Survivor: Fiji - Episode 1

Survivor: Fiji Blog
1st Elimination: Jessica

After finishing up last season's Cook Islands Blog, I was seriously considering putting my weekly Survivor recaps into temporary retirement.  You see, for the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be extremely busy with school.  So I'll barely have much time to watch Survivor, let alone write a lengthy blog entry about it. But then I realized that if I didn't do the blog, I'd have nobody to listen to my rants about strategy and the dumb moves people make. Sure, my fiancé is there watching it with me, but I can only go on about how somebody should use the immunity idol to get the numbers for a couple of minutes before I get a "Ok baby, calm down."  On DeROK.Net, there is no calming down. I need my weekly fix of full-throttle Survivor analysis.  (And yes, I do realize that I have a problem.)

So for time's sake, I'll move onto this week's "Three Observations".

1. Calm down people.  This is 39 days of torture, not a frat party.  I know when people first kick off the game they're excited.  I mean, you're on TV and you've got a shot a becoming a millionaire.  What's not to like about that?  However,  this group of Survivors seemed a little too excited. Maybe it was because the tribes weren't divided yet and there were 19 people on one beach. But no matter what the reason it just seemed like people were way too happy to be going through almost eight weeks of no food, no sleep, and horrible weather conditions.  Everyone was high-fiving and whooping it up.  It just made me wonder if perhaps this group lacked the group of cerebral players that made last season so spectacular. 

And by the way, what's up with the person who quit before the game even started?  Lame.  If you even had an inkling that you might not be able to even start the game, would you go through the trouble of shooting an audition tape?

2. If I ever go on Survivor, I'm totally going by "DeROK". 

Survivor's had its share of Boston Rob's and Johnny Fairplays in the past.  Hey, we even had "Flicka" come out of nowhere last season.  But Survivor: Fiji has gone completely over the top with the nickname gimmicks.  We've got "Boo" and "Dreamz".  And then there's "Rocky" who has five other nicknames, none of which are actual nicknames he had before starting the game.  We're about two steps away from turning this show into the WWF.  Pretty soon people are going to start wearing masks, carrying props around to match their gimmick, and hiring managers to help them cheat during immunity challenges.  I personally can't wait to hear Jeff Probst do the play-by-play of Survivor's first steel chair shot. 

Seriously though, I've had the nickname DeROK for almost ten years now.  In a situation like that, I think it's entirely ok to use that as your Survivor handle.  But making them up and forcing the issue is just lame. 

3. And my pick to win Survivor: Fiji is...

This was not any easy decision for me.  Well, actually it was since there was only one person that didn't have a huge glaring flaw.  Unfortunately, the fact that this person has no obvious flaw is a flaw in itself, since that's got to  make you a pretty big target.  Ultimately it came down to picking the one person who could be a big target versus picking a weak person, a loud-mouth, or an idiot. 

In the end, I went with the big target - Edgardo.

He seems smart, athletic, and non-confrontational.  That's a pretty good combo if you ask me.  Plus he's on the tribe with the good shelter - a major plus towards having numbers at the merge.  After doing a background check on him here's some other tidbits I like.  His favorite board is Chess (that's huge).  He played varsity tennis in college (also huge).  And his favorite TV show is 24 (Not so huge, but at least the man has taste).

And once again, let me reiterate that I'm well aware that I have problems. 

By the way, Maria also liked Edgardo, but opted for Alex the attorney just to be different.  I think Alex is a solid choice. But I feel that lawyers can be a little too greasy for their own good in this game, so I tend to avoid picking them.  But you can pencil in Alex for the hidden immunity idol since Maria's pick is 2 for 2 in that department. 

I can't say that I'm overly confident in this pick.  In some ways, it just seemed a little too easy.  This group of Survivors is chock-full of insane asylum escapees, so there's no knowing what will happen.  For example, when a male cheerleading coach named "Dreamz" started a middle-of-the-night screaming match with Rocky Balboa not even twenty-four hours into the show, I knew that either Fiji would either be the best season yet, or a complete disaster. 

I can't wait to find out!