Previewing Survivor: Fiji

Season 14 of Survivor is noteworthy for being the first go-round of the reality warhorse to be filmed in a country undergoing a coup. During the latter days of filming in December, the military took over, which I take it is not an uncommon occurrence there. It would have been interesting if the various factions had been unable to decide on a new leader, and as a compromise had picked the eventual winner of Survivor. Talk about your spoilers.

We've been promised new twists this year, the main one being that the tribes are separated into "classes" of sorts, with one team being set up in a non-Survivory luxury situation, and the other tribe having to deal with the typical snaky squalor. This could lend additional emotion to the inevitable physical immunity and reward challenges. This twist, of course, is being put to the test during the current season of The Apprentice, to generally negative reviews, though the difference here is that no one will be expected to conduct themselves in a business situation after having slept in a tent and taken a makeshift shower outdoors.

There are 19 people in the cast--something that hadn't been planned for because apparently one cast member actually bailed on the show the night before everyone headed out to location. I'm looking forward to seeing how they begin the game with an odd number of people--will someone actually begin the game as an exile, or will they even send someone home right off like Jonathan and Wanda the singing loon in Palau? With the individual immunity idol having been kept in the pocket for 2 consecutive games, the producers decided to introduce a second such idol this year, and one would think that might insure it finally gets played.

The cast is racially and ethnically diverse without Survivor making a big "Hey look! We're racially and ethnically diverse!" statement as they did last year, with the way the tribes were divided initially. I wasn't as bugged by the way they did things in Cook Islands as a lot of people, but I think that's something that's best done as a one-time thing. Here now is my quick overview of the cast, complete with some spoiler-free speculation on how they each might do (keep in mind how badly I suck at this):

Alex Argarita seems to have the "new Yul" vibe about him. As a decent looking graduate of Harvard law, he seems overqualified for this goofy game show in the same way as Yul, and he has an advantage in that the other players won't know that Yul ended up winning his season. Alex has enough athletic ability to have climbed Mount Whitney, and would seem likely to wind up as a tribal leader.

Anthony Robinson is a Yale man, so right there we have an obvious clash with Alex. His job is sort of interesting: he helps locate expert witnesses for trials. I get a vibe from his bio that he's maybe a little bit eccentric: what to make of a black guy from southern California who lists the Edmonton Oilers as his favorite sports team? I'm not real optimistic.

My first thought about "Boo" Bernis is that he seemed like a bit of a simpleton--a country boy there as comic relief of sorts a la Bobby Jon. But somewhere along the way he picked up enough $$$ to be able to buy a bar, so he's got to have some savvy. His past work as a crawfish farmer might be of some assistance catching fish--hey, you never know. I am curious, though, as to why he lists the Houston Oilers, who died a decade back, as his favorite team. He looks like the sort of player who tends to get targeted around the time of a merge, because he's considered too strong.

Asked her favorite snack food, Cassandra Franklin answered "all." Finally, a Survivor player I can truly relate to! Cassandra works for the civil engineering department at UCLA. The biggest negative she has going for her is her age of 42--the only women of that age who last long in this game are ones who are well-protected by an alliance. She looks to me like the sort of player who is going to get targeted the first time her tribe loses a challenge.

Dre Herd certainly appears interesting: a onetime homeless street performer who currently works as a cheerleading coach. Someone like him isn't likely to be too rattled by the hardships of Survivor, and one doesn't overcome the sorts of things he has without showing drive. I want to say his coaching background is a positive, but I cited that last season as the reason J.P would win, and that was something of a mistake. But I like Dre's chances.

Earl Cole sounds like a very interesting dude: a well-rounded man, an advertising executive with a significant background in music. What I don't get from him is any sense that he really knows much about Survivor, though. He looks like he might be in the midrange in terms of athletic ability, and sometimes that's a good place to be. But I question if he has the savvy.

Edgardo Rivera is another ad executive, but this guy is a good enough athlete to have played Davis Cup tennis for Puerto Rico. He's spent a lot of time on the beach, and looks like he's going to be a physical asset. The one noteworthy thing in his bio is the story he tells about how he once slept with a friend's girlfriend in order to prove she's be unfaithful to him. You have to think anyone who would do that is too big a jerk to ever win Survivor.

Erica Durousseau calls herself "subtle, confrontational and outgoing." The first and third of those attributes are wonderful traits for this game; the second, not so much. Erica is a recent evacuee from Hurricane Katrina, which makes me concerned that she's had too much recent upheaval in her life to be able to deal well with everything Survivor throws at you. I don't see her as being in the game for long.

Gary Stritesky, a 55 year-old school bus driver from Ramsay, Minnesota, is the sort of player who adds color to the early days of Survivor, but is never around for the middle and later days. He has a few things going for him, though. For starters, he's the only player in this season's cast who applied rather than being recruited, so he's a fan. He can canoe and fish, although the northern lakes are a far cry from the south Pacific. He's also a carpenter, so that might be of use also. Gary might just pull off a surprise.

James Reid is the obligatory bartender from southern California who enjoys "working out." They put people like this on the show just to torture me, I know it. I think he's going to clash with the other young bulls in his tribe, and wind up getting disappeared in the early stages.

Jessica deBen is a fashion stylist and makeup artist who hands down has the coolest past job experience of any contestant: she was once a body painter for The Lion King at Walt Disney World. All seasons of Survivor have vaguely anonymous pretty girls who go out in the first few weeks, and I'm afraid that looks like Jessica's fate. She's awfully cute, though, so I hope I'm wrong.

The most interesting thing about  Liliana Gomez is this note from her CBS bio: "[She] decided, with the permission of her parents, to move to Guadalajara, Jalisco, for one year when she was 11 years old." Huh? How does that work--you're a little girl and you just up and tell your folks you'd like to go to Guadalajara for a year? Anyway, Liliana is an ex-Marine and (I think) the first veteran of the Iraq war to appear on Survivor. I'm not usually much for the chances of Survivor women who come from law enforcement or the military. I think I'm going to like Liliana as a person more than I really like her chances in this game.

Early on, I pegged Lisi Linares as the Jonathan figure of Fiji: someone who gets a lot of attention from the editors due to an outsized personality. She works for a "psychic services company" and apparently had a hit record in France a few years back, which actually sounds pretty horrifying if you know anything about the musical preferences of the French. My guess is she's either going to go very quickly, or hang around as did Shane in Panama.

Michelle Yi is a student at the University of Cincinnati whose bio reflects the personality and interests of a kid. She describes herself as "bubbly" (yuck), but also as the sort of person who will let you know if you're getting on her nerves. I don't see a positive outlook here.

Mookie Lee describes himself as a major Chicago Bears fan, so hopefully he's recovered enough to watch his TV debut. He seems like a normal enough guy--a program manager with an Internet loan company whose main interest appears to be playing and watching sports. I can't get much of a handle on his personality or how he can cope with Survivor, so for that reason I'm going to pick him to win simply because the Koreans are on a roll.

Rita Verreos was once a contestant in the Miss Venezuela pageant, and they take their pageants very seriously in Venezuela. She has a part-time business in San Antonio preparing pageant contestants, but somewhere along the way managed to get a degree from UCLA in Italian and French literature. She's not the first reality show contestant in her family--her brother was on Project Runway. She also once acted in a film called Marked for Death, which is so cool I think I'm going to pick her to go far in the game.

This is the time of year when a note like this, from the bio of Stacy Kimball, makes a lot of sense: raised in Montpelier, Vermont, "Kimball moved to Miami, Florida, even though she had never visited the city before." She now lives in Boulder, Colorado and has a vague job in Internet advertising. She seems sort of dull to me and I'm guessing she doesn't make it too far.

Sylvia Kwan has a couple of things going against her, the main one being her age of 52. The other one is her significant job in the outside world, as the chairman of an architectural firm, someone who's enough of a big deal to have served as chair of the board of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce. Someone like that, while a high achiever, is probably not going to be highly motivated by the $1 million. She won't make it past February.

Here's another guy who on the face of it seems way too overqualified for this game: Yau-Man Chan is the Director of Information Systems for the College of Chemistry at Cal-Berkeley. Survivor really isn't a game for techies, and his age of 54 is another drawback (has Survivor ever had 3 players over age 50 before?). Seems like a smart dude, but will have to really get into the right alliance to last past the early weeks.

Looking back now, I see I've picked almost all the female players to not do well, which means I've clearly underestimated the chances of several of them. I guess I didn't see anyone with what I would consider the right mix of athletic ability and age (early 30s would probably be ideal). But unpredictable things always happen in the game. What's more predictable is that my picks typically suck, but I'll go with Alex, Mookie, and Rita as my final 3.

Comments

[RD]

I think it is too soon to start another season of Survivor. It has been less than 2 months since Cook Islands. I have more anticipation for the once-per-year reality shows such as Big Brother and AI.

[IA]

This is how they've done it in the past, although Cook Islands ended about a week later than usual, if memory serves.

As the show's ratings continue to slip, they might have to go to once a year, or even pull it for several years to allow us to miss it.