Posted on 08/26/2002 4:36:57 PM PDT by YourAdHere
Survivor V kicks off on Thursday September 19th, and since a lot of us Freepers had fun speculating on Marquesas, I thought it would be fun to start a thread on the upcoming series.
The bios are out, which you can check out here, and there's already been scandal associated with two of the castaways.
First there's Brian, an actor/used car salesman, who neglected to tell the show that he had a few "blue" movies in his past. They cast a porn star!
Then there's Tonya. Her story could have a lasting impact on the outcome of the show. Shortly before filming came to an end, Tonya's father back in Tennessee was tragically killed in a car accident. Reports are that she was immediately evacuated from the island.
If Tonya was one of the first 7 people ejected from the show, then her departure would have no impact on the outcome. However, if she made it past the merger and either onto the jury or in the final two, then that could mean one less vote in the final two, or something even stranger. Only time will tell.
Last week's theme was pirates, this week it's snakes. Thailand is absolutely full of them. And this show added 16 more to the mix. We don't go 5 minutes without seeing a shot of a snake, excpet when Jeff Probst is on the screen. Maybe they're trying to tell us something. We are really look at the newly discovered Probst snake. Watch out, they're venomous.
The show starts in its traditional opening, with a night time camera on the losers camp. Sook Jai suffered their first immunity loss, and voted Jed off the tribe, for a net gain. We hear several comments that they voted him off because he was bossy, trying to run things his way. From what we saw on screen, we can only conclude he must have been talking in his sleep. Robb is surprised he didn't get any votes - he'd expected at least one. This shows a marked increase in Robb's awareness of his surroundings.
With Jed gone, though, they tribe members must begin jokeying among themselves for position as head jerk - next to be voted off. Robb's lead in this competition appears insurmountable, but Stephanie is quite ready to rise to the challenge. After another night spent sleeping in the rain while eveyone else stays in their hut, she displays her remarkable social graces while hunting for food. While the tide is out, she hits the beach and begins picking up dead squid. Now, this is a great idea - easy food, right there, for a nearly starving tribe. With anyone else, this would boost their standing at least a notch or two. But rain gal is well prepared for that, and has a way to avoid such a dire fate. She refuses any help, and dumps the squid with nary a word, but a facial expression of complete contempt. If only she'd remembered to bring a copy of "How to Win Friends and Influence People" as her luxury item! While every one else eats the bounty she provided, she wisely sits off away from every one else to sulk, thus ensuring she will not have to suffer through any attempts at friendship or comaraderie.
While the Suckies have one person trying to be a royal pain, Chewing Gum is suffering from a massive overload of them. Ghandia continues in her valiant attempt to play divide and conquer. She's getting the division part down pat, and we assume she'll eventually get around to the conquer bit, but maybe not. She spends her time telling, and re-telling, her story to Helen, and also trying to build an alliance to pick off the men. We expect to cut to a scene of a snake, but the editors surprise us. We get to see a couple of ants tearing apart a large grub of some type. We are impressed with the editors' grasp of Ghandia's prominence. The men, on the other hand, decide that this is the time to go fishing. Their idea of fishing involves sitting in the ocean, watching the net and hoping some fish will swin into it. Jed would've fit in well in Chewing Gum.
The idyll in paradise must come to an end, as the contestants return to the hard work of a reward challenge. Each tribe get a huge sack dummy person. These dummies are huge and don't move, so a lot like Ted. They're stuffed with sand, and can't think, a lot like Robb (only less annoying). So each tribe can already feel at home with these new members. Now they have to name and decorate them - the tribes fail to draw the connections I just did, somehow. Chewing Gum manages to work together despite Ted and Ghandia steadfastly pretending the other doesn't exist. They make their dummy a girl, and call her Chuay Gal. They paint her orange, put a coconut bra on her, and some straw hair, for a passably decorated person. The Suckies go at it in a different fashion. They work together to decide to give their dummy the name of a fierce warrior, such as that well known Thai conquerer, Genghis Khan. Then Stephanie somehow takes over the painting, while everyone else is excluded, so they can stand around and watch her. She does a good job on it, to be fair, but the martyr complex bit is getting old.
The Probst snake slithers on screen to explain the new challenge. The two teams must carry their new member around an island. At one end of the island is a steep hill, which they'll need to pull themselves and their buddy up and over the other side. Sook Jai sits Shii Ahn out of this one. The Suckies get an early lead, and maintain it throughout the race, but there is still plenty of amusement to be had. The dummies weigh 250 pounds, and Thailand is hot, so we a second contest going on. If only the Probst snake had asked which tribe could produce the most sweat, Chewing Gum could have had it hands down. In the Suckies, Jake is leading in the sweat competition, and is barely holding on by the time they get over-the-hill (Ooh, is that a subtle dig by the producers or what?) Erin's synthetic parts apparently don't produce sweat, but Stephanie helps make up the difference. But Ken and Robb can carry a lot, and Penny hangs in there gamely, giving them an easy win. In Chewing Gum, meanwhile, Ted leads in the sweat competition, with enough to fill a small lake. But that's probably because he appears to be carrying the whole dummy himself. Jan and Clay are barely making a pretense of carrying it by the time they're over-the-hill, while Ghandia is holding on for dear life and letting Ted pull her. Helen and Brian barely sweat at all, which probably shows how much they're carrying, although they do a far better job of faking it. Chewing Gum is behind after the hill (even I fear beating the over-the-hill thing into the bush), and falls even futher behind after that.
The Suckies win a whole bunch of bananas, and a mystery food to be revealed when they get back to camp. We all expect to learn who the food sponsors are at that time, but it's mysteriously not Doritos, Snickers, or any other such branded products, but the traditional Survivor chickens. Robb realizes that chickens lay eggs, and graciously shares his observation with Shii Ann. Then he tells Ken, and then Penny. After all, they might not have realized this yet, and insights this brilliant must be shared. The tribe gets down to business with the bananas. The cameramen spend a lot of time showing us Erin eating her bananas. Their focus is clear, with the shots going from, um, the "upper torso" to the mouth.
But the stars of this show are the Chewing Gummers. We switch back there to watch them split themselves into two tribes. Ted and Clay complain about Ghandia's laziness in the contest, while she dragged them back. They do this, of course, while strolling along the beach on their way to a nice lie-down. Ghandia, while hacking up plants for a stew, bitches with Helen, who is busy cleaning pots, about how Ted and Clay are putting her down. She screws up her face in her best attempt at a hick accent to make fun of Clay, and we all become convinced that she should not try to turn her Survivor stint into an acting career. Helen laps up all the scorn heaped on the men, as Ghandia says they're too lazy around camp. Brian does his level best to back them up, by lying down right across from them. On camera, he gives a speech about men and women's natural roles, justifying them doing all the cooking and cleaning. I will studiously refrain from any further comments about that speech, on the off chance that my wife reads this review. Let's just say I don't expect any NOW members to be patronizing his car dealership in the future.
After much too short a time enjoying the treachery of mankind, we come to this week's immunity challenge. The Probst snake hisses at them, and says that since the reward challenge was physical, the immunity challenge will be mental. They will have to rearrange a bunch of tiles to form two pictures. The suckies sit Stephanie out of this one, since we all know Robb's mental capabilities are so much higher than hers. While everyone can yell comments, only two tribe members may move the tiles around for each puzzle. Chewing Gum delights us all by putting Ghandia on one of the puzzles, and that's all she wrote. Her skills at puzzle solving remain just as high as they were in episode 1. Shii Ann, in the meantime, redeems herself for her catty comments after last week's puzzle challenge, by performing very well on her puzzle. Sook Jai gains immunity, and we all look forward to a 3-3 split in Chewing Gum. Will they have another dumb way to handle ties this season?
We never get to find out. Ghandia gets Jan to agree the women must vote together, but Jan insists they vote out Clay, since he's the one splitting the tribe. Her eyesight must be going, since she can't see the tribe splitter talking to her. Ghandia brings this up to Helen, who worked at a rape trauma center, and has bought into Ghandia's anti-Ted bias completely. She expresses surprise that Ghandia wants to vote of Clay instead of Ted, and Ghandia explains it in game terms. That's where she loses Helen, who may begin doubting the whole story, but certainly begins to consider the game aspects herself. She knows she's the swing voter, and either because she no longer believes Ghandia, or jest to buy herself two more weeks, she votes Ghandia off.
Ted gives one of the meanest good-byes to Ghandia we've seen since season 1, wishing never to see her again in his life - sadly he makes no mention of deserts or giving water. Ghandia, in her farewell speech, refers to being taken over by the evil Ghandia. We are left with visions of the Exorcist as the episode ends.
Drew Garrett
a.cricket
a.cricket
Chewy Gum..lost their boat...this team just can't win.
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