Boston Rob vs Russell, Round 2

The upcoming season of Survivor – Survivor: Redemption Island – will feature two familiar faces for fans of the show, “Boston Rob” Mariano, making his fourth appearance on the show (in addition to two season of The Amazing Race) and Russell Hantz making his third appearance.  This is in addition to sixteen other contestants who have never appeared on the show before.

On the surface at least the result seems preordained: the new players will vote out the two returning players fairly early in the proceedings. Maybe. Survivor tends to be filled with surprises and there does seem to be a pecking order in the way that people are eliminated. In the “Team Phase” the initial impulse is to keep the team strong by voting out the weakest players. It is only as the “Team Phase” is winding down and the merge is approaching that attention is redirected towards the strongest players. In addition, this season adds a quite deliberate twist in that a player who is voted out isn’t immediately eliminated. Instead they go to "a new area – called Redemption Island – where they subsist in exactly the same sort of circumstances that the players who are still in the game are surviving in. As each new player is eliminated they are sent to Redemption Island where they compete against the person who is already there. Whoever wins stays on the island alone and waits for the next person to be eliminated. Eventually the player who survives on Redemption Island returns to the main game and is eligible for the main prize. So even if Rob or Russell is voted off they aren’t actually out of the game until they’re beaten by someone on Redemption Island.

Mostly though this is a personal battle between Rob and Russell. They went head to head in Survivor: Heroes vs Villains where they were on the same team, and while Rob quickly saw Russell for what he was – a backstabbing conniver who would be your best friend at one Tribal Council and be working to get rid of you the next (or even the same day, as in the case of Tyson) – Rob was unable to develop a truly united front, mainly because of Russell’s ability to persuade people to vote against their own best interests. The animosity between the two was palpable from the beginning – at one point Russell told the confessional that he wanted to burn Rob’s trademark Red Sox cap – and boiled over at the Heroes vs Villains reunion show where Rob told Russell that, “given the opportunity, I’d gladly go back and kick your ass all over the island.” In this particular season the other sixteen is just a side show – the real battle is between Rob & Russell.

Here’s the tale of the tape:

Rob Mariano
Age: 35
Nickname: Boston Rob
Trademark: Red Sox Cap
Previous Seasons (Finish): Survivor: Marquesas (10), Survivor: All Stars (2), Survivor: Heroes vs Villains (13)
Little known fact: He went to Xavierian Brothers High School with Matt Hasselback, the brother-in-law of Elizabeth (Filarski) Hasselback who appeared on Survivor: Australia with Rob`s wife Amber Brkich.
Strengths: Since his first appearance on the show he has constantly improved his game. In his first season he was seen as part of the group on his tribe who “didn’t work.” In later seasons his work ethic improved. His survival skills are quite strong; he was the first cast member to ever start a fire by rubbing two sticks together (which other people on his team felt would never work). His social game has definitely improved over the years. Strong in team competitions, particularly in challenges involving puzzles. In working with members of his own tribe he’s been increasingly smooth. A sound strategist he tends to develop core alliances and work outward from there. Has a strong ability to “read” opponents like a poker player. He picked up on Russell being untrustworthy and his biggest opposition on his team practically from the moment that he met him.
Weaknesses: Limited experience with individual challenges. he only really faced those in his All Star season. Has very limited experience with the Hidden Immunity Idol. His only exposure to that was in the Heroes vs Villains season and initially at least he was quite disdainful of it. His high public profile might also be a problem when playing against new players. He may be one of the two or three best known of all Survivor contestants because of his multiple TV appearances, both on Survivor and on other TV shows, often as a reality TV contestant. This may put a target on his back from the moment he begins.

Russell Hantz
Age: 38
Nickname: Demented Hobbit; Immunity Idol Magnet
Trademark: Grey Trilby style hat, bald head and beard.
Previous Seasons (Finish): Survivor: Samoa (2), Survivor: Heroes vs Villains (3)
Little known fact: Although he lists his profession as being in the oil well services business, he also owns a bar in Lafayette Louisiana. He was arrested for misdemeanour assault and battery there after an altercation in the bar.
Strengths: Very physical player, sometimes to his own detriment. He tends to turn his work ethic on and off as necessary. He thinks a lot about his game and plans out scenarios. He seems to regard alliances as transitory, to be set aside or renewed as needed. His only enduring alliance during the Heroes vs Villains season was with eventual second place winner Parvati Shallow. His greatest strength in both seasons in which he played was his ability to find Hidden Immunity Idols, sometimes without any clues, and to use them effectively to blackmail those around him into doing his bidding.
Weaknesses: Russell has several major weaknesses. He has a tremendous ego which has been boosted by twice being voted the Player of the Season by viewers of the show. His social game is virtually non-existent, and he has in previous two seasons seemed incapable of understanding the importance of the social game. At least some of his former tribe mates have described being with him in the game as being similar to an abusive relationship. Russell also had something of an advantage in his Heroes vs Villains season in that he went straight from Survivor: Samoa to that season so that the people he was playing against had no idea of what he was capable of while the he knew a lot about many of the people he was playing against so that he could work them. Coming into Redemption Island the roles are reversed; the players that he’ll be up against will know all there is to know about him while the only person he’ll know anything about is Rob. It may be that a smart player would want to take him as far as he can knowing that a jury won’t vote for Russell, but it may also be that he’ll be regarded as too dangerous and annoying and voted out quickly.

What Probst says: Jeff Probst has literally seen them all come and go. Here’s part of what he told Entertainment Weekly about the two:

I do not think Russell or Rob will be the first person voted out of this game. Because I think they bring too much experience — 156 days between the two of them. When you’re playing a game, there’s a lot to be learned….Rob may have an easier time initially, but Rob’s gong to have a tougher time long term because Rob could win. Rob is likable enough. He could win. Russell’s not going to win. Russell doesn’t get that. He’s not gonna win. Even if he was nice this season, the payoff for past seasons won’t let him win. Rob is going to have a tough time if he makes it to the merge.

So what do you think? I want to know, so I’m starting a poll (as soon as Blogger will let me) which will run until just before Survivor: Redemption Island debuts. The question is simple enough: Who will last longest in the coming season of Survivor: Boston Rob Mariano or Russell Hantz? Don’t forget that I would also like to read your comments on this so feel free to post them here or wherever.

Bob The Survivor

I have decided that Bob is my favourite cast member on the current season of Survivor. He's always been on the list because he's low key yet industrious, but what he did over the past couple of episodes has cemented my opinion of him as the smartest player to probably not win this game since Yau Man didn't win.

Some of you may be wondering how he accomplished this. Well, the sequence goes something like this.

1. Bob goes to Exile Island for the first time. Unlike Dan – the first player sent to Exile – but like Sugar, he finds the first clue to the hidden immunity idol and follows them through to the end. At the end of the trail he finds nothing. And so he spends his time in a little art project, making a fake Immunity Idol (and by far the most convincing of the fakes yet perpetrated). He then returns to the Nobag camp with his fake. Charlie is voted out.
   
2. Bob shows his fake immunity idol to Sugar. She immediately sees the potential of the fake Idol in getting rid of Randy. Bob resolves to give the fake idol to Randy if Randy asks for the Immunity Idol.
   
3. Bob is sent to Exile a second time, this time by Kenny. After finding that the clue is exactly the same one that led him to the dead end in his previous time at Exile, he goes on a bit of a personal safari.
   
4. Which of course Randy does, because Randy has been acting like an even bigger horse's ass than usual – something that is hard to believe since he was already a Clydesdale sized horse's ass – with the expectation that Bob has the Idol.
   
5. Randy stays obnoxious at Tribal Council to the point where Crystal makes her goodbye statement loudly enough so everyone can hear her.
   
6. In the vote Corinne and Randy vote for Susie. So does Bob.
   
7. Randy plays the fake Idol. Jeff reveals that Idol that Randy played was fake. Bye-bye self-declared "King of Gabon," don't let the palm leaves hit you on the ass on the way out – or better yet do.
   

Now there are a couple of things here that I don't think some people get. First of all there's this from Wikipedia: "Not knowing that Sugar had the Hidden Immunity Idol, Bob told her that he did not have the Hidden Immunity Idol and showed her the fake idol that he made." While I mostly agree that Bob doesn't know for sure that Sugar has the Idol, he has to be pretty sure that it's not there and since Sugar is the only person left in the game who has been to Exile – Dan having been eliminated – it follows that Sugar has the Idol, since in the past they've returned it to Exile with a new set of clues if the owner either plays it or is eliminated, and Bob has followed clues that have led him to a spike in a tree in the jungle; the perfect place for an Immunity Idol to hang. And as we'll see in the next paragraph letting Sugar know helps him to sell his plan.

Next, why does Bob vote for Susie? He has to know that she's not going home right? Of course he does, and it doesn't matter. In fact it is a brilliant strategic move because it tells Randy, Corrine, the jury members and anyone that Sugar hasn't told about having the Immunity Idol that he believed he had the real thing. Sugar's barely controlled glee at seeing Randy play the fake sells the idea that she knows it's a fake. It not only reveals that Sugar has the real Idol to anyone who doesn't already know – how else would she know that what Randy played was a fake practically before he played it – but it makes it obvious that it was Sugar, and not Bob who made the fake Idol. After all, why would Bob give what he knew to be a fake Idol to his ally Randy? Bob has to have believed that it was the real deal and he wouldn't if he made it himself.

For the life of me though, what I don't get is why Corinne and Randy – but particularly Corinne – believed it was impossible for Sugar to have the real Immunity Idol while they were absolutely certain that Bob found it. I mean anyone who looked at the situation with even a modicum – a bare scintilla – of logic would come to the conclusion that the odds of someone who had been sent to Exile Island five times in a row were at least twice as good as the odds of someone who had been there twice. In the end I suppose that it comes down pure hubris on the part of Randy and even more so Corinne. For reasons which surpass any understanding, they believe that Sugar is simply too stupid to have found the Immunity Idol despite five consecutive trips there. Corinne has even come out and called Sugar stupid because she can't see that Corinne hates her. Presumably they believe that without a brain (Ace) to guide her, Sugar would be useless in the game, too stupid to "outwit, outplay, or outlast" the supposedly smart people. And what is their basis for believing this? Because she looks the way she looks and talks the way she talks and claims to be a pin-up model so how smart can she be? In fact she's an actress whose IMDB credits include appearances in Gilmore Girls (she played Jess's girlfriend Shane if that means anything to you) and For Your Love. She was also vocalist in a band called "Sugar Spit." Not a "rocket scientist" to be sure but hardly too stupid to survive.

I don't expect Bob to survive for too much longer sadly. The problem is that with the exception of Corinne, none of the other cast members is as isolated and friendless as Bob. His ties with Crystal, Matty and Kenny are non-existent, and his link with Susie has to be even more tenuous than his relationship with Sugar. In fact his only semi-solid alliance is probably with Corinne, cemented by his decision to vote for Susie. I expect Corinne to go home next week followed, sadly, by Bob the Survivor.

On The Fourth Day Of Christmas

On the Fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me....Four Reality-Competition Show Stars. (Well five really but two of these are so joined in the public imagination that they can safely be counted as one.) Okay, admittedly these are people from shows that I watch and I don't really focus on shows like Project Runway, America's Next Top Model, or American Idol, but do you really want to be reminded of Sanjaya?

Yau-Man Chan: Everybody's favourite loser on Survivor: Fiji. Yau-Man was smart, enthusiastic, agile, and beloved by his fellow competitors. He opened a sealed wooden box when brawnier members of his tribe failed through the simple expedient of dropping it on its corner. His childhood in Borneo gave him some knowledge of the jungle. He almost single handedly won an immunity challenge for his team by applying physics – by way of "unorthodox" techniques – to a challenge involving traditional Fijian weapons. He not only managed to tell his alliance that he had one of the hidden Immunity Idols when forced by two other players, he managed to build on his alliance by revealing that his belongings had been searched. He read his opponents so well that he knew the exact time to play his Immunity Idol – if he hadn't played it at just the right time he'd have been eliminated by a 4-2 vote. His one misstep involved the "car curse." In a Reward Challenge he won a new truck. He immediately decided to use it as a bargaining chip, offering it to cheerleading coach "Dreamz" in return for a promise that if "Dreamz" won the immunity challenge in the final four he wouldn't vote for Yau-Man. "Dreamz" took the truck and then broke his promise, with Yau-Man finishing fourth. The "car curse" turned out to be doubly powerful – "Dreamz" not only didn't win the million dollar first prize, neither he nor Cassandra (the other player who faced the final jury vote) got a single vote.

Dick Donato: "Evel" was by turns abusive, arrogant, tender, mocking and strategically brilliant during his time on Big Brother 8. The California National Organization for Women called for his removal from the show because of remarks he made about a female competitor, and online petitions circulated for and against him. And yet there was usually method in his supposed madness because when it came down to it, Dick's primary objective was not to win the half million dollar prize for himself but to win it for his daughter Danielle who was also a contestant. He was the first person in the history of the American version of Big Brother to have been able to used the Power of Veto to save himself and instead use it on the other nominee – his daughter Danielle (she later returned the favour). And although he tended to be less than successful at challenges his determination a marathon task that didn't work as planned (part of the mechanism for the challenge broke down early in the challenge leaving the two remaining contestants to hold onto a rope while being drenched in water) was only a prelude to his success in the remaining two parts of the final Head of Household competition. This in turn allowed him to go to the final two with his daughter, as he had planned. The quality of his game play (combined with his popularity with the public in a season where phone voting controlled one player) allowed him to win the season.

"Jeric" (Jessica Hughbanks & Eric Stein): You know you have something when you have two reality-competition players whose connection is so deep that they grow a compound name, and their fans petition for their inclusion in The Amazing Race. That happened to "Romber" (Rob & Amber from Survivor: All Stars, and one of the best teams ever to appear on The Amazing Race in my opinion) and it happened to Jessica & Eric. Admittedly they didn't win Big Brother 8, or even finish in the final four, but they had amazing chemistry together and their romantic relationship blossomed on the show. Admittedly things were complicated for Eric due to the whole "America's Player" thing, which allowed viewers at home to determine who Eric would vote for and some of his other actions – on his own Eric probably wouldn't have made some of the voting decisions that were made for him – but somehow they worked through it. True, Eric's first kiss with Jessica had been voted on by the fans, and it was their choice that he give his (supposed) childhood "woobie" to her but there was a definite connection there. Even their evictions from the house had an almost Romeo & Juliet quality to it – in a double eviction episode Eric was removed from the show just minutes after Erica. Since their appearance on Big Brother they are apparently still together, if in a rather long distance relationship at the moment. More to the point they were such fan favourites that when Eric made a comment about how he'd like to be on The Amazing Race, fans started a petition to get the couple on the show.

Julia Williams: Reality TV fans are a fickle lot, and nothing showed that more than the reaction to Julia. She became a fan favourite on the third season of Hell's Kitchen due to her underdog status. While most of the other competitors had experience in fine dining establishments, Julia was a short order cook for the Waffle House chain. The abuse started almost immediately, when she was relegated to chopping apples during dinner service. It was only after one of the "better trained" members of her team repeatedly failed to fry quail eggs that she let her frustration go. Even then, some members of her team wanted to eliminate her because she "worked at the (expletive) Waffle House." She was nominated later for "not knowing proper culinary terms," something so absurd that Ramsay voided the nomination. Julia's performance continued to improve, and when Ramsay was finally forced to fire her, he not only praised her performance on the show but even offered to pay for her to attend culinary school. She was most assuredly the fan's favourite at this point in the show. And then came the series finale. The final two were "Rock", an executive chef from Virginia, and Bonnie, a self-described nanny an personal chef from Los Angeles. The relationship between Julia and Bonnie had never been good – Bonnie was one of the people who thought Julia should have been fired in the first episode – and Julia seemed resentful that Bonnie in particular was there and she wasn't. The fans – some of them at least – turned on her. She was pouting; she wasn't sufficiently grateful for Ramsay paying her way to culinary school. Worst of all, she was a "sore loser" and may even have used her attitude to keep Bonnie from winning. Even I felt that if it were a real restaurant rather than the finale of a reality competition, Bonnie would have been justified in firing Julia's ass – after service was over. Still, no one can deny that at least for most of what was really a lacklustre season for the show, Julia was the one the fans were behind.

A New Batch - A New Gimmick

It probably should be hard to be the producer of Survivor. Every season it seems as though you have to come up with a new gimmick or two to keep viewers interested. You've done men versus women. You've done pick teams. You've done switch teams halfway through. You've brought back people who were eliminated already in a season. You've brought back people who were eliminated the previous season. You've done an All Star Season and split the players up into four teams for that. You've even done a season where one team was voted to near extinction. You've played with all sorts of gimmicks. Then you look over at the people at The Amazing Race - you know the show that's cleaned your clock three times at the Emmys - and you see that the one and only time they tried a gimmick, in the form of The Amazing Race: Family Edition not only did their ratings go down rather than up but they were roundly criticized by fans and professional TV critics who wanted the show to go back to the way it was. Sometimes an ordinary mortal producer would question whether he needed gimmicks to keep his show fresh, or whether just focussing on the players would be enough. But of course the producer of Survivor is Mark Burnett a man with a gargantuan ego (despite having only Survivor, The Apprentice and arguably Rock Star: INXS as legitimate hits) who just happens to be sleeping with Roma Downey (that's not really relevant but I just thought I'd mention it): if he thinks that the series needs a new gimmick every season then by heavens it gets a new gimmick every season.

There are what initially appears to be two gimmicks this season. One is that there will be four teams this season "old versus young, men versus women", while the other is something called "Exile Island". The four teams gimmick is something of a fraud however since host Jeff Probst has let that particular cat out of the bag by telling the various entertainment "news" shows that it will only last one episode. And really I have difficulty in seeing how that particular idea could be sustainable over any real length of time given sixteen player. That would mean four players per team and a team that lost two players would be at a serious disadvantage. I initially suspected that they might go to three teams of five after the first elimination, but apparently what will actually happen is that once the first episode is completed they'll go back to the "schoolyard pick" method to come up with two teams. According to Jeff Probst, in an interview with the Cincinnati Post, maintaining four separate production crews for any length of time would just be too expensive.

I have to confess that the other gimmick for the season intrigues me a bit more. This season's edition has the full title Survivor Panama: Exile Island and the gimmick attached to that is that in each episode one player will be sent off for three days alone on a mysterious and vaguely creepy "Exile Island" without shelter, food or fire. Obviously this keeps them away from their home camp and out of the alliance building, backstabbing loop. Plus, the deeper into the game you get the harder the potential impact - physically and mentally - will be for the player who is going into what amounts to solitary confinement. On the other hand there is a potential benefit for the player going to Exile Island in the form of a hidden Immunity Idol. The player who finds the Idol can use it at any time, and most importantly doesn't have to reveal that he or she has it until after an elimination vote. Thus there's the potential for someone to be voted out unanimously only to reveal the Idol and have their own vote be the only one to decide who will be eliminated. According to the Post interview, Probst said that "At one point in tribal someone said, 'You know, we think this has changed the game too much.' I cracked up. That's definitely a sign that's working."

Probst also described this as one of the top five Survivor casts ever. Although to my mind how good a Survivor cast is can only really be known after the season has ended, this group has a great deal of potential. Most of the pre-season attention has gone to former astronaut Dan Barry, but there's also Misty Giles, a rocket scientist (amazingly the second one to appear on the series) who is also a former beauty queen, and former F-14 pilot Terry Dietz. There an LA based entertainment promoter named Shane Powers about whom Probst says "Shane's the guy that if he walked in every season and looked different, we'd put him on every season," Probst said. "He opens his mouth and you go, 'Oh, what's he going to say next?'" My own personal favourites are Bruce Kanegai, an art teacher and Karate instructor who also used to train California police officers "arrest and control techniques, weapon retention and the side-handle baton", and Ruth Marie Milliman whose varied career includes being a college cheerleader, a page at the South Carolina legislature, flight attendant, the first female narcotics agent for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Agency and (I swear) the 1978 South Carolina Watermelon Queen. Also of note was Tina Scheer, a "logging sports promoter" who was selected to participate in Survivor Guatemala but was forced to withdraw following the death of her only child in a car accident a week before she was due to leave. The producers offered to keep a spot open for her in the next series, if she felt it was ready to do it.

Full biographies for all 16 members of this season's group can be found at the Survivor website.

In all honesty I have to say that I don't know how well this season of Survivor will do in the ratings. According to the Cincinnati Post article Survivor Guatemala experienced a slippage in viewership last fall, despite what I thought was one of the most challenging environments they've ever operated in (Probst likes this season's cast better though - according to him they are more enthusiastic about the game than the Survivor Guatemala group). Moreover, this season the show is going up against a program where the audience has to watch the show live in order to participate. Dancing With The Stars has been maintaining strong ratings - third place on the night although weaker in the 18-49 demographic - since it debuted. Are viewers going to abandon a show which they already have four weeks invested in emotionally to watch the early weeks of Survivor? And how will Survivor do against Dancing With The Stars and two Thursdays of NBC's Winter Olympics coverage. While I don't think this combination will be fatal to Survivor, I would not be at all surprised to see a major ratings dip for the episodes on February 16 and 23 in particular.

Survivor: Guatemala - My Prediction

Back when Survivor first debuted, in the summer of 2000, it was a big hit among players of the boardgame Diplomacy. Where most people saw Richard Hatch as a conniving backstabber who hoodwinked the other people on that island, we Diplomacy players saw a kindred spirit who was playing the other people in order to accomplish his series of goals - "going for the 18 centre win" as we'd put it - by establishing an alliance and using that alliance to eliminate other players and controlling the game throughout. All the while he was also manipulating other players in such a way that they would see him as the lesser of virtually every alternative in the final jury session. Hatch's opponents took too long to fully understand what was going on. A perfect example of how he handled things was final Immunity Challenge of that first season. It featured Hatch, whitewater rafting guide Kelly Wigglesworth and former US Navy SEAL Rudy Boesch. Hatch knew that neither he nor Wigglesworth were likely to beat Boesch who was well liked by many of the members of the jury primarily because he hadn't engaged in the sort of intrigues that Hatch and Wigglesworth had been part of. Hatch also knew that he couldn't vote Boesch off lest he lose the older man's vote in the final Tribal Council. Therefore he eliminated himself from the competition leaving it a battle between Wigglesworth and Boesch, certain that he would be in the final two either way - Wigglesworth would take him believing that she could win against Hatch and couldn't win against Boesch while Boesch would remain loyal to their early pact. In the end Wigglesworth outlasted Boesch in the endurance challenge, but it was Hatch, who had created the alliance strategy after researching the Swedish show Expedition Robinson on which Survivor is based was able to convince the other players - famously including Sue Hawk - that he was the lesser of the two evils they had to choose from.

Subsequent seasons of Survivor weren't as popular with Diplomacy players, in part because the lessons of the first season were often only half learned. Survivor: Outback featured Colby Donaldson, a player who physically dominated the individual Immunity Challenges but made a major mistake by choosing the more popular (and manipulative) Tina Wesson before the jury instead of the far less popular Keith Famie. Wesson won because she was better at the non-challenge part of the game. Similarly Kim Johnson chose Ethan Zohn in Survivor: Africa because she wanted him to win the money and didn't think she could win against either Zohn or third place finisher Lex van der Berghe. Subsequent seasons saw the rise of the "under the radar" strategy pioneered by Vecepia Towery in Survivor: Marquesas a strategy which has the problem of being seen as riding on a stronger opponent's coattails as happened in Survivor: Palau Katie Gallagher. Something vaguely similar to the "under the radar strategy" occurred in the All Star version of Survivor in which Rob Mariano (who hadn't been a particularly effective player in Survivor: Marianas but obviously had been studying) played master manipulator to reach the final two along with his ally, the virtually invisible Amber Brkich (who had tried the coattails thing in Survivor: Australia - she won as the lesser of two evils. Increasingly the strategy which has been most successful is a strong two person alliance with temporary alliances with others to reach the final four or three - in fact the same essential strategy pioneered by Richard Hatch in the very first Survivor, although in many cases players haven't had the Machiavellian willingness to subtly pull the trigger on their principal ally that Richard Hatch did when he pulled out of the final immunity.

So what, in this old (and bad) Diplomacy player's mind, is going to happen in the two hour finale of Survivor: Guatemala. The final four are Stephenie La Grossa (who had been a contestant in Survivor: Palau), Rafe Judkins, Danni Boatwright, and Lydia Morales. Of the four, Rafe and Steph appear to have the closest alliance, although it seems to be under a lot of pressure. Lydia had been a partner in this alliance and ridden along on its coattails but was increasingly seen as an outsider. Danni is the only surviving member of the original Nakum Tribe. Rafe and Steph are the two most dominant players in terms of being competitive in challenges - both immunity and reward. Lydia has not one an individual challenge of either type while Danni won a crucial immunity when it seemed likely that she would be voted out as the last Nakum member. For a Diplomacy player the best situation is to go into a head to head contest with a player who is at a positional disadvantage on the board. In terms of Survivor: Guatemala, this is Lydia who has been the weakest remaining player throughout the season. Having her in the final two will insure her opponent the win, so if anyone is playing optimally she should go before the jury. Assuming that either of the two strongest players - Rafe or Steph - wins the first immunity of Sunday night's show that person should work with Danni and Lydia to eliminate the strongest remaining player. That is Steph should try to eliminate Rafe and vice versa. This means of course that whoever wins the final immunity should keep Lydia and vote out the other player.

I can practically guarantee you that this will not happen. While it is optimal play it isn't expected play. I expect Lydia to be eliminated for the exact reason that she should be kept on - she hasn't been a strong player and it may be that the stronger players will find her unworthy of having even a slight chance at the million dollar first prize. The question then becomes whether Rafe or Steph will take Danni to the jury or each other. If the final is Steph versus Danni I would expect the vote to be 4-3 for Steph. Rafe versus Danni would either be 5-2 or 4-3 for Rafe. Rafe versus Steph is a bit harder to call and will probably depend on the winner of the final immunity challenge, although I lean towards Rafe winning because he hasn't antagonized as many people as Stephanie has. Rafe beats Lydia, Danni and probably Stephenie, while Stephenie beats Lydia and probably Danni. Danni is only certain to beat Lydia, meaning that the most likely winner of Survivor: Guatemala is Rafe Judkins.

Okay, That's It...

Summer is officially over. Forget about the temperatures. Most of North America has been sweltering under temperatures that pose a danger to the elderly and small animals if they don't have air conditioning. I wouldn't really know about that - Saskatoon hasn't had a really hot day yet in August and the past few days the night time temperature has been dipping to around 5 Celsius (that's 41 for those of you who still think in Fahrenheit). The networks have been running ads for their "new Fall programs" practically since the end of May Sweeps, so that isn't exactly an indicator either. I suppose we could talk about "Back To School" ads - I'm waiting for the Alice Cooper ad from last year, probably in vain - but the school supply companies and the office stores have been sending those out to battle since the beginning of August. No for me the true indicator has been the posting of the new players for Survivor and The Amazing Race. That's the true sign that it's time to start worrying about when to put on a jacket when you're going out.

The Survivor cast looks like, well your average Survivor cast. There's your requisite old guy - this time he's a former marine who joined the Aurora Colorado Fire Department and rose to the rank of captain over a 30 year career. There's the usual complement of "pretty" young people, some of whom are models/actors - which usually means waiters - looking for their "big break". (Actually most of the time all of the contestants on this show and other reality shows tend to be "pretty people" even the old ones. This is television after all.) There are a couple of interesting stories. There's the first female sergeant in the Revere Massachusetts Police Department, a woman who lists her occupation as "fishmonger" - actually she's the assistant manager at a seafood company but what the heck - a woman who's a sports talk show host and a former NFL quarterback (Gary Hogeboom who I expect to be gone, probably during the mid-game phase - too dangerous in individual competitions). Actually I think that the most interesting thing about this season is going to be the location. They'll be living in the ruins of an actual Mayan city. I'm not sure - someone will probably correct me if I'm wrong - but I seem to recall that the original plan for the fourth "season" of Survivor was to have the players living in the ancient city of Petra in Jordan, but ratings for Survivor: Africa weren't as good as desired and a lot of people were nervous about running the show in the Middle East right after September 11, 2001. It took a while but it appears as if the basic concept is finally going to be used.

Of course, those of you who know me realise that as much as I like Survivor, I am absolutely passionate about The Amazing Race which is why I find the cast announcement for that show by far more interesting. This time around TAR is running a "family edition". The format for this "family" version has teams of four instead of two, all of whom must be related to each other in some way. Moreover the minimum age for the show was lowered, eventually to 8 years old instead of the usual 21 and the originally announced limit of 12. This has set off a firestorm amongst fans who like the show just the way it was, with teams of two going around the world. "Family edition" implies children on all of the teams and the hard core fans (and yeah I did think I was hard core but compared with some of these people I seem like a dilettante) don't want the show corrupted by children (said with a horrified shudder - or perhaps a horrifying shudder - implied in the way they write it). Children (shudder) would mean that the Race would have to be simplified, made safer and "child friendly" with rappelling and such replaced with visits to amusement parks. The fear and loathing wasn't being reduced with a number of spoiler sightings of teams, all of them being restricted to North America. "They were at the Kennedy Space Center!" "Someone saw a team at the CN Tower in Toronto!" "They were in Vancouver! I swear it's true!!" (Visits to Vancouver are a bit of a joke in the Amazing Race newsgroup.) And then to top it off, Hera McLeod - part of the TAR6 cast with her father Gus - wrote on the Survivor Sucks! message board "From what I hear, they are having a lot of problems with it and it may actually not be a rumor that it all gets canned. Personally, I think it would be a blessing in disguise because TAR is not meant for children!" (Although oddly enough I can't seem to find her original posting, and how would she know anyway.)

So what have we got now that the actual contestants have been revealed? Well there are 27 Racers over the age of 20, and only three under the age of 12. Eleven are between the ages of 12 and 20. There are a couple of intriguing relationships. There is a team of four adult sisters. One team consists of a man and his three sons-in-law, the youngest of whom is 26. There's a 46 year old widow with her three kids, the youngest of whom is 14 and a father with his three daughters who were in a shampoo commercial together a few years ago. One team has two children under the age of 12, including the youngest competitor (aged 8) while another family has a 9 year-old and a 12 year-old. Beyond a significant absence of openly gay team members, the most significant thing to me seems to be that The Race actually seems to have attracted more older racers this time. There isn't the usual crowd of wannabe models and actors. Instead over a third of the competitors - fourteen in all - are 40 and older. That's "geezerhood" to many fans of The Race. I suppose that's necessary if you're going to have a race with the restrictions of familial relationships and the reduced age limit but still, when you consider the uproar about letting younger people compete in the race, the fact that there are as many people over 40 this time around as there are under 21 and as many people over 50 (advanced geezerhood) as there are under 12 would come as a big surprise if any of the raging fans bothered to notice.

I haven't pre-rendered judgement on the upcoming edition of The Amazing Race. I want to see at least the first before I do that. I don't take the spoilers all that seriously - yet - simply because the show has traditionally been very stringent when it comes to security. It's entirely plausible that the producers have hired families to show up at famous locations for the specific purpose of being noticed. That said, I will be happy when the producers take the show back to its roots with the ninth series of The Amazing Race. It isn't that the family idea is necessarily a bad one. Simply it is a case that I think that teams of four are harder to relate to than teams of two. I also think that teams of four are going to be more difficult to manage. Most of all I don't like the implication that the changes occurred as a backlash to incidents in a couple of earlier season - like the one where Jonathon, a racer in the sixth race, pushed and berated his wife Victoria leading to charges of spousal abuse. Worst of all I fear that changing The Race will lead to some of the hard won momentum that the show gained in its two series last season. Of all of the "Reality-Competition" shows on the air, I think that The Amazing Race stands head and shoulders above the rest and I'd hate to see it lose the ratings strength that it has so richly earned and I worry that changing the format could hurt the show more than it helps.

Survivor Finale: The Right Man Won

(Since I didn't watch Everybody Loves Raymond toniight - because I don't - I thought I'd sum up last night's Survivor finale instead.)

After 39 days and a bunch of episodes, the best player of Survivor: Palau, 41 year-old New York firefighter Tom Westman won a 6 to 1 vote over PR professional Katie Gallagher. And under the circumstances it was about bloody time. Like most reality shows (and unlike my favourite The Amazing Race) Survivor isn't about being the best person, it's about being able to manipulate people without drawing a target on your own back. The person who does best at challenges and the person who shows leadership skills gets hit by the "tall poppy syndrome". Being too good usually leads to a player getting eliminated at the first possible opportunity once Tribes disappear and challenges become individual. Flying under the radar - not winning immunity challenges and not trying to lead the team but doing as much work as you have to and keeping your alliances strong but flexible - works, which is why Katie got as far as she did.

What Tom brought to the table was the whole package. He was a strong leader during the tribe vs. tribe phase of the series and a strong provider for his team. What's more he developed a number of alliances of varying strength. For most of the game his strongest alliance was with Ian Rosenberger - about the only player who was close to being his equal in the physical challenges. He also held an alliance with Gallagher and a secondary alliance with three of his fellow team mates. Another factor was that he had a clear vision of how the game would go. He played the game very much in the way that a chess player does, thinking ahead to what the best move his opponents could make would be and what his best move to preempt this would be. He planned to keep Gregg Carrey in the game until there were five players left because he thought that this would be the optimal time for Greg to make his move. In the event, he managed Gregg's removal with six players left because he got the impression that Gregg was making his move earlier than expected. After that it was a simple business of isolating and removing the remaining players who were not part of his core alliance, Caryn Groedel and Jenn Lyon.

The end for Ian came prematurely when he seemed to have burned too many of his bridges, first by not taking Katie on a reward he won which raised questions with her about his honesty and then by seeming to agree to vote Tom out if he lost immunity. It all came out. In an amazing turn of events Rosenberger dropped out of the last immunity challenge, an endurance competition, after almost 12 hours because he had thought through the events of the show and decided that he wasn't pleased with how at odds his behaviour in the game was to his own personal values. He ended the challenge after extracting a promise from Tom to vote him out, a development that astonished both Tom and host Jeff Probst.

After that it was a foregone conclusion that Tom would win. In the final Tribal Council he was articulate, and both complimentary to his opponents and even a little humble. Gallagher on the other hand was a t times abrasive towards people - at one point she told Jury member Janu Tornell that she wouldn't answer the question because she knew there was nothing she could say to get Janu's vote. Beyond that her behaviour during the game had not won her any fans. She didn't try hard at competition, she did on more than one occasion ridicule other players and, she did ride the coat tails of two better players through her alliance with Ian and Tom.

At 41 Tom is the oldest player ever to win Survivor but as Jeff Probst pointed out the average age for Survivor winners is 34. Maturity - emotional and intellectual maturity - wins Survivor. Physicality isn't enough, indeed as we've seen over ten series being physically dominant can be detrimental because at the first opportunity you are likely to be voted out if you don't also have a solid plan in playing the game. Tom won in part because he was physically better than most of the other players but also because he had a well thought out and executed plan. He deserved to win because he literally was the best player on that island.

Thoughts For An Afternoon Before Survivor

Do you remember the first person that you had sex with? You probably do, and not just the person but all the sticky, sweaty, frequently inept details. How about the second? You probably remember this one too, although a more of the details may escape you. Now how about the third. The fifth? The ninth? Unless they were spectacularly memorable or recent the details are probably increasingly foggy. That's how I've come to feel about Survivor.

The first time really was the best and most memorable. Back then no one knew how to play the game except Richard Hatch. He was the guy who took a look at the show logo and figured that to "outlast" you didn't necessarily need to "outplay" but you did need to "outwit" and the best way to outwit people was to put together an alliance when none of the other people had one. None of the others worked that one out and it gave him an advantage. Most of them thought the show really was about surviving in the wilderness and were picked off by Richard's group one by one and didn't even know what was happening. The people and events were memorable too. Who can forget pretty but doomed Colleen Haskell, Sue Hawk's "snakes and rats" speech at the final Tribal Council, and of course the opinionated but lovable old Navy Chief Rudy Boesch whose homophobia was overcome by the fact that he got along well with the gay guy. Newspapers ran weekly columns about the show - although that happened more in the second season - and it was water cooler conversation after every episode. There were Survivor themed parties on finale night, which apparently was enough for the network to include a reunion show that meant that Survivorwas featured for an entire night. That's what made the first series of Survivor the big hit that it wasn't supposed to be (if you can believe it Big Brother was supposed to be the big show that summer; instead it ended up dropping the viewer phone-in aspect for picking who got eliminated and adopting the players voting each other out method that survivor had). It got all of the players guest shots on prime time TV shows, and turned Survivor from a summer replacement into a weekly September through May series.

The second Survivor had it's moments. I can't forget Kel Gleason - at the time an Army intelligence officer and the closest thing to a Canadian ever to appear on a major network reality show - being accused of having a non-existent secret stash of beef jerky and being booted because of it. (Just as a follow-up Gleason left the US Army soon after the end of the show and moved back to Canada where his parents live. In 2002 Gleason was stabbed repeatedly with a broken bottle in a Toronto bar for being "that Indian on Survivor." He was badly injured but lived.) There the guy who fell into the fire, Keith Famie, the chef who couldn't cook rice,and Elizabeth Filarski, who parlayed her time on Survivor into a full-time TV career as one of the hosts of The View. The winner was Tina Wesson who won because Colby Donaldson - who dominated the individual competitions, picked the well-liked Wesson for the final Tribal Council over the poorly liked Famie.

The biggest thing that I remember about the second Survivor and the ones that followed it is that now everyone understood how the game was played - or thought they did - and proceeded with varying degrees of ability to lie, backstab and talk behind each others backs. There have been memorable incidents and people, like Rupert Boneham and "Johnny Fairplay" in the Pearl Islands season, or the girls who went topless for chocolate and peanut butter in the Amazon. In the Amazon series we learned that not only didn't you have to be a rocket scientist to be on the show, but being a rocket scientist was actually a detriment. To tell you the truth though, I have a hard time remembering who won the show last season (his name was Chris and he worked on a road crew and I swear that most of the people on the jury would have voted "none of the above" if they had an option). I'll still watch every episode of this season's Survivor and enjoy it but I think that for me and for most people it's going to be entertainment rather than a must see event.