Well, I've been persuaded to revisit the Survivor series, the new "All-Stars" edition, which brings back a bunch of contestants many of whom you loved or loathed in previous series.
Will we love them now? Will we loathe them now? Are we being manipulated to like and dislike certain contestants? Does their conduct shed some more light on our general human lot?
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In the next column, some intriguing aspects of this particular series and also some rumours of possible developments will be under the spotlight, as we take a look at who gets eliminated.
Another American invasion?
The series opening suggests a happy dream of Bush and Rumsfeld, of yet another American invasion. Helicopters, gun-ships, machine guns, heavily armed soldiers from a coalition of the butch, accompanied by "embedded reporters". Or were the "stars" so reluctant to take part that they had to be dragged here at gunpoint? The conditions are meant to be tougher than ever, with no supplies beyond a machete and an empty bucket.
The producers haven't tried to make it any easier for us to remember the names of this bunch, as we seem to have two guys named Rob and two women named Jenna. So for those who are a bit confused, hereis a summary of the teams:
Mogo Mogo (with green scarves) Colby from series 2, Australian outback; Jenna M. who won series 6 in the Amazon ; Kathy from Survivor 4, in the Marquesas ; Lex, the illustrated man from series 3 in Africa ; Richard, the winner of the first series on Palau Tiga; and the possibly interesting Shii Ann from series 5 in Thailand.
Saboga (yellow scarves) Alicia from series 2, Australia; Amber from the same series; Rob C. from the 6th series in the Amazon ; Rob M. (known as the GodFadda) from series 4 in the Marquesas; Sue from the first shows on Palau Tiga; and Tom, the incomprehensible goat farmer from series 3, Africa.
Chapera (red scarves) Ethan, the boring soccer player who won series 3 in Africa; Jenna L. from the first shows on Palau Tiga; Rudy, the popular old guy from the first series on the same shows; Jerri from the series 2 in the Australian Outback; Rupert the Hairy from the 7th series on the Pearl Islands; and leathery Tina, the winner of the second series, in Australia.
Old personalities revisited
Tom is still almost incomprehensible in at least some of his utterances, though basically he still requires English subtitles. He's there to appeal to the all-important goat-farmer viewers (these demographics are important to advertisers, you know). Then there's sweet-faced Rob M, who seems to be thought of as a Mafia type. He's hot for Amber, but troubled by the uncomfortable bedding which is really cramping his style. I can't report on Rob C, who seems to have been invisible for most of this episode, merely a faint smile hovering at the edge of one's vision, like an anaemic Cheshire Cat.
Alicia looks most fetching in her red bikini, and boasts of being so outspoken. "You push my buttons and you get me to crack" she offers, and displays her buttons, which give the impression of having been enlarged impressively since we saw her in Australia. On another Reality series (Forever Eden) this week, one contestant had to be given an emergency evacuation after one of her breast implants sprung a leak, dripping as copiously as her tears. Ethan's all bright-eyed and bushy-haired as usual, and says he's looking for his "nitch". Jenna L is implacable about the need to ensure that no past winner wins anything this time.
Jenna M suggests they're all morons for enlisting again, and that they all have issues of some kind. Jenna and Kathy start planning a girl alliance. It's notable how often girls seem to feel obliged to claim alliance based simply on chromosomes and hormones, yet actually don't support each other usefully within such games.
Jerri apparently plans to "keep her damn mouth shut" which might be a treat if she managed it, but she breaks this vow within seconds. Rudy unwisely sups from the unboiled water, and Jerri happily announces that there's stuff in the water that can give you brain parasites which can put you in a coma. Which, in the case of some contestants, like Jerri, might seem to be a distinct improvement.
Sue, wearing a nasty bikini that carefully emphasizes all her worst features, drapes herself round the scenery, doing very little. She announces that: "I can't do Fire. I've tried." Haven't we all, ducky. However, she proudly tells us that she's not scared of dirty water, having drunk much of the Canadian lakes, and controversially downs a load of the suspicious local water, then lies around, as if she has now completed all her obligations to the group.
The leaders of the pack
But the leading characters in this episode are Tina and Richard.
Tina the Elf, that leathery and scrawny woman who amazingly won the Australian series, and who looks remarkably like that elf in the second Harry Potter movie, or possibly Vladimir Putin's sister, tells us she's gathering life experiences. Yes.
Most revolting, is Richard, the fat gay guy who inexplicably won the first ever Survivor series, and still seems bent on giving homosexuality a bad name. The very epitome of smug, he seems totally confident that he cannot fail to win this series, too, just as I'm certain that he cannot possibly do so. He is convinced that he alone has the secret to unavoidable victory. And he's one of those insufferable guys who knows exactly what everyone else ought to do, and where, and how, without feeling obliged to do anything much himself.
Richard mistakenly believes that his pointless actions and invisible charms are the recipe for success. From the start we see him superciliously sneering and preening, failing to join in any of the work that's needed, waiting for victory. His victory in series one was surely accidental, and not related to any particular skill or tactic, but he doesn't realise that.
There's no recipe for success
There's a lesson for all of us in that. Be grateful for success if and when it arrives, but don't assume that you know why you've been successful, and never assume that you have the secret to prolonging that success indefinitely.
Richard suffers from a series of delusions, one of which is that when he strips naked, he thinks he's irresistible and that this must be part of his recipe for success. In fact, he's one of the most resistible men on the planet. He lost no opportunity to drop his clothes and flaunt the least attractive features of his already unattractive and bloated body. Apparently part of his strategy for success is to arrive as fat as possible, assuming that this will make it easy for him to survive the usual starvation periods of the game, and he sneers at the others as too skinny to survive.
The naked truth
Why is it always the ugliest contestants who seem eager to strip off? Apparently denial is enough of a cloak for them. I gather some of the women contestants have later complained not only of his sleazy conduct, but that he was so intent on displaying highly unimpressive portions of his anatomy. "They think I'm cocky and arrogant" he announces, as if this was a remarkable achievement. He lies about, ostentatiously doing nothing to help anyone. He's wearing a sort of skirt like a kilt or sarong, apparently because he can drop it more quicly.
But notice something very curious about Richard's persistent outbursts of nudity - whenever he strips, a small grey cloud, a blur as of a million midges, immediately floats around his wobbliest parts, mercifully obscuring them from view. This may be a rare example of censorship not of sexually explicit material, but of a simple act of mercy towards the audience.
I gather this series launched in the USA on the same night as the Superbowl football championship, the one in which such a hoo-ha arose about Janet Jackson's reckless "wardrobe malfunction" that so briefly exposed one flabby appendage, and it seems as if Richard is desperate to outdo Janet, by revealing every flabby appendage he possesses.
He also looks unbearably smug about everyone else struggling to make fire, as if he knows he has a lighter tucked away in his nether regions. Actually, he looks as if he has enough room in that region to have stashed a blow-torch, a bottle of Napoleon Brandy, and assorted canapés, as well.
A major sponsor seems to be Safari Fruit and Nuts, which seems much more apt, as both fruit and nuts are represented in the teams.
What's in a name?
As usual, tribes have been given awkward names, which we won't bother to get right. Chapera, Mogo Mogo, and Saboga. Who chooses these?
Anyhow, back to the Action. Jeff coyly introduces the teams to each other (apparently they didn't know who else would be on the island) and when Colby sees Jerri, he looks as if he feels sick, while she grins as if she's planning to have him for dinner.
The group spends a lot of time bitching and trying to be dominant. As in Big Brother, notice that nobody actually has any intelligible or explicable strategy, though they often talk as if there is one. And whenever they do something unkind or sneaky, they explain carefully that it's simply unavoidable because they're playing the game. Apparently, doing something kind or openly, is not "playing he game". This is certainly not cricket.
Smoke, but no fire
There's much struggling to make fire, with no success at all. They're rubbing vigorously at dry palm fronds, but dripping their collective sweat so generously onto the same kindling, that success seems awfully unlikely. Jenna make the sage remark that “Unless God strikes a log with lightning we might never get fire !” But God does not oblige. They might do better if they tried using Kathy's glasses to focus sunlight, but don't even think of this. It looks like Amber will follow her usual policy of hitching her star to a promising male, to shepherd her through the episodes. She's the genuinely but more subtly ruthless type that succeeds more often than she deserves to.
I missed several intervening Survivor series, since my last columns on this topic, so haven't yet discovered the charms of Rupert, a vast shambling bear of a bearded man, who seems to consider himself some species of hippy, but who truly seems to be auditioning for the part of Hagrid in the next Harry Potter movie; and is deeply touched when wiry old Navy Man Rudy proposes an alliance with him.
There's only time for one challenge. Two teams do equally well, but the last is hopeless and comes a poor third. It's all to do with flaring torches and woks, some being carried by the group on a raft. Apparently many hands make light wok. Hugga Mugga and Chapstix win immunity, with Tobago trailing a long way behind.
So Soboga goes to a tribal council where they're so thirsty they're hardly listening to Jeff, going through his usual spiel, as they're busy trying to catch the raindrops and slurp them down.
Jeff up to his usual tricks
These seem to be the contestants he likes the least, and he appears to enjoy reminding them of their discomfort, and making them squirm. Jeff points out that he notices them sucking up rain water, displaying his legendary powers of observation.
The discussion is somewhat revealing. Ethan seems to be suffering from the delusion that Survivor is a sport, and a team sport, at that. Tina thinks the previous winners are wearing targets on their chests. As always, the editing of the show suggests that one contestant is doomed, and this week it's Jenna.
So it's old Tina the Elf, leathery and scrawny as ever, who gets pushed out. This early in the game, there are no overwhelming reasons for voting out any of this group, so apparently they simply decided that she was rich enough already, and unpleasant to look at, to boot.
Notice again the miracle of the votes. In whatever order the group makes their votes, and whoever they vote for, as Jeff solemnly pulls them out and displays them, they're always in whatever order will provide the maximum suspense.
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