Grid Effect

Since we are so hard-pressed for decent scripted television, we thought we’d shift to an emphasis on reality game shows. Rarely do we ever discuss Survivor outside the context of an episode, but since we couldn’t stomach another links post, we figure we’d give our first impressions of the new contestants. A judge of the book by its cover post, if you will. We know absolutely nothing about this first batch of castaways, since they’re the challengers so to speak. We promise we’ll have something more insightful to add when previewing the returning contestants, but for right now we’re going to be deeply superficial.

We posted this picture yesterday, try to match the faces with the descriptions below. it might come easier than expected.

Alexis
Twenty-four and from one of my favorite cities in the country: Austin, Texas; Alexis has attained like 47 degrees in soft skills from USC. While this is all very impressive, it’s somewhat daunting that with all that devotion to higher education, matters of logic obviously behoove her otherwise she clearly would have stayed in Austin for school. Look for her to over complicate things due to her multiple, virtually worthless degrees, and with her background in non-profit work for empowering women/girls we are fully expecting her to become one of Ami’s minions (assuming both of the advance to the merge). Or who knows, maybe there will be a power struggle between the two, that would be the bees knees.

Chet
Probably a polar opposite from Alexis, Chet has lived in the same house since the day he was born in Fort City, PA. He describes himself as “magical”, so if shrinks someone’s head we can’t say he didn’t warn us, and in his spare time is a pageant coach. Spare time? What the fuck? Aren’t their enough overbearing mothers who force their kids into these things that the services of a pageant coach are a full time gig? Oh well, judging by his CBS photo, he looks like a white reincarnation of Ozzy.

Erik
A college student at Eastern Michigan, Erik is clearly a snowboarder. Or rather, he should be, because the resemblance to that flying tomato kid is uncanny. He’s also a University of Michigan football fan. So obviously in addition to being a pot-addled, snowboarding suburbanite, he’s also rather evil, and was probably the person who chucked that golf ball at my head in 2003. Expect him to fall and fall hard, much like everything associated with Michigan nowadays.

Jason
A student teacher at a middle school somewhere in Illinois, homeboy here is essentially what I imagine Erik aspires to emulate. When someone describes themselves as “liberal” or identifies himself with any other political ideology for a fucking Survivor bio, we’re quite certain this person will be immensely unlikable. If you’re so entrenched in your own bullshit that it’s one of your defining characteristics, we figure you’ll probably be entirely too self-righteous for a game that intricately involves a group of strangers walking on eggshells around each other in order to advance to the next round.

Joel
Assuming he doesn’t put too large of a target on his back, this guy will be a beast. A firefighter with no pretentious classifications anywhere on his CBS profile. He also has a college degree in human communications. It is from Arizona State, but still, the college degree in and of itself combined with the profession speaks to a well-rounded contestant. Never mind that the degree directly correlates to something imperative in Survivor.

Kathleen
The matriarch of the new contestants. She resides in Wisconsin, is married, and has an even more versatile work history then our current “Fan” favorite Jason. Judging by the age discrepancy between her and the rest of the new female castaways, she’ll probably have a tough time forming any kind of bond, which is always pivotal in the first few days at camp. We always like an underdog, so we’re rooting for her. At least until we see an episode.

Mary
Mary is a thirty year-old sales manager, whose worked in the same field her entire adult life. If you mosey on over to her CBS page, it’s easy to understand why. We’re not saying it’s her only asset, we’re sure she’s an absolute genius; but when CBS thinks enough of your upper torso to include it in your portrait while sporting nothing more than a bikini, it’s probably your most valuable one.

Mikey B
A Jonathan Penner clone, or so it seems. We’re never a big fan of the people who place their last initial at the end of their first name, but Penner is probably one of the three or four easiest contestants to root for in the history of this show, so we’ll give the “aspiring writer/actor” the benefit of the doubt. He (or CBS), like so many of the contestants above, mentions his pets as “who he lives with”, which is incredibly depressing. Anyhow, there is absolutely nothing about this guys profile to assume anything about his potential performance in the game.

Natalie
Another potential Ami minion, which we can only assume based on her self-description of being “bitchy and self-reliant”. A personal trainer so probably a threat in physical challenges. When she isn’t motivating people she most likely looks down on, her hobbies include toying with her ‘72 Cutlass Supreme and eating out and oh my god she’s a fucking clone of one of our friends girlfriends. Not surprisingly, she lives with her birds: Libre, Sebastian and Prince. For some reason we think she might be a little alienating.

Tracey
God damn it, a contestant we can’t really pigeonhole with some sort of stereotype. That’s never any fun but always flummoxing. Um, she’s a bit older than she looks, so there’s that. In addition to having some pet dogs, she also has children and much like Natalie, also enjoys fitness instruction. We are predicting an early alliance with these two. Given the generational similarity she shares with Kathleen, she is also a likely ally.

So that is only half of the cast, and doing predictions like this is always an exercise in futility. But if we were to pick one male and one female contestant to do well from the “Fans”, we’d probably go with Jason and Alexis. You can find more comprehensive predictions here and here.

Back later with a preview of the “Favorites” half of the castaways.