Welcome to Survivor: Philippines, season #25! Crazy, right? That's a lot of seasons.
So far, I am loving season 25. I know it's only been one episode, and I also know that I pretty much love all the seasons.... but this is a definite improvement over last season, non? Here's what I like so far:
1. I like that the returnees are not just fan favourites, but that they are dudes who were medically evacuated from their season and so couldn't properly finish. This is a proper second chance, right? I also really like the three they chose: Michael Skupin from season 2, who burned his hands when he passed out into the fire at camp. Michael is a good player. He's smart, he's fit, he's into the 'survival' aspect of the show (do you remember when he killed a wild boar in Australia?) and he's got 7 kids so clearly already knows about survival. Jonathan Penner (we'll call him Penner because that's what Jeff calls him. Jeff has a man-crush on Penner.) is funny, super smart and sounds exactly like Alan Alda when he speaks. (Close your eyes during the show - I'm tellin' ya... it's eerie.) Penner was med-evaced when he got a cut on his knee and it got infected. Sounds wussy, but could have led to amputation if it went untreated. Yep, I'd go home too. And Russell Swan - the "other" Russell, who passed out due to major dehydration & heat exhaustion & provided us with one of the scariest Survivor moments. Russell's a smart dude, who (until last night) seemed to have people skills.
2. I like that they separated the group into three tribes instead of the usual two. Better to split the returning dudes and it'll make for a sooner merge... but will they merge into two, or one? Harder for people to hide in a smaller group.
3. Lisa Welchel, or Blair Warner if you're a Facts of Life fan. Seriously, how can you not adore her? She has aged so well & still looks pretty much the same! I mean, more of a mom version of Blair, but still really nice and really great. Unfortunately, she hasn't really made in-roads with her group of youngsters who just see her as nice but unrelatable churchy mom. Michael recognized her right away & asked her why she doesn't fess up, but she wants to play as who she is now, blah, blah, blah. Whatever, it probably wouldn't matter to those kids anyway. Kids these days! Get off my lawn!
4. There are some other really great 'characters' coming through already - something last season didn't really have. We've got hillbilly Zane and RC, who thinks she's running the show, and Roxy, who's a fit smartypants, and Malcolm, who's playing the fun bartender but has lived in Micronesia and seems pretty smart. He's teamed up already with Denise, who's the smart 'older' (and by 'older' I mean she's not 20) sex therapist (!!!) There's Jeff, who used to be a pro-baseball player. Jeff has already hurt his knee but is doing his best to hide it... and hasn't told anyone who he is. One of his teammates (Dawson, I think) does know and says she won't tell him she knows "until it becomes useful" for her to do so. Smart! (Also, by all accounts... ok one account from my co-worker, Don... Jeff wasn't uh... super well-liked as a baseballl player. Let's see if that holds true!) And of course the usual group of interchangeable bikini blondes and dudes with great abs... who I'm sure we'll get to know more about later. One of the blondes (Abi-Maria I think) is from Brazil and has an accent and is shaking her Shakira hips (yes, I know Shakira is not from Brazil... work with me here) at all the boys. And one of our girls is a former Miss Delaware or something.... Katie? Yes. Katie is on Survivor to meet her future husband and prove that pageant girls kick ass... not at all mutally exclusive and doing her part for feminism.
So back to last night's episode. Michael is the only one of our returnees to be doing well in his tribe. Penner's not getting on super well with his group (though I'm not sure he's aware of it) and Russell is being a schmuck. He's running around telling everyone who'll listen that he doesn't want to be the leader, then he's barking orders at everyone. He pretty much lost the challenge for his team by not listening to everyone about what their strengths were. Put Zane on the running leg of the challenge & Zane actually yelled out, "Drag me!" at Russell because he was lagging behind. (Zane later admitted to having JUST quit smoking prior to coming on the show!) And he put a girl on puzzles who said she wasn't good at puzzles. So by all accounts - bad leadership and general annoyingness - Russell should have gone home, right? Nope. Silly Zane made a rookie mistake. He took responsibility for the loss and told the group to vote him out. Now, I think he was making an attempt at strategy by coming across as the nice guy who everyone likes and basically trying to be the opposite of Russell. Unfortunately, what people see is an easy vote. A guy who is actually likable but who is actually going to hinder them in challenges and who nobody is going to fault them for for voting out.... because he ASKED them to! D'oh! And Russell seemed to ask for some forgiveness in Tribal Council and recognized the error in his ways... so we'll see if he can change it up and stick around. He is for sure more useful to the tribe at this point - I'd have kept him too.
Also, this makes me really want to go to the Philippines. I'd like Jeff (Probst, not the baseball guy) to drive me around in a speedboat. Probably not going to happen. Just saying.
No comments:
Post a Comment