Follow Up – Survivor: Nicaragua

Survivor: Nicaragua – CBS – 8:00/7:00pm Wednesday – USA / Nine – 9:00pm Tuesday – AUS

Survivor is back and we can all rejoice in the fact that Lil’ Russell has crawled back under his bridge for the time being. Don’t worry though; he’ll be back at the first sniff of another All-Stars season. For now though we’ve got twenty new castaways ready to be embarrassing, hypocritical, self-important and irritating all in their quest for a million dollars. The destination: Nicaragua. The twist: old people vs. young people. Or rather: 40+ vs. 30- … not sure what happened to the thirtysomethings, maybe this just confirms their worst fears that not only are they not young anymore but they’re not yet old either. In Survivor they’re nothing.

Jeff Probst and his dicky attitude are back as always and he’s got another twist up his sleeve, a so-called Medallion of Power; which kind of sounds like a kid’s adventure series from the early 90’s. Didn’t Skeet Ulrich used to star in Medallion Of Power? Didn’t he play Loco? One of the Band Of Four entrusted with the Medallion of Power and destined to bring hope to a world in peril? That Medallion of Power may exist only in my mind but this Medallion of Power is very real and it brings yet another twist to a series that will eventually collapse in on itself with twists. The Medallion of Power can be used at the immunity challenge and it gives the team holding the power an ‘advantage’, but if they use the Medallion it then is given to the opposing team for the next challenge. So the decision becomes ‘get the advantage or stop them from having the advantage next time’.

Survivor isn’t about Medallions of Power, or hidden immunity idols, or Russell’s sanity slowly circling the drain, it’s about the contestants and this time around we’ve got… okay, we’ve got basically the same over confident nuffies that usually appear on this show. There’s dumb blonde Jud who keeps getting called Fabio by jocky Shannon because Shannon is what we in the business call ‘an asshole’. In between mocking Jud for having blonde hair, and talking himself, and equally dim Chase, up as being ‘the Boston Rob and Russell of this season’, Shannon’s all about make derogatory comments about women. “A guy needs to sack up and need to win this one.” Which means that Shannon will presumably be out before the merge because he’s such a toxic prick.

The old folk’s team includes NFL Super Bowl Coach Jimmy Johnson, and in case you hadn’t yet noticed it also includes NFL Super Bowl Coach Jimmy Johnson, and I think maybe they’ll give some screen time to that other guy on the team NFL Super Bowl Coach Jimmy Johnson. Jimmy J seems like a good bloke, and if the never ending screen time is anything to go by surely he’ll make it to the final three at least, if not the final three of next season as well. The women on the old folks seem to have all been cast in part because of the success of Shambo in Samoa. Every woman on the old folk’s tribe seems to have bad hair and talk before they think. The tribe also has a guy named Marty who seems a little shifty at this point, and another guy named Jimmy T. with a ponytail, goatee and a look in his eyes like he’s flashing back to Vietnam.

On the young ones team there’s Kelly B. who has a prosthetic leg, which is like so twelve seasons ago. Despite the fact that Chad never made even made it to the final seven in Vanuatu the young team still want to vote Kelly B. out because they think she’ll win the sympathy vote. What sympathy vote? Have these kids even seen this show before? At this point in the game there aren’t a lot of people to cheer for, although Jimmy J seems nice, I just wish they’d show more of him.

The first elimination comes from an embarrassing tribal council with far too much over-sharing. Whoever goes home has to walk through a graveyard, which is about as subtle as Survivor gets these days. This wasn’t a stellar first episode, but it did set up a lot of the main players well enough. Now the big question, who do I think will win? That’s almost impossible to tell this early on. Who could have picked Natalie in Samoa? Who even knew who she was at this point? You can make wild guesses at final three though – I’m putting my money on old folk’s team member Marty who seems fairly cluey, or on Jimmy J simply because when you get this much screen time it usually means you’re here for a while.