I'd like to start this post by sending my condolences to the family of BB Andersen who recently passed away. I am very sorry for your loss.
(The opinions expressed in the following are mine and not necessarily those of anyone else, although in some cases they should be and probably are)
Episode 6 of Survivor: The Australian Outback is a phenomenally memorable episode of Survivor for TWO much much different reasons. Obviously Mike Skupin fell in a fire and had to be airlifted out of the game. That's the big one, the thing everyone talked about. It was very unfortunate for multiple reasons. It screwed every other member of Kucha out of a chance at winning, it paved the way for the tragically early ouster of Jeff Varner and it made people forget entirely that the greatest challenge in the history of Survivor had taken place 15 minutes beforehand. Yeah, I said it, the BEST challenge in Survivor - in terms of being good television - was the reward challenge in this episode. its not the best challenge in terms of that the challenge is or the way it is designed (for me that's probably the vertical maze from Vanuatu or the block stacking imuunity challenge that Foa Foa won in Samoa) No no, this was the best challenge in terms of the way it played out on the screen. A lot of challenges have the potential to be great, and often times blindfolds are involved as they were here. Blindfolded challenges always provide the potential for a nice balance of drama and comedy. All that being said, some challenges that seemed great on paper just didn't end up being as epic as they could have been. This one took a simple concept and ended up being the best challenge to watch ever on Survivor. Why? Go watch it. Okagor has the challenge won, despite the fact that half the tribe are literally wandering into the void the entire time, but Kucha pulls out the win at quite literally the very last possible moment. Keith and Amber end up spending most of this challenge walking into a log. I don't know how they did this. We see a lot of times in these challenges where someone goes too far in the wrong direction and they can sense they are out of the way they should be going (the one in Vanuatu had this a lot, Lopevi did this challenge probably the best of any tribe ever, which is actually kind of funny if you think about it.). Keith and Amber saw the course, they knew what they generally should be doing. Walking into a giant log? Not on the to do list. So yeah, Colby and Tina (so Colby) end up doing all the work, and all Amber has to do is put the picnic basket on the table. She has the basket in her hands, the table is literally within arms reach of her and she freezes. Now, Jerri's incohernet screaming probably didn't help her at all, and it lead the way for Nick to lead Kucha to come comeback win. Jeff and Alicia were smart enough to know that they needed to move their asses, and Nick was a great caller in that he was able to stay calm and give clear directions. A great job all around by Mr. Brown. So Kucha wins a challnge that Okagor had no business losing. Everyone cackles and laughs. Colby dumps water on Jerri out of frustration and we have ourselves one of this writers top 10 favourite Survivor challenge moments of all time (that list will come after the entire retrospect, so yeah, look forward to that)
Also worth mentioning in this episode is the classic scene in which Jerri and Amber are losing their minds due to being horny and hungry (horngry if you will) and Colby is losing his mind because he is sick of Jerri and Amber. Much comedy. I kind of felt bad for the guy. Here he is on a tribe with a woman he is slowly growing to despise and her little sidekick in the era of Survivor where no one ever went against their tribe. This would become more apparent in the next season, but tribal lines ran deep back then, and no one ever really went against that. EXCEPT to vote out Jerri. She was that annoying to her tribe. That's a topic for next time though, we're still in episode 6.
GUY FALLS IN FIRE. You know, looking back on Mike Skupins Survivor career, the guy sucked. People love to do some serious retconing of Skupin's run in this season and its ridiculous. To say this guy would have made any significant impact is a joke. First of all, the only thing the lack of him had any impact on was the numbers. He was just another Kucha. Had Kucha won the 6th immunity challenge, which by all accounts they most likely would have due to the fact they had access to much more food AND a caffeinated beverage to boost their awareness, the final 6 people in this season would have been the 6 members of Kucha. Mike was probably the biggest outsider of this group. And if Kucha had lost the 6th immunity challenge? the smart move would have been to vote out Jeff, since Okagor only knew Jeff had 1 vote and no more Jeff means Okagor doesn't have a target (although I doubt they would have thought of this) But most likely they would HAVE VOTED MIKE OFF. He was seriously on peoples' nerves. Varner was gunning for him to be voted out. So don't be all 'oh Mike Skupin was robbed of a Survivor win when he got hurt' Mike Skupin was robbed of at best 6th, a seat on the jury and we were all robbed of not having to deal with the guy ever again.
That said, I feel bad for anyone who is forced to leave Survivor for medical reasons, its always unfortunate. The scenes that followed the accident are odd. The mood was very very somber. Everyone on Kucha vowed to stick together and go to the end together.
Unfortunately they got fucked by production and had no shot. Like I said, Okagor knew, thanks to Kimmi, that Jeff had a vote. When did they find this out? On the walk to the cliff jumping challenge. I have always hated this. Its so unfair that they were even given the opportunity to find this out. Kimmi fucked up this whole season by opening her big mouth. It should be a rule that at no point should the tribes vocally interact unless a challenge, tribal council or twist in the game specifically calls for it. Also, Jeff shouldn't have EVER stepped off that pillar. But I'm getting a little ahead of myself.
MERGE EPISODE YAY!!!!! I guess. Early merge episodes suck. The whole send ambassadors thing is really uninteresting. Although this one had potential for a cool twist. When they separated the men and women, they could have had them come together for a challenge and have it revealed that these were new tribes. How awesome of a swerve would that have been? Alas, this was season 2, back when they were outright told that they were merging at ten. That also kind of bugs me, but I digress.
Standing on the pole is always a good challenge. Although why Varner stepped off for peanut butter, I will never understand. Oh well, such is life.
Tribal council this episode has an interesting tidbit to it. Jeff only knew about 1 vote against him. See, back then, Probst didn't always reveal votes in the way he does now. I don't know the best way to explain it, so I'll just give an example. If he shows 2 votes for Christopher, and 4 votes for Francois, and there are 7 votes, the last vote is for Francois. Back then votes were left unrevealed a lot, one of which was Kimmi's vote for Jeff. So Jeff had 2 votes but didn't know it. Jerri had 2 votes and knew of both. If Kucha had voted for Jerri... Would she have been eliminated? Would Probst say 'Jeff actually has 2 votes'? Neither of these solutions seems fair. But they voted for Colby... for some reason. I don't know why they thought this was a good idea. Picking your target Tribe vs Tribe votes at the first merge tribal have had 2 schools of thought in the 2 separate eras of Survivor. In the old days you wanted to find the person who either a) you thought had the most votes against them or b) you could get someone to turn on. Nowadays its the person who least likely will have or be given a hidden immunity idol. Colby was a strong physical asset (which in this era meant he wasn't going to be targeted) and well liked by his tribe. Why did they think he had votes?
Some horrible gameplay by club Kucha. But that's okay, because now Elisabeth is in a corner, and that means Elisabeth is suddenly going to start playing really hard. But that's for next time.
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