important hijack:
Confidential to misstee
[spoiler] misstee: I get your e-mail do you get mine?
all others: Told you it was confidential, Nosy!
[/spoiler]
/ih
Has anyone else watched the “Survivor Live” show that’s on the CBS website? It’s an interview show with Richard Hatch and Chris Booker (whoever he is) that they’re doing live every Thursday and Friday at 2pm ET, and you can watch the past shows whenever you want. I love it! It’s a real insider view to the show, and they talk about stuff that I haven’t seen anywhere else. OK, granted, I never see the TV interview shows because I’m at work, but it seems like Richard Hatch gives some good insights into what it’s like to be on Survivor.
As for the show, I thought it was pretty boring. There was way too much intro and not nearly enough getting to know the contestants. If they wanted to do the native dance thing, I wish they had made it a two-hour episode. As a matter of fact, I wish they had done that anyway. It’s so hard to get a feel for what the people are like with such a short view of each of them.
From one of the mini-interviews with Lea, he said (while they showed him talking to three or four other guys) that a bunch of the guys came up to him and said, “Sarge, what’s the plan?” and he said he was going to wait a couple hours and see how things fell out. All the ex-military guys fell back on their indoctrination and waited for orders. Chris saw this happening and went to Sarge with a plan. “Sergeant, put the pole in the hole.” Bye bye, Brook.
When I heard him say he just learned how to swim, I was like, “Thank you!” It really chaps my ass when people go on Survivor and don’t know how to swim, and it boggles my mind that they seem to make no effort to learn how before they get to the filming. You’ve got some time to prepare before hitting the island; I say make the most of it, especially when it can only work to your advantage in literally staying afloat in challenges.
Okay, it took me awhile to stop in, but I thought I’d share my $0.02.
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I’m still sticking with my original pick of Lea. The guy seemed like a tough customer on paper, and now that the rest of the guys are deferring to him for decisions, it’s going to make it that much harder to eliminate him. Unless, of course, the season ends up like Marquesas, and Lea is another synonym for “Hunter.” But I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it.
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I am a little worried that they’re editing the women so favorably so early on. Burnett is known for hiding clues to the end of the season in the first episode, to give people things to speculate upon. I’m hoping the editing isn’t setting us up for another all-female finale.
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Dolly just might be the cutest Survivor contestant I’ve ever laid eyes upon. I’m hoping for a strong enough finish to ensure an offer from Playboy, but that’s just me.
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Anybody else think that Chris, the nearly-eliminated Department of Transportation worker, looks remarkably like Chris Benoit the wrestler?
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I’m glad to hear there aren’t any confirmed “spoiler lists” making the rounds like last go-round. There are some speculative lists, most notably Snewser’s, but most are based on very shaky numbers such as weight loss.
However, that never stopped me before. 
If you want to see the speculated first few boots, scan the Spoiler box below:
[SPOILER]If weight loss is the best indicator (and many think it is), the first few boots should be:
Brook, Brady, Dolly, John K., John P., Lisa, Mia, Travis
[/SPOILER]
But we’ll see.
Enjoying the season so far, can’t wait to see the next one!
Hmm, a bit of a Meh.
Breaking them into two groups, men vs. women not very original.
They really oversold the “welcome”, seemed like time filler to me.
The game has gotten too far from surviving- now the strongest players are voted out first- while the weakest game losing types stay?
Just for once they should punish teams that do this- no merger till the final four. No forcing others to sit out to even the odds. After All-star they really need to force alot of innovation into the rules and the challenges as the system is getting gamed way too much and it is rewarding the lazy and unfit all too often.
As far as Rupert- the two time loser, if I see his mug on the screen one more time-- grr. Take your CBS pity million and go away- but remember that you were never good enough to win.
About that ceremony–my wife was wondering if all the camera crew had to go through the same thing, and on a separate note, do they have a women-only camera crew and men-only?
I don’t think it was intended to be original, but rather deferential to the customs of the local people. Women apparently are routinely separated from men in rituals and contests.
That’s what I got from it, too. However, it still smacks of Survivor: Amazon, or (as I like to refer to it) Survivor: What Else Is On? Nothing?
Granted, but I don’t think it necessarily follows that the two teams need to be boy/girl. At some point, men & women are going to be living together.
On Jeff’s comment/interruption when the pig was brought in – it may have been addressed to the contestants, but he might as well have been holding up a sign to the camera, saying “they would’ve killed the pig anyway. Honest. It’s not our fault. Don’t yell at CBS or Mark Burnett…please…”
I was surprised at the whole pig thing. I’d been expecting something terribly raw and icky. Maybe I blinked, but it wasn’t all that “shocking” to me. I think maybe I’ve just seen too many horror movies.
I also made the mistake of watching the first episode with a bunch of people who didn’t give a damn, and therefore talked through the whole thing. I missed almost all the dialogue, but as it was the first episode, I don’t think that matters much.
In my pool, I’ve drawn Rory, Chad, Twila, and Leann. I’m still working on identifying them all. The only one I can spot so far is Rory (and Chad if he’s wearing shorts). And mechanical-bull-boy. Because he’s adorable.
Jeff Propst said in an interview that everyone had to go through that, and since they had to do it anyway they decided to make it part of the show.
My parents, who spent some time visiting Vanuatu a few years ago, thought the whole thing looked staged, and that they had brought in actors from somewhere, or people from several different tribes at least.
I agree. The first episode should be two hours – it’s not like it will hurt ratings any and it’s not like there isn’t enough decent material to add, even if it’ s just a bunch more confessionals. But I thought the opening episode was pretty good, creates potential for a good season (but I’m kind of a simpleton; what do I know?). We’ve already seen a fracture of the men’s camp, a surprising first vote – and now it looks like the GQ faction will be scurrying around like cockroaches trying to save their asses from the Dorks & Misfits faction.
Actually, comparing GQ to cockroaches is a mistake (cockroaches are survivors; these guys could be more like lambs, as in taken to the slaughter). The true cockroach is Chris – that description seems to fit him in a few ways, IMHO – and that’s something of a stunner he didn’t get the heave-ho after his floparoo on the balance beam. Has anyone been more the obvious choice to go for their inadequacies AND NOT GO? Sarge Lea sure was his angel in white. Of course, whether Chris will stay around after he repeatedly costs Lopevi immunity challenges is another question. But he makes a pretty good villain if for no other reason than we’ll all root against him because of the idiotic blather that’s gonna come from his piehole. But something tells me he’ll stick around. Confidence seems to go farther than intelligence (or physical ability) on this show.
One other thing: this group sure is vanilla, and I don’t mean in their personalities. Is it just white people that watch Survivor or what?