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Topic: Wacky Wanda's Episode 2 Review! (Read 939 times)

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Wacky Wanda's Episode 2 Review!
« on: Feb 13^th, 2006, 9:01am »

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Here's what Wanda sent us this week!

Great moments in Survivor watching: The facial expressions when someone says or does something the others find atstounding are some of the best fun! The best shot of week award goes to Shane's tribemates when Jeff calls everyone in for the immunity challenge and asks each tribe how it's going. Shane volunteers immediately to say he favors honest, candid responses to questions like that, and he's not about to sugar-coat anything. "Physically, we're wrecked!" he says. His tribemates wordlessly ask with their facial expressions, "What d'ya mean we?" and shoot out "He's-speaking-for-himself,-not-for-me" looks! It's only Day 6, and most of these hearty people are still very energized and doing just great, while Shane is whipped and well into "I-wanna-quit" mode. No hour-long tribal council discussion is needed to speak volumes here; we've had the picture worth a thousand words.

These shots are one of the features that make Survivor so much better than other reality shows. There are enough camera teams on the scene to focus not just on the speaker, but on tribemates who are instantly reacting to what they are hearing. I have to acknowledge that I inspired some of these great side shots with my first-day enthusiasm in Palau. After a couple of days of not being able to speak, capped with a couple of hours of rowing in the hot sun when we were being filmed silently rowing past World War II wreckage, we were finally set free on our little lifeboat and the gag order was lifted. We started to talk to each other; we stood up and introduced ourselves to each other; soon my pent-up energies exploded into sharing one of my Survivor songs with my fellow cast-aways. The bubbling-over spirit could wait no longer! Cut to expressions on the puzzled faces of Coby and Caryn thinking, "One out of four people has some mental disturbance, but don't they try to eliminate those people from Survivor casts?"

The person provoking these kinds of reactions seldom realizes what kind of response he or she has generated until the editing is complete and the show is on TV, but there is much to be learned from them about "seeing ourselves as others see us." Survivor does this better than any other media I know of. Shane's "this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me in my entire life" theme is working up a "Quitters never win, and winners never quit" counter-theme. Point and counter-point: Shane elaborates on the "psychotic bad idea" of attempting this Survivor thing, and Courtney muses aloud about his "total instability" and what that might mean to their tribe and to her personal decisions in upcoming tribal councils.

Only Shane's physical strength, which he demonstrated in the challenge and which contrasts strongly to what Melinda brought to the tribe, has kept him in the game. I thought Melinda should have gone in episode one; that she is out in episode two is no big surprise, but I did rather think that Shane's physical, mental, and emotional problems would have sent him packing this week. No one expects him to last long; this could be his last week on our screens.

Next subject: Tribe composition. Sometimes tribes are fairly evenly matched. Sometimes they are unmatched, either on purpose (such as to test men-vs.-women hypotheses) or accidentally (as when the school-yard pick-em is used).

The pick-em has been used twice before. In Thailand, the two oldest players, Jake and Jannie, each got to pick their tribes. Jake chose a young group -- six people in their twenties and one thirty-year-old -- average age 26.8, excluding himself. Jannie chose the older group (three in their 40s, three in their thirties, only one in the twenties) -- average age 37.7, excluding herself. Average difference in age: 10.9 years. Result: The top five places in the game went to the older tribe, with Jake, at age 60 the only person over 30 on his tribe, outlasting all the rest of his Suk Jai tribe to place sixth.

The other pick-em was in Palau. The average age of the nine people on Koror tribe was 36.1, while the average age of the nine people on Ulong was was 27.0. Average difference in age: 9.1 years. Result: Stephenie was the only Ulong to place in the top 9. The older tribe won conclusively, taking the top 6 places, and all but one jury spot.

The other season in which the two tribes had a significant age difference was Survivor One: Borneo. The average age of the Tagi tribe, which included 72-year-old Rudy, the oldest man ever to play the game, was 39. Average age of Pagong tribe: 32, even with B. B. Anderson, age 64, second oldest Survivor ever, on board. Result: The Tagi tribe, the older group by an average of 7 years, took the top five places at the end of the game.

Does anyone see a pattern here?

Many observers (Scout posted it first on the CBS blog) have already paralleled Terry's La Mina tribe (average age 35.1) to Koror and Danielle's Casaya tribe (average age 30.4) to Ulong. Danielle picked Shane first, and no one can miss seeing the multiple problems there, in the guy who should be the top man for the tribe. Beyond that, Casaya also ended up with Melinda and Cirie, the younger two from the initial "Golden Girls" tribe, which had already evicted the strongest older woman, Tina. A "plus" for Casaya: they were able to trade Melinda for Bruce. Note: Bruce, unpicked at age 58, is the oldest player this season. Dan and Ruth Marie, the other two oldest players, were the last picks on lucky LaMina. As others have observed, the Dan-Terry alliance continues to have great potential. Everything hinges on whether Sally and Misty can pull Nick and Austin away into their game plan.

[Composition by age: This cast has 6 people in their twenties; 11 people age 35 and under; three people in their 40s and two men in their 50s. Is it mere coincidence, or is age a far stronger factor of school-yard pick-em success or lack thereof than either race or gender? ]

Proposition to be tested: Is overall youthfulness of a tribe inversely proportional to overall success rate, as evaluated by jury-composition?

More on Missing Timber Tina: No, I don't think about Survivor 24/7. When I'm on the job, I'm on the job, and when I sleep, I only occasionally dream about Survivor. But --- I might think about Survivor a couple hours a day on weekdays and half the day on weekends. This past week, it's mostly been about how it stank to have Tina go out in the first episode. First, my theory of a good game of Survivor includes a "Bond of the Best." Survival of the Fittest, please, not the loser-alliance! I have always hated seeing the weak take out the strong, and Tina's eviction ranks right up there with Hunter's in S-4. I have a really tough time forgiving the can't-do's who take out the can-do's, the way Hunter and Tina got axed. Second, recalling the pain of being first out, I can hardly imagine how Tina coped with that disappointment in 2005 on top of Charley's death. Entirely too much pain for one year! Something inside me keeps wanting to give Tina a long hug and assure her that while everything that has happened has been wrong, wrong, wrong, she is very much loved, and she can hold onto that.

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Re: Wacky Wanda's Episode 2 Review!
« Reply #1 on: Feb 13^th, 2006, 9:17am »