Survivor Caramoan - Episode 1 Discussion Thread - NO SPOILERS PLEASE

[dr.strangelove]

Wow, the 26th season of Survivor is here. How did that happen. I swear it was just the summer of 2000 and my wife and I stumbled onto this cool new show. I can not believe that was 13 years ago. Well, here is to 39 more days of lies, cheating, backstabbing and then complaining when someone does the same thing to you.

First I have to protest the title. In what world were Brandon and Francesca favorites. Brandon was a straight up villain and "Franswah" or however Philip said it, was barely there her first time around. Anyway, at least it looks like it will be a good season. The newbies look good with some strong personalities. The "favorites" has some insane people which should make it implode while giving me lots of laughs, so there is that.

I loved the start. The newbies get boated in and have to jump into the water. The "favs" get choppered down to arrive to a hail of applause and cheering. At least that was short lived as the game started right away. And it was a great opening. The good old full contact water war game. with a tire and a pole added. I loved the start, whinny little Erik gets told to leave the man giant Shamar for Francesca. But no one was stopping him. After that though, it was 3 clear but kickings and even Cochrane and Phillip over powered their opponents to win.

Oh Phillip, how I missed the pink underwear. I am SOOO glad that they returned. I can not wait for the sweat and "other" stains to appear.

The last group had Malcolm flash off his abs and butt, but show the warrior that he is.

At the beaches we learned the newbies do not agree about the priorities of shelter vs. Fire. I tip my hat to Shamar for backing up his "what appeared to be BS but was not" when he actually made fire. Matt was great for not taking any shit from the giant and building what looking like a solid shelter. Then came the mistake. The cool kids formed a clique. The jocks and the cheerleaders, Reynold, Eddie, Hope and Allie formed a 4 person "cool kids" alliance. Totally turned me off (because I was never a cool kid) and sets them apart right away.

At Camp Survivor Celebs, everyone wants to make an alliance with everyone else and the only one who initially seems successful is Phillip, but then he appears to overplay his Boston Rob card with Erik. Meanwhile, Cochrane is sporting third degree burns from being out int eh sun for five minutes. I am pretty sure he is going to explode soon.

The IC was awesome. Great tower race followed by a bean bag toss. Brandon and Erik showed they can haul ass and it gives Malcolm a lead in the bean bag toss, but Reynold is apparently a professional and he makes almost every shot count and he takes the lean and wins.

So team favorites has to go to tribal. Now the insanity begins. I still am not sure who was thinkign what, but it seems Phillip is sire he has the votes and Francesca tries to toss him under the bus. But Francesca's trust in Andrea is her downfall and she immediately tells Phillip. So for the last 30 minutes, every made a promise to everyone and we went to tribal not knowing who was going. I think Francesca, Erik and Brandon seemed solid together. Phillip seems to have Corrine and Andrea with him. Dawn and Cochrane seem to be a pair with Dawn surprisingly being the cut throat player. I am still pulling for her, but I want her to be a little nicer about it.

So in the end, Francesca has to eat that ugly white rock and she has the record for two trips to survivor with under 6 days on the island. I suspect this record will never be broken.

[Inkfreak]

1. I loved it. I always do.

I just knew "Franswah" was going. I told my wife 15 min into it. My fav part was when Malcome flew thru the air on the first challenge to stop the other guy from tossing the ring. He's my fav to win atm. But that always changes as the shows progress. Anything with Cochrane is gold. Poor guy, the sunburn must be awful. And I disliked how those girls said they could work with him. As if they could manipulate him. I forget their names atm. Anyways, love the show. We are massive fans.

[dr.strangelove]

2. I can not believe Cochrane did not put on sunblock

My understanding is each camp has a med kit with certain medical items, including sun screen and insect repellant. He has to know that he is a man who gets a sunburn. Why not load up on the stuff. I am like him in this way. I burn in minutes. I have pale pasty white irish skin. But I put on a ton of sunblock before I do anything outdoors in the sun. I felt bad for him because that is going to hurt.

[murielm99]

3. The first elimination was inevitable

when the favorites lost. But it was mean. There were others who deserved it more.

They are giving Phillip too much leverage. They will regret it.

[pacalo]

4. It looks like a good season!

I like the points you made about the ill-named "favorites" label & the two couples from the newbies' tribe who named themselves the "cool kids". Reynold gets my respect, though, for his athleticism; not that athleticism trumps everything else in real life, but it's a valuable asset on "Survivor".

I do like some of the favorites a lot: Malcolm (deserved to win last season), Dawn (good head; personable), Cochran (a real-life Woody Allen), Erik (very sweet & good person), & Philip (he shakes things up).

It's too soon for picking favorites on the newbie team, except for Matt (good worker & seems sensible) & Shamar -- he's the Marine who stood up to the police who were maliciously manhandling the Occupy Wall Street activists just for stepping off the sidewalk. I was disappointed in Shamar, though, when he didn't help with building the shelter. I hope he realizes that CBS has a stake in Wall Street & to be wary of how the episodes could be edited against his favor.

As a reminder, this is Shamar's claim to fame:

[dr.strangelove]

5. Reynolds

Certainly has athleticism, and it is too early to be critical of his making friends with other physically gifted people, but if he is not careful he will get ousted quickly. He needs to develop some relationships with the "uncool" kids. Plus, when the tribes get switched, being in a small group can kill you if you do not all stay together.

I like Malcolm but do think he even remotely deserved to win last year. He was a physical talent, but he got eaten alive in the final 5 because he was not strategic enough to set himself up as someone who could be brought to the finals. The good players fix it so that they have to go to the finals, whether they control it or are brought there. I really like Dawn, but am not a fan of Cochran. Since they seem to be playign together, I am probably going to either love or hate them as a pair. too early to see how it will go. Erik needs to toughen up a bit, but I was impressed that he stood up to Phillip. I think Philip is not long for this game. He is far from Boston Rob and is nto settign himself up as anything but a bully.

I really do not like Shamar. While I am glad he stood up to police during OWS, I think he is a bad player already. You can never be seen as lazy and getting into fights early is a death wish. It just puts your name in people's minds to vote him out. I suspect he will be around a few weeks when his physical size will help, but I think he will be gone sooner rather than later.