May 14, 2004

Survivor All-Stars Notes - Epilog

[Complete set of my Survivor All Star Notes]

Posted after Ep #17, May 13, 2004. This post, and its comments, may contain spoilers....

Nice try Sherm.

Last night we saw the wrap-up episode for the eighth season of Survivor. It was mostly a continuation of the Reunion show, with a smaller audience.

They began with letting Jerri and others vent a little bit about how they are all treated and perceived after being on the show. "I'm not evil (a jerk, self-centered, thoughtless, clueless, etc.) I'm just edited that way."

The troubled souls among the all-stars all renewed their devotion to Survivor, which is no great surprise since their being member in good standing of the club is an important part of their future potential income.

On the whole I admire Mark Burnett and Jeff Probst, but all night long, every reference to Jerri was qualified with "but we love her" or "she's sexy". Kinda lame.

Now that we've got all that off our chests, the rest of the show was clips to illustrate the players chosen by the fans in various categories.

I won't rehash all that stuff, except to say that the least interesting category produced the best quote of the night:

Johnny Fairplay was chosen as best villain. He was sitting in the front row (and could he look any slimy-er?).

It's still pretty obvious to me that Jeff P really doesn't like JF. So after being the good host, and having to blatently lead JF into plugging his wrestling program, Jeff says, "you still pissed off about not getting into All-Star?" and finally my favorite: "...and good luck getting into the after-party."

A couple other updates: Lex is still pissed... the audience still thinks he's a jerk... and BigTom has mostly made up with Rob.

Periodically throughout the night they revealed the "final four", the top four vote-getters for the second million dollars.

Colby. Kind of a surprise to me, but the ladies like him. He was also selected as sexiest Survivor guy. Although my sister, who loved him after his original season, felt he really let her down in all-stars.

Big Tom. Big surprise. No doubt he was a great character, and it was kinda sweet how obviously surprised and touched he was to be chosen. But "deserving of the million" ??? What were people thinking?

Rupert. My pick. Clearly a favorite. As the show began, and Jeff mentioned that later that they would announce the winner, a couple of survivors pointed to or looked at Rupert. At one point Boston Rob acknowleded that Rupert was the most popular, but that he himself was the most deserving.

Boston Rob. Sherman probably played a part in Rob getting to this point. Also, Rob has been appearing on TV shows all week and apparently campaigning for votes. So it's impressive that he was still beaten by another.

And Rupert wins. I'm happy about that, definately a sentimental favorite. And bringing his wife and child onto the stage was a nice touch. Sherm will probably have something to say about this.

I haven't looked to see if they have released the vote counts, but I'd bet that it was: Rupert by a wide margin, Rob and Colby nearly tied, and Tom a distant fourth.

Now is when I should try to say where I think this Survivor season ranks among the others. I'm not sure. I wouldn't call it the best. Top three probably. But maybe it can't really be compared to the others. It was quite different. With the prior relationships, and the resulting highly charged emotions.

I kinda like the way the Rob-Amber thing has turned out, but I'd be disappointed if this were to become a regular thing in the future. It seems unlikely though. I think the only thing that made it possible in this season was that the players had so much knowledge about each other going in. In a regular Survivor season they are strangers and thus more wary of each other.

So that's it for another season. Now we wait until September for Vanauatu (or something like that).

Hodgson... OUT!

Posted by jackhodgson at May 14, 2004 12:51 PM