Fri, April 23, 2004

Here's something that someone will say, like clockwork, every week on Survivor: "Okay, that's it. I've had enough. Starting now, I'm going to start playing." Call me an illiterate, uneducated simpleton, but isn't the point of Survivor to be playing all the time? It's "Outwit. Outplay. Outlast." not "Outsit. Outstay. Outlast." You're supposed to be out there working as hard as you can to win the million dollars, not sitting around, waiting for a later moment to start strategizing. It seems as though somewhere along the line, someone (possibly Hatch) made it a liability to play Survivor on Survivor. So, everybody would rather "lay low" and stay "under the radar" than actually play a little offense. Do they really think "I'll be quiet as a church mouse and nobody will notice me; that way, I won't be a target and, if random luck should work in my favor, I could win"?

It's almost impossible to cover all the terrible strategy in this week's episode, not that that should be a surprise. It's only about 10% worse play than any other episode this season, but that's quite a lot. The episode opens with Shii-Ann, basically parroting the line I paraphrased above. With Kathy gone, she says, she knows she's marked next for deletion, and she is really going to kick it into gear now. (For such a self-professed paragon of strategic Survivor genius, she sure does wait until the last second.) Somehow, she manages to be surprised by Kathy's ouster (the only surprise, to my mind, was that Shii-Ann wasn't first, and after the whole Lex blowout, even that was easy to predict). Also, she apparently has a problem with the fact that Rob is smug. Smug? I'm the last person to defend Rob, but Shii-Ann thinks he's acting smug? Shii-Ann? I'm just sayin'. While she stops just short of vowing to win immunity, she certainly plans to try her hardest. (Ah, yes. Trying. Trying is good. It's a wonder nobody has tried that befo– ah, I see. That would have involved trying.)

However – always the strategist! – Shii-Ann realizes that she might do well to have a backup plan. So, she approaches Rob, engaging him in the following exchange, which I swear I am not making up. (Although I am paraphrasing it; I'll be damned if I'm firing TiVo back up at 3:00 am, just to avoid misquoting these losers.) Shii-Ann acknowledges the fact that she's clearly the next to be eliminated. Rob agrees to stipulate. Shii-Ann asks if Rob plans to continue with his current alliance, or if he's considering changing things up. Rob says he's fine how he is. Seriously. She actually asks him that. Now, I'm all for this idea of playing the Survivor out in the open and acknowledging the elephant in the room when it comes to alliances and the elimination order. I think if this happened more often, more stupid mistakes would be avoided, and more interesting television would be had. However, is she nuts? Because what could she possibly have to offer him that would entice him to change the unbelievably sweet situation he has going? She has nothing. He has (lamentably) everything. Every other person on the island is allied with him. If she could even do the legwork of collecting three other people who would switch and vote against him, then she could offer to spare him in exchange for turning his voting bloc against someone strategic. But she doesn't have that, and she won't because the others on Rob's side dislike her intensely (for basically no reason except he tells them to) and are fiercely loyal to his plan, despite its grave mathematical flaws (for basically no reason except he tells them to). Oh, well.

Next, it's a bunch of AmbeRob's pawns, discussing amongst themselves with absolutely no awareness of what they're actually saying. They talk about the importance of eliminating Shii-Ann, which means all teaming up against her at the immunity challenge. They're bonding very strongly over their promised slot within the final six, never realizing that, counting Shii-Ann, there are currently seven people in the game. Guys! One of you is next! Why isn't that a cause of concern? With seven contestants, promising "final six" is meaningless. The immunity necklace can promise you the final six. If you know two other people whom you can convince not to vote for you, you can promise yourself the final six. Astonishingly, the contestants only speak of the "final four" alliances they have within that group of four, so nobody ever notices that there are multiple final fours. It's the ultimate sub-alliance problem surrounded by the ultimate sub-alliance problem. You have AmbeRob, who are clearly the core of the alliance, surrounded by two other pairs of people, each of which has been promised final four status. Which means that there's an alliance of six, with a sub-alliance of two and two sub-alliances of four. But, all four non-humping members of the six are under the impression that two other people are numbers five and six, just outside their sub-alliance. This kind of thing would never, ever work, except that nobody bothers to investigate it, so the flimsy assumptions all hold up.

Moving on, it's time for the reward challenge. Everyone really hopes it's food, since it's been, what, eight hours since Probst handed them some luxurious spread for free? Yes, folks, it's Survivor: Room Service. I've seen contestants on Wheel of Fortune go longer without eating. This is absurd for a survival show. But it's about to get worse. The challenge is one of those awful kind that are not about rewarding one player for excelling, but rather allowing a few players at a time to eliminate each other until one person is left standing. It's yet another game designed to favor Rob, even though he doesn't win it. (My guess is that he told them to give it to Rupert, but it doesn't matter.) As usual, although tick marks on a chalkboard would do, there's an elaborate method of displaying the standings of the contestants. This time it involves giant hovering puppet heads for each of the players. When your face gets smashed with a log, you're out. (Subtle, huh?) The massive puppet heads are pretty uncanny, as far as utterly unrecognizable generic likenesses go. I'd recognize that handiwork anywhere, those WTO protesters have finally cracked into show business. Congrats, guys! Don't forget to work union!

As for how the competitors determine who gets to smash in whose face, it's basically a hybrid of the Newlywed Game and those slambooks you used to do in junior high. Everyone writes down secret answers to some mean questions about their teammates, and then they publicly answer the same questions, this time attempting to guess which answers were most popular in the secret ballot. This is a half-hearted attempt at seeding discontent among the players, and it's just boring, mean, and arbitrary. Although not as arbitrary as the awful reward: a bunch of food items that the winner must distribute amongst the other contestants. This stupid contrivance basically doubles the weakness of the challenge itself, in that both cases don't reward someone for performance as much as they cause the players to randomly choose each other. We learn almost nothing from the challenge, except that apparently Shii-Ann believes that if she rolls her eyes at the camera enough, and says "surprise" in a sarcastic huff when the others target her, that someone will step in, put a stop to everything, and say, "You're right, Shii-Ann. You're the intellectual superior of everyone here. They're dolts. Here, have a million dollars and the immunity necklace." Admittedly, it would be fun if it worked that way. But, alas, it does not. Sorry, Shii-Ann, eye rolling doesn't cut it. The only way to leverage these people's stupidity to your advantage is to become their god. Which is what Rob did, so you can't claim that one.

Later, amid much eye rolling by Shii-Ann (and there are few people on the planet who look less attractive rolling their eyes), victorious hero figure Rupert distributes the meals, in descending order of value, to Rob, Amber, Jenna, Alicia, Tom, and Shii-Ann. Hello, contestants, and welcome to the order in which you will be voted off. Alicia? Tom? Any interest in betraying the AmbeRob alliance? No? Didn't think so. Good luck!

Throughout the dinner, Shii-Ann will not stop talking about how she's given the worst meal and she's obviously the one of the group that's the outsider. Again, I admire her for shattering the taboo that you just don't talk about the dirty alliance stuff. It's clumsily executed, but the idea of calling attention to the dynamic in order to make people uncomfortable enough to maybe change it is not bad. However, once again, I must take issue with her timing. This is the sort of thing she could've brought up back when they merged (which still may not happen, by the way), or after Lex left. At this late date, she has very little influence with anyone still in the game, so she can't expect much of a payoff from this strategy. Jenna informs us that she hates how obnoxious Shii-Ann is. So the message isn't getting through. Everyone thinks she's a pill; nobody realizes that she makes an excellent point about the things that they take for granted as a result of their code of silence. It turns out, people are happier in denial. They don't want to talk about how the alliances will go, because if they don't bring it up, then nobody can tell them they're the next to go. They're children, which is about all we could have expected from a group of people who would volunteer to be on Survivor and lose, then volunteer to be on Survivor again and then remain standing after the intelligent or powerful people have been eliminated. It's no wonder they flock to Rob's leadership like moths to the light. It's the single trait they all share – they're adrift.

More talking of strategy, also priceless: Alicia and Tom continue to believe that their final four with AmbeRob is the only final four to be had. (How they must pity poor, deluded Rupert and Jenna.) Alicia proclaims that, no matter what happens, Amber, Rob, Tom, and she will be able to outnumber the other three. Well, what if what happens is that your foursome isn't real and some of those people vote against you? Just curious. Shii-Ann attempts to talk strategy, telling Rupert that "if [she] were one of the people out here, [she'd] go after Rob." Wait! You are one of the people out here. Go after Rob! She's just channeling Kathy from last week. If only there were a way to both understand that voting against Rob is a good idea and actually vote against Rob. Alicia tells Tom that Rob is the dangerous one, and he has to be dealt with, so they decide they should vote for Rupert. (I'm sure it makes sense somehow, we just can't see the genius because we're thinking "inside the box.") Alicia tells Shii-Ann that the plan is set to eliminate Shii-Ann, and it's too late to change it. Yes, excellent Survivor strategy. Make a decision at the very beginning, with no information, and then hold to that no matter what new data comes to light. (Also, not to skip ahead, but if you're not able to read the flow of the game and change your plan as the game changes, you're as good as dead. Which Alicia is within minutes. Hm, I guess the plan changed after all, didn't it?)

So, it's immunity time. In accordance with the custom, since one person really really needs immunity right now, Probst cues up the endurance challenge. This one always comes along just when it's needed. Shii-Ann continues to remind the others that she knows they're plotting against her, and she indicates that there are other secrets, too. I assume she's referring to the multiple overlapping sub-alliances. What's a shame is that she doesn't air these. They are the only things that could save her, because they would split up the two-way alliance of six-and-fours and result in a free-for-all which puts the million dollars up for grabs. It should be noted, also, that in what purports to be a team effort to prevent Shii-Ann from winning immunity, Amber gives up after four minutes. Which means her contribution was just shy of 3 1/2% of Rupert's. Nice team effort. Does anyone see a little preferential treatment here? Maybe this alliance should be reconsidered? No? Okay.

Shii-Ann, of course, wins. Good for her. (And damn the rest of them for making me actually want her to win anything.) In a classic tortoise/hare moment, Rob, being a cocky motherfucker, keeps making a big production out of shooing a fly, just to show how casually he's taking this whole thing. At which point he manages to pull his water bucket over. Nice one, nimrod. Shii-Ann, justifiably, is excited. She kind of forgets that her hold on immunity is temporary, and she celebrates excessively in front of the others. In my opinion, she has every right, but it's not good strategy. (Alicia unironically says that Shii-Ann was wrong to get in their faces about it, despite the fact that they've been in her face about her elimination for two days now.) Shii-Ann, however, is highly invested in feeling superior, so given the fact that she finally decided to try to do something for herself that might result in a personal victory, she's unable to curb her enthusiasm once she pulls it off.

After that, we're meant to believe that everyone scrambles frantically to figure out who is being voted off, but considering that it's a unanimous vote, I would say Rob probably directed this, like he does all things, and Shii-Ann basically folded whatever plan she had and fell into line. Oh, excellently played! However removed it is from the truth, in the footage we see, Rob and his crew watch from a distance as Shii-Ann attempts to talk strategy with another teammate. Rob actually says something like, "Look at her strategizing. How dumb." He's actually telling his brood, strategy isn't the way to get ahead; in fact, it should be avoided at all costs. Instead, follow me in dumb obedience without asking questions. Needless to say, they follow dumbly. Amber briefly reveals to Shii-Ann that she thinks she has an advantage, because Rob will believe whatever she says, even if she lies to him. What follows is a fleeting hope that I might have been right all along about her strategy, but even after Shii-Ann – who saw much more of this exchange than we did – calls Amber "shrewd," it's hard for me to believe she'll really turn on Rob. It would be beautiful, though. It's a brilliant strategy for dealing with someone like him. He's strong enough to win physical challenges and dominating enough to control the group. But, he's a dumb male, so he thinks with his dick and you can control him. Very smart thinking, but I am not sure I buy Amber in that role. Too often, we've seen her overextend her loyalty to a power player beyond its useful lifetime.

TribCon is another laugh riot. Shii-Ann is suspiciously quiet, until we learn later that she's been co-opted into Rob's alliance, so that's why she no longer has any reason to speak out against it. It's the Microsoft model – purchase your adversary so you can silence their criticism. She talks about the strategic problem, but she does it with the same coy ambiguity that always permeates TribCon. Jenna's response? "It makes us sound dumb." Not really. That is accomplished by your abysmal game play.

Probst goes on to query the group about whether Rob's strength and leadership make him a threat, and Rob actually says, "Don't give them ideas." Even he admits, the only way for him to maintain his influence is if the others don't have a thought in their pretty heads.

And they don't. Alicia goes, voted out 6-1, and she is shocked enough to remark, "somebody turned." Wow, yathink? At least once this week, Alicia mentioned that, while she had a handshake agreement with Rob, she didn't trust him very much. Why does no one ever act on these hunches? But the real question is, can Rob still maintain his alliances now that he's showed that the voting doesn't stick to its predetermined order? The answer is, my yes! They can't see anything unless he tells them to see it. A smart Rob would've instructed some people to split the Alicia vote a little, so it would at least appear that his alliance kept their word. Also, by telling Tom that Alicia was on her way out, it's surprising Tom didn't realize what was going on.

Alicia manages to proclaim, in closing, that she's had enough. Now she's on the jury, if Rob is in the final two, then starting then, she's going to start playing. I told you. At least once per episode. It's sad that it takes these people being eliminated for them to manage to wake up to reality. Playing a strategy game like this requires constant engagement. You can't play a little and then cool your heels for days and days.

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