by Zhillbear

CBS has announced the 18 castaways who will be “battling extreme conditions and interacting with wildlife such as elephants and gorillas” on Survivor: Gabon — Earth’s Last Eden, premiering Sept. 25. Host Jeff Probst says, “In a strange coincidence to ‘Earth’s Last Eden,’ good vs. evil emerges as a major theme this season.” Last season’s James and his “Don’t bite the apple” catchphrase would’ve fit in beautifully.

The castaways, in alphabetical order, are:

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Tags: Preview, Reality TV, Survivor by Zhillbear
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by Zhillbear

You now have an extra week to prepare yourself for the brilliant magnificence that is Survivor. The season premiere of CBS’ Survivor: Gabon — Earth’s Last Eden, originally scheduled for Sept. 18, will now air Sept. 25 from 8-10pm ET. The episode is the first time a season of Survivor has kicked off with a two-hour premiere, and it also marks the show’s high-definition debut.
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Photo: Jeffrey R. Staab/CBS © 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved

Tags: Reality TV, Survivor, TV News & Program Updates by Zhillbear
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by Zhillbear

After getting rid of the last guy on their tribe, the Final 4 women return to camp after Tribal Council all giddy, shrieky, and doing the pot-stirring dance. If their consciences are bugging them over what they did to Erik last episode, they’re hiding it well.

For the immunity challenge, the women, each standing on a perch on top of a 20-foot pole in the water, raise buckets of water, which they pour into a chute, thereby raising keys that they need to open a chest that contains 16 ladder rungs that they need to assemble to climb up to a platform, and then raise a flag. Got that? It doesn’t matter. Natalie jumps out to an early lead, but around the time that a blur shows up over Natalie’s breasts, Amanda catches up and wins.

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Tags: Reality TV, Recap, Survivor by Zhillbear
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by Zhillbear

When I first saw this episode, I was left dumbstruck. Incredulous. The blood drained from my face. What those women did to that poor boy Erik was disturbing. Horrific. But after watching it again, those last 15 minutes of the show were beautiful. Poetic. It was like watching masters at work. They spun their words and twisted Erik’s mind as if his thoughts and emotions were tangible threads that could be woven however the women chose. The women worked so well together, and each played their part flawlessly. They were the Harlem Globetrotters of Survivor backstabbery.

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Tags: Reality TV, Recap, Survivor by Zhillbear
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posted by Zhillbear

The scenes from last week’s episode show Parvati calling the female alliance the “Black Widow Brigade,” and Natalie describing blindsiding Jason as “flossing my teeth with his jugular.” But today the women show a softer side when they realize that James may have to leave the game due to a finger injury; although James was one unplayed immunity idol away from being voted off last episode, the women now pout that they don’t want him to go. Granted, some of the women’s reactions could have just been politeness — Cirie tells the camera that, being a nurse, she should feel more compassionate toward James’ finger and Alexis’ injured knee, but if they leave the game, “that’s two less people I have to fight against for a million dollars.”

The reward challenge is the one in which the contestants answer questions about their tribemates, and then predict the most popular answer. Each correct prediction earns a chance to chop a rope — three chops result in smashing the likeness of an opponent, knocking him or her out of the challenge. As if seeing their own likeness crushed isn’t emotional enough, the Survivors’ loved ones show up to watch the challenge. Erik ecstatically points to his hero and shouts to his brother, “Jeff Probst! That’s Jeff Probst! He’s just standin’ there!” Probst responds with, “Erik, you’re a freak.”

Erik, I would’ve done the same thing — unlike my coworker Elaine, who, based on the blog she wrote when filling in for me two weeks ago, apparently would’ve shouted, “Jeff Probst! That’s Jeff Probst! Let’s eat him!”

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Tags: Reality TV, Recap, Survivor by Zhillbear
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By Elaine

Throughout this game, I kept picking different titles for the episode: Parvati plays nice. James gets batty again. Girls gone wild. Erik sucks. But nothing fits the episode quite as well as Killer Bitch.

And, good Lord, isn’t she? I mean Natalie, of course, who used the B-word so frequently to describe Jason (who hadn’t done a single thing to earn the title but be fiercely loyal to her) that I suspect that parents who let their young kids watch this show as either a lesson in how to grow up to be Dick Cheney or the next CEO of some Enron clone, must have given up on holding their precious darlings’ ears. CBS is the network that blurs plumber’s cracks and the castaways’ lips when they swear. Perhaps they should have bleeped the word and flashed it on the bottom of the screen because every kid old enough to read already knows it. That would have been apropos because it would have made it seem like it applied to Natalie and not what she was saying. Or, as Pee Wee Herman put it, “I know you are, but what am I?”

So, for those who missed this episode, let the drama (or at least as much of it as I can remember) unfold.

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Tags: Reality TV, Recap, Survivor by Elaine
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(from Elaine Bergstrom)

Zhillbear has awakened from her long winter of hibernation, left the comfort of her cave and the solace of her television and gone in search of nuts and berries and adventure. And she entrusted this blog to me, me who thinks the best thing that could happen on Survivor (any season, mind you) is that hunger will overcome everyone and in a bout of totally understandable temporary insanity the castaways will unite and eat Jeff Probst (possibly the cameramen could provide them with some fava beans and nice Chianti to add that certain Je-ne-sais-quoi to the event). Not that someone Probst-like isn’t necessary for Survivor, but really, could we get someone just a little less wooden? A little more enthusiastic? Someone who offers pep talks rather than nods of sympathy? The late Steve Irwin would have been ideal, or Snakemaster Austin Stevens or Survivorman Les Stroud, who could take one look at the dirty, sunburned and bug-bitten castaways and say, “You think you have it bad…” then offer tips on how they can make it better. These guys would have given Jonathan some sort of herbal cure for his infected knee, talked Kathleen into a state of Zen-like calm, told Chet … no, wait, nothing would have kept Chet around except maybe a Tempur-Pedic mattress and a foot massage.

Zhillbear made me promise to let everyone know that she is a HUGE Probst fan and that all anti-Probst comments are entirely my own. Well, I’ve raved enough. Here’s the recap of this week’s events, and the detail here indicates that for the first time since Richard Hatch did a challenge in the nude, I did not fast-forward through the feats of strength and inane Probst banter to get to the really good stuff (the back stabbing) as I usually do. [Read more →]

Tags: Reality TV, Recap, Survivor by Elaine
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by Zhillbear

Eliza isn’t liked by anyone, so her best strategy is to align with fellow outcast Jason. When Jason tells her that he has the hidden immunity idol, she’s excited that her alliance might have some power, especially if they can join with Ami when the tribes merge. But Eliza doesn’t yet know that Ami got booted off, and that what Jason believes to be an idol is just a stick that Ozzy carved a vague face into.

The tribes are told to gather their personal items immediately and go to a new location, and they correctly assume that a merge is coming. Before the two tribes merge, Erik, incredibly grateful that he wasn’t kicked off, tells Ozzy that he’s not flipping to another side. Erik tells the camera that he and Ozzy have a “zookeeper bond,” with Ozzy being the zookeeper and Erik being the monkey. Wow. That’s pretty much more than I cared to know, Erik.

As Airai prepares to leave for the merge rendezvous, Parvati realizes that she’ll have to face up to the fact she’s in two alliances (one with Amanda, James and Ozzy, and one with Amanda, Natalie and Alexis), and she feels she’s in a pickle. A “hot pickle.”

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Tags: Reality TV, Recap, Survivor by Zhillbear
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posted by Zhillbear

Ozzy is a little shaken by talk at the last Tribal Council about how people think he’s a controlling leader of the tribe. He doesn’t see himself that way — he thinks he just has a lot of good opinions and know-how. But apparently not the good sense to not cuddle with Amanda around the rest of his tribe.

Ami tells Ozzy that Tracy was trying to get her to overthrow Ozzy, but Ami prevented anything crazy from happening, and Ozzy shouldn’t worry about his safety. He feels uneasy, thinking that Ami is a little too adamant in her assurance.

Over on Airai, the tribe is hungry and sick of eating coconut. Natalie dreams about nachos, Parvati dreams about pizza, and Jason catches a rat that gets too close to camp. He says there’s not much meat on the rat, but he plans to eat him — “nobody’s eaten a rat since the first season of Survivor, so it’s kind of cool to be able to bring that tradition back.” If it hasn’t happened since the first season, it’s not much of a tradition, is it? That would be like the Cubs trying to uphold their tradition of winning the World Series.

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Tags: Reality TV, Recap, Survivor by Zhillbear
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by Zhillbear

On Malakal, Tracy thinks Ozzy is too controlling — he decides when the tribe eats, what the tribe eats, when the chickens will be killed. She thinks he’ll win the game unless they get him out of there.

Erik, meanwhile, idolizes Ozzy, who is taking the young ice cream scooper under his wing. Cirie can’t come up with enough figurative language to describe the situation — stardust comes out of Erik’s mouth when he says Ozzy’s name; the two are like the father teaching his cub in The Lion King; “I think if Ozzy were to propose marriage to Erik right now — done deal.” Erik eagerly gobbles up every word of instruction his idol feeds him, and Ozzy encourages his student with praise such as “Good job, dude” and “We got good nuts now!” (Oh, I should mention that Ozzy is teaching Erik how to chop down coconuts.)

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Tags: Reality TV, Recap, Survivor by Zhillbear
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