Survivor Results: Week 1 (and 2, kind of)

Well!

When I saw it was a two hour opening, I didn't realize that they were just going to stick the first two episodes together and call it a two hour premiere. There seems to be a lot of that going around this year (see "My Name is Earl" and "Heroes," for example).

Not that I'm complaining-- the episodes were very well done, as per usual for America's oldest reality show.

In the first show, the survivors were divided into two tribes. Fang (pronounced FAHNG) got off to a shaky start immediately, when Gillian, the oldest and weakest member on either tribe, chose Crystal, who chose Susie, who was clearly also one of the older and weaker tribe members. None of the other picks overcame this initial imbalance, and may even have exacerbated it. When the dust cleared, Fang consisted of:
Gillian
Susie
Crystal
Michelle
Ken
Randy
Dan
Danny, and
Matty

The other tribe, named Kota, looked to be in much better shape, at least physically:
Corinne
Paloma
Jessica
Kelly
Jacquie
Marcus
Bob
Charlie
Ace

Any gender-based advantage you would give to Fang based on their extra man is more than wiped out by the fact that they probably had the two weakest men (Ken and Randy) as well as the two weakest women (Gillian and Susie).

Losing challenges tends to make a tribe's ugly side come out, and this season was certainly no exception. Fang lost a special opening reward challenge that was basically a footrace culminating in a steep, grassy hill (Kota won some extra corn). Then they lost the first immunity challenge, which was a standard obstacle course with digging and a puzzle at the end. In the second episode, they lost the reward/immunity challenge (Kota won fishing supplies), which involved rolling a big heavy ball around on a rolling grassy field.

In the middle of all that losing, there was a lot of negativity, timidity, and, ultimately, scapegoating. Danny (also known as GC) allowed Jeff Probst to set him up as a leader, and then got cold feet and stepped down after Gillian complained about people talking in the predawn hours.

Exile has a twist this season, as Fang's Dan found out when he got sent there. Exiled survivors will have a choice between an immunity idol clue, or some sort of comfort item (in this case, an apple). Dan chose the clue, but was unable to locate a sandy crater that was referred to, and therefore came back to his tribe sans idol (not that his teammates believed him).

There were a lot of storylines over the two episodes, but I suppose the common theme was unrequited love. At Kota, Charlie is clearly smitten with Marcus, and is probably carving "Charlie hearts Marcus" on every tree in the jungle. Marcus, being very comfortable with his heterosexuality (and perhaps enjoying the flattery a little bit), doesn't seem to mind, and the two have forged what appears to be a very tight alliance. They teamed up with Jacquie and Corinne to form an early alliance, but it remains to be seen whether the foursome will be able to successfully rope in another member and prevail in the 9 member tribe.

The other instance of unrequited love involved Ken and Michelle. The geeky video gamer admitted to the camera that he hasn't kissed a girl in five years, and speculated on the possibility of a Survivor romance between himself and Michelle. He spent the first few days hanging out with Michelle, who repaid his affections by publicly calling him out for not digging quickly enough during the immunity challenge. It was a little painful to watch Ken put himself out there like that when it was so clearly hopeless.

In the end, Fang turned on Michelle for being too much of a Negative Nellie. This was stupid for two reasons. First, because if you were to target negativity on that tribe, you'd wind up cutting pretty damn deep. Second, because you're probably cutting your strongest female tribe member (physically). Olympian Crystal is the obvious pick for strongest female, but she crumbled halfway up the hill in the very first challenge, and seems to be one of those people who deteriorate in this kind of environment. Good thing for her there are no hills in the Olympic relay competition

As bad a decision as it was, Michelle is wholly at fault for her own early departure. All she had to do early on was get with the program, reign in her unpleasant personality, and stop calling all of her tribemates morons behind their backs. Instead, she isolated herself from everyone except for Ken, who was sucking up to her at every opportunity, and made no visible attempt to strategize.

Fang's follow up move was to boot Gillian, which is probably their first sensible move as a tribe. Gillian wasn't necessarily hurting her tribe during the challenges, but she certainly wasn't helping any. Unless, of course, you consider shouting "Go! Go! Go! We're still in it" (when you're clearly not still in it) helping.

Enough about the show-- what about the pool?

THE POOL

The Immunity Picks (IP) for the first episode were determined by who you predicted would be eliminated first. If that person was on the tribe that lost immunity, you won the bonus. The net effect of this was that everyone but Carl and Dawn won four points on the first episode, and everyone including Carl and Dawn won 2 points on the second episode.

After Michelle was booted in the first elimination, here's how the pool looked:

1st: Jennifer 103 (-1 +4)
2nd: Mike, Paul 102 (-2 +4)
4th: Matt 99 (-5 +4)
5th: Dawn 93 (-7 +0)
6th: Mom 92 (-12 +4)
7th: Kim 89 (-15 +4)
8th: Carl 87 (-13 +0)

After Gillian was bounced in 17th place, here's where we wound up:


1st: Mike 109 (+5 +2)
1st: Paul 109 (+5 +2)
3rd: Jennifer 104 (-1 +2)
4th: Matt 93 (-8 +2)
4th: Mom 93 (-1 +2)
6th: Carl 87 (-1 +2)
7th: Kim 85 (-6 +2)
8th: Dawn 84 (-11 +2)

As we can see, Mike and Paul have started off with a bang, powered by the fact that they correctly predicted that Gillian would be ousted in 17th place. Kim and Dawn are sucking wind, mostly because they had faith that Michelle would go far.