I know we are all missing Luke, Janine and David, but you can get your Survivor fix on Go on Thursday from 7.30pm (or usually a few hours earlier online).
Sure, it’s not the 100 episodes a week we are used to, but it’s something.
Fans will be happy to see Sandra and Boston Rob back as mentors for Island of the Idols. It’s a new twist so how could it go wrong, after the Edge of Extinction twist being such a success …
It goes for 90 minutes.
No recap from me as I leave it to the experts like Dalton Ross at EW (ew recap here) and Rob Cesternino on his podcast (if you’re a Survivor fan and not listening to RHAP, you’re mad).
If you missed the two-hour premiere on Go tonight, they put it up early on 9 Now.
– Caleb (the one who almost died and had to be medevaced from Kaoh Rong the first time he played) should not have bothered swimming after Ozzy at the start. No-one is beating Ozzy in a swimming and diving race. Note none of the others bothered to try.
– OMG – I loved it when they got to camp and started talking about building the shelter and Tony just yelled “I’m looking for the idol – yippee!” and ran into the jungle. Hilarious.
– It makes me happy to see Zeke so excited about being in the presence of Survivor royalty. I really hope he gets to stick around and is not the first voteout because, as an unknown, they could be worried he is a Russell Hantz-style player (Russell, the biggest villain in Survivor history, also played his second season before his first season had aired on TV, so no-one knew what a conniving bastard he was – albeit a great character to watch.) If Zeke is lucky they’ll think he just got cast on the strength of his floral shirts and mo.
– It seems Ciera didn’t learn much from Secon CHances, when she played too hard – and overtly so – and it bit her on the bum.
– Michaela is lucky that she didn’t go instead of Ciera – she needs to control her face.
– I loved that Tony and Sandra started off in an alliance – with a good strategy of an all-winners final three – but it quickly turned to war. There were some terrific to-camera pieces from both of them.
– Why in the drag-the-snake challenge was Varner sent out to do the physical stuff instead of Michaela? Surely he would have been better at untying the snake. He is very lucky Tony and Sandra were at war, because he is obviously the most physically weak player on that team.
– I hope Aubry can forge a new alliance next week and is not tainted by the Tony vote out. So sad to see Tony go before his spy dugout was even finished.
– Good to see Caleb getting some air time that’s actually strategic talk. I felt sorry for him when he had to dig in the sand for the bags – he must have been flashing back to his scary medevac. Or perhaps it was scarier to watch as a viewer.
Next week: It looks like there’s a tribe swap already. A good thing, as it looked like JT and Ozzy’s tribe was going to keep whipping Sandra’s tribe. Maybe now we’ll get to see people like Andrea have some confessionals. Or that famous game changer, cowgirl Sierra Dawn Thomas …
