Episode 1: "20 Contestants? WTF?"

"Training" poster by cheesecakey.

NIGHTCRAWLER:
Ok, now I know I'm known for being overly sarcastic...but you'll not read anything like that (for now!) For starters, I actually ENJOYED last night's season premiere!! I know! I was shocked myself. I felt that each tribe was given equal time, they handled the ethnic split in a professional manner, and even the first challenge was cool!

One thing that caught my eye was the fact that everyone was terrified that this would cause racial tension. If you watch the episode - the tribes made fun of their OWN ethnicity! The African-American tribe kept using words like "represent" and referred to their shelter as being ghetto. The Asians made remarks about being small and non-athletic. One of their members also made some off-the-wall comments that offended other people in his own tribe!!! The Latin-American tribe kept making it a point to say that they weren't lazy, and that they had to prove that they could work hard. Meanwhile, the Caucasian tribe cheered themselves on by shouting "Go whiteys!!!"

If anything, I think that this season will open a lot of people's eyes. You can't stop racism if you've got it going on within your own race!

In other news: what was up with that wound on Yul's nose?! It was there one second, gone the next, then back in the next scene!!! Also - Cao Boi scared me when he removed the "bad wind" from Brad. That poor guy had a burn on his forehead for the entire day! I'm surprised that Jenny wasn't coaxing him to file a lawsuit!

The African-American tribe seemed in good spirits, even when they lost and then found out that they got to send someone from the winning tribes to Exile. I love Nate's personality. He always has fun no matter what! He reminds me a lot of Cirie! Here's hoping that he's the final person from his tribe!

Of course, they had to show the Caucasian girls as being giggly, semi-retarded, and always snuggling with a big, muscle-head. Way to "represent" your race, fools!

All in all, I must say that I was entertained! Like I said earlier, I felt that each tribe was given equal time, and here's hoping that the editing (and cast) do not start to suddenly suck in the next few episodes! Thanks to all of the racial hype, I've never been more excited about a season of Survivor!

Tune in next week for my actual sarcastic self. For now, I'm just in shock that I can't find anything to bitch about!

w00t!


NAKED GHANDIA asks, "Could this be the start of a new civil rights movement?"

I haven't posted on {the Sucks} forum for a while now. I have been very busy with my Longaberger basket business. But, I must say that the gimmick on this new survivor show has gotten my attention, just like it has everyone else. (For a while, I was pretty much caught up with that story about that John Car that killed that little girl. I wanted to know everything I could about such an interesting person. Then I found out that he was possibly gay, so I am intentionally ignoring that story. The lengths that these homersexuals will go to for publicity is shocking! I won't be a part of it!)

Anyhow, in case you haven't heard, the Survivor show this time is going to be divided up into teams based on race. Now, some of you might recall that I suggested that very thing back when they did the men versus women. And, I for one, think it's time that reality television settle once and for all the age old question of which race is the best. But, as usual, Jeff Probe is one step ahead of me. He isn't just establishing an epic battle between two races, he is going to enable us to rank the races, 1 through 4! There is a lot at stake here, too. If my race comes in 4th place (doesn't even show!), I will be way to embarrassed to show myself around my friends from superior races for a very long time.

My husband says that the survivor show isn't really a very scientific way of showing which race is the best, though. He says that, even if a reality television show could be used to draw broad conclusions about the relative merits of racial subgroups, the sample size of 4 is simply not enough to be scientifically significant. But, as I pointed out to him, the Olympics have been used for that very purpose for years! Remember how mad Hitler got when that one black man won all the olympics that time back during world war two? After that, Hitler didn't really mess with the black people at all.

But the olympics is not entirely accurate either because it doesn't set up the competition by race, it does it by country. I like it when America wins something, but like lots of people, sometimes I think, "yes, but would a white man have outrun that Nigerian?"

That said, I do have a few gripes about the setup. First, the teams are made up of whites, blacks, mexicans and asians. But did anyone else notice that the whites are not of pure Aryan stock? Please note that this is not a big issue for me, but don't you think that if one of the other races wins, the whites will have an easy out? "Yeah, but they weren't Aryans" they'll say. Since they have gone to all this trouble, couldn't Channel 4 find a few blonde haired, blue eyed supermen to throw in the mix?

Ultimately though, I hope that the survivor show is sucessful in starting a new civil rights movement. Many people don't realize that the 1960s civil rights movement started when a young black man named Martin Luther King Jr. went on a game show called 21. He was a very sucessful contestant, but the network didn't like his demographics, so they brought a young, WASP college professor on the show and gave him all the answers. When the public found out, it was outraged! Next thing you know, black people got the right to attend white schools and so forth.

Much like the 21 show, the survivor show may not have the purest of motives, but maybe, just maybe, it too can bring about civil rights.


Splotchie (from Ozzy's bio):

"He moved 10 times in his teen years to seven U.S. States and Central America while his mother remarried."

So does that mean Ozzy's mom married 10 times just during his teen years? LMAO if it does and if not, then whoever wrote that gave it NO thought. LOL


ALFFMIX:
So, I lay down on my bed, with my plate of Kraft Dinner, ready to watch the premiere of Cook Islands.

I noticed they tried to do Borneo again... exact same opening sequence, and boring intro credits! OMG, they changed the font!! Yeah, so? Boo!

Did I think the racial stereotypes would be overthrown? Yes, of course. But I was wrong.

Black people still can't do well in water.

White (yeah, not "Caucasian") people try showmances. (Enough already ! BBAS gave us enough of these.)

Asians are great at puzzles and know crazy medical treatments.

Hispanics...hmm ... I dunno ... no tortillas or sombreros, yet. Then maybe one stereotype was overthrown!

The tribal council set was awesome! The outcome of it was pretty predictable. Yeah, editors! You won't get me this time! We all know the last deal we see between castaways is always the fake one. SNAP !

To sum up, Christina's invisible, Cao Boi is the new Rupert, Brad's gay and I still can't tell Rebecca and Sundra apart.

B+


GARBLUE:
Hahahaha, Jonathan got all the punishment and none of the spoils. Like getting caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar, and you dropped them in the toilet accidentally, so you don't get them anyway.


Haiku by REBELYELLING

Chickens smart to run
avoid Asian stewpot fate
beaks, wings, feet, assholes

Black men represent
put one more down for "lazy"
Mark Burnett smiling

Spic boy climb that tree
like border fence in Texas
Minutemen await

White tribe even there?
Pasty-faced vanilla whores
putting me to sleep


BEATLES20147
First, a few messages to the contestants:

Yul, keep being as smart as you seem to be; you very well might win the game.

Ozzy, I underestimated you, don't make me take that back.

Cao Boi, keep kicking ass.

Parvati, keep being the super-hot woman you are.

Candice, I had high expectations for you, quit being Adam's whore.

I've said in the past that the whole season of Survivor: Guatemala represented absolute mediocrity as far as Survivor goes ... and I've got to say that the premiere of Survivor: Cook Islands was on the same level. Obviously, the season just started so I can't completely judge it but I can't say I was that impressed, but I was entertained, and that's what matters I guess.


POINT/COUNTERPOINT: This week featuring Beatles & AMAI.

Beatles: "How does EPMB expect the race twist to have any impact if it's completely ignored after the first 15 minutes? That was by far the most interesting part of the episode to me, particularly Cao Boi joking about it. Come on , people, have fun with it. They all knew from the second they were told about the racial divide that it was completely a gimmick (unless they're complete idiots, which I would say applies to a good majority of them). So stop taking it seriously and joke about it! Unless you're bashing another race, nobody's going to get offended. Obviously there are boundaries when it just becomes annoying, but stop being so PC."

AMAI: "I think the impact of the race twist will come later in the season. It worked that MB didn't dwell on the twist. Instead, he simply showed what happened in the tribes when the minorities didn't face the usual situation of being in the minority! They had their 'own kind' around them, and it was about personalities, strengths/weaknesses and so on. As long as he doesn't dissolve the tribes too soon, the point will be made effectively. I hope that's what he's doing, anyway."

Beatles20147: "I agree that if EPMB were showing over-the-top comments and/or stereotyping, it would prove critics of the racial divide right that it was a negative idea. But I think the players were far too cautious about making sure they didn't say anything potentially offensive."

AMAI: "I think the players didn't give the racial aspect much more thought than what we were shown. All the tribes had "ethnicity convos" while rowing/getting to their camps, but once there, they focused on the business of shelter building, eating, finding the water, etc. Some tried to make fire. The whole ethnic question was put aside, so it wasn't caution, but a need to get the job done and not screw around with bullshit. In those first few hours, it IS all about getting survival organized."

Beatles: "Touché. And I agree with you that in this cast, there didn't seem to be anyone who had a very strong reaction to the twist. Possibly Billy, who insisted that the Latino group had a huge advantage, and maybe Yul but he seemed cautiously optimistic to me. I don't see Will Mega from BB1 in this cast. But I'm sure that during the confessional segments, every player was asked for a reaction to the divide--obviously they only chose to use one or two from each tribe but I'm guessing that if we saw the outtakes the other comments would be safe answers like, 'It's interesting; let's see how it plays out;' not like the response to the battle of the sexes where both teams insisted that they were going to whoop each others' asses. And that's why I think that outside of Cao Boi, Billy, Yul, and Jonathan, (and arguably Jessica, Parvati, and Ozzy) most of the characters seemed pretty reserved and unmemorable."

AMAI: "Well, you named 7 of 20 people, so chances are they are the stars. I'd see we've got at least 2, possibly 3 of the final 4, with someone who is still UTR as the Darrah. The other 13 are mostly early boots and early jurors. A couple of the 7 you mention would be pre-jury boots."

Beatles: "I don't know, I'm admittedly a stickler for the older editing formula where bigger characters are introduced but not harped upon during the early episodes while the stories of the first few boots are developed. So I'm really hoping that's not the case here for once, since I don't want to lose those seven. It's early in the game, and hey, Bobby Jon was boring during the first episode of Palau and he turned out to be awesome so who knows."

AMAI: "There's enough time to develop mid-game boots whose big moments don't happen for a while. I think that by focusing more attention on fewer of them, we actually remember a lot more about more of them. MB used to try to show us a tidbit about everyone, and I used to feel like I didn't know much about anyone."

Beatles: "Those first four people I mentioned did and said whatever was on their mind--it was easiest to comprehend their thought processes because they were so open and honest, rather than making sure to think about the potential repercussions before speaking. And let me make that clear--there's nothing wrong with picking and choosing what thoughts to share out loud. But a lot of them seemed to just ignore the race issue or act as though they were walking on eggshells the entire time."

AMAI: "How do you know they were walking on eggshells or ignoring the race issue? And why would the race issue be that much of an issue? For most of them, I bet they forgot about it, and if they seemed to be on eggshells, it was for a different, non-race-related reason. I think people get hung up on the race issue to the point where they can't get past it to get things done. Too much time is spent assessing blame and figuring out if the slacking is due to race, when the clear honest answer is, "it's due to the fault of the individual who wants to be a slacker." Seko wasn't booted because he's a big black man, but because he was a lazy git."

Beatles: "Sure, Sekou was lazy, but he was strong and a help in challenges (of course, he weighed about the combined weight of the four other members of his tribe, so when it comes to running, I don't know) but I don't think that was the reason for his boot. I think it all comes down to his having a Y chromosone. The women saw they held a 3-2 advantage, and so they had an easy grouping right there. Even though Stephannie probably should have broken up the tight Sundra/Rebecca friendship, she decided to side with them because they were women. That reminds me of what I said the day of the cast announcement, the most offensive twist of the season is not the race thing, but going back to 20 contestants. Each tribe went in with uneven genders giving one of them an easy voting bloc. 16 is the number to stay with, every season."

AMAI: "Sekou's boot might prove to be a good thing for the Hiki tribe - if he was being more of a lazy boor and less of a contributor at camp. He may have had strength but he also seemed stupid, wanting kudos for achievements he was unable to actually achieve. And the thing is, Stephannie could be doomed if Hiki is back at TC prior to a swap or merge. Her decision in Episode 1 probably doesn't matter. Although we weren't shown enough to know for sure, Steph might have feared that the two guys liked Rebecca more than herself and would still boot her even if she helped keep Sekou. That could be why she sided with the women even though she told us she knows she's not in their clique. I can foresee the other two women pulling Nate to their side (because they don't want to be 3 women alone without a guy willing to do the heavy lifting) and they'll boot Steph anyway. She has to do all she can to ensure the Hickies don't return to TC."

Beatles: "Well, I hope there will be more comment on the racial twist once the tribes become integrated."

AMAI: "I think there will be. There will be a racial payoff when the tribes are combined, but not from everyone, because some people just think of others as individual human beings, and no matter which race, they all have strengths and weaknesses. Other people immediately start pigeon-holing new people according to race, and making pre-judgments that have nothing to do with the individual's actual abilities."

Beatles: "One thing that I am curious about: I'm guessing that the majority of the cameramen are white."

AMAI: "I bet they're not. Either the crew is a full mixture of all races, or it's same race as the tribe."

Beatles: "Would the other three tribes not feel completely at ease with crew members of a different ethnicity surrounding them?"

AMAI: "Again, I think that the situation varies from individual to individual. People who are used to being with a lot of different races would feel weird if the crew were all the same race. So there's no way to please everyone. If MB has a mixed race crew, those used to mixed race living conditions will be at ease, but those who are used to being surrounded by people of their own race, will feel odd."

Beatles: "Is this "social experiment," as EPMB wants to consider it, truly an honest representation then?"

AMAI: "Absolutely. Different people are unnerved by different things. Something that is a change to one person is a continuation of normal life for another. The constant is that this game is about change. As contestants depart, the options shift for the remaining players. The ones able to deal with the changes - whether of location, weather, position in tribe, immunity status, etc. - will be the ones who will make it to the end and put themselves in a position to win."

Check out Sir Links A Lot Survivor Cook Islands