Say what you will about Mark Burnett, Survivor continues to be a top performer, now in it's ninth season. The first episode often mimics that of Big Brother, because all of the players pretty much want to avoid having to always carry the stigma of "first one voted off" with them forever. After that first tribal council, things become a little more interesting and reality begins to settle in. You have to boil your water, food is no longer a simple task like going to the salad bar at Gelson's., and pretty much everything you eat is going to have some sort of maggot infestation problem. That's not going to be good for business you say? That's not going to be good for anyone.
Lopevi, the all-male all the time tribe, is still trying to get some fire, having failed to win it in the first elimination challenge. With a lot of effort, they get really close. But only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, so when it starts to rain, the men give up and believe they are cursed. God, if only they had some good luck charm to get them going. With no way cook any food, Lopevi has already started eating worms for the protein. It seems at times Sarge wants to chew off Chad's other leg at this point.
The Yasur Tribe, our plucky group of determined women, has fire, so things should be easy, right? That's the attitude a number of them choose to take, namely Mia, Julie, Lisa, Dolly and Eliza. They have the numbers, so they spend a lot of time sitting idly by as the rest of the women struggle to do the work. Apparently, they have never read Marx. There are times when they all get together to get some work done, like when they were foraging for food and Lisa climbed on top of two of her tribemates to machete down some plantains. I guess they picked her because she is light, but why don't you put Twila up there? She would have gnawed the whole tree down by herself faster than anybody could have cut down the tree. They are boiling their plantains into some sort of mush, only to discover that there are lots of maggots inside when they take a bite. I don't know, they looked OK to me, at least they were cooked! It's better than the cold ones the guys were throwing back. Twila had no problem, and it looks like she is one step closer to beating down some of her younger teammates. She argues that they aren't on vacation, and people shouldn't be complaining because they should have expected it to be hard.
Meanwhile, John P. asks Travis if he was a name mentioned to leave instead of Brook. Travis tells him that he was, and that he is a huge threat with his physical prowess and good looks. This quickly denigrates into a stupid little argument over who is a threat and why some people would vote certain people out, and who is more deserving to be in the game, etc. etc. Everybody knows where the break in this camp comes from, and the older vs. younger is going to be a struggle the whole season. At Yasur, people are also seeing the division, and Dolly has become the ultimate swing player. The older and wisers think they can convince her to vote for Eliza, because she talks to much and is annoying. The younger girls think they can convince her to vote for Leann. I have to take a time out here to talk a little bit about the shots the producers are using during this season, and what the casting folks were thinking when they put this group together. We know Ami has had breast augmentation, and I can assure you that Lisa is in the same boat. Her right boob almost exploded as she was going for the plantains. On top of this, they take pleasure any time Ami wears her bikini and they go anywhere on the island with her. I'm not complaining, but god it's so obvious. Another obvious point is that Ami has a lot more savvy than people probably give her credit for.
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Comments (3)
yep, j-unit, it's all about ami's hooters. i spent a couple of hazy years in the late 90s as a waitstaff/service type in Denver, and those boobies look really familiar.
Had to admit I was hoping they'd ditch blabber-mouth Eliza first, but Dolly's comeuppance was well-earned for her pitiless targeting of the apparently good-natured and helpful Leanne. Farmgirl my ass. Those Heidi braids weren't fooling anybody. Still, I can't figure why the young 'uns didn't recruit the others to gang up on Scout, who seems like a really cool lady but is totally worthless in challenges. There seems once again to be a trend towards targeting the strong first, which is foolish, since every team that's tried to pull that trick in past Survivors has entered the merge at a numbers disadvantage and ended up being systematically eliminated (the most glaring examples being Rob M.'s coup against mega-stud Hunter in Marquesas and psycho Lex's decision to boot Colby and Ethan instead of the much-hated Jerri in All-Stars).
Which sucks mostly for us viewers, who get stuck watching losers like Vecepia, Am-bah, or the pornstar/used car salesman cash a check for a cool mil while we're stuck on the couch drinking Schlitz and smoking 305's.
1 of 3 | Posted by jack | Posted on September 24, 2004 9:45 AM
Scout seems nice but should've been booted instead of Dolly. I mean come on people.
Kick that Rory guy out, he is a drama queen.
Otherwise I don't really care too much yet. Even though I'm watching it, I don't know the people well enough. I like it when the numbers get smaller.
Oh yeah, ENOUGH WITH THE ANIMAL ABUSE/KILLING!!! If they keep that up, I will definetly stop watching and write them angry letters!!!
2 of 3 | Posted by Genevieve | Posted on September 27, 2004 10:05 AM
if you havent noticed they got the one brotha on there that they want out one day into the show,aint that a damn surprise.I felt outraged by the whole ordeal,and i believe that Johnny Cochrane should be informed of such malicious travesties in progress.
3 of 3 | Posted by Jan | Posted on September 29, 2004 9:56 PM