Popular Reality TV

Survivor South Pacific delivered the series apparently now-standard post-merge fast-forward episode , burning through two immunity challenges and two Tribal Councils in less than an hour. While that sent Ozzy Lusth out of the game once again, and had some pretty baffling behavior, it was largely predictable and definitely a step down from the crazy drama of last week . Overall, the episode can be summed up in one word for me: anticlimactic. The “frosty reception” Cochran received upon returning to camp after switching his allegiance and voting out Keith consisted mostly of Ozzy expressing his disappointment in his Ozzyish way (“you just stabbed me in the back so hard”) and was primarily amusing because both Jim and Whitney’s heads nearly exploded because they were caught up in their emotional responses to being played and basically decided to give up. Really? Immunity challenge number one was anticlimactic. In a bit of a misstep, it eliminated nearly everyone after a single throw of a...

In one hour—less than 45 minutes, really—Survivor burned through content that would normally fill two episodes. That’s because the old Ometepe tribe is picking off members of the Zapatera tribe one by one, and there was little drama or suspense about either vote. First Mike left, then David: two smart, strategic players, two obvious choices. There was no hope for them, despite David’s voting strategy: He wrote Rob’s name four times on the vote and added, “Please count this as four Robs.” Jeff Probst, buzzkill, refused. Despite having merged, Ometepe’s members are sticking together and staying loyal to their cult leader, Rob Mariano, who has fed them so much Kool-Aid they didn’t even eat fish the other tribe members caught. Their alliance, as we learned from a hilarious Phillip speech at the second Tribal Council, is called “Stealth ‘R’ Us,” which reminded me of the old Toys ‘R’ Us commercial song, which could describe this alliance: “I don’t want to grow up / I don’t want to play the ...