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Colby's thighs a lowlight
There were no disclosures of stunning new material. Maybe the highlight (or, to be frank, low-light) was the revelation that Colby suffered severely, for a time, from nasty chapping of his deep inner thighs, much to the amusement of his tribes-mates, as he waddled around, bandy, legs akimbo, like a truly saddle-sore cowboy. "I'm trying to get some air-flow going through" he explained, helpfully.

A mock Tribal Council
And there was a curious event, when one tribe performed, for their own amusement, a mock Tribal Council session of the other tribe, each satirising one of the other contestants, while one played Jeffi asking his usual daft questions. Tom did an observant spoof of Rupert the troll; Rob, with an improvised wig, an effete Ethan.

They emphasise the point I made early on in these commentaries that Big Tom, genial as ever, is almost always incomprehensible, and really deserves either simultaneous translation, or English subtitles. We were shown numerous examples of how baffled his tribe mates were, unable to fathom what he meant. I suspect that he's a whole lot sharper than he gets credit for, but plays up this Good Ol' Boy role, which perfectly suits his purposes.

There's a long sequence of one tribe revelling in the experience of strong coffee after a long period of abstinence from caffeine, as they sit around chuckling, eyes bulging, as if there's been powerful marijuana and several other recreational chemicals in their brew.

All a bit pointless
There's really not much to be gained by re-watching great chunks of what we've already seen. Watching the over-dramatised arrival at the island, this time I was even more reminded of that beach invasion in Apocalypse Now, and "I love the smell of napalm in the morning"; it only lacked the gun ships blaring out the Ride of the Valkyries, especially as we watched Jerri, the series' very own Valkyrie, leaping into the water.

With the wisdom of hindsight, we notice that Sue, before she performed her carefully planned and operatic conniption fit and stormed off the beach, had shown no aversion to rubbing her body against others without their consent. They get Sued, without mercy. And we notice again how avoidable was the minor incident she chose to inflate so hugely, as she stood very intentionally in Rich's path and refused to move aside, providing him with an opportunity he couldn't resist, namely to be as fatuously annoying as he so dearly loves to be. Sue wails that in 40 years she's never even kissed another man, though this record appears to have remained unbroken. She even seems to be claiming to have flashbacks of Rich's nasty nudity.

It may be unrelated to the issue of his nudity, and the eagerness with which he discarded his pants or skirt, but the wild-life vignettes that feature so notably in the series, did seem to be showing an inordinate number of views of damp snakes slithering around the shore. Was this a Freudian hint?

We were reminded of how usually the teams evict their oldest members first. Rudi is seen, saying ruefully (Yes, clearly full of rue) that "I'm going to keep doing this till I win". We're reminded of when Richard got bitten by a fellow shark, and how many viewers would probably have preferred to see him bitten by a much bigger member of their species.

Men work, women kvetch
Shii-Ann reveals new depths of pretentiousness, declaring a situation to be "So Hemingway-esque!" We see again and again, the pattern of the Men working hard at chores, while the women sit around and yawn or kvetch. The high point of their endeavours seems to be the time they made necklaces for everyone. Jerri especially seems to avoid all real work comprehensively, but is often eager to tell others what to do.

And then there's that curious, maybe prophetic line, where the RobFaddah, musing, comments that he hopes to end up with Amber, "spending my million", then adds "or hers". What more can I say? Next week, we should get back to the real action.

(Professor M.A. Simpson)
 

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