You’ve got to give it to the television producers. At 8:00 tonight (at least on the east coast) was Survivor: Exile Island, the first results show of American Idol, the finale of Dancing with the Stars, and the gold medal round of ladies figure skating on the Olympics. If that doesn’t cause your tivo to explode, I don’t know what will.

So, we’ll start with Survivor, mostly because that was the only thing tonight I watched live. And I’m glad I did – it was well worth it. The drama tonight was excellent.

We started at La Mina, who appears to be pretty together, except for the whole food thing. I don’t understand why they’re not doing more searching for snails and fruit. And why can’t they seem to catch any fish. Even if the fish they catch are the darn poisonous ones, why aren’t they cutting them up and using them for bait? They’re not going to last long without some food.

On the other beach is Casaya, who does appear to know how to gather up food. But that’s all they appear to know how to do. Shane appears to have come out of the worst part of his detox, and now can criticize the other members of the tribe. And, to be fair, there is a lot to criticize. Courtney seems far more intent on doing yoga than helping out with the tribe. And even though they took shots at Danielle, at least she’s doing more than Bobby – he’s just worthless. Every time we see him he’s napping. Except, of course, when he’s using the bathroom (and what was up with that??). It’s ridiculous.

So, on to the challenges. I love the challenges like tonight’s reward challenge that combine a puzzle with a physical challenge (that’s something Mark Burnett has tried to focus on the past few years – trying to make every challenge have both a mental and a physical element). And this was a good one – the tribes seem to be so evenly matched. Of course, I thought the shots of the girls’ bikini tops were a bit gratuitous, but, as my husband says, it brings in the ratings.

The immunity challenge was great too – I love the element of strategy with how quickly to dump the buckets of water. If you go too quickly, the water splashes a bit, and it could cost you in the end. And it was so close – if La Mina had just made the choice to go with speed instead of accuracy they would have won.

And then there’s Terry. How could I leave out Terry? First, he gets sent to Exile Island. And his tribe is lost without him. I mean really lost without him. They don’t seem to know what to do, and this makes Terry a real power player. No one even thought about taking him out while they could. Of course, it wouldn’t have mattered – Terry somehow managed to dig deep enough to find the hidden immunity idol. And they really did hide it deep – wow. So while he’ll be going into the merge with a target on his back, he’ll be able to make it through the vote (which will probably even out the numbers game at the same time). I can’t imagine how he won’t make it to the final four. We might be seeing a run similar to Tom from Palau where he plays a dominating game all the way to the end. I also wonder if future players who go to Exile Island will still be given clues…how much will that suck to spend a few days looking for something that isn’t there. Hee hee!

So, no real surprise that Ruth Marie went home tonight. And I liked that Dan stayed true to his word, even if it meant splitting with his alliance. Being a man of your word is never a bad thing.