Survivor Samoa – Another new season

It is hard to believe that this show has been on 19 seasons . . . Check it out on Thursday nights on CBS.

This was one of the first “Reality” television shows and it is strange to realize what we have seen over those years . . . from winner Richard Hatch (the first evil) and the great retired Navy Seal Rudy Boesch who showed us that despite age we can accomplish anything on season 1 to Season 8 “All Stars” romance of Rob and Amber who went on to other reality shows like the Amazing Race.  Season 10 “Palau” gave us fireman Tom Westman a likeable man whose tribe won every immunity challenge.   Season 16 gave us “Fans vs. Favorites” which had interesting dynamics between those who had watched the show and thought they could do better than previous contestants . . . Parvati won that one.

This season renews itself with a few fresh characters and infuses new life into the familiar mix of challenges and camp interactions.  This show is back to the ‘beach base’ program which lends itself to variations in the ‘diary sessions’ between contestants.  The beauty of the water and waves crashing give the show a needed refresher.  The groups will need leadership more this season than before based on the first two episodes as the Samoan culture is infused into the show.  We will see if “too many chiefs” creates problems among the many ‘A’ personality types.  It should be interesting.

I cannot wait to see the “do it yourself” challenge for something completely different and how the teams handle ‘The Box’ as a fun insight into human dynamics.

And lastly, Evil has a new name . . . Russell Hantz.

In the first episode Foa Foa (purple) tribe member Russell told us of his plans to manipulate his tribe mates controlling their comfort level and emotions so they will vote his way.  While his tribe was sleeping he emptied everyone’s water canteen and burned another player’s socks in the fire making everyone wonder what happened.  While everyone was lying in the darkness talking he told (lied) a story of losing his dog during Hurricane Katrina in the flooding.  He dog was swept away and he spent two nights on a rooftop until he was rescued.  All lies as he has never lived in New Orleans.  He also found a hidden Immunity Idol on episode # 2 without any clues but knowing the last few seasons had placed them in camp.  His teammates asked what he was doing as he looked up inside a hollow tree and he told the truth, “looking for the idol” as he hid it in his underwear and walked off.  The Survivor mantra of “Outwit, Out Play, Outlast” is being taken literally this year with Russell.

In the first two episodes he has played the puppet master to perfection.

The Galu (yellow) tribe it seems hasn’t seen as much airtime except during challenges as they have won all of the competitions so far and the brief glimpses into their tribe life has given us limited information except when one member, Yasmin over to the Foa Foa tribe for a day to “observe” and immediately when in to their “house” and insulted everyone by telling them she was going to help them with strategy so “it is not like taking candy from a baby”.  Then she pulled Ben aside and proceeded to berate him for being a sissy boy in the challenge, being a dude, knocking down a little girl like her.  To which Ben called her ignorant ghetto trash, among other things.

The entire Ben/Yasmin exchange made for good TV, but it was not pleasant.

While in the Foa Foa camp Yasmin did most of the talking so I could not see where she was able to gather any information to help herself or the Galu tribe from her visit.

Survivor Samoa is starting off with a bang so hopefully it will maintain an interesting observation of human interaction and not end up ending with a whimper.

Ice