Survivor: Something Cruel Is About to Happen ... Real Soon

Welcome back, kids!

Survivor's back, and that means it's time to start making snap judgments about people we don't know! Woo-hoo!

And the twists start as soon as the show does -- nineteen people are dropped off the coast of an island in Fiji in a big outrigger canoe and told to paddle thataway.

Nineteen does not even teams make. It seems the uncertainty was too much for wimp of the week Melissa McNulty, (in the white jacket) who quit the game before filming even started! Probst has said in interviews that she flaked at the last minute and they didn't have an alternate. So the scrambling began.

Our intrepid bunch lands on the beach and pretty much acts like they are the very first people to ever discover land. Calm down people ... it's gonna be a long 39 days. Notable for idiocy early is a bartender and Boston Rob wannabe named James, who bears a decent resemblance to a young Stallone and wants to be called Rocky.

They're looking for a machete, they're looking for a note, they're looking for team flags ... and they can't find anything. Poor little castaways. But they do have *a lot* of fruit on the trees, and a cool cave. Not a bad site for a camp.

Yau Man, an older computer engineer, steps up. He grew up in Borneo, and that's Fiji without the glitz. So he's kickin' it Borneo style and peeling coconuts without a knife, which he says is an exercise in patience. This is a guy I want on my team -- he's got skills, yo.

Look out below! They're dropping boxes from the sky! Task one -- open the box.

The big beefy guys step up. They pick up the box and drop it on a rock. Then they do it again. Then they pick up the rock and smash the box with it. Box stays closed. I think these guys may have taken lessons from FrankenAdam -- Box thinks it's so smart. Smash box with rock! Arrruuugh!

Enter Yau Man, who looks to be about 150 pounds soaking wet. Yau Man picks up the box and drops it on its corner. Box pops open. It's basic physics -- the corner is the weakest part of the box.

Yau Man's got skills, yo.

Inside the box are blueprints and a map to a cache of supplies -- lumber, nails, food -- even a toilet seat. The Survivors are to work together and build a kickin' shelter.

Everyone is *very* excited about the toilet seat. And I started to mock them, but then I realized. This is Survivor -- a toilet is a serious luxury. If I were there, I'd be doing the traditional Dance to Greet the Toilet Seat too.



Sylvia, an architect, puts on the bossy pants (with some justification) to lead the construction. But between having to stop and explain words like "askew" to Rocky, Erica (a fundraiser) trying to politic and people messing around, not much gets done. The group spends their first night huddled under a little tarp in the rain.

The next day, the crew actually gets their act together and completes the shelter. It's pretty danged cool, too -- a sleeping area, kitchen and bathing/toilet area. It's so cool, I'll trade my house for it. What do you say, CBS?

Dre ... excuse me, Dreamz (with a pieloving Z!) officially is the most annoying person on the show, and possibly on Earth. First, he calls himself Dreamz. What up with that? Next, he's a cheerleading coach. Let me repeat that ... a Cheerleading Coach.

And it's day two and he's already breaking out the "pity me because I had a bad life" story. He was homeless as a kid. Maybe I'd have more sympathy if he didn't call himself Dreamz.

He also won't shut up -- ever. It's night, people are trying to sleep, and he's performing the "Dreamz is a Tool" show. Someone asks him to "simmer down," and he snaps that telling him to simmer down just adds "fuel to his fire."

OK, it would be at this point I would be kicked off the show. Because I would have been *compelled* to ask him what happens when someone tells him to Shut the Fuck Up before he gets a coconut rammed up his ass.

Instead, he and Rocky bicker like kids. Not as much fun.

Finally! The Survivors arrive at the challenge site. And hey -- there's Probst! I was wondering if he was going to be on this show! Probst wants to know who's wearing the bossy pants, and everyone points to Sylvia.

Probst tells Sylvia to split the group into two tribes, green and orange, and she splits them fairly evenly. I don't think she liked the green tribe much, though, because it got Dreamz *and* a guy who calls himself Boo.

Boo? Like Boo Radley? Boo from Monsters Inc.? A grown man that calls himself Boo??



So the green tribe, Moto, is Dreamz, Boo, Cassandra, Liliana, Stacy, Lisi, Alex, Gary and Edgardo. The orange tribe, Ravu, is Michelle, Erica, Jessica, Rita, Earl, Anthony, Yau Man, Rocky and Mookie (Mookie? WTH?). Don't worry if you don't know who most of these people are -- I don't, either.

Poor Sylvia, a woman without a tribe. Probst reveals her fate -- she's going to Exile Island, which for grins and giggles this season is loaded with poisonous sea snakes!

She'll get a clue to the location of a hidden immunity idol, and she'll join whichever tribe loses the immunity challenge after they vote someone off.

Jeff explains the challenge. Tribes will race chariots across the Fijian mud flats. Two people will ride on the chariots retrieving three bags of puzzle pieces as the other seven pull them through a quarter-mile length course. After retrieving all three bags, a player will grab a flag at the end of the course and race back to the start. There, four tribe members will solve three puzzles, revealing numbers to a combination wheel. If solved correctly, the tribe will find a knife, chop a rope and raise the tribe flag.

The winning tribe not only gets Immunity, (and a cool idol that looks like Skeletor's staff) but they go back to the kickin' cool camp. In addition to *that,* they get china, glasses, hammocks, a shower, even a couch! The losers? They get to vote someone off, *and* they get sent to another island with only a machete and a pot. Sucks to be them.

This is a *serious* reward. Break a leg, kill a puppy, do what you gotta. But Win This Challenge. It could mean the game.



Stacy and Lisi get an early lead for Moto, as Jessica (fashion stylist) can't get the knot untied on the puzzle pieces. Michelle takes over on knot duty for Ravu, and they catch up. Moto crashes -- those chariots don't exactly look stable. Ravu races to the puzzle.



OK, I don't want to stereotype or anything, but why is the computer engineer not working on the puzzle? And why are these women squinting at it like it's gonna do tricks? Moto recovers, solves their puzzle and wins the uber reward.



Exile Island sucks. There are snakes *everywhere.* There's a little tower-like shelter, and there's snakes in that too. Poor Sylvia ... I feel sorry for her.

At least she got a clue to the idol location, right? Yep -- it tells her that the idol's not on EI, and that she should look at her camp. OK, so now she's got to find some time to hunt for it without the rest of her team finding out, but at least she doesn't have to dig around the snakes.

Back at their new, crappy camp, Ravu's got lots of coconuts and some pretty scenery. That's it. Some of the people try to look at the bright side, such as it is, but Erica puts on her pissy face. I don't think I'm an Erica fan.

I'd also like to point out that that massive 'fro is cool -- now. After 39 days of no shampoo? Not so much. It might not have been the best hairstyle to wear to the island.

Rocky, Jessica and Erica make an alliance, of sorts, and target Rita for elimination. I don't know why. I don't know anything about Rita, other than her occupation is listed as "single mom." They try to sway Earl into voting for Rita, but Earl's listening to Mookie, who points out that Jessica sucked at the challenge (couldn't untie the rope, couldn't solve the puzzle) and that maybe she's the weakest link, so goodbye.

Rocky, Jessica and Erica hear Jessica's on the block, but Rocky assures them that none of them are going to be voted off, because they have an alliance. Yeah. An alliance of three. In a tribe of nine. Yo Adrian! Come do the math for Rocky -- it's obvious something's not adding up.

After a Tribal Council that was extremely boring because no one really had anything to say about people they basically didn't know, Jessica gets booted with six votes against her. Guess that alliance wasn't the powerhouse it was advertised as.



Next week: Boo bleeds.