(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)
Disc 2 was AWESOME. Compared to disc one its like night and day. People are actually sort of playing Survivor. I say sort of because we are still given little to no motivation as to why many of the people vote the way they do. This is especially true in the ludicrous 4-1-1-1-1-1-1 vote at the merge. Why does Gervase vote for Sue? Did literally no one from Pagong actually talk to each other about who they were going to vote for? That was one gigantic clusterfuck, and while it was entertaining, it also shows how poor the strategy was back then.
Richard was the only one with any sort of a plan. This is made clear when the Tagi tribe sends Sean to be the ambassador. They don't run the risk of any information being leaked to Pagong because Sean didn't know anything. Meanwhile Pagong sent Jenna who, from what I've heard, spilled the beans on everything.
Now i'm getting ahead of myself, I'm talking about the merge before I even discuss episodes 5 and 6. These are two awesome episodes. Episode 5 is awesome because it is the first example of finding myself happy a particular tribe lost immunity because I wanted to see the go to tribal council. This happens a lot, I'll find myself really hoping a particular tribe ends up going to tribal because I feel it would be more interesting (the most recent example, at the time of writing this is the the most recent episode of Survivor. I really wanted Galang to win immunity because I wanted to see Tadhana go to tribal council. Whats better, Laura Boneham doing something dumb and getting voted out of Tyson blindsiding Aras?). Tagi losing lead the way to a great tribal, where the alliance claimed its first victim. They made the right choice in keeping Sean over Dirk because Dirk was clearly the weaker of the two, and they needed to win the next immunity challenge to b safe at the merge.
Episode 6 features and epic immunity challenge, and my single least favourite tribal council of the season. I hate the fact Joel was voted off. The women (and Gerg) voted Joel off because Gervase made a sexist comment. Reread that. Read it again. What the hell? This is the big oment where Pagong set themselves up to get rolled by Hatch and co. at the merge. Joel wanted to keep the team together. Joel could have been the hero who stood up to the villain (Hatch) and eventually win one for the good guys. Keep in mind, back in 2000 Tagi were the heels and Pagong were the baby faces. Joel could have been The Guy. He could have been Colby before Colby was even cast. But nope. Oh well. Seeing the look of disappointment on that mans face as Probst snuffed his torch says it all. Joel will always be the hero that never was.
Episode 7 is the merge. And its kind of boring all things considered. They devote so much time to the ambassador thing and the tribes coming together that by the time the challenge ends we are at tribal. Some of the best stuff to happen on Survivor is the post tribal scrambling, especially when the intended target won immunity, which he did in this case. Sure it was an easy choice who the next target should be, but still, some foreshadowing would be nice. From what I've read, the production team was crushed when Gretchen was eliminated. This was the first truly cutthroat vote off in the show. Tagi went right for the jugular and everyone was shocked.
I hate episode 8. I'm not a fan of the loved ones challenge, and I know that makes me sound like a dick, but its just my opinion. I was glad to see Greg get voted off. I was really getting sick of him.
Moving onto disc 3, because well I feel like it. We start off with the best episode of the season. Th episode where Colleen and Jenna pull their heads out of their asses and try to fight back. They get Gervase and they talk Kelly into not voting with the alliance. The first time I saw this I thought we were going to have a 4-4 tie. Sean's alphabet voting strategy was esentially making him a 5th, unknowing member of the Tagi alliance, since his vote was more or less public knowledge, the other Tagi members would vote with him, and thus prevent and sort of counter alliance. Sounds good. So when Jenna's name rolled around, thats who Hatch, Rudy and Sue voted for, along with Sean. The remaining Pagong members voted for Hatch. Kelly voted for Sean. 4-3-1, bye bye Jenna, see you in All-Stars. As big of a fan of Hatch as I am, I kind of wish Kelly had voted for him, causing a tie, and potentially his elimination. There's much more drama there, and I like drama. This is the closest Hatch came to being eliminated (final 4 notwithstanding).
Episode 10 is a hot-cold episode for me. It truly highlights the major flaw in early seasons. About half the episode is devoted to the fact Gervase's son was born, and a shit load of conversations about children out of wedlock and things that have no place in Survivor. Its all irrelevant and a lot of the episode is devoted to it. That said, its in this episode that we learn that Sue and Kelly intend to turn on Hatch. Excellent, drama. Going into the immunity challenge, breaking it down based on numbers, if Hatch makes it through the next tribal, he essentially wins the game. Since Sean was now officially on his side (as explained in Mark Burnett's book), and Rudy always was, once we past final seven, there's no way to get the numbers to guarantee a move on Hatch. he wins immunity, does his little dance, and has for all intents and purposes won a million dollars. Oh that dance. I makes me smile everytime. It's the gayest thing Richard does in his 56 total days on 2 seasons of Survivor, and its flat out hilarious. Gervase gets voted out 5-2. There was talks of a Gervase, Colleen, Sean, Kelly alliance, but Gervase and Colleen vote for Sean so... Yeah can't explain that one.
Episode 11 has more loved ones bullshit that I do not care about. Kelly and Sue get into a fight, and that leads Sue to rejoining Hatch and Rudy. Kelly is the target, but she wins immunity. So it's between Colleen and Sean. Hatch wisely keeps Sean. Sean won't vote for Hatch, but Colleen has twice. Keeping her runs the risk of a 3-2 vote against him at final 5. This episode is kind of blah. I hated Colleen, and was glad to see her go.
That's all for now. Hopefully I can find time in the near future to write some more. I've actually watched almost all of Australia. So I'm behind on the writing side of this thing and need to catch up.
No comments:
Post a Comment