribes on separate islands continues to pay off. I can't prove it with the footage yet, but as far as I understand it the tribes have to paddle themselves to each challenge. (We've seen their boat docked on the immunity island, so we know they at least row there on their own.) I like this because by the time the teams show up, both are already plenty exhausted from rowing on the way over. Maybe next week, Drake should have the two people who are going to sit out do all the rowing – they can turn that stupid bench rule to their advantage.

Anyway, a few things do actually happen this week, so let's look at those.

One is that Osten decides he wants to quit. (Remarkably, nobody has spelled his name wrong in a Tribal Council yet. Usually it's an epidemic, even with the easy names. But despite the fact that four out of five dentists would spell it "Austin" upon hearing it, all of Morgan's tribe is getting it right. Maybe they have spelling bees at night while Drake is on the other island building shelters, doing situps, and being awesome.) I think it's highly pathetic for Osten to decide he wants out so early in the game, because it's clear that he's just accustomed to being a winner and now that he's not he'd rather quit than figure out a way to turn things around. However, in some ways I think he's intelligent to approach the decision the way he does. He could try to invite his own expulsion by acting lazy and trying to upset his teammates until they vote him off, but instead he calmly tells them that he wants their vote. At least his way doesn't sap the team's emotional energy any more than it's already been drained. I do appreciate that, although I wish he'd just keep his whining to himself and try to help the team win. I'm also a tad divided on the team's decision to not follow his wishes. They evict the more devoted but less ripped Ryan S. instead. The decision being that, between a teammate who is willing but unable and a teammate who is able but unwilling, they'll go with the hunky guy and hope the vote of confidence will bring him around. I'm not entirely sure that's wise. Sure, it's possible that Osten will look past his frustration that the teammates disobeyed his wishes and decide that he feels like trying to pull the losing team up by its bootstraps. Once he doesn't get the dreaded Instant Pneumonia he's been harping about, maybe he'll have a change of heart and appreciate them for seeing him as a valuable member of the team even when he couldn't. I guess in many ways it will depend on the physicality of upcoming challenges. In general, Survivor tends to balance it out so that brains equal success approximately as often as brawn. But even in the physical challenges, it may be more important to have a twinkling meekling who's giving his all than a buff bod with no interest in trying.

Also, the reward challenges have a new twist this season. (Burnett promised you more twists than a Twin Peaks marathon in a pretzel factory on Chubby Checker Appreciation Day, but you just didn't believe him, did you?) Starting this week, every time a team wins a reward challenge, they get the reward as well as the opportunity to go to the other team's island and take something. This could have some very weird results in the future, but that's for later. This week, Drake gets a chance to go over to Morgan's camp and take something. Rupert wisely suggests that they shouldn't take Morgan's tarp because it would foster an unneeded level of enmity so early in the game. He wants them to go for one of the water jugs, which would be useful for Drake without hurting Morgan too much. (I was hoping they'd take sexy mortician Darrah's top, but maybe there's some sort of rule.) Rupert's absolutely right, though. If I didn't think the obvious pandering would get Morgan more upset, I'd go over there and just take a shell off their beach. You don't want to kick them while they're down; not right now, when you don't even need to. They're already in terrible shape with no visible signs of improvement. They're upset that they're losers and they will naturally turn that anger into resentment of Drake's stronger team. You don't want to make that worse, because you run the risk of fostering hostility that will be so insurmountable that it jeopardizes the inevitable tribe merger later on. After all, Drake may not be the larger team at that point, and even if they are, the merger is historically pretty rough on the "favored" team. It makes more sense to approach the reward from an "I'm on your side" approach – you have to take something but you don't want to be mean about it.

Instead, Drake ends up taking the tarp. This constitutes the basis of Morgan's shelter, so it's really a stick in the eye. I can't tell whether this is intentional, or if Sandra really tries to look for the water jugs as hard as she says she "tries." Removing the tarp involves destroying most of Morgan's little hut, so it's a really mean thing. Interestingly, Morgan "could" win next week's reward challenge, meaning they could instantly confiscate the tarp back. I think it would be really funny if the reward challenge becomes a weekly tarp swap. We don't see any footage of Sandra returning with the tarp, so there's no way to know whether Rupert and the rest of the Drake gang are disappointed that she changed the plan. I think it's rather odd that Sandra doesn't just ask Morgan where the water jugs are. Considering how hard they were wishing that the tarp wouldn't go, I'll bet they would have gladly helped her find a water jug and maybe even helped her carry it to the boat.

Next week, the previews hint at the inevitable Breakdown Among the Stronger Team, which is usually a pretty big indication that this will not happen next week, but considering how truly inevitable this is, I'm willing to chance it that the editors actually hinted a real plot point. In fact, I'm rather surprised we didn't get the Inevitable Clip of Some Haughty Jackass on the Stronger Team Speculating That Maybe They Should "Throw" the Immunity Challenge to Get Rid of Somebody. Maybe they got sand in the camera that day.

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