Quick spoilers for tonight's "Survivor" coming up just as soon as I enjoy a healthy wrap...

I'm taking the next two weeks off for some family time, and unless things change dramatically between now and then, I'm not sure I'll be returning to this "Survivor" season.

With Boston Rob's exit - at the hands of Coach being wishy-washy and casting a throwaway vote for Courtney that he knew would doom Rob(*) - I fear things are now set up for Russell and Parvati to start running things, not only with the Villains tribe, but with whatever happens post-merge. And though they're both good players - Parvati more than Russell, since he doesn't seem to grasp the "Don't be a jerk to everyone" part of the social game - I find them both to be thoroughly unpleasant people to watch, and I really don't want to see weeks on end of Russell boasting of his awesomeness (using the ouster of Rob as supporting evidence) and Parvati flashing that smug Cheshire grin.

(*) Loved the aftermath of the vote: Rob accepts Jerri's hug, because he gets that it's a game and Jerri did what she thought was best for her, but then snubs Coach (who's a neurotic hypocrite) and says, "You're a little man."

I recognize that "Survivor" is an unpredictable game, and lots of things could change between now and when I'm back from my time off, but if they're in charge, I'm out. Life's too short. I know Russell has his fans, so enjoy him if he goes far again.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

A review of tonight's "Survivor" coming up just as soon as I slip on my Superman girdle...

Credit where credit is due: Russell is a smug, preening ass, but he foiled the hell out of Rob's attempt to run Plan Voodoo on him, and Tyson was unbelievably stupid enough to fall for it. (What was the risk, Tyson? In a 6-3 alliance where a tie is followed by a revote, no way Plan Voodoo should ever fail. Moron.) And some might argue that Russell's victory was a short-term one, in that he lost the idol and is still down 5-3, but his team could keep winning until the merge, and/or there might be a shuffle, and/or he might just keep finding hidden immunity idols. This was an easy shot to either get rid of him or get rid of his closest, most charming ally, and because Tyson was a putz(*), Rob's group accomplished neither.

(*) What was that Dark Helmet once said? "Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb"? Because the "Heroes" have been so inept and obnoxious, Tyson is part of what qualifies for "good" in this season.

As for the Heroes, meh. They made the right call, in that James is likely a liability in challenges, but this is two all-star stints in a row where Colby mentally checked out on the second or third day. Like Jerri, he keeps coming back because his acting career hasn't gone the way he'd hoped, but his heart's not in it, and it's hard to get the eye of the tiger back when you're cold and hungry and playing with a bunch of drips like Amanda and Rupert.

I don't like double-eliminations in theory, because they penalize a team that's kicking ass (Tom's Palau team also suffered one of those, though they just cut one of their deadweight players), but it's been so long since the Villains went to Tribal, or since we'd seen any major strategizing from them, that it was a relief for a week. I'm sure next week we'll be back to seeing the Heroes flounder while Russell wanders around gloating about his awesomeness, but at least this week he got to walk the talk.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Lots of Thursday TV to power through, so some quick thoughts on tonight's "Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains" coming up just as soon as I react to your offer of chocolate with disgust...

After the high of last week's "Survivor"-at-its-finest episode, tonight's show was inevitably disappointing, and not because my man-crush Tom got voted out, while bullying, hobbled jerks Rupert and James remain in the game.

No, I've been bracing for Tom's ouster ever since episode 2, when it was obvious he was in the minority on his team, and at least I got to watch him team up with JT and Colby for that great blindside on Cerie last week.

The problem is that the Heroes are just so inept in challenges - and, at least, had the black humor to list all of the many, many different kinds of challenges they suck at - that we're getting precious little time with the Villains. And when we do spend time with them, we're hearing almost exclusively from Russell, Rob, Coach, and to a lesser extent Parvati. I'm not sure I've heard Danielle say one word all season. Courtney's said maybe a sentence. Jerri talked more in this one than she has in a few weeks. I understand that some players are better interview subjects than others - that Russell's megalomania makes him an entertaining talking head, as do Coach's delusions of grandeur, and that Rob has been doing the reality thing for so long that he knows exactly what to give the camera crew. But unless these four are going to be the final four (and they're not, since Russell and Rob are looking to oust each other), I have a feeling we're going to see several players who've been virtually-invisible to this point go very, very far in the game, and I hate that.

Tom's initial season was even more lopsided at this stage, in that his team never lost an immunity challenge, but the editors did a much better job at balancing things out, so when we got to the merge with all of his group intact, I had a pretty good sense of who everybody was, what the dynamics were, who'd vote which way, etc.

And, yes, it was annoying to see James' smug face staying in the game, and to see Russell find the hidden idol (which will at the very least protect him through the next Tribal Council the Villains go to, whenever that might be, and which only fuels his own inflated sense of self-worth). But there are highs and lows to a "Survivor" season, and not every episode is going to be great, nor will every episode feature good things happening to the people you root for, and so I'm hopeful next week will be better - and that Rob's uncanny gift for puzzles might temporarily fail him so we can see the Villains go to Tribal again for something more interesting than watching James yell at people.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Spoilers for tonight's outstanding episode of "Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains" coming up just as soon as I'm cursed...

Because I had seen tonight's hilarious "Community" and "Parks and Recreation" episodes in advance, I figured "Survivor" had one more week to hook me before I have to deal with major timeslot pile-up issues next week. And after an episode that had me repeatedly fist-pumping and caring about the game in a way I didn't think was possible anymore, I'm absolutely on the hook for a long time, and I'll let the DVRs sort it all out later.

Admittedly, much of my fist-pump-itude came from good things happening for my man Tom, but even had Tom, Colby and JT's gambit not worked, "Tonight, We Make Our Move" represented so much of what's fun about "Survivor" when the game is played at a high level. We saw Candice expertly coming up with the latest iteration of Plan Voodoo (i.e., how to split your votes to neutralize an immunity idol). We saw Sandra and the non-Russell villains all immediately recognize the dangers posed by such an idol and make a coalition to get rid of anyone who so much as looks for it(*). We saw Rob and Tom both do fine jobs of coaching their teams through a tricky immunity challenge. And we saw Tom - who in his own season had to let Ian do most of the thinking for him - form together with JT and Colby to recognize the best way to not only keep Colby safe, but completely disrupt the dominant alliance by taking out its mastermind.

(*) Russell - hilariously, and accurately, compared to Smeagol by Boston Rob - of course couldn't resist hunting for the damn thing. Between hiding the machete last week and being obsessed with idols this week, it looks like he's trying to play the exact same game that, at this point, he thinks won him the million bucks in Samoa. But so long as Rob and Sandra are on a team with him, I don't think the same moves will get him remotely close to the money this time out.

Cirie is a brilliant social player and strategist, one of the best the show has ever seen. She nearly won twice, despite no physical challenge ability whatsoever (which, in the end, is what killed her both times; she lost the final challenge and the winner wisely didn't take her to the jury), because she is damn good at bending people to her will and getting people to act against their own best interests and in favor of Cirie's. We saw that again with how expertly she smacked down Amanda and James after they bought into JT's initial plan to get rid of Candice, and she was ultimately done in because JT came up with an alternate target: her.

Cirie played what's typically considered a "villain's" game, but she was on the Heroes team because she was more likable than Parvati. I'm not sorry she's gone, because it means Tom's got a shot now, and because it makes things much more unpredictable on the Heroes side of things, but I'm gonna miss her as a strategist, and I think the path to victory for one of the Villains just got much easier.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

A review of last night's "Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains" coming up just as soon as I hide your machete...

Well, that was much more fun than last week, I thought.

Obviously, some of that came from watching the Heroes completely own the Villains at the sumo challenge from Palau. (This makes sense, of course, since the Heroes dramatically out-muscle and out-tough the Villains, and it was a completely solo contest; their downfall in previous challenges came whenever they had to think and/or work as a group.) Tom once again was the man, Colby got to beat Boston Rob after Rob took him to school in another wrestling-type challenge in All-Stars, people got muddy but no one got seriously injured, and a good time was had by all (on one side at least).

But what made the episode click was how much time we spent in each camp, and how much of that was spent on strategery rather than people yelling at each other. Ordinarily, episodes with only one challenge tend to fall flat, but the extra time saved this week gave us a lot of good stuff from both camps, including a very necessary extended stay at the Villains camp to see how alliances are forming and fracturing. (Since the first two episodes were dominated by the Heroes' bickering, some people like Randy had barely spoken at all, and some people like Tyson and Courtney have still barely done or said anything.) We got strategy, we got cattiness (Jerri and Parvati hating on each other, Jerri primarily because Parvati won the million bucks playing the game Jerri thought she was playing in Australia) and we got a touch of craziness (Coach quoting Martin Luther King on the way to Tribal).

I'm disappointed that Parvati seems to be taking her alliance with Russell seriously, since it was implied in the first episode that she was just playing along to calm his crazy ass down. But I did like that everyone at Tribal Council laughed off the missing machete, suggesting that Russell's latest "brilliant" scheme to destabilize things came for naught, even though he's wisely latched onto the most socially powerful person on his team.

And it's because Parvati is apparently so charming in person, and because she's friends with the leaders of the dominant alliance on the other team, that the Villains made a serious, serious error in not voting her out last night. Boston Rob should be smarter than that, especially given his talking head at the start of the show about the dangers of letting couples stay together. Still a lot of season left, but it's very easy to imagine a circumstance where the final six are Parvati, Russell, Danielle, Cirie, Amanda and one of the guys from their alliance. Opportunities to vote out power players don't come around that often, and it's not like Parvati is so great at challenges or at camp that they would have been weakening the tribe by sending her home.

This ep has me convinced to stick with the season a bit longer, but it's going to require some time-juggling issues, since it'll be up against both the NBC comedies and, for the next two weeks, an "American Idol" results show. So it may be one of those things I don't get to until much later in the day on Friday, or even on a weekend. We'll see how it goes.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

A review of tonight's "Survivor" coming up just as soon as I come down with a case of crybabyitis...

After the giddy rush I had jumping back into the "Survivor" pool last week, episode two reminded me of some of the reasons I'd become wary of the show before, and also why all-star seasons are often more fun in theory than in practice.

When you watch the show long enough, you begin to get a strong sense of how the editing works. So when the two teams headed to an Immunity Challenge midway through an episode where the only talk of voting someone out came from the Heroes' camp, I knew they were gonna lose and go to Tribal Council - just as I knew that the vote would go against Stephenie and not Amanda, since Amanda had gotten precious little screen time this week. So I had to sit through the Immunity Challenge, the plotting afterwards, and Tribal Council all knowing what the outcomes would be.

And, in the process, I had to sit through a bunch of the "Heroes" - Stephenie and James in particular - being really unpleasant to each other.

With the exception of Boston Rob, no player has returned to the game a second time and become more likable, and often it's less. Colby looked bored and less than invincible in All-Stars (as he does here). Stephenie came back for Guatemala and seemed much more obnoxious in success than she'd been in repeated defeat on Palau. And James somehow managed to be a complete ass about how the Immunity Challenge went, even though he was exactly right. That was one of the uglier Tribal Councils I can remember, capped off by James continuing to be a jerk even in victory when he told Stephenie "Shut your mouth" after she vented when she was voted off.

It certainly doesn't help that the Heroes have lost twice now - either they really stink at puzzles or they simply lack a puzzle savant like Rob - and therefore have had to turn on each other. The only tension on the Villains team at the moment came from Rob's fainting spell(*) and then from Russell's predictable jealousy that Rob has become his team's leader while no one is bowing at his altar. The Heroes, meanwhile, are eating each other alive, and it ain't pretty (and not just because the current dominant alliance features a couple of players I dislike in Rupert and James, where Tom currently looks to be in big trouble).

(*) I believe that Rob did have a moment of exhaustion, but how much of his tearful speech do you reckon was authentic, versus Rob vying for attention? It doesn't seem like him to pull such a move, but he's also such a reality show veteran at this point that he has to know how to create a memorable moment.

So, so far this season, we've had one episode I loved and one that really annoyed me. We've got one more episode to break the tie before the NBC comedies come back, but if it's another one like last night's, I think I may walk away before I start to hate everybody on this season.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

Okay, I've been sucked back in - at least until the NBC comedies return after the Olympics - to watching and writing about "Survivor." A review of the premiere of "Heroes vs. Villains" coming up just as soon as I strangle a chicken...

Absence tends to make the heart grow fonder for "Survivor," doesn't it? I skipped Vanuatu after the first All-Star season left a bad taste in my mouth and loved Palau when I returned. (Though Palau was, of course, one of the best seasons ever.) And I skipped Fiji and China and mostly enjoyed Fans vs. Favorites until it turned out that all the "fans" were morons. And now having skipped every season in between that one and Heroes vs. Villains, I find myself re-energized, happy to see challenges and fire-building and scheming and all the rest. I may burn out eventually (and/or the hellacious Thursday scheduling crunch may mean I have to drop this so I can focus on shows I enjoy more, like "Community" and "Parks and Recreation"), but when "Survivor" is good - as this episode mostly was - it's very good.

The wrestling challenge was a ton of fun, even if it predictably led to nasty injuries for Stephenie (tough as nails, as always, with the way she handled the shoulder dislocation) and Rupert (a melancholy drama queen, as he was for the first All-Star season, after busting his toe and then failing to make a fire). Colby getting owned by Coach would have been less shocking if I hadn't also seen him physically struggle against equal competition in All-Stars (in Australia, he was far and away the strongest person there), but it was still entertaining, as was a topless Sugar flipping Sandra a double-bird after winning her heat.

I think I may already be tired of Russell, and I didn't even watch his season, but I loved seeing him try to cut the same deal with Danielle, who's stupid enough to buy the sales pitch, and Parvati, who immediately did a talking head in which she said she knew that he was making that offer to everyone. I don't much like Parvati as a person, but she's a good player, and right now the collection of egos, quirks and (in the case of Coach and possibly Russell) absolute psychosis on the Villains team makes them the more entertaining bunch to watch, even if I'm cheering for most of the Heroes.

(I do, by the way, like Fienberg's idea that the tribes should have been integrated from the start, with only the audience knowing who was identified as a Hero or Villain so we could see which approach worked better. Then again, as I've said many times, I find a lot of these Hero/Villain distinctions silly.)

A couple of disappointments, though. First, when Rob talked about how much he's changed since the last time he played the show, what he really came across as was kind of complacent. In some ways, he's coming across like Colby and Jerri and some of the other people did back on All-Stars: he's back because he knows everyone expects him to be back, but he's not particularly hungry about it and he's not hustling like he did back in the day. On the other hand, he did manage to make fire without flint, and it's kind of funny to see Rob as the most industrious one on a tribe after he was introduced to us in Marquesas as a guy whose strategy revolved around being lazy and getting rid of hunter/gatherer Hunter.

Second, I was annoyed when Sugar did, in fact, wind up being a near-unanimous vote-out after all the talk of Cirie or Stephenie going. I recognize that this is a "Survivor" staple, and one they feel they need to use to maintain suspense when a vote seems like an incredibly foregone conclusion, but I think it's something they should have ditched years ago (after we all understood how the game/show worked) in situations like this in favor of giving us a more concrete understanding of how the game is playing out. I'm sure next week will open with Cirie and/or Tom (or their respective alliance-mates) explaining why they decided to go with the obvious boot rather than taking out a threat, but I like watching the strategizing more than I like being surprised at this stage.

Let me remind you, as usual, that discussing the previews (even obliquely) is against the No Spoiler rule for commenting, and then let me ask, what did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

In today's column, I preview this 10th anniversary season of "Survivor" and think about how much the show - or, at least, our perceptions of it - has changed:

A few days after Richard Hatch won the first season of "Survivor" — the show that would ultimately shape the decade in television to come more than any other — I wrote that what made "Survivor" special was that "even surrounded by cameras in a contrived situation, these 16 people and their actions and reactions were real, and didn’t feel remotely manufactured on some Hollywood assembly line." I looked at Rudy’s uneasy friendship with gay (and frequently naked) Richard, at the viciousness of Sue’s "the snake and the rat" speech, and at Richard’s win itself — the triumph of the man the show had been painting as the bad guy all season — as "proof" that the show was more authentic — or, at least, more surprising — than even the best scripted dramas had been in a long time.

Today, "Survivor" has become such an institution — and so institutionalized — that the 10th anniversary season is a collection of familiar faces from past seasons, grouped into two archetypes: "Heroes vs. Villains."

You can read the full "Survivor" column here.

I haven't watched, or written about, "Survivor" on a regular basis since the "Fans vs. Favorites" season, but I think I'm going to at least check out tonight's two-hour premiere for nostalgia's sake. I don't really have time to add another Thursday show to the rotation, but we'll see if this one rekindles the magic for me. Either way, feel free to discuss the premiere here after it airs. Click here to read the full post

Last night, the AP put out a story revealing the cast of "Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains". After the jump, the full list, and a few other thoughts...

HEROES
Rupert Boneham (Pearl Islands, All-Stars)
James Clement (China, Fans vs. Favorites)
Colby Donaldson (Australian Outback, All-Stars)
Cirie Fields (Panama, Fans vs. Favorites)
Amanda Kimmel (China, Fans vs. Favorites)
Jessica "Sugar" Kiper (Gabon)
Stephenie LaGrossa (Palau, Guatemala)
JT Thomas (Tocantins)
Tom Westman (Palau)
Candice Woodcock (Cook Islands)

VILLAINS

Tyson Apostol (Tocantins)
Randy Bailey (Gabon)
Sandra Diaz (Pearl Islands)
Danielle DiLorenzo (Panama)
Russell Hantz (Samoa)
Jerri Manthey (Australian Outback)
Boston Rob Mariano (Marquesas, All-Stars)
Parvati Shallow (Cook Islands, Fans vs. Favorites)
Benjamin "Coach" Wade (Tocantins)
Courtney Yates (China)

Looking at that list, I have the same three questions I had when I first saw the rumored cast list a few weeks ago:

1)On what planet is Candice - who was despised by the Yul/Ozzy good guys alliance on "Cook Islands" - considered a "hero"?

2)How, exactly, does Sandra - BFF of "hero" Rupert, and the one who helped set up her team's early dominance in "Pearl Islands" with her amazing shopping skills during the brief trip into the city - wind up on the "villains" team?

3)Why is forgettable Danielle (pictured, above, with Cirie) on the "villains" team? For that matter, why is she on the show at all? Other than to fill the usual Available Bikini Babe quota, that is?

Watch: Amber was inexplicably cast on "Survivor: All-Stars" for a similar reason, and wound up winning the whole thing, in part because everyone else was busy picking off the bigger names. I would not be at all shocked to see Danielle win this one.

My man-crush on Tom Westman was strong enough to keep me from hating him after the psy-ops he pulled on Ian in the "Palau" finale, and it might be enough to get me watching the show again for the first time in many seasons. But I tuned into "Fans vs. Favorites" also because I liked some of the returning alums (Jonathan, Cirie) enough to overcome my boredom with the show, and I mostly spent that season remembering why I didn't care anymore. So I suspect I'll put on the premiere for nostalgia's sake, then let it go again.

And in the meantime, CBS' press tour party on Saturday night is going to feature a reunion of what's supposed to be at least 250 "Survivor" alums, highlighted by the original final four of Richard Hatch, Kelly Wigglesworth, Rudy Boesch and Sue Hawk. I'm betting that neither Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who's both big-time and on another network, nor Stacey Stillman, who sued the show and claimed Mark Burnett rigged her ouster to protect Rudy, will be there, but I imagine lots of others will show up. Though I've lost interest in the series going forward, I still have a lot of nostalgia for the years when I was still watching, so I'll try my best to avoid turning into "The Chris Farley Show" around them. ("Remember when you pretended you weren't Gary Hogeboom? That was awesome!") Click here to read the full post

So a new "Survivor" winner was crowned last night. And even though I didn't watch this season (I kicked the "Survivor" habit after Fans vs. "Favorites"), this was one of those editions where it was impossible to not be aware of some of what was going on. And what happened with the ending has me thinking about the larger question of how the winner of a reality season affects our perception of that season, which I'll talk about (including, obviously, a spoiler on the "Survivor" winner) after the jump...

So Russell, whose apparent dominance of the game - and all the writing being done about that by other TV writers I follow - made me feel like I was watching the season even when I wasn't, did not win. Natalie did. Some people are already calling it a hose job, a lame jury vote akin to Amber beating Boston Rob because the All-Stars were pissed that Rob outplayed them, or akin to Neleh losing in Marquesas under similar circumstances(*). Linda Holmes, who used to recap "Survivor" for Television Without Pity, argued earlier this year that the Russell-as-greatest-player-ever narrative was constructed by the show and Russell's desire to self-promote, and didn't reflect what was actually happening, and she wrote this morning that the jury vote vindicates her take on the guy, and the season..

(*) Anyone want to argue against Vecepia (who beat Neleh) as the least deserving "Survivor" winner ever? She did nothing all during that season, and backed into the win because there was always a bigger fish to try in her original tribe, then because Neleh and Pascal organized an alliance flip, then because the producers screwed up the Purple Rock of Death twist, then because Kathy's chest was too big, and then because the jurors were a bunch of whiny babies. I know some people will argue for Sandra from Pearl Islands, but at least she was a key part of what was that season's longest-lasting, most dominant alliance, and she was going up against a contestant who was eliminated, then voted back into the game through a twist so lame the show has never recycled it. I say Vecepia, all the way.

But whether you believe the Russell hype or not, this season was all about Russell's alleged dominance, only it ended with him not winning. And if you bought into the guy's mystique and aura, I'm wondering whether his loss retroactively makes you enjoy this season a little less.

When I was working on the Best Reality Shows list for my Best of the '00s package, I briefly toyed with the idea of making it a Best Reality Seasons list, mainly because I felt weird about putting "The Apprentice" season 1 alongside the completely body of work for four other series. And while I was thinking about that, I asked a few reality fan friends for their thoughts on what were the best seasons of my respective candidates. When I told Adam Bonin that I was thinking of going with "American Idol" season five - which I felt had the best mix of talented singers, memorable performances and weird things that happened - he objected on the grounds that Taylor Hicks won that year. I argued that the winner shouldn't matter if the rest of the season was good enough, and that I found the David Cook season really unsatisfying even though I liked Cook himself a lot and was glad he won.

But the more I thought about it, the more I saw Adam's point. Taylor's win doesn't taint that "Idol" season for me, necessarily, but there are plenty of other reality seasons I like less because of who won, like Jenna on "Survivor: Amazon" or Hosea on "Top Chef" a couple of seasons back. Conversely, two of my favorite "Survivor" seasons, Palau and Cook Islands, had incredibly deserving and likable winners in Tom and Yul. Had Katie or Becky, respectively, won because of bitter juries, I might think less of those years in spite of all the entertaining things that happened in each.

Now, I've heard from fans of scripted shows like "The Sopranos" or "Battlestar Galactica" who so hated their finales that they decided they retroactively hated the whole series. And I'm sure the "Lost" finale (which simply won't be able to satisfy everyone, no matter what Cuse and Lindelof do) will lead to some of that.

But at least in those cases, the endings were crafted behind the scenes by the people who made you like the show in the first place. Reality producers don't have that luxury. I'm sure the "Idol" producers were tearing their hair out when Daughtry went home and it became clear Taylor was going to win, just as Jeff Probst for years has made his displeasure clear when someone other than one of his alpha male favorites wins. (This was really obvious, and awkward, at the Cook Islands reunion, when Jeff did everything short of beg the jury to do a re-vote in favor of Ozzy.) All a reality show can do is assemble the strongest cast they can and hope that the jury, the judges or the American public votes to keep things interesting and ultimately satisfying.

Anyway, to sum up that long ramble (forgive me; it's my first day back in the office after a week off), I'm wondering whether people who watched "Survivor: Samoa" all the way through are upset that Russell lost, how that impacts their overall view of the season, and how much you all weigh endings in general when judging a TV season or series. Click here to read the full post

Quick "Survivor" finale spoilers coming right up...

Ah, well... Parvati wins, 5-3 over Amanda. (What they would have done in the event of a tie?) On the one hand, she's one of the more odious people to ever appear on this show (twice). On the other, she deserved it over Amanda. Parvati's move to take out Ozzy (who was at Lex levels of bitterness at the final Tribal Council) was the defining one of the season, and though I hated to watch a lot of it, she and Cirie (who also would and should have beaten Amanda) orchestrated a series of agressive blindsides. If nothing else, I resigned myself to wanting Parvati to win it after Amanda broke out the crocodile tears at the penultimate Tribal. I don't doubt they were genuine, but it's a friggin' game, lady! To win a million dollars! You laughed and smiled and whooped when you voted other people out, and all of a sudden it's this great burden to do so?

Beyond that, I don't know what word on the street Probst has been hearing that calls this the best season since the first. Off the top of my head, I'd put Cook Islands, Palau, Pearl Islands, Australia and the Amazon ahead of this one. Like I said a few days ago, there were a lot of blindsides, but more often than not they were the result of stupid play as much as they were cleverness on the part of Cirie or Parvati. Plus, the amount of injuries and/or quitting takes away from my enjoyment of the thing, because things could have gone very differently had Jonathan not been evacuated, or if Chet's foot was doing just well enough that he stuck around to blindside Ozzy, etc.

Plus there's the whole BS "fans" concept, where I buy maybe three or four of them (Erik, Jason, Mikey B, maybe Tracey) as people who were genuine fans of the show, and the only two who made it very far were either too slow-witted or too starstruck to play a good game. I would have loved a season where a bunch of genuine, Rob Cesternino-style fans got to mix it up with veterans of the game. Instead, we got stuck with the likes of Joel and Kathy and Chet and Alexis.

There were parts of the season I enjoyed a lot, but overall, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth, so much so that I'm not going to bother with the reunion. Feel free to discuss/summarize anything interesting that comes up there -- like Eliza explaining her (deciding) vote for Parvati -- in the comments.

What did everybody else think? Click here to read the full post

"Survivor" spoilers coming up just as soon as I go to a spa...

I suppose I should be giddy about yet another ridiculous blindside at Tribal Council, but I'm actually starting to get numb to it. Virtually every major development of this game post-merge has come as the result of someone being colossally stupid: Jason for thinking his stick wasn't just a stick; Ozzy for not even bringing the idol to Tribal, much less playing it; Jason for taking Natalie's word and not playing his idol (and Natalie for being stupid enough to send him to Exile in the first place); Alexis being dumb enough to send Amanda to Exile; and now Erik letting the women guilt and bamboozle him into giving up his necklace to Natalie.

It's fun once or twice, but after a certain point, all these mistakes start to seem less a reflection of the brilliance of Parvati, Cirie and company and more a sign that there are a lot of stupid, stupid people playing the game this season. (If Penner or Yau-Man were still here, ain't neither of them going to be fooled by any of this.)

Erik deserved his fate, but this wasn't like Yul's band of four triumphing over the young idiots; it wasn't any kind of good vs. evil parable. Erik wasn't bad; he was just a dumb, star-struck kid. And as for the people who conned him, I find Natalie and Parvati repugnant, keep waxing and waning on Cirie and have no real opinion of Amanda whatsoever.

It's weird: I've been enjoying the season most of the way through, but we've come to the end and I could care less who wins at this point, and I wouldn't be surprised if any of them do. Yes, even Parvati. "Survivor" juries are crazy; who the hell would have thought Jenna Morasca could beat anyone in a vote in her season (or that she'd get Christy's vote)?

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Spoilers for tonight's "Survivor" coming up just as soon as I loan my wife a shirt...

Am I right that this is the first time the hidden idol has been successfully played since Hogeboom? I didn't watch China but know James failed to play two different idols, and from what little I remember of Fiji, Earl's group tricked the wrong guy in the other alliance into playing it while they voted someone else out. Terry didn't need to play his (and was too stupid to figure out a way to use his strategically), Yul didn't need to play his (but was smart enough to swing the votes his way), and Ozzy and Jason obviously both choked. You get the feeling the "Survivor" producers were starting to get frustrated that their brilliant new twist to the game never got used correctly?

I'm glad, by the way, that they thought to bury it at camp this time, which helped defuse the distasteful business of people searching the bags of whomever returns from Exile Island. And while Amanda has been sleepwalking through the game until now, allowing Ozzy and then Parvati and (of all people) Natalie do the thinking for her, she played the whole thing brilliantly, pouting and whining and completely lulling everybody into thinking she was powerless and would be an easy boot. The only thing that would have made her maneuver better was if she had stuck to her guns and insisted that she and Parvati vote out Natalie. Alexis is no threat in challenges with that leg wound -- and could have wound up getting med-evac'ed in another day or two, the way this season is going -- plus it would have knocked the gross Natalie out of the game.

(I'm not sure I've ever seen a contestant go from invisible to hateful as quickly as Natalie did last week. Parvati's kind of an awful human being too, and the events tonight benefited her, but at least she's been a presence this season, and has played well. I'd rather have to see her go to the end than Natalie.)

What a weird season. Two med-evacs (and Penner's completely changed the game, where James was basically finished unless he want on an immunity run), a third contestant who might as well have been med-evac'ed (Chet), a quit, blindsides left and right and now a contestant in the final five who can barely walk. (NOTE: Whoops. I was thinking of Alexis, who obviously went home tonight. The rest still stands.) Since James gets to be on the jury, I'm assuming there's no change in whether there's a final two or final three, but I hope the entire "Survivor" production team takes a long look at this season and tries to figure out why so many people wound up getting hurt. Penner and Chet both got injured in challenges (Jonathan during the idiotic stick-and-mud race, Chet in the capture the flag thing in the water), Alexis just fell down and I'm not clear how James hurt his finger, but it's frustrating to see the game be changed so much by things that have nothing to do with Outwit/Outlast/Outplay.

Still, much better than last week. Amanda's smirk at the end (pictured above) made the episode worth it all by itself.

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Quick "Survivor" spoilers coming up just as soon as I enjoy a steamy bowl of bat soup...

After last week's masterpiece (by "Survivor" standards, anyway), this one was kind of unsatisfying. First, there was so much repeating of the plan over and over and over again, and Jason was so stupid, and James was so clearly unable to mount a counter-offensive against the women, that there was no suspense whatsoever to the latter half of the episode. Second, the one doing all the repeating was Natalie.

I'm sorry; was there a Natalie on the show before this week and I just missed her? This was, like, the first time she had spoken all season, and she got more talking head interviews than every other contestant combined. That's just bad narrative on the part of the "Survivor" editors. I don't care if she was the most boring, anonymous, doormouse of a human being for the entire pre-merge phase of the game; if they knew she was suddenly going to become a power player at this stage (even if it turns out to be for just this episode), they should have searched through every frame of film they shot to find something, anything, showing her having a personality before tonight. It's hard for me to get wrapped up in Natalie's big moment of triumph if I was spending the whole time wondering who she was.

I don't feel especially bad for Jason, as he is dumb as a lox, and as he was such an ass to the older members of the "fans" tribe early on. (He was the one who wouldn't let Chet or the others sleep in the young people's cave, and then I believe he started taking parts of the much better shelter that Tracey built.) But in terms of rooting interest, I'm kind of down to Erik, whose dumb exuberance has grown on me (him paying to lick Cirie's fingers was one of the weirder moments in show history); James, who's not the challenge god Probst always sells him as, doesn't have many options strategy-wise, and also has an injury that could lead to a Penner-esque evacuation; and maybe Cirie, who's about half an episode away from becoming insufferably smug again. (She may already be there, but whatserface with the implants was doing all the talking tonight.)

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"Survivor: Micronesia" spoilers coming up just as soon as I eat Alexis' cookie...

"And I thought I was the dumbest Survivor ever." -James

Now, I didn't watch much of James' original season, so while I know that he got voted out despite holding two hidden immunity idols, I can't speak to the context of it and whether the number of idols outweighs the very shaky circumstances under which Ozzy should have, but failed to play his own idol. Right now, though, Ozzy looks like he fell victim to one of the classic "Survivor" blunders.

(The greatest, of course, is to not get into a land war with Tom Westman, but only slightly less well known is this: never go in against Cirie when a million dollars is on the line! Ah hahahahahahahaha!!! Ack.)

Splendid, splendid episode, with so much of the goodness "Survivor" still has to offer, even at this advanced age. We had the comedy of Erik partying too hard with the people of Yap. We had the even greater comedy of Alexis, then Natalie (yes, I finally bothered to learn their names), then James all losing their balance before they got the chance to say, "Jeff, I'll take the cookie, please." We got what seemed like an incredibly stupid move on Jason's part in giving up immunity to feed the others, and then we got Parvati and Cirie teaming up to blindside Ozzy, who didn't have Yul around this time to do the thinking for him.

And maybe best of all, for those of us who find Parvati repugnant (even if we can admire her gameplay this time around), we have the prospect of her having some 'splaining to do to the members of her various sub-alliances next week. I'm glad Ozzy's gone, as it makes things far more unpredictable from here on out, but wouldn't it be awesome if, in the collateral damage of his boot, Parvati winds up the next to go?

Now, before we open it up to discussion, let's rattle off some other infamous mistakes from "Survivor" seasons past. Feel free to include more, and we can argue for a while about where Ozzy's blunder ranks.

• In All-Stars, Lex saving Ambuh at Rob's request
• In Guatemala, nobody bothering to stop Danni from bidding on the immunity challenge clue
• In Africa, Brandon refusing to be in an alliance with Frank, even if the alternative was to go home
• In Marquesas, the Rotu Four making it abundantly clear what the boot order was during a reward challenge
• In Pearl Islands, Fairplay and Burton going off on a reward by themselves and leaving the women to plot against them
• In Cook Islands, the Raros refusing to entertain even the possibility that Yul had the idol
• Whatever the hell mistake Ami and company made in Vanuatu (another season I bailed on early) that allowed their all-female alliance to collapse and Chris to win
• In Australia, Colby taking Tina to the finals instead of Keith

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In my current technology-impaired environment, I was able to flip back and forth between both "Survivor" and "American Idol" tonight (plus a bit of "My Name Is Earl"). My emphasis was on "Survivor," but brief spoilers for both reality eliminations coming right up...

Well, the best moment of "Survivor" was already shown in the previews last week: "That's a stick!" And while it filled me with excitement for this episode at the time, it ruined the anticipation of seeing Eliza and Jason come face to face with the truth about that stupid thing.

Eliza had oddly become my favorite Favorite this season, after Jonathan and Yau-Man left and Cirie started believing her own hype a bit much, and so I'm disappointed she's gone, and that Parvati seems ascendant, but what can you do? It's rare that I'm 100 percent satisfied with the winner, and one of the remaining people could surprise me by getting in my good graces before the end. (And/or Whatsername or Whoserface could surprise me by reminding me who they are.)

(One other "Survivor" note: seeing them recycle that immunity challenge from Palau reminds me once again to be annoyed that they couldn't have bothered to bring back even one Palau contestant. You mean to tell me Ian vs. Ozzy in a battle of human dolphins wouldn't have been awesome?)

As for "American Idol," I didn't watch a single minute of Idol Gives Back on Wednesday -- and I wasn't alone, as the ratings were down 33 percent from last year's bait-and-switch non-elimination show -- and I only put on enough of tonight's show to see that Michael Johns had gotten the boot.

On the one hand, Michael had only managed to deliver two really strong performances during the audience participation part of the season -- the Queen medly two weeks ago and last week's pimp spot soul performance -- and as we saw with Chikezie, two memorable performances aren't enough when other contestants have psycho fanbases. On the other hand, Michael at least had the potential to do something really memorable, which is more than I can say about Syesha or Kristy Lee (unless they were more impressive than I might have imagined on Tuesday night, which I also didn't see). So we go into the top six with two pieces of deadweight, two one-trick ponies with pretty looks but limited vocal chops (Jason and Brooke), one contestant with great vocal skills and no charisma (Carly), and the two Davids. Can we just skip ahead to the finals now?

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Spoilers for "Survivor" coming up just as soon as I kill a few crabs...

Because of a DVR screw-up of my own making, I watched last night's episode backwards: the last half last night, the first half this morning. And other than the fact that the single most entertaining moment in the entire hour came in the previews for next week (we won't discuss it for the sake of people who don't watch the previews, but you know what I'm talking about if you saw it), is how, for all they've lost, Ozzy's team is in a really good position right now.

Yes, they've been on an epic losing streak, but one where they're only down 6-4 because of Jonathan's evacuation and Kathy's exit. (And the former arguably led to the latter, as Kathy said in her exit interviews that Jonnathan was the only one keeping her sane.) More importantly, other than Ami, everyone voted out during this losing streak was a "fan," which leaves the favorites at a 6-4 numbers advantage. Sure, you could worry about Eliza breaking ranks and trying to lead a "fan" coup, but at the same time Ozzy presumably has the loyalty (and hetero devotion) of Erik, so I don't know if the risk is that great.

Had Penner stuck around, I think he and Eliza might have been able to build an alliance with the "fans" on their team that would have posed a serious threat to Ozzy and company, but the numbers look pretty good right now. The couples alliance + Cirie + Erik should have their way with the rest, including the two female "fans" who may be the two most anonymous players to ever make the merge. Given the way this show tips its hands with editing, I have to think that if either Whatsername or Whoserface were going to do anything of consequence, game-wise, the editors would have tried to find some footage, somewhere, of them doing or saying something vaguely interesting to show us by now.

Not a great episode (though, again, it's hard for me to judge, given the way I watched it). A few other random thoughts:

• At the time, all of Jonathan's talk about needing to get Parvati out of the game because she was a crafty player just seemed like leftover animus from their time together on the Cook Islands, but it looks like he was right. She's setting herself with multiple sub-alliances, seems fine ditching her current and past boytoys James and Ozzy because she knows she would lose a vote to them, etc. Maybe this isn't Cesternino or Porno Brian-level maneuvering, but she's in a power position.
• Speaking of surprising players, Eliza's been every bit the challenge demon as Ozzy this season. She doesn't have his athletic gifts, but, like Yau-Man once was, she's been great in any challenge where even a little bit of thought could provide an advantage. In this episode, for instance, there was the moment when she fell but still kept her wits around her enough to slap her hand down on the bridge, which gave her dibs on crossing it first while Erik had to stand around.
  
• I watched very little of Ami and Eliza's original season, but from what I've read about it, Ami was a far more aggressive player there than she was here. For a lot of this run, she was as invisible as the two remaining female "fans." What do you think led to the change? A realization that she badly blew it the last time? The wrong combination of people for her to work with?
  

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Spoilers for last night's "Survivor" (one of two episodes each year to get bumped to Wednesday nights because of the NCAA tournament) coming up just as soon as I pay for some tree-climbing lessons...

What a weird stretch of the season. The James and Eliza-led tribe is dominating, but because of Jonathan's injury and then Kathy's incurable homesickness, they're only up by one player. And yet, without the two unplanned exits, I imagine we would have had at least one, if not two, double-eliminations by now, simply to fit one of the show's larger casts into the usual number of episodes.

(Other than maybe Jenna leaving All-Stars I to go be with her dying mom, this was probably the kindest Probst has ever been to a quitter. I guess his expectations for Kathy were so low that it didn't offend his sensibilities the way it did when, say, big beefy Osten bailed. That, and he figured she was probably going to go home later in the episode in the event of a double-elim.)

It was interesting that Kathy talked about how different it is to watch the rainstorms at home versus having to actually endure one of them, if only because it was one of the few times this season that one of the "superfans" seemed like someone who had actually watched the show. The deeper we go into the season, the more I have to believe that after Burnett nixed the idea of a proper All-Stars II, they had to scrounge up 10 civilians quickly, and this is the weird group they got. Tracy was at least playing the game -- and playing about as well as she could, given the various holes she got dropped in -- and now she's gone, and I honestly couldn't tell you which one is Natalie and which one is Alexis. (Is there even an Alexis? Or am I thinking of someone on "Top Chef"?)

The super-hot shower scene that Probst had been promising finally materialized but wasn't all that hot. Amanda gets blurred in pretty much every episode, anyway (as does, oddly, Eliza, even though they're not built remotely the same), and it was clear that these were three filthy people who cared more about getting properly cleaned up than in having a fun sexy time.

I figured there was no way Ozzy would actually go home -- it feels like this is going to be one of those things they tease before every Tribal Council, while Ozzy manages to go a very long way -- but I like that Cirie was actually able to plant a seed of doubt in Amanda's mind about the downside of having a showmance with one of the biggest challenge bad-asses of all time.

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Since I had already watched the CBS comedies last week in order to write yesterday's column, I spent last night's viewing hours either giving another shot to some shows I was on the verge of abandoning, or watching shows from last week that had been sitting on my DVR hard drive. Brief spoilers for, in order, "New Amsterdam," "Canterbury's Law," "Reaper" and "Survivor" coming up just as soon as I work on my glove-slapping technique...

"New Amsterdam" remains a show with a couple of strong elements (immortal Manhattanite, Coster-Waldau's performance) floating in a sea of mediocre ones (the police procedurals, the chemistry-free romance). Even the flashbacks to Amsterdam's past adventures can be problematic. I know there's not a lot of time to do the earlier eras justice, but the flashback rapist was a Rollie Fingers mustache away from being a complete cartoon of a bad guy. The idea of comparing how attitudes have changed -- or haven't -- about rape over the centuries was an interesting one, but the execution was iffy.

And yet, I'm finding that I really like Coster-Waldau and the easy manner he brings to Amsterdam. What seemed like world-weariness in the first couple of episodes now feels more like amused detachment. I don't know if that's supposed to be thematic (now that he's found his one true love -- even if she's the most boring person in Manhattan -- he's stopped moping) or if the producers just realized that the initial portrayal of Amsterdam could drag the show down, but this guy is someone I don't mind spending time with. Oddly, given my dislike of the police stories, the best scenes in the episode featured Amsterdam bonding with the fashion designer victim. Those moments of the two of them talking did a much better job of showing how relaxed and confident and wise this guy is -- as he probably would be after 300+ years on this island -- than any of the gags where he solves a crime because he learned to lip-read a few centuries back.

In hindsight, I'm surprised Fox didn't send out last night's "Canterbury's Law" for review -- the screener disc had the pilot and episode four -- as it was much stronger than the other two. A minimum of the ZZ Top "Legs" video material (other than the opening credits, which I saw for the first time here), there was some humor to leaven the grimness (and without the psychic material getting too goofy), and I actually felt something for the Julianna Margulies character. It's still a formulaic lawyer show, but this was a better-done version of that than the two episodes I saw in advance.

Thank God for DVR season passes, or else I would have never remembered that A)"Reaper" was coming back with new episodes, and B)"Reaper" was moving to Thursdays after "Smallville." But the DVR saves me from having to remember stuff. Thank you, DVR. I'll even forgive the way you start to spazz out when your hard drive gets too full.

Decent episode, and a fair bit better than I remember the show being towards the end of its pre-strike run. (Though I believe this episode was one of a few pre-strike leftovers.) Whenever they make the Devil more menacing, it in turn gives his lighter moments more snap, so I liked seeing him blow off some steam at Sam -- and also seeing his maybe, maybe-not daughter threaten to cut Andi good. That said, the comedy factor is still lacking from the pilot level, and it was the laugh-out-loud moments that made the rest of the show work.

Finally, I watched half of last week's "Survivor" the night it aired, just so I could buffer enough of "Lost" that I could watch without commercials. Once Jonathan was evacuated from the game, my interest faded, and I didn't get around to seeing the rest of the episode for days. Jonathan happens to be one of my favorite "Survivor" contestants ever. I love his bitchy give-and-take with Probst, his insistence on playing a rational game and his constant struggles to present his rational arguments in a way that the other players could understand. (Every hero's gotta have a weakness; for Penner, it was his tendency to argue things too forcefully.) And I admired the hell out of him killing himself on that last reward challenge, given what we would find out about the state of his leg. (You could tell Probst, who always develops man crushes on the uber-jocks, finally let go of whatever issues he had with Penner after seeing that performance.) With Jonathan gone, with Yau-Man gone, and with Cirie (my other favorite among the "favorites") acting really smug this time out, I'm out of people I really care about.

I thought it was a shame that Chet was so mentally checked out of the game (and no doubt freaked out about his foot, given what had happened to Jonathan) that he refused to participate in Tracy and Ami's scheme to blindside Ozzy. The thing is, if I've done the math right, Tracy didn't even need Chet's vote to get rid of Ozzy. All they had to do was lie to Chet about who to vote for, then cast three votes (Tracy/Ami/Erik) for Ozzy while three other votes (Cirie/Ozzy/Amanda) voted for Chet. In the event of a tie, there's a revote where the two people who are tied are ineligible to vote, which means Tracy's crew could have gotten rid of Ozzy by a 3-2 margin. (Or, at least, they could have flushed out the hidden idol, had he been cautious enough to bring it to Tribal Council.) Anyway, I guess I'm with this season for a while yet, but a lot of the fun went out of it with Jonathan.

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Spoilers for the latest episode of "Survivor: Micronesia" coming up just as soon as I kill a shark with my bare hands...

I keep going back and forth on whether I'm enjoying this season. As mentioned many times previously, I wish they would stop bringing back previous contestants, because they inevitably come off much worse the second time around. (See the Jonathan-Cirie dust-ups in the previous two episodes.) But at the same time, there's been some very interesting gameplay by the likes of Cirie and Tracy, and I will never get tired of watching Probst and Jonathan go another round in their ongoing feud. (The subtext of every exchange goes something like "I'm the host of this show and you will respect my authority! Don't you see this awesome hat I'm wearing?" "Yeah, well I dumped The Nanny, Reality Boy! And my hat is much cooler!") And, other than Tracy, the only contestants I care about are the veterans, so maybe there's something to be said for recycled casting.

It was a pleasure to see Cirie and Tracy team up to give cro-magnon Joel a taste of his own medicine. Yes, there's a chance that dumping Joel could cost the team in the event there's some challenge focused solely on brute strength -- say, one of those "How many sandbags can you hold up on your back?" numbers, though we got a variation of it a few weeks ago with coconut basketball -- but very few of them are that dependent on raw muscle, and like James, that's all Joel was useful for. Ozzy can carry a team in any other kind of physical challenge, Ami and Amanda aren't slouches at that stuff, and Cirie's pretty good at puzzles. Yes, Chet may be the most useless contestant in the history of the show -- explain to me how a "superfan" is so terrible at both the physical and the social aspects of the game -- but he doesn't actively demoralize other players in the middle of challenges when things aren't going his way.

I hope Jonathan's leg doesn't get so bad that he has to be evacuated from the game (any "Wire" fans want to tell me if I used that word properly?), because the show wouldn't be half as much fun without him. Ordinarily, I hate when contestants start whining during challenges (see Terry's "Call the whambulance"-worthy performance during Cirie's original season), but I always get a kick out of Jonathan doing it, largely because of the Probst hatred that it's always wrapped around.

Also, while reality showmances usually annoy me, particularly in the scuzzy environs of a tropical island with no toiletries, I have to admit to smiling when Ozzy seemed to melt at describing Amanda killing the shark. So, she's gorgeous and she's good at killing stuff in the water like Ozzy? They may be a more perfect couple than Rob and Ambuh.

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