Grid Effect

With the finale this Sunday we decided to get this out of the way now. Frankly, we’re tired of these egregiously long episode titles and there has to be alternatives. Like for instance, at some point during this episode didn’t someone say “embarrassment on a national scale”. That would be a lot more succinct and to the point than these bizarre analogies that the contestants use. It might qualify as a spoiler, but, we’d be okay with it if it meant a condensed post-title.

Anyhow, after last night’s blunder, the consensus seems to be that this is the biggest faux-pas in Survivor history. And though we never saw the first seven or eight seasons, we’d be hard-pressed to imagine anything more desperate or ill-advised. Everyone liked to mock Ozzy and Jason (and James from China) for not playing their idols, but they were at least, to some extent, led to believe they had no reason to use an idol that could help them later in the game. They had legitimate incentive to refrain from playing an idol that can only be put into use before you know where everyone stands, Erik simply gave away immunity that had no future value which he earned from a challenge that ironically ended with a solved puzzle reading “Guaranteed Final 4″. No one in their right mind should ever expect to receive that from someone else in this game.

So why did he give away the idol? His initial stance when Natalie insisted that he give her the idol to regain Cirie’s trust (I’ll give Natalie this, it does sound ridiculous to say out loud), was, “I’m not even going to consider it”/ The knee-jerk response seems to be “because he’s an idiot, that’s why”. And while it indeed was a boneheaded decision, simply labeling him a moron doesn’t accomplish all that much (It’s amazing how many people in the above link call Erik a moron while misspelling the word “moron” or something equally ironic). He claims his incentive was jury votes and that is actually a legitimate motive (not reason, there is never a reason to give away immunity under the current format), but it seemed like the undertone to that was just a general dire need to be accepted. If that is indeed the case that seems to have a degree of sadness to it.

Why would he so desperately seek approval from these people? By our estimations the reason is two fold. He was being coerced by four women, three of whom Erik probably deems attractive (1 and a half by our count. I mean, Parvati has her appeal and all, but we’re only going to be so enamored with someone who has Conehead teeth), he is obviously naive in a way and is probably pre-disposed to seeking the approval of people like Amanda. He claimed he was just aspiring to be friends and make amends with everyone he lied to (and he did lie, but every time he did it was like he let the person he was making false promises to, talk him into those false promises, yet another example of seeking approval). But conventional wisdom would lead you to believe he was letting the member make decisions for him.

It doesn’t take Einstein to pull off the most improbable move in Survivor history, just numbers.

But there is evidence to the contrary that speaks to another motivation. Specifically all his idolization of many of the favorites (most notably Ozzy) and his enthusiastic introduction with his brother that Probst was gracing them with his presence. And of all four of the women, the one he was most indifferent towards was Natalie, the only remaining contestant that was one the show as a fan. He didn’t seem to deflect Cirie all that well (who does?), so maybe he wasn’t using any hyperbole when he said in his parting words (paraphrasing): “These people are my idols and they treated me as an equal”. Yeah, we think there might be some other issues that led to Erik willfully handing over immunity.

Still, his blunder made for really uncomfortable night of television. It wasn’t so much that any of the women were in the wrong for attempting this. Of course they weren’t, the game in and of itself is the task at hand, and the promotion and general tone of the show is “by any means necessary”. Which, from a game perspective, even explains why Erik did what he did. But it seemed like such a gang attack from someone in such a vulnerable position that the discomfort was almost unavoidable.

In the above link, there seems to be a backlash to calling the women “bitches” for their handling of the situation. Followed by a subsequent accusation of those poster’s misogyny. We’ll never understand why things are always divided along gender lines on this series and its fans (though this season the female contestants keep bringing it up), but the issue of various people perceiving them as “bitches” isn’t really a surprise given the nature of the move they pulled off.

The counter-argument seems to be, “but if a man does something similar he is considered strategic and is praised”. While I agree that there is definitely a tendency to villainize the women on this show for nothing more than strategic play, this argument is invalid because no man has ever pulled off something even remotely comparable, nor do I think one or any could, so we don’t have to worry about the comparison.

You might be able to pull something like this on a woman of a similar age and impression as Erik, but for whatever reason I feel like the manipulator would also have to be a woman. And anytime someone makes someone look so cartoonishly idiotic, it’s going to be labeled negatively regardless of the circumstances (real life or reality television). Not that they could help themselves (nor do I blame them), laughing uncontrollably in Erik’s face is only going to accentuate any moral issues someone might have with their actions, thus the unnecessary phrasing from multiple viewers. Unfortunately there is no male synonym for “bitch” (enlighten me otherwise), so if a guy or a group of guys ever pull off something similar, he/them are just referred to as “evil”, “asshole” or the pop nomenclature of the past year or so, “douchebag”.

That said, before this challenge the only person we had any rooting interest in was Amanda (it was minimal at best). We respect Cirie’s game play (every blindside short of Alexis’ has originated from her) but we still feel sour about the whole incident with Yau-Man and Penner, and her superiority complex with the “fans” from when her team was losing challenges after the tribe shake-up was unflattering at best; we’ve always had a low opinion of Parvati because of her vapid shallowness and Natalie is probably the only genuine bitch of the group (Yikes!). So ultimately we couldn’t care less who wins at this point.

It wasn’t that we were rooting for Erik or anything, but the overall tone of this episode just seemed unnecessarily cold. Did they really have to show everyone’s reaction while casting their vote? Not that any of them could help it, but seeing the jury and the people still left in the game laughing in front of Erik’s face epitomizes why we don’t watch any other reality television. It also doesn’t help that outside of Cirie, we don’t really consider the ruling outfit a brain trust of epic proportions, to say the least.

Regardless of our opinions of it, this was definitely a memorable episode and eventful season. We’ve enjoyed it thoroughly, which makes it all the more bizarre that we have no real interest in the finale. Still, we’re going to watch and half-heartedly hope either Amanda or Cirie can take home the million.

Office recap later today.

So, we didn’t take any notes during the episode last week, was James referring to his injured digit? Or was he trying to be menacing with this faux-threat? At this point in the game with no numbers and no strategy, the only way James could be menacing is if he was physically so a la Joey on this season’s Real World. Yeah. I watched the Real World last night after basketball because Orlando was pwning Detroit, fucking sue me.

Anyway, James’ untimely and unwanted (at least from the producers standpoint) departure from the game was only a small fraction of this episode. He probably had the best reappearance of a medical evacuation ever though, showing up to tribal with an IV. It reminded me of South Park’s parody of the 2000 election in which Mr. Garrison brought in the dying kindergartner to vote for class president.

His appearance at Tribal Council was only the tip of the iceberg, because this episode was probably the best use of the immunity idol since Earl turned it against Alex and his gaggle of cronies. Mainly because it was nice to see it effectively used for once and Amanda was absolutely radiant when she played the thing. It’s nice to see that while my one Survivor (semi but was fading quickly) crush is dispatched, a new one is making a name for herself.

It wasn’t so much that she played it as it was how she played it. From the get-go when she came back from immunity challenge to empty her bag (presumably a little over-eager to do so, but those are bygones at this point), to aligning with one other person (Parvati, bleh) to assist in distracting everyone else while she dug for the idol, to seeing where everyone stood before she actually went in search of the thing, to that fucking Oscar worthy performance at Tribal Council and her subsequent strut up to Probst to put the idol in play, we thoroughly enjoyed the entire spectacle. The only way it was getting any better is if they voted out Natalie instead of Alexis who was literally on her last leg anyways, or if Natalie just spontaneously combusted into flames.

It looks like they’re posing…whatever, do your thing doe (dough? I’m never certain) eyes.

But I think the decision to vote out Alexis was part of the strategy on Amanda’s part. Since Amanda wanted vile Natalie out of the game and Parvati wanted Alexis (I have no fucking clue why, and just when I’m beginning to change my opinion of Parvati, she insists on some shit like this and kills any perceived good will), it was a good compromise to make so Parvati doesn’t run off and tell the other four people about the idol. So even though I disagree with the actual final decision, I concede that it was phenomenal game play.

In other news, Erik could make a bit of an immunity run in the next few episodes. You wouldn’t expect it because he has the hair of a 55 year-old woman and the physique and mindset of a twelve year-old boy (look at his squealing excitement to have is brother and Jeff Probst within close proximity of each other), but he’s deceptively competitive, and aside from Parvati in challenges that require balance and agility he’s in pretty good standing in everything else. We actually let out an audible yelp when he took the target challenge in such convincing fashion.

We’ll never figure out why all the women didn’t just aim for only one person’s bottles in their alliance if their ultimate goal was to have an all female final five. But we suppose that their SURVIVAL instincts kicked in (Huh? Am I right or am I right, people? High five!). Either that or they are over-confident, unoriginal idiots. Historically speaking on Survivor, that has traditionally been the case.

The reward challenge and actual reward were kind of bland. We never much care about the “besmirch each other behind their backs then embarrass everyone by way of Jeff Probst” challenge. At least Alexis got that one taste of victory before being ousted, but ironically enough the person she sent to immunity ended up leading to her torch being snuffed. Why is everyone this season so apprehensive to go to exile island when they know damn well that there is an immunity idol to be had?

Nothing much else happened, we were happy to see that alliance have to turn on each other after their ugly cockiness last week, and judging from the previews last week we expect to see more of the same.

Did anyone watch anything even partially interesting last night? We watched the Cavs-Celts game, and that had its moments. Especially that end of 3rd quarter score of 53-52, that was interesting, or typical of the shoddy play that we’ve come to expect from the NBA’s eastern conference. These Celtics manage to get less and less inspiring as the time passes. It’s almost like no one other than them was taking the regular season seriously and just biding time until the playoffs began. But alas, they won the game and that is the bottom line, though if you’re a Celtics fan, you’re confidence has to have certainly wavered.

Obviously, we’re completely miffed here. We can dissect the playoffs or pretend to have watched a reality series last night. We’d do a nightly preview, but we already did one for Wednesday two weeks ago and virtually nothing has changed.

Here we are. Even a broken clock is right twice a day or some other more fitting analogy. That link, in case you’re wondering, is a press release of sorts about the new season of Hard Knocks. It goes without saying that this should be a significant improvement on last year’s somewhat uneventful profile of the Kansas City Chiefs.

For those who are unaware of the show or just simply uninterested with the NFL (meaning you’ve probably stopped reading this by now, but what the hell?), Hard Knocks is a miniseries that gives their audience and insiders look at an NFL preseason, or at least whatever the team at large is willing to sign away on. And I have no idea what the makeup of these contracts between HBO and the organizations are (this is the sixth or seventh year they’ve done this), but since this year’s team is the Dallas Cowboys, my guess is that Jerry Jones might want to maintain some executive control.

Glad to see Owens and Dallas fans can set their differences aside for money and wins.

The Cowboys, comprised of probably the most embarrassing tabloid romance in football (Tony Romo-Jessica Simpson), the most emotionally unstable player (Terrell Owens), the Nicky Santoro of the league (Pacman Jones, and that’s assuming he is reinstated), the most aggressive owner and passive successful coach (the aforementioned Jerry Jones and Wade Phillips) and a slew of other characters that includes Roy Williams, Terry Glenn and Tank Johnson. The latter of which has a rap sheet like Paulie Walnuts.

The NFL has been mired in legal issues as of late, and the front office led my commissioner Roger Goodell has been doing everything it can to weed out the bad seeds and demonstrate that they are serious on reprimanding professionally those who break the law. Thing is, they can barely keep up. Essentially the entire Bengals roster is behind bars, and if not they want to leave or are indifferent to their team’s issues. You can go to this website and it reads more like a police blotter than a comedy blog.

It’s also hard to take this new initiative seriously, considering the mess that Paul Taglibue, the current commissioner’s predecessor left behind. The worst instance comes in the case of Leonard Little, who killed a woman while drunk driving and as of last season was still getting considerable playing time for the Rams, who reside in St. Louis where he was convicted of manslaughter. This wasn’t on Goodell’s watch, but it’s hard for the casual fan who doesn’t follow these timelines to overlook when an authority figure says he’s trying to clean up the league and a few days later a murderer is blitzing the quarterback.

So while we’re looking forward to Hard Knocks, Goodell and whoever may give a shit within the Cowboys might want to intervene on the cutting room floor, because when they show Johnson, Pacman and Owens (to be fair, Owens has never been associated with any illegal activity, his insanity has been strictly law abiding) pouring Cristal on a stripper in one of their dorms, it’s just going to being throwing gasoline on a fire. For a league that has already dealt with murder trials, dogfighting, a litany of DUI, possession and domestic abuse cases, a hazing incident gone awry is about the last thing this empire needs.

Yawwwwn. That pretty much sums up my general malaise over doing this post and the outlook on the day ahead. In hindsight, since we have yet to do one for Monday, we should have done a nightly preview yesterday and one extended links post today, but what’s done is done. So let’s summarize the interesting facets of the TV industry from the past 24 hours.

You know, I like The Office as much as anyone, but NBC really might want to consider developing some new series’ with staying power if they ever want to climb out of the cellar in ratings, where they have perpetually been for the past six or seven years. Replacing adopted series that weren’t drawing any ratings with sitcom reruns is no way to go through life, Ben Silverman.

Tristan Wilds, better known as Michael Lee, and even more so as the new Omar Little, has been cast to play an adopted son on the new 90210. This is great news that someone in Hollywood has been paying attention to The Wire, and might lead to the series’ increased popularization and more options for its cast (sans commercials and bit parts on various network crime dramas) even after its series finale. But still, the only way we’re tuning into this is if we catch wind that Michael Lee sticks-up Lucille Bluth for her jewels or something, and he does it with a shotgun, and immediately goes into hiding only to reemerge for revenge after Lucille’s husband has his boyfriend tortured and murdered. Essentially, I’m only watching this show if it’s like the first three seasons of The Wire set in Beverly Hills.

I have some bad news for everyone who doesn’t read this blog: Men In Trees has been canceled. We never knew what it was, where it was set, who was in it or why it existed, but it exists no more. We’re sorry for your loss Men In Trees fans, we hope this message finds you well, and that one of the other thirty-something melodrama’s on ABC appeases you before its untimely canceling.

Seth MacFarlane is reportedly set to sign a $100 million, five year contract with 20th Century Fox for his show of randomly assembled jokes also known as Family Guy. He also co-created American Dad, which is a slight improvement. But Family Guy was a comedy gem before it was canceled in its first go-around with FOX, when they came back it was with an entirely different set of writers and the jokes felt uninspired, over-indulgent and borderline predictable to us. Whatever, get your money Mr. MacFarlane, maybe when he is sleeping on a bed of money he’ll be able to conjure up something original and not targeted at twelve year-olds.

The lone highlight of a once great cartoon.

After his recent ratings increase and rash of good publicity for his stint at the White House Correspondents dinner, European publications are now endorsing Craig Ferguson as Letterman’s successor. I suppose they aren’t familiar with his pleas to have Jon Stewart replace the lauded late night host, but now that Mr. Ferguson is a realistic option we suspect he is going to retract his selfless endorsement. Or rather just ignore it, because we are probably one of nineteen people who actually remember that happening. In other news, here is him cutting short an interview with Bill Maher.

Maureen Ryan from the Chicago Tribune makes the case that The Hills is the new Friends. Not necessarily in terms of theme or plot, but in their portrayal of twenty-somethings. The unearned luxury that accompanied NBC’s last ratings monster is the same thing that MTV”s “reality” series thrives off of. Needless to say, it’s escapism thinly-veiled as drama. We wholeheartedly agree with all of this, and while we still have yet to watch a millisecond of The Hills, we find it disturbing that we can name three female and one male “personalities” (what the fuck are we supposed to call these people?).

Finally, Martin Freeman, who played the original Jim Halpert on Ricky Gervais’ Office views his stint on the international hit as both “a blessing and a curse”. Essentially it’s the Seinfeld hex for Europe and he blames that on his inability to find any new work. Umm, if he’s looking for commercial or mainstream gigs, most of those are over here in the states. The lack of work available to him might have something more to do with him being British than any noteworthy roles he’s played. Still, it must be a pain in the ass to be type-casted after a series which only ran for sixteen episodes, resulting in limited financial gain but possibly negates any potential future jobs. The Seinfeld people all complain about it, and they all made over a million an episode for the last two seasons (44 episodes).

Something different tomorrow.

Welcome back from what was a glorious weekend of actively avoiding television. And you know, if there are people watching what TV offers over the weekends I really hope they enjoy it, but while what we generally see during the week is bad enough, the weekend offerings are a constant barrage of idiocy. It’s like going from the rubik’s cube to the ball in a cup. Or rather, something less complicated than a rubik’s cube and more bland than ball in a cup.

So we’re back to the same old after a week long attempt at originality. Here are some links to start the late morning right.

Here’s some obscure website’s take on the top fifty television series’ of all time. It looks like they list them one by one, meaning you have to link to forty-nine different pages from the one you open on so we’re probably never going to read it. But it does have Quantum Leap listed at #50, so it’s probably a worthwhile read, unless it ignores The Wire, then the people at this online publication are idiots.

Jon Stewart will be on location for the D & R NC’s, if you’re into that sort of thing. It could get fairly contentious at both of them, amongst the democrats themselves Jon could end up collateral damage, and while all republicans generally tend to concede that they like his humor, they probably all secretly hate his guts, and could become the target of their scorn. Either way, things could turn out bad for the quick-witted political voice.

Jessica Walter, also known as Lucille Bluth, has been cast for the Beverly Hills: 90210 remake. She’ll probably play the exact same character she played on Arrested Development but will do so dramatically instead of comically. Which is why we watch AD and not 90210, because that character should never be taken seriously.

Tailor made for the primetime soap.

Amy Ryan is set to join the cast of The Office (Note: Avoid clicking on this link if you wish to avoid any and all spoilers, even for comedies). Either she has an extraordinary agent, an eye for good acting projects or just an incredible amount of luck, because between this, The Wire, Capote Gone Baby Gone & Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead she hasn’t had a misstep in about ten years. And perusing her IMDB page, it looks like the connection here is co-starring in Dan in Real Life with Steve Carell. We had to see that to restore some order in the world, because generally an academy award nominated actress doesn’t “downgrade” to sitcom acting.

And finally, if you’re anything like me then you’ve always wondered what Wire characters would look like in Simpsons animation, but never had the talent, connections or resources to actually see it come to fruition. Well, wait no more, because this website has taken the time to bring these legendary characters to life with a Matt Groening likeness. It’s embarrassing how much I enjoyed this.

Something tomorrow.

We’re not going to even get started on Survivor, but if Erik can keep up this current immunity streak, plus with the girls alliance crumbling as a result of his win and Amanda’s discovery, he could really make a run for this thing. Outside of Amanda I’m not sure who else would win a jury vote against him, possibly Cirie because she has been kind of lurking in the shadows dictating every move Parvati makes and catching none of the blame for it, but whoever she’s to go up against in the finale can shed some light on her misgivings. It was nice to see her blindsided for once though.

Anyhow, for the first time since the strike The Office neglected to hit a home run, it was still a double, but was so plot-oriented and at times flat out ignored the comedy angle that we can’t be completely adulated with an episode of television from a series best described as a comedic sitcom. Still, it set things up nicely for the finale and had some brilliant moments of tension and comedy.

First off, Dwight Schrute is back in original form for the first time since Angela dumped him for euthanizing her cat; and took out revenge on his arch-nemesis, Andy, by buying his car and selling it at a higher price after strong-arming Andy into a deal. The camera shot through the window after Andy sold the car while he was observing a sale sign that we assume is just leftover from beforehand, only for us to see when the camera slowly pans down and see that the sign says, “Contact DWIGHT SCHRUTE” was a highlight for me. I make no bones about Rainn Wilson playing my favorite character on this show, and from that camera shot to the confrontation between him and Andy to the outside shots of Dwight washing the car…the whole sequence is just validating.

Dwight’s ideal hierarchy.

Aside from that and Michael’s attempt to garner knowledge about gang conflict resolution from Darryl, everything was just tense. Even if it was funny it was comically tense. And we do not mind, but man, between this and the “Dinner Party” episode we’re starting to almost pity the characters, we’re not sure if that was intended for anyone other than Michael Scott.

Everything with Stanley just felt like it hinged on a false premise. Essentially, Michael isn’t supposed to be able to implore Stanley to assist them in writing a rapping voice message with the implication that he would be beneficial because he is black, which is what happened when Stanley lashed out at him. That in and of itself, along with all the other racist commentary and not-so-subtle references to minorities that Michael engages in would be enough to sue him and the company. We understand the environment that the two and everyone else in the office has come to accept, but that doesn’t make it any less unlawful.

The other subplot along with Dwight and Andy was Jim being put in professional jeopardy. That visit from Ryan is a pretty standard practice in an office environment. you bring in someone from corporate to offer a warning, then should the person in question finds himself in an insubordinate position whether it is his fault or someone else’s, that person can be terminated under the guise that “they were warned”. If these were normal circumstances,the tone of Ryan’s warning would mean that if he just upped his productivity all would be well. But his HR representative and his corporate overlord both have it out for him, and that cannot play in his favor. Unless Toby (surprised he didn’t actually head for Costa Rica) makes another untoward pass at Pam or David Wallace intervenes in the Ryan-Jim showdown, this might not turn out so well for our resident protagonist.

I’m kind of surprised by the reaction to Toby’s deceptiveness. He’s always been a sympathetic character considering he has no wife, no girlfriend, an estranged kid he seldom sees as it sounds like he got the screws put to him in a divorce, a job where everyone either hates or ignores him, the only person who doesn’t he has a hopeless crush on so he’s bending the rules slightly to pursue her. Not that this is the most constructive manner of doing so, but I’m certainly not surprised by his actions. He feels he has nothing to lose, and sadly enough, in many ways, he’s right.

Choice quotes:

“This car is a piece of junk. You have three options: you can either sell it for scrap metal, give it to someone you want to die in a car accident, or sell it to me. I’m going to use this vehicle as a carrier, it will be dragged by horses”. -Dwight, underplaying the value of Andy’s car to him.

“Seller beware, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to monitoring a three way bidding war for my Xterra”. -Dwight, indifferent to Andy’s protestations

“In the gang world, we use something called fluffy fingers. You tickle him, and he starts laughing, then soon enough he starts tickling you, and you’re laughing. And before you know it, ya’ll are eating dinner.” -Darryl, explaining the ills of gang life to Michael

Kevin: Every single one of my girlfriends has had glasses, it’s actually kind of a turn on for me.
Pam: I have to get back to work now.
Kevin: Can you just do me one favor? Can you say, “These are due back next Thursday”?

Michael: Were you in the Crips or Bloods?
Darryl: Both. And the Latin Kings, The Warriors and the Newsies.

Probably it for the day, enjoy the weekend.

We’ve already covered the major events of this one pretty extensively over here, and it still pisses us off to no end. Between the four of them, how could James, Amanda, Erik and Jason not put together some kind of scheme to form a new alliance instead of hanging on begrudgingly to the already established core alliance. It was so fucking simple. Sure, you could make excuses for all of them sans Jason, because the other three had to know that he had the idol, but Alexis, Parvati and Natalie were scheming right in front of the three of them while they rolled their eyes. Don’t just act all passive-aggressive you fucking humps, do something to rectify the current situation!

According to this interview at Entertainment Weekly Jason was apparently under the impression that it was in Natalie’s best interest to align with him. And although we were never shown why he would think that, he has proven to be rather dense at times before so we’ll let the shoddy editing slide. He said that James didn’t like him so he never offered to align with him. Well, fuck James then. If he had played the idol and gotten Erik and Amanda to vote with him, that would have been the majority after all the votes had been discarded when he played the idol. I mean, why would you just want to desperately cling to that fifth position, when did that become so fucking lauded?

Anyhow, to the finer points of the game. Like, say, the reward challenge. We’ve been repulsed by this show many a time, but probably none more so than the incident with the chocolate cake. The incident was two-fold in establishing my repulsion. First Alexis, Parvati, Cirie all eating it with Natalie after she purchased the thing and was given three people to share it with. And not eat it with a fork or anything remotely civil like that, but pouncing on it with no eating utensils like a diabetic on her death bed. In other words, it was horrifying. Probst gave them I believe two minutes to eat this thing, and they took that very literally as they more or less just jammed their faces into it in unison. Even James, who had voluntarily taken the bats that Natalie unknowingly purchased, thought it disgusting.

The second half of my disbelief came when Erik paid Cirie $40 to lick her fingers/hand. That was, in and of itself, probably the weakest thing I’ve ever seen. It was pretty indicative of his position in the game, “I’ll pay you cash money if you’ll let me lick the scraps off your hand” is basically what he said. To his credit, the game ended right then and there, so Cirie’s newly acquired $40 was rendered worthless.

These people make Joel look desirable.

But is it just me or are the Survivor’s more gluttonous this year than in recent history? We had this train wreck, Ozzy dropping out of an immunity challenge for fucking donuts shortly after he had eaten a rather large meal at reward, people being unable to contain their excitement over an unseen food item that they accidentally dropped out of a challenge, and just a general entitlement and bitchiness that at least we’ve never seen.

Anything else happen? Oh, and while we do believe Jason to be a bit of an airhead, Survivor production really did a hatchet job on him. I mean, they might as well edited a clown outfit onto him, because what we saw in that EW interview, versus what we saw on the show, really didn’t seem like the same person. We fault him for poor game play and a general vapidness, but not for being unlikeable or intolerable. And the four women generally had to dislike him to say the shit about him that they did. It all seemed very juvenile to me, even for a Survivor episode.

All in all this season has had some great moments, but we doubt we’ll be able to handle a final three that involves any of the four members of the dominant alliance. The real shame in Jason & Co. not counter-attacking this episode was that if the three on the outskirts were ever going to make a move, it had to be here. Now their best bet is to sit it out and hope the four of them implode, which at this point doesn’t seem likely.

They can try and persuade someone else to switch allegiances, but that seems like it would only solidify their resolve. Still, an F3 of say, Parvati, Alexis and Natalie would be less encouraging than last season in China with Courtney, Todd & Amanda or Exile Island with Aras and Danielle. That is to say, we’d only watch for the interrogation from the jury. We’d like to see a female alliance, because we haven’t seen one successfully play out yet, but not with this miserable troupe.

We’ll try to post some links today but we’re abnormally busy, so don’t hold your breath.