Survivor Fiji Gets Off To An Exciting Start

There's so much to talk about about last night's premiere of Survivor: Fiji I barely know where to start. So I apologize in advance if my thoughts seem a bit scattered. I'm just too excited to sort them all out. That, and I am still on a significant amount of cold medicine. Go figure.

There was lots of talk before the season started about the strange-ness of starting with 19 castaways. Turns out that they were supposed to start with 20 - one dropped out right before filming started. Melissa McNulty was supposed to be the 20th castaway; after having 3 panic attacks in one day, she met with the producers, and decided to pull out. I'm not sure how I feel about this. The week or two leading up to production is really tough - the castaways are sequestered, put through lots of activities (some media, some educational, some actual challenges), and aren't allowed to speak or have eye contact with each other. They are told to bring an ipod, so that they have the ear buds in all the time. There's no question that it's hard. So I'm glad that if Melissa couldn't handle that, that she was able to back out before the show started (and probably saved us the "fun" of watching her quit later on). Melissa said today that she didn't know that she had one day left of sequester, and that the producers were well aware beforehand that she suffers from panic attacks. I'm curious why they cast her in the first place. I'm also a little annoyed - because it was so close to the start of the game (probably about 18 hours), chances are (and this part I'm guessing on) that her departure drastically changed the first few days of the show. Jessica said today in interviews that most of them were looking around, realizing that there were 5 of each ethnic group, and assumed they would be split by race. When Melissa backed out (she is a white woman), that would have forced the producers to change how they divided the tribes. I think that the shelter twist was probably planned in advance, but how they divided the tribes I'm sure was changed. I hope we see an interview soon with Probst or Mark Burnett to know for sure.

Ok, so on to first impressions. Mine? That nearly everyone in the cast looks like a previous castaway. Seriously. "Dreamz" (and we'll get to that bit of ridiculousness in a second) looks so much like Osten from Pearl Islands that I thought it was him for a few minutes. There's too many of them like that for it to be a coincidence. I just hope that it's part of some sort of huge twist later in the game. That would ROCK.

Most of the castaways seem really likable so far. I LOVE Yau Man - I hope he does really well in the game. I also like Rocky, though I admittedly have an affection for anyone with a Boston accent. And I like Earl. Ok, I like most of them. What I didn't like? The fact that so many of them have nicknames. It's not ok to make up a nickname for yourself for the show. It's never ok. But to come up with "Dreamz" as your nickname? I can't think of anything worse. I was wrong about him (see my previous blog...his real name is Dre) - he'll be the first one voted out of his tribe. I'm also not too sure about Mookie. Did you see him sit down in the challenge? NOT cool.

I hate the twist of the two camps. Yes, I know that they'll probably be doing a lot of camp switching (the nice camp may be the reward for the reward challenges), and I hate it. Rewards that give a tribe an advantage at the next immunity challenge are fine. Rewards that give a tribe an advantage that is so large and so hard to overcome...well...blech. This is Survivor - they should have to work for it. Otherwise I'm just watching Big Brother on a beach.

Exile Island this year SUCKS. "Crawling with sea snakes"?? How is that safe? Do they have somewhere to go away from the snakes? Did CBS really let them do this? Yikes. And the fact that it looks like the immunity idol is actually hidden back at camp sucks even more (which is probably why they keep saying that there are two idols this season...one at each beach). I am also moving over to the side of the argument that hates that hidden idol. At least how it's done now. Maybe if there is a shorter time limit on it (like only being able to use it at the next 2 tribal councils) it would be better. But now finding the idol pretty much guarantees you final four. I hate that.

What I didn't hate was the challenge. LOVE when there are lots of parts to a challenge, and this one was tough. 14 seasons, and the challenge production team still rocks.

So after that great challenge, Ravu loses, and has to go to tribal council. I wish they had shown a little more of tribal last night - there are actually 200 steps to get up to tribal council this season...hopefully they'll show that climb in future episodes. And sadly, Jessica joins the "elite" club of those first voted out of Survivor. Someday maybe they'll take my idea and have a season of just those people. (of course, how much would it suck to be the first one voted out of THAT season!) Jessica seemed really nice, but someone had to go. It's too bad for her, but the people who seemed to rub others the wrong way were really all on the other tribe. It's the first season in awhile where it seemed like they pretty much just flipped a coin to choose who to vote off.

14 seasons in, and still by far my favorite show.