SURVIVOR FIJI EPISODE I: I THINK ITS PRONOUNCED FIJOANS

I just want to insert a quick note in here before I start ripping…er…I mean, praising last night’s Fijuan, um, Fijan, er, Fijioan…Probst-fueled whine-fest. If you would like to know who got voted off lastnight, you can just scroll down to the bottom of this email. But you’d miss out on all of my wit and “talent.” Plus, there may or may not be a references to The Brady Bunch, Stop, or My Mom Will Shoot, and fake dog poo. OK, there will be…

Last night was a quite a night for TV. An earthquake rocked the O.C., there was a Dunder Mifflin wedding, and I would bet someone died of some rare condition and/or outrageous cause on Grey’s Anatomy while McDreamy’s hair remained unaffected. And then there was Survivor: Fiji. 19 Contestants were thrown on a deserted island (camera crews notwithstanding) to brave the elements, conquer nature, and outplay each other for a chance to stay. Is it bad that I’m already bored?

The show started as it typically does. We have everyone on a boat. We have the wide shots of the new island. We have the Probst (aka: Mephistopheles) hanging out of a helicopter telling us about the dangerous sea snakes of Fiji and its past wrought with cannibalism. Oh, and skulls. Man, cannibals were slobs. When I eat my fried chicken, I always throw my bones in the trash. It’s called civility cannibals. Look it up. Wayne: 1, Cannibals: 0.

Oh, also…ugliest…cast….ever.

Once they arrived on the island and high fives were exchanged, our new Survivors were left trying to figure out what exactly to do in their new surroundings. We are also introduced to James, the newest representative of Boston. His “resemblance” to Sylvester Stallone has the other tribe members calling him “Rocky.” Rocky, however is a good movie and James doesn’t really deserve that title in my opinion. He’s more of a Stop, or My Mom Will Shoot or Rocky V (my wife came up with that one…is it any wonder why I married her?)

So, they’re running around and bumping into each other, like the 19 Stooges, when the Probst, flying overhead, drops a mysterious parachuted crate out of a plane. So exciting! When they broke it open, they found a canister that was supposed to contain blueprints, but inside they actually found Jan’s poster of a cartoon bear. The Brady kids, meanwhile, visit an amusement park near Mike’s Meeting and Greg tries to pick up a girl who works there. Oops…sorry! Actually, the canister contained blueprints…and a map, mateys! Arrrr! BRADY!

Apparently, the map was to supplies to build the shelter for which the blueprints were designed to help for building the shelter for which the map was to lead to the supplies for to use. Wow, not one red underline there…this grammar checker sucks. So, they got to work building…all except the Joker (Sylvia) since she is an architect, just like Mike Brady only with a much bigger mouth. Like a gargantuan mouth. Really big. I gotta hand it to the Joker, though. Batman is never gonna find him in Fiji. In other news, I have never danced with the devil in the pale moonlight.

During the construction, the best moment in the show happened. The Joker, looking at a board in their new construction project, regarded it as “askew.” Rocky V was all, “Yo, words are big. No words big. No understand.” So the Joker proceeded to confuse Judge Dredd with an even bigger word. Was that really necessary? I mean, she burned him worse than the time she burned Antoine Rotelli with a hand buzzer at that meeting where she said that Carl Grissom was handing over his criminal empire. Also, how does he not know what askew means? Everyone knows that the askew, now extinct, was the closest prehistoric relative to what we currently know as the common housefly. Duh!

Not finished by nightfall, the Survivors huddled under a tarp to be whisked off to Dream Land. Unfortunately, they were instead whisked off to ‘Dreamz’ land, which consists of being kept awake by a mouthy MALE cheerleading coach (my friends, welcome to my hell.) You see, Dreamz is yet another colorful member of our island community. Also known as Dre, Dreamz’ interests include human pyramids, spirit fingers, consonant replacement, and keeping his tribe members awake with incessant chatter. Rocky V wasn’t enjoying himself, so he tried to act tough like Sylvester Stallone in Cobra. Unfortunately, he came off much more like Stallone in Oscar.

The next day, they finished their shelter. Yay! We love each other. Also, Dre said this, “Back as a child, I was pretty much homeless, and just stayed in the back of a soup kitchen going to trash cans and getting food. It's kinda like what's going on now. I love it. I wish I could bring my family from home here.” Yes, I’m sure your family would love to remember what it was like to HAVE NO HOME! “Hey, Mom, remember that Christmas when you had to sell my little brother on the black market to buy me insulin? GT’s, GT’s” Man, cheerleaders are not smart.

Then, they went for their first challenge. Probst, “El Diablo,” picked the Joker to be the one who would divide up the tribes. Afterwards, the Joker would be whisked to wonderful Arkham Asy…I mean, Exile Island, where she would spend the night with tons of snakes and then rejoin the tribe that loses the challenge, and consequently votes someone out. And she would get a clue to find a hidden immunity idol. Also, the losing tribe has to move out of the comfortable shelter. The winning tribe gets a couch. Yup.

The new tribes were Moto (hello Moto!) – the green tribe – consisting of Cassandra, Liliana, Stacy, Lisi, Boo, Alex, Gary, Dre and Edgardo and Ravu – the orange tribe – consisting of Michelle, Erica, Jessica, Rita, Earl, Anthony, Yau-Man, Rocky and Mookie. Moving on.

The challenge went like this…two tribe members would ride on chariots pulled by their other teammates and untie bags containing puzzle pieces along the way. After all bags were obtained, they would return back and four members would try to assemble puzzles. Then one would win. You still with me? The chariots reminded me of the time I saw a team of midgets pulling an airplane. Oh, I’m sorry…they don’t like to be called midgets, right? I meant little midgets. Also, Jessica sucks at puzzles…and being interesting. And Moto won. Good for them.

Back on Snake Island, the Joker receives a clue of the wherabouts of the hidden idol. “It’s back at your camp.” “Blast!” snapped the Joker, “this must be Batman’s doing. Well, that flying rodent won’t be expecting me to exterminate him with my squirting flower which…damn, I didn’t bring that. Well, I will just make sure he doesn’t make it past my deadly whoopee cushion…crap, didn’t bring that either. Fake dog poo? The fly in the ice cube thing? Man, I got nothing.” JOKES!

As Ravu made it to their new campsite, everyone tried to make the best of it, except Erica. She was such a Debbie Downer. Everyone was all, “oh well, it ain’t that bad” and Erica Downer was like, “Yeah, it is that bad…and did you know that there are millions of starving children in the world. Also, I hear global warming is increasing at an alarming rate.” Wah-wahhhhh.

Of course, there were some attempted alliances…Rocky V, Jessica, and Erica were all trying to pull something together to save Jessica, but the rest of the tribe seemed intent on voting her off. Yao Ming said he wanted to keep the strongest people around. Then he dunked on all their respective asses. I also think they are calling someone “monkey.” Is that a compliment? Stay tuned to find out! MONKEY!

In the end, it was all for naught. Jessica was voted off and Ravu still has no fire…Déjà vu.

Until next time
Out-whine, Out-pout, and Out-erm-whatever, I don’t care,
Wayne