Fri, February 13, 2004

Just to be clear: last week when I mentioned that it would be nice to start eliminating contestants from Survivor: All-Stars a little more quickly, I was not suggesting that we should make their elimination any more boring than it already is. Getting rid of a competitor without a Tribal Council (or even an immunity challenge, for crying out loud) is an absolute travesty. I mean, without TribCon, where will Probst make his grandiose philosophical statements about the inner struggles shouldered by his band of weary, mosquito-bitten Everymen as they lift the magic marker of truth and scratch it across the parchment of fate in order to cast the vote of self-preservation and eject the ancient Navy Seal of generational wisdom? Maybe this is why he shoveled it on extra thick last week.

I suppose we should have seen this coming. That little opening vignette about the insect population was really just a lame excuse to show footage of the rotting corpse of that pelican, probably the same one that taunted Osten right before he laid down his torch and quit the show. Ah, Burnett. Always with the transparent symbolism. Notice how the fire at Mogo Mogo went out in the storm the night before Jenna reached her decision? Don't forget, "fire represents life on the island." Yeah. Sure it does. In the same way that sand represents trigonometry and Sue Hawk represents charm and grace.

Most of all, it's just a sorry misuse of the "final 15 minutes cannot be missed" promotional push. That sort of thing should really be reserved for Michael Skupin melting his face off or Johnny FibLie making up stories about his dead grandmother. Twists of shocking action or audacious strategy. Not a mentally disturbed girl worrying about her mother. (I realize the seriousness of Jenna's situation, and I'm not suggesting that she's mentally disturbed because she's worrying about her mom. However, I think the starvation, sleep deprivation, and island fatigue have contributed to a mental breakdown that results in the mood swings and preoccupation that suddenly overcome her.) I have to say, though, the title card at the end of the episode indicated that Jenna's mother passed away a few days later, so maybe there's something to that "vibe" that sounded so nebulous. (The same title card, by the way, said that Doozer got accepted to Yale Law and is currently clerking for a senator in Washington, and Rusty went off to Vietnam and was never heard from again.)

It's a little bit surprising that Probst doesn't tear Jenna a new one, the way he did with Osten. He doesn't even make her wait for TribCon! Apparently, he's turning over a kindler, gentler leaf, and I missed the memo the same as Alicia and "Big Tom." With Hatch needlessly wrestling a shark, Rupert besting Ethan in the Spearfishing Championship Conducted Entirely Inside Rupert's Head, and Kathy needlessly whacking said shark with a machete like she's beating a rug, the rest of the episode is plenty Survivory, so maybe he just figures he can afford to let it slide.

And, on the topic of Survivoriness, is it just me or are these reward challenges getting significantly gayer?

It seems odd that, while the immunity challenges, strategy, and living conditions are getting more rigorous and harder to bear, the reward challenges are devolving into silly "play house" games. In a half-assed attempt to cash in on the Trading Spaces craze, Burnett gives each team 24 hours and a box of tools from Home Depot (ugh) and asks them to set up a pretty house. The instructions – worded confusingly in the Survivor tradition, but without the rhymes; evidently Home Depot prefers the more aesthetically liberating blank verse – indicate that creativity will be a consideration in the judging, although that doesn't seem to pan out. Nevertheless, each team manages to divide its four participants into two guys to handle the building and two girls to deal with the decorating. Cute. Alicia makes the wise decision to tell Rob M that "this is all about you," knowing that he's easier to work with when you tell him what he wants to hear and is already thinking himself (sometimes aloud). It's a convenient way to get him to work instead of sit on the sidelines and bitch. Amber, sitting out the challenge, takes the opportunity to discuss the slow progression of her strategy from pretending to flirt with Rob in order to secure his alliance, into kind of liking Rob with his shirt off. The producers choose to illustrate this with a saucy shot of Amber crossing and uncrossing her legs while she watches Rob build the dream house. Somewhere, Wayne Knight's sweat glands kick into overdrive. ("What are you going to do? Arrest me for being bug-bitten?") Alicia gets on the case of the other Rob (or, Other Rob, as I like to call him) for not doing enough work on the playhouse project, and America notices for the first time that there is a sixth member of the Chapera team.

Over at Mogo Mogo, the progress is a little quicker and the architecture more ambitious. Hatch once again makes a big show of bowing out of the challenge, to let his innocent victims play amongst themselves while he secludes himself for a few hours of Higher Thinking. Whatever, bitch. I was agreeing with you about these challenges being pointless fluff until you started concocting stories of five-hour marathon shark-wrestling battles and Ozzy-style biting. It's becoming clear that sitting out of the challenges is just another desperate ploy for attention. For all their relative harmony, though, Mogo Mogo betrays a brief moment of unrest. While Lex and Colby are conferring on the design for their cantilevered solarium, Shii Ann, who in her defense is just trying to follow the instructions, walks up with a list of decorating suggestions that she has developed. As she reads through the silly, kitschy ideas, you can read Lex's glance to Colby perfectly: "Hand me that hatchet, would you?" He's right – her ideas do sound like something right out of Frank Bielec's playbook; but from the instructions the teams are given, it sure seems like aesthetic embellishments will be part of the final scoring. Taking this even further is Rupert's decision to develop a Corbusier-inspired split-level with a sunken den featuring a large stump as a conversation piece. If Shii Ann is Frank, Rupert is Hildi – throwing practicality aside in the hopes of doing something unconventional. (Remember, Rupert: Hildi can get away with it because she doesn't have to live in the house once it's done.) Saboga, demonstrating their self-lauded togetherness and teamwork, immediately start bickering about Rupert's idea. (They have a good point; digging down is pretty sure to hit the water table when you're fifteen feet from the ocean.) Rupert, demonstrating his undying Rupertosity, stomps around and insists until everyone just bends to his whim and goes along with wasting a lot of valuable energy to lose the challenge and end up with an uncomfortable and useless shelter.

When it comes time for the judging, I'm disappointed even further. First of all, Probst doesn't bring Paige Davis, or even the yummy Amy Wynn Pastor, to do the judging. He has some Panamanian guy named Raffa, who carries a clipboard like he's the city building inspector. The judging criteria have shifted from creativity and ingenuity to stability and materials science. Maybe my objection to this challenge is not so much that it's silly – it's just very poorly organized. Raffa goes around testing the strength of the constructions and checking them with his level. His level? What? He does realize that this is just a primitive hut for a TV show, right? I keep expecting him to say "Well, I can't give you a permit until you get a fire-rated safety door for this structure, and you really should have a ramp for ADA compliance." This Raffa guy takes himself awfully seriously, in my view – I mean, wasn't he putting out singalong albums for children just a few years back? Curiously, in a desperate ploy to get on his good side, the teams all speak to Raffa in broken Spanish like Al Gore courting latino voters in the 2000 election. Since when has hollering "Gracias!" at a Spanish-speaking person, after jabbering to them in rapid English for twenty minutes, ever endeared anyone to them? (Especially in this case, where the English speakers are the foreigners.) It doesn't sound like "I thank you in your native tongue because I respect our differences while I embrace the courtesy that we share as fellow humans," so much as it sounds like, "See? I've learned a few novelty words in your language so that I can seem like a compassionate imperialist while talking to you as though you're a child!" At least nobody stoops to the level of "Our house-o? Is very nice-o? Sí?"

By the time Raffa has finished touring the Saboga eyesore, he looks weary and a little concerned. Probst speaks only Spanish to Raffa, so I assume that he hasn't understood a word Rupert said during his impassioned sales pitch about the brilliant decision to terminate his rickety bamboo rainspout system right at the same place where waves will be splashing in the front door of the house, allowing the unintentional indoor pool to fill up twice as fast in a storm. When Probst makes a show of asking Raffa about the viability of Saboga's structure within eyesight of them, Raffa makes a lot of concerned gestures. Probst says "You wanna get going?" (Drunk Girl Probst, you're on warning!) as though Rupert's hut might collapse and kill them all. Raffa looks at his clipboard as though he's ready to condemn the property, but you know that in his head he's really just singing "The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round." So, they give the reward to Chapera, which means Amber gets wasted on cheap wine and cuddles goofily with Rob M while making a lot of dumb statements in an attempt to turn Survivor: All-Stars into Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica. This is probably the only good thing to come out of the challenge, which was clearly extended in the editing room in order to fill the dead air resulting from the canceled immunity challenge. At least Amber was the first person to show up for a challenge with a BAC above 2.75, narrowly edging out Johnny SurlyDrunk.

Then Hatch tries to make Jenna M feel bad about her decision to go and be with her mother, and Probst tries to make her feel bad while pretending that he's indifferent on the issue, and Amber wanders over to give Jenna a hug but really just uses Jenna to keep herself from falling over and then spits up a little in her hair. Alicia implies that Jenna should have stayed home altogether, which is what Probst said to Osten last time, so I'm sure he's happy that got in. I suppose it's fitting that, in a season that's intended to shake up all the Survivor traditions, not a single thing happens the way it's supposed to.

Next week, the Tetris-style immunity challenge is apparently revived. The good news is, it's impossible for next week's show to feature more activity devoted to less actually happening than this week, so at least things are looking up.

POLL:

York vs. Sargent

Just like Becky from Roseanne or Aunt Viv from The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Burnett should replace Jenna with:

	Jennifer Connelly
	Angelina Jolie
	Katie Holmes
	Ben Stiller – who doesn't like Ben Stiller?

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