A Few Survivor: Micronesia Thoughts

Because it’s been a while since I rambled on about Survivor, I’ll now ramble on about the first episode of the new season, “Fans vs. Favorites.”

And, of course, the obvious place to start is the title. Are these really the favorites?

• Amanda — Well, she didn’t do a whole lot, and kind of stayed strategically invisible (but visually hot) most of the season, but made it pretty far. She would have been completely forgettable if she wasn’t so pretty.
• Ami — I’ll buy Ami as a favorite. She was strong in challenges and had a pretty strong alliance built up with her as a leader, but she didn’t get overconfident and try to overrule alliancemates trying to push their own opinion.
• Cirie — Really? Cirie? She seemed pretty useless throughout her whole season, getting further than she deserved just because she wasn’t a threat and could coast through. Definitely wouldn’t go in my “favorites” column.
• Eliza — So-so as a favorite. She played pretty smart in Vanuatu, but just was always on the outside (or low on the totem pole) of the alliances that were running things. That did get her to the final 3, though. It sounded like most people voting against her in Vanuatu were doing so because she talked too much, so it’ll be interesting to see if she can change that.
• James — You’ve got to be kidding me. He got further than he deserved because of his alliance, but he didn’t do as well in challenges as you would have expected from him (did he ever win an individual challenge?) And his gigantic screw-up by not playing one of his two hidden immunity idols? Wow, probably one of the dumbest moves in the history of the show. So I’m not sure how he’s considered a favorite.
• Jonathan — No problems here. I liked Jonathan a lot in his season, and I’m glad to see him back.
• Ozzy — Also no complaints here, except that he looks silly with his new haircut.
• Parvati — Another WTF moment. Probably the WTFest of them all. Parvati Shallow? All she could do was flirt, which didn’t even make much sense because she’s just not attractive enough to pull that off. They must really have been scraping the bottom of the barrel of former contestants to have to bring Parvati back. No offense, Parvati…
• Yau Man — Yau Man is awesome. He was the one person I was hoping to have back for this season. How can you not love Yau Man?
• Jon — Ok, if Parvati was WTF #1, “Johnny Fairplay” is WTF #2. Jeff Probst has said that he’s never welcome at another Survivor event, and so they bring him back for another season? He’s just so unpleasant to have to watch and listen to, I was seriously considering not watching this season because of him. The power of Yau Man and Jonathan won me over, though.

So these guys are pretty evenly spread out between actual favorites, so-so people, and contestants who absolutely don’t deserve another chance. That seems to be really reaching to call them all favorites.

And then we have the fans. We didn’t get to see much of them in the first episode (the editing early on made it pretty clear that they were going to win the immunity challenge, so they only needed to show us alliances on the favorites side.) But still, you have to assume that Kathy isn’t much of a fan. Otherwise she would have to understand that saying crazy things (“I’ve never met a homosexual!!” “I’ve never seen breast implants up close!!”) isn’t the way to get ahead in the game.

So, not the most accurate title, if you ask me.

As far as the episode itself… Well, first of all I feel terrible for Johnny Dalton’s wife. Poor girl. I looked her up, and she looks very pretty in about half of her pictures (in the other half she looks scary.) I wonder how many lies that guy had to tell to get her to sleep with him?

Second, I love the Yau Man, Jonathan, Ami, and Eliza alliance. Not so much for Eliza, but the other three should all be awesome together. Yau Man and Ami were both very loyal in their alliances, and Jonathan is smart and has probably learned a thing or two about sticking with your alliance. Eliza and Ami had a pretty strong bond on Vanuatu, and so they should be pretty solid.

I always knew I’d be rooting for Yau Man, but I’m glad to be able to root for his whole alliance without any problems. I’d be a little ambivalent if he had teamed up with Fairplay and Parvati or something like that.

The other favorite alliance, of Amanda & Ozzy and James & Parvati, kind of got the short end of the stick. Ozzy’s great in challenges, and Amanda is probably hoping he’ll be her Todd this season to help her get through to the end. But James and Parvati will really drag them down.

And then Cirie’s apparently completely out of the loop, if we’re to believe the editing of that first episode. It’ll be interesting to see how that works out for her. Probably well at the next vote, since she’ll be the swing vote between the two four-person alliances.

We saw almost nothing about the fans, except kooky Kathy, the incredibly hulk guy, and some really horrible fake boobs that I might have nightmares about.

Oh, and YAY SURVIVOR’S BACK ON! (I almost typed “SURVIVOV’S BAC ON”, which makes me want to eat Survivor-brand bacon. Get on that, Burnett!)