A new season of Survivor is just around the corner as Survivor: Nicaragua is set to premiere on Wednesday night. You know what that means...it's time for more Island plotting, Jeff Probst's blue shirts, challenges that involve players having to cut a rope to raise a flag, and hearing all about the Sony Palm Pre. Free up your Thursday nights.Wait...scratch that...make that Wednesday.
I was originally intending on posting a full preview of the new batch of contestants/ castaways, but since CBS no longer provides really comprehensive advance bios, I decided not to. I mean, there used to be a full page listing for each player on the Survivor page leading up to the episode where you could find out everything about everyone: their favourite TV shows, movies, bands, chocolate bars, beverages...even their kids' names. And laugh if you want, but based solely on the advance bios, I correctly picked 3 winners out of 5 consecutive seasons (Tom Westman - Palau, Yul Kwon - Cook Islands, and Earl Cole - Fiji).
Now the bios consist of a skeleton template, which is essentially filler, that lists interests like "snowboarding, landscaping and partying with hot girls", personal claims to fame like "being a rad older brother", and reasons why they will win Survivor like "because if you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play good. If you play good, you get paid good!" And that's just a couple of them.
I kid you not. If you don't believe me, check out the CBS Survivor page and see for yourself.
On top of that, almost every response in the bios is punctuated with an exclamation mark, so either these contestants are always yelling, always excited, or just plain crazy. I firmly believe that people who use exclamation marks at the end of every sentence are legally insane. And those who use multiple ones (!!!)...well, don't even get me started.
Add in the fact that this is perhaps the WORST twist this show has ever come up with, and I'm not feeling the regular September excitement I usually do around the return of Survivor. (Did they have the same creative team who came up with the failed "Saboteur" twist on Big Brother this season?) Splitting the teams up by age is just idiotic, regardless of the fact that the tribes will assuredly be switched up within 3 or 4 episodes. (In case you didn't know, one tribe is all aged 30 and under, and the other is all 40+) Perhaps that's why CBS has been bombarding us with promos and advance press for a FULL MONTH before the premiere on September 15th, because they know what a fiasco this is shaping up to be.
And Jimmy Johnson? Are you serious? A former NFL coach and current celebrity broadcaster as a contestant on Survivor? I didn't believe it when I first heard it this summer, but when it was confirmed for me, my faith in the show plummetted. It's bad enough that almost all of the contestants are recruited now instead of the good old fashioned application process, but now we're getting more and more celebrities. It's absurd.
Now, before you attack me, keep in mind that I'm a full-fledged Survivor junkie. Every season. Every episode. But I'm very disappointed in what I've seen so far leading up to the premiere of Survivor: Nicaragua. Nothing would make me happier than to be wrong, and have this end up being a fantastic season, but they have their work cut out for them.
Nonetheless, I will be posting full recaps after each new episode. I will generally have the posts up withing 30 minutes of the end of the show, so bookmark the page and make sure to come back each Wednesday (still makes me shudder...Wednesday). If you're not familiar with my recaps, click on the Survivor tag on the left sidebar and read some of the old ones.
The one thing I am excited about is the new season of The Amazing Race, which premieres on September 26th, if for no other reason than to see this clip on a huge screen. (Payoff is at 0:26 - I can't stop watching it.)
And yes, I will be recapping The Amazing Race again this season as well. I hope you'll be back for both shows.
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