Thu, October 14, 2004

Is it okay that I just dread writing Survivor columns any more? I don't think it's just me – the show has become boring to an unprecedented degree. I'm thinking of hiring a journalism student part-time to do the writing for me. It's basically refrigerator poetry anyway: toss in a few references to the Olsen twins and the hate-bot, and out comes a Survivor column.

Maybe I should take on the Wonkette live blogging approach. I tried it out a little during that Braves game. Because I've never been so crestfallen as when one of my brilliant Survivor bons mots never sees the light of day because I'm too bored to write the column that was supposed to surround it. For example, the finale of All-Stars (that which we do not speak of) never got written up, because by the time I sat down to write the column, the show was over and had already become completely meaningless. And I was so proud of my line about that Giant Boa Constrictor of Foreshadowing that Burnett kept using throughout the show. Something about how by the end of Survivor: All-Stars, the damn thing was going to have its SAG card. The effort required to put gems like that in the context of a whole column was enough to knock me out cold, but if I'd simply included it in a laundry list of smart-alecky remarks... gold!

(I, by the way, have never written out a list of clothes I want to wash. Is this a case of alliteration eclipsing a more logical turn of phrase like "grocery list"?)

The problem with this season is that somehow both teams have quickly lit upon a nice, steady voting strategy and nothing pre-merge is going to change that. People whose strategy in Survivor consists entirely of their physical strength are outnumbered by those – not necessarily "older," but wiser – who don't plan to rest on their brawny laurels and wait for the million to be handed to them. So, the older alliances are eliminating the younger alliances, and it doesn't really seem to be hurting them any. Well played. However, there isn't much to speak of, stragegy-wise, and there won't be until the merge or until at least another three or four Tribal Councils, when the "younguns" will be gone and the alliances will be left to feast on their own entrails.

You can tell it burns the producers up, too. Just look at the CBS website. They've got a poll about the voting strategy, and the question is so loaded it wouldn't even pass the Karl Rove "ring of truth" test for push-polling in the South.

"Realize their mistake"? What if it isn't a mistake? Seems like a nice way to level out the post-merge (if there's going to be a merge) playing field to me. And so far, challenges have rarely been lost due to a lack of physical strength on either side, so they're not getting rid of people they desperately need. Even phrasing the question "strongest members" is disputable.

Anyway, so far the answer is "Yep." Lopevi continues to eliminate younger, more muscular contestants, including Karen's boyfriend Brady. He seems to me like the more likable one – I figured he'd outlast John K. because he's a little older and appears to get along with the team as a whole. However, the elders clearly woo John K. over to their side in a unanimous vote against Brady, so maybe that flexibility is enough reason to spare him. We don't hear the answer when John asks, "What are you guys able to offer?" but my guess is that it goes something like: "Not being voted off. It's five-to-two, dude." John also says, in an interview, that he "can't stand the way this tribe ended up." Which, considering the way it ended up is "not with John winning," sounds pretty reasonable.

At the reward challenge, which is not preceded by an all-night makeover for Twila as Ami promised – we'll see if that affects her status in the alliance – the teams compete in a game of Memory with various island-based items. (Don't confuse the statuette with the tam-tam!) Except, imagine you're an inch tall and you're standing at one edge of the Memory board. A fairly simple matching game is rendered hugely complex by the fact that there's no overview of the grid. If ever a challenge called out for one team member to stand on an elevated platform and be the "eyes," it's this one.

The ladies win fairly quickly because the men are – let's face it – pretty dumb. They like to point at the location where they believe the next piece will be uncovered, and they fail to adjust their play when it becomes clear that every time they attempt to find a match, they're setting up Yasur. Once one of everything has been shown, the turns alternate between the guys revealing the whereabouts of a companion item and the girls finding its match. They just keep doing that. To me, they should immediately uncover two things they've already seen. They'd lose the chance to make a match on that turn but they'd gain the advantage of position, which Phil Hellmuth will tell you is huge. (If memory serves – ha! – the actual rules of Memory dictate that you get another turn if you uncover a match. If Probst would let them play this way, Lopevi could wriggle out from under this position issue, but no.) So, the guys don't try too hard, but I'll give Brady credit for "acting out" the palm frond when he uncovers it. If you'd asked me, I couldn't have told you what a palm frond does. There's no palm frond position on the See-N-Say. But Brady nails it.

Anyway, Lopevi loses, and Yasur gets the reward: Dah, a dark-skinned bushman of their very own to do chores around the camp. Sadly, he doesn't come with monocles and white plantation-owner suits for the ladies to wear while he works. But I'm sure Dah is plenty happy with the situation. If he spoke more English, he'd be pointing out to these ladies that in his culture, the women bare their breasts at all times. He proceeds to climb trees and chop down planatains, construct a bamboo mattress for them, and show them edible greenery and other survival tips. I'm curious what the audition process was for Dah. Did Burnett just step out of a Hummer and point to him, as if he were sitting at the entrance to the Home Depot parking lot? Or was there an exhaustive interview process? It would be hilarious if Dah fudged his résumé: "Uh, sorry ladies. All I know how to do is make sock puppets and ants-on-a-log." He cooks and builds, and the ladies of Yasur pick up Mirna and Schmirna's approach, attempting to talk to him in English with a heavy Dah accent.

Meanwhile, at Lopevi, the guys aren't taking the loss so well. They're forcing Rory to dress up in a loincloth and pretend to be Dah. No, not really. They're just talking back and forth about who they'll be voting for, as if it hasn't already been decided.

Then it's time for another gay tree mail poem. Why must the contestants always be complicit in the tree mail poetry? Does someone force them at gunpoint to read the poem in that singsong way? The poem tells them to compete for immunity, which challenge Probst explains to be about lining up tiles of four colors, with four painted symbols, in such a way that no row or column has two of the same color, or symbol. This is a sixth-grade math test problem. You line 'em up so that there are diagonals going in opposite directions. Diagonals of symbols going one way, diagonals of colors going the other way. Boom. Done. The ladies figure this out pretty quickly; the guys struggle all the way through. I don't think any of these guys can be described as fitting among the team's "strongest members." They head to Tribal Council, mumble some ineffective phrases at Probst, and then vote off Brady. Even though he caught a few tiny fish! I guess it's like they say: the TribCon marker is mightier than the Hawaiian sling.

I'm looking forward to the cameo next week by some boiling hot magma.

POLL:

"Opinion Poll"

Will Lopevi keep voting out their strongest members?

	No, because the death penalty is not a deterrent for criminals.
	No, because human life begins at conception.
	No, because the physical laws of the universe are proof that God exists.
	No, because Instant Replay is destroying the NFL.

© onebee · all rights reserved