Wed, November 15, 2006

Twists. I suppose we must regard them as a necessary evil in the reality genre, since the more established shows quiver in fear of becoming stale or predictable in the face of a continued onslaught of lesser imitators. This is a problem that can and should be solved with better casting, but reality producers much prefer twists. They're not always a bad thing, really. The Amazing Race has introduced two new twists this year – the "Intersection," which forces teams to pair up temporarily, and the "Marked for Elimination" concept, which represents a more equitable handicap for the last team to check in on a non-elimination leg. (Instead of forfeiting all their belongings, teams keep their stuff and must finish first in the next leg or face a 30 minute penalty. This would be a lot more interesting if these subsequent legs didn't always feature a Fast-Forward.) For the most part, I love both of these twists.

Survivor has had far less success. Its long and miserable "twistory" (har!) is scarred by such duds as random team shuffles, purple rocks, the "Outcasts," the mini immunity idol, the tribes divided by race, and now this "mutiny" bullshit. Rather than adding something to the game's existing strategy or obstacles, these twists merely throw a random wrench into an ongoing game. The mutiny twist doesn't give an advantage to the better players, nor does it offer a reversal of fortune for a few stragglers. It just... changes things in a random and meaningless way. Fittingly, this comes along right at the time it can do maximum damage to the guy I like.

(That guy is Jonathan, by the way. I'm not really rooting for anyone – I rarely do, unless she's way hot – but I'd kind of prefer it if Jon were to win. He's not as great as he seemed when I first selected him, but he's still better than most of the other options and I feel honor-bound to stick up for him despite his flaws because I picked him as my favorite at the very start. Around the house, he's referred to by the nickname "Studio 60.")

Jonathan is still great because he tries to think strategically whenever he can. However, it's increasingly common that he bases his strategy on incomplete information; in this week's example, he has an entirely inaccurate impression of how strong his alliance is with Candice. Also, he's pretty boorish in social interactions – and if we've learned one unfortunate fact in 13 seasons of this shit, it's that all the strategic genius in the world can't save you if you don't play to win the popularity contest. (Not counting the first season, of course.) But I still like him, because he attempts to be reasonable. It's by no means a bellwether of Survivor success, but it's rare for a Survivor contestant, and I cherish it. (Also, given the choice, I will root for the Arrested Development cast member in any situation. Between saving a drowning relative and shaking Tony Hale's hand, I am ashamed to say I might have to side with Buster.)

So, things that seem to be unfolding in an entirely innocuous way are actually contributing – along with the mutiny twist – to a perfect storm which will cause Jon to self-destruct his best chance at victory, all while thinking he's making a smart choice.

At first, things are rosy for the five-person alliance at Aitu. They're all committed to stick together, to eliminate Ozzy as a threat as soon as possible, and to soldier on to victory after the merge. But Candice doesn't want to stick with this alliance, and wants it to break up so she can ally with Adam and Parvati after the merge. She brings this up to Jon, not to invite him to that alliance, but to seed dissent within the Aitu alliance, in hopes of cracking it apart from within. He misinterprets this as a solicitation to form a final four alliance among the remaining white people (not my favorite group, but at least it'll resemble most previous final fours).

Here we must pause momentarily to discuss an inherent limitation on any discussion of the strategy on Survivor. As I've noted repeatedly in the past, we're constrained by what the editors give us. If they want to tell the "Candice is obsessed with Adam and Parvati" story, that's what we're stuck with – even when it flies in the face of all logic, the footage from the show is the only information we really have to estimate the motivations of these wackjobs.

On his surprisingly awesome, insightful blog, Dilbert creator Scott Adams has coined an online acronym – like LOL or IMHO – for discussions that depend on assumptions or generalizations. To get to the meat of an issue, he adds BOCTAOE (But Of Course There Are Obvious Exceptions) after those parts of his idea that need only be generally true for the idea to work – to preemptively rebut any hair-splitting counterarguments that may bicker over peripheral details. These days, the term rarely shows up; it's assumed the reader can fill in the occasional BOCTAOE along the way. Similarly, I think readers of the onebee Survivor columns must fill in the occasional OSTEWHUB when necessary: Candice has spent every moment on the Aitu team waiting to reunite with Adam and Parvati, without any interest in bonding with the people she's stayed with the last few weeks – Or So The Editors Would Have Us Believe.

Because in reality it just doesn't make any sense. I can't fathom any logical reason Candice would behave the way she does, as we see it, in this episode. The best guesses I can come up with:

1. She's a crazy, crazy racist and refuses to befriend anyone other than white people like Adam and Parvati.

2. She has no sense of identity outside the framework of her friends, and cannot operate apart from the attractive people in the cool clique.

3. She fell in love with Adam at first sight, the same way Billy fell for her.

4. She has an insane, Rudy-level attachment to alliances, and despite the reshuffling of teams, she remains beholden only to the very first alliance she made with those two.

And none of these hold up to even the simplest logic! A quick scan of her profile on CBS.com reveals that Candice Woodcock (dude, she should totally be on 'Til Death!), who turned 24 this week, spent three months in Kenya teaching schoolchildren, has participated as a fundraising organizer for programs that send aid to students in developing African countries, and has worked in a D.C.-based Latino free clinic. All of this suggests that, despite growing up in North Carolina, she's probably not a hateful racist. And both of the people I know personally who have gone and volunteered in developing African countries are extremely outgoing and make friends easily, so it seems unlikely that Candice is incapable of making new friends on the Aitu team.

I also think it's unlikely she's motivated by a crush on Adam, as cuddly as she is with him. She's clearly an intelligent and attractive woman, so this is by no means the first hunky guy she's been close to. (Also, he's kind of an ass.) And her history and behavior suggest someone way too independent to define herself only in terms of his attention.

So, maybe she's nuts about alliances (she swore on Shane's son or something), or allowing her feelings for Adam to completely cloud her judgment in the game. Or maybe her bond with Adam and Parvati, forged over just six days, is somehow stronger than that with Yul or Becky, whom she's spent far more time with – pausing as recently as a day ago to say she was "in love with everyone I can see." Despite a number of seemingly intelligent moves in the past, she's actually a notch below Amber Brkich in terms of her ability to assign relative priority to emotion and strategy in this game. OSTEWHUB.

Because this is what happens: when Coach Probst announces the mutiny twist, which allows anyone to voluntarily abandon their team and switch to the other, she's the only one to step forward. Jon, believing she's his tightest ally, and believing he and Candice will be greeted as liberators by Adam and Parvati, follows her. Nobody else budges.

Not even Brad, who's on the outs with the rest of Raro and seems to be as sick of them as they are of him. Everyone stays put; I think most people rightly detect that Survivor is generally thought of as a "team game" up until the merge. Even though this twist allows it to become an "individual game" earlier, it's still traditionally in "team" mode and you're going to alienate a lot of people by breaking up a team. If this were the third season in which the mutiny had come up, and people were expecting it and planning for it, and had secret agreements about who they'd like to be able to ally with, then perhaps more people would be accepting Probst's offer. Frankly, I think if even one person from Raro had switched to Aitu, the twist might have been seen as, "It's a twist! People are switching around! It's crazy!" Instead, with just Jon and Candice going from Aitu to Raro, the consensus seems to be, "It's a trap! They've betrayed us!" It's a game of strategy and (like it or not) dumb twists. You can't really blame people for taking advantage of the twists if they think it will help their strategy; it's a big unknown in a game full of unknowns. However, you can't blame everyone else for being upset when they do, either.

I think it's a dumb move specifically for Jon and Candice, but I think someone like Brad or Ozzy might have benefited from it. (If no one else were switching, of course; as it is, with Jon and Candice going, Ozzy arguably benefits the most out of anyone just by staying put.) It's a misstep for Jon for obvious reasons, but I think it's a bigger error for Candice, and points to emotion instead of strategy as her decision-making rudder. If she's really as tight with Adam and Parvati as she believes, she'd be best served by staying put at Aitu, eliminating Ozzy (a huge threat to everyone, post-merge) and keeping Yul, Becky, and Jon as allies. Then, after the merge, she can use their numbers to get rid of people like Jenny and Nate, then jump ship to huddle with Adam and Parvati after it's too late for anyone to threaten them.

The newly formed Raro is twice the size of the newly decimated Aitu, so they sit four people out, and Adam, Nate, Candice, and Jenny compete against Ozzy, Yul, Becky, and Sundra for some letters from home and (surprise!) a big pile of food. The guys on each team must stuff the girls into barrels, roll them along an obstacle course, then float them – bruised and nauseated – out across a lagoon to dive for some flags, which they'll return to shore and hoist up a flagpole by digging up an axe and chopping through a rope. All in a day's work for your average Survivor contestant, but Aitu takes a commanding lead quickly because Nate and Adam don't think to pull themselves across the lagoon using the rope, so the current quickly takes their barrel irreversibly off course. Ozzy mistakenly celebrates this as a victory of loyalists over traitors, but really it's just a dumb error made by two guys who didn't mutiny in the first place. (He also seems to think it's a David/Goliath thing, since Aitu is so small, but really it's still a four-on-four challenge.) Ozzy declares war on Jon and Candice for betraying Aitu – an extreme reaction (when is he not?) but an understandable emotion. Candice is exiled, forced to endure one more night away from her special pals. Ozzy stares daggers at her. Sundra bursts into tears.

While enjoying a brunch buffet of far more food than they could healthily eat, Aitu giggles over some old photos of each other and reads their letters from home. Ozzy declares that Jon and Candice's betrayal has merely solidified the remaining team's dedication to each other – yet another fine argument against accepting the mutiny offer. Jon and Candice are operating without a net; if their alliance with Adam and Parvati doesn't work out the way they plan, they're screwed. And jury management is going to be very difficult – with four people who automatically hate them for life, the only way either can expect to win is in a final two with the other.

Candice and Jon aren't hesitating to display their unsound strategic reasoning, either. Exiled, Candice pouts, "I've been waiting this whole time to get back with my friends Adam and Parvati." Jesus. This whole time? There's no way to hold the editors accountable for that. Vote her off immediately.

Perhaps in an effort to appear non-threatening, Jon is making similar blunders at camp with his new Raro teammates. He instantly reveals that he mutinied because of his alliance with Candice, which should make everyone else suspicious of any future offers to ally with him. He interviews that he may have been a tad impulsive, following Candice to Raro. Considering how he likely would have fared in his 4-1 alliance at Aitu, I'd say yes. He's attempting to seem open and unassuming, but from the reactions at Raro, he's coming off blustery and boring. OSTEWHUB.

Adam, for one, appreciates Jon's work ethic, and is receptive to the idea of grouping with him, Parvati, and Candice. It paints a picture of Adam just coasting along, waiting for someone to propose an alliance to him. Given Adam's attitude so far, this seems pretty accurate. ("Here I am. Gaze upon my greatness, and offer me favors.") Nate, on the other hand, is furious with Jon and will never trust him after watching him betray Aitu. He also sees the mutiny as an intrusion, since nobody invited Jon to Raro. (Yet another good reason to pass on the mutiny option.)

And it's time for the immunity challenge! The challenge designers are spending this week in time-out, because this game was clearly designed by high schoolers spending their summer at MIT's Rube Goldberg Labs. Teams must row a glass bottom boat over a large metal target at the bottom of the lagoon. Once they've aligned a crosshairs on the boat with a crosshairs on the target, they release a cannonball to disengage two floating buoys from underwater. Do this three times, then bring all the buoys back to land and unscramble them to spell the word "Bounty" in response to the easiest (and theme-iest) trivia question in Survivor history. Coach Probst is narrating relentlessly as always, helpfully pointing out, "This challenge demands that you work together well!" Not as much as Probst demands it, of course. Maybe he and the producers actually think of the show as a little Outward Bound exercise. "We're just trying to mold you into better people before sending you back to the States!"

All this leads to the following exchange, which – as Arksie has previously noted – is the single most fantastic moment in Survivor history:

Coach Probst: Raro just wasted a cannonball! They weren't paying attention!

Jonathan: Oh, please, Jeff.

You can see why it irks Jon. Probst does tend to editorialize in these situations. "If only these dopes would pay attention and see the value of teamwork!" Obviously, someone has decided this is the way to go: Either CBS focus groups demand this sort of snippery; or Burnett thinks it makes for easier editing; or Probst has simply decided it's the best way to anchor the show and he's too much of a fixture for anyone to convince him otherwise. It's clearly an intentional inclusion; it's too constant to be otherwise.

It kind of makes me wish Phil Keoghan would be turned loose on the Amazing Race contestants in the same way. His 10-second interactions with them sometimes include a little advice, but he never gets to say, "You guys totally misread the clue, you stupid fools!" and some of them could really use that.

Anyway, Jon just forgot to re-clasp the little cannonball device before loading a new ball and it resulted in a cannonball slipping through unintentionally. Given the number of cannonballs at their disposal, this "waste" is unlikely to affect the outcome. This doesn't change how true Coach Probst's narration is, but it makes it easy to understand why Jon thinks he's overdoing it. Continued:

Coach Probst: What's that?

Jonathan: I said, "Oh, please."

Coach Probst: Jonathan, getting frustrated by me!

This quite simply cuts all the way to the core of Coach Probst and displays him for exactly the sad little man he truly is. And it. Is. Priceless. First, you'll notice Probst also adds, "Day 21!" as if to say, "Fatigue and malnutrition have made him cranky! It's certainly not a matter of me being an insufferable douche!" More importantly, you'll note that he does not say, "Me, getting on Jonathan's nerves!" The subject is always Jonathan, or some other competitor. Probst just sees himself as part of the backdrop, the obstacle course, something the contestants have to deal with but not something that can take any action on its own.

But what's particularly beautiful is Probst's insistence on barking out every occurrence in the form of an excited, third-person, stream of consciousness play-by-play. Presumably, this is for the home viewer, and in some cases to aid the competitors in gauging who's leading and by how much. Of course, "Jonathan, getting frustrated by me!" satisfies neither case. It's just Probst being Probst. You have to imagine him at home: "Julie, demanding the remote!" "Julie, rebuffing my amorous advances!" "Julie, tragically forgetting our 'safe word!'" I don't think the exchange would be half as wonderful without the "What's that?" part, because that's the part where he breaks character. He doesn't bellow, "Jon, saying something I didn't quite catch!" There's a brief admission that Probst operates on a plane where he can interact with the players, then – just as quickly – it's gone.

There was a scene earlier this season where the teams were far enough apart that one team was launching a raft into the ocean while the other was still behind, running out of the jungle and onto the beach. Probst was running with them, directly in the way of the camera's view, hollering about what the lead team was doing as he ran, while looking back to check the status of the trailing team. The challenges are fast-paced and unpredictable, and there's no take two. It's the hardest part of Probst's job, and simultaneously the most effortless. He's on his own to referee, observe, and narrate – no matter how the challenge unfolds – and he takes it very seriously. But he's had so much practice, it seems to be second nature. (Maybe he drills with flash cards in his down time: "The rabbit, running across the field!" "The woman, writing a friendly letter!" "Lowly Worm, driving the fire engine! Teamwork is the key!") Is Probst letting his guard down to ask "What's that?", or is he still on the job? Is it a rare moment where he must talk to a contestant in order to do his work? Is Probst the Guy simply collecting information for Probst the Narrator?

Anyway, Raro loses again. (The karma of betrayal!) It's as it was meant to be: the producers wouldn't stand for Aitu to get up on a high horse about how despicable the mutineers are and then have to vote off one of their own. Nor would they allow the mutineers to bring so much chaos and confusion to Raro and not probe that drama in Tribal Council.

Adam concocts a semi-plausible reason to defer the elimination of Jonathan, with whom he was still allied the last time we checked. He tells Nate that Jon will be easier to pick off post-merge, because he won't be able to ally with any of the Aitu people now that he's betrayed them. Brad, someone they both also want gone, could seek refuge with the Aitu team – so they should get rid of him first. Nate interviews that this will require him to act like Jon is going so Brad won't get suspicious. (Not really; Brad was already the next to go, so it's unlikely he'd be able to find anyone at Raro to save him, even if you told him to his face he was the object of the upcoming vote. But Survivor contestants love the blindside move!) As Nate describes it, he'll need to "put a Denzel on."

I feel the need to say something here. I like Nate okay, but what is wrong with him? At the start, when he was choosing to exile Jonathan based on some alleged chicken theft back on the big boat, he said, "Karma's a bizzle!" invoking that Snoop-talk that went out as soon as it showed up in Old Navy commercials two years ago. At the recent dual TribCon, he glanced over at Aitu's food and exclaimed, "Snap! That smells good over there!" I kept ignoring it, hoping it would go away. But, "put a Denzel on"?! Come on, seriously. He tries harder to sound black than most suburban white kids do.

Next, we see Nate pull Brad aside, walk him over to the fire, and put an arm around him. "We're all good," he says. I think Nate needs to see Training Day again. This is not the sort of move Denzel would use. Announcing, "So! Things are certainly fine between us!" is not something you typically do in a situation where that's actually true.

Then Candice is chatting with Adam, while Jenny hangs around nearby. She's already explained to Parvati that she and Jon don't have the alliance he's been saying they do – portraying him as a sleazy liar, rather than someone she's misled. Now she's repeating how much she missed Adam and Parvati. She says she wishes she could have convinced Aitu to exile someone other than Adam – as in one of the other people listening to her tell this story. People whose trust she will probably be asking for in the near future! She absolutely does not have her head in the game at all. This is the worst gameplay I think I've ever seen (with the possible exception of any All-Star who neglected to eliminate AmbeRob while they still had the numbers to do it). I suppose this answers the question of what the hell she was doing with all that flirting at the joint TribCon: her sole motivation is snuggling, to the exclusion of any strategy or tact. If anyone were paying attention to this, they'd vote her out 6-2 right now. Her allegiance is laid painfully bare in front of everyone! I'm going to chalk this one up to my blind spot for strategic idiocy when it comes to hot chicks. I was very, very wrong. She needs to go. Now.

She continues, planting lies about how Jonathan specifically targeted Adam for exile and said things like Adam was weak and afraid of Exile Island. Besides being ridiculously illogical (could anyone assert with a straight face that Adam is a weak guy?) this is not something we've ever seen Jon say. But she knows her audience, because although Adam is built like a guy who should be pretty secure about his strength, he's actually very upset about this perceived assault on his hunky masculinity. He's immediately angry, and tempted to "go beat [Jon's] ass." Candice got the desired effect! She wants to wall Adam off from everyone and take him to the final two, and she doesn't have another thought about the game. After all, if you go to F2 with your boyfriend, you get engaged, right? Then it doesn't matter who wins!

Adam and Nate engage in some macho chest-thumping about what a weak punk Jon is. About a day ago, Nate was at best the fifth person to be voted off, as Adam joined up with Jon's white alliance. Now Nate is Adam's dog, his go-to boy to talk about how badly he wants to beat Jon down. Clearly, Jon is now the next guy to go (after Brad), because the only way he could avoid it would be to convince Adam that Candice is lying, and I'm pretty confident Jon couldn't get two words out about Candice without Adam throwing a right hook in defense of her honor. Interestingly, nobody is concerned that Jon might have the mini idol.

At TribCon, further proof that Candice is a complete fucking idiot. While she musters the presence of mind to mask her real intent in switching teams (she fails to say, "I wanted to sleep with Adam"), her fake reasons are hilarious: partly because Raro is the "more fun" team, partly because – her words – "They win when it counts." Apparently she's oblivious to the irony that this is Tribal Council, which is pretty much where you go when the team is not winning when it counts.

Next week: Jenny is sick of Adam and Candice constantly canoodling. I refuse to get my hopes up that someone might find a way to topple the AmbeRob approach to this game.

POLL:

CBS Mailbag

Which letter from home would you most like to read?

	Ozzy: smear of mud and tree sap, Baloo's paw print
	Yul: Consider leveraging strategic synergies for optimum dynamic throughput.
	Sundra: You got a callback for "Curtains" – can you be in New York on Tuesday?
	Becky: Your backpack slipped out from under the electron microscope and we're afraid we've lost it.

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