SURVIVOR: BLOOD VS WATER 2

Welcome back, folks, for Season 28 of Survivor, aka The Greatest Show in the History of Television. I’m Bryan Fischer and I’m back (thanks to Reality Steve!) to offer up one of the more – R-rated – recaps. For those of you who are new to my column, I provide a slightly more adult look at the show we all love to watch (…or is it more juvenile…?) Whatevs, I realize many of you are huge fans of the show, just like I am, so I do try to respect that fact and provide an insightful, snarky, and humorous take on the show that takes over our Wednesdays.

And judging by the action in the Twitterverse today (Wednesday), there are a shit-ton of folks looking forward to tonight’s episode! Okay, I get it, I like the show too, but it seems like some people are just staring at a blank TV until 8pm. Holy crap, get a life! But before you do that, sit down with glass of wine, or a highball cocktail, or 8 shots of tequila, and read through my recap. My toast to you is that you’ll have something amusing to read.

So, did we all have a nice summer? I’ve stayed in contact with some of you since last season, so I kind of know what a few of you have been up to. I’ve also kept up with some former players, too, so it’s interesting to see how they’ve stayed connected to the show. Me? I’ve been chillin’ like Bob Dy-zyllan’ (as my 7 year old says…), taking long walks on the beach, going to museums, watching a lot of golf…and f**k it, drinking booze, playing online poker, and looking at porn. Okay, it wasn’t porn, they were all “tasteful nudes,” and it was for a project for my wife, so back off Moral Majority!

Truthfully, I’ve been a good boy, and there’s nothing wrong with appreciating the female human form, right? Especially when it’s being featured in a reality TV show (I miss Morgan already…) or on some very naughty Twitter accounts… (Seriously, is some of that stuff even legal to post?). And it makes me reflect on the days when we’d have to hide in the closet with a flashlight and a Playboy to learn about the female anatomy.

But enough about all that fluff, there’s some serious shit going on in the world right now (ISIS, racial tension in America, planes being shot down, dumbasses in North Korea…) and we need shows like Survivor and The Amazing Race and (God forbid) Utopia, to help us lose ourselves for a little while. Because there’s no better method of forgetting your problems than to watch a bunch of assholes treat each other like crap.

I don’t wanna go off on a rant here, but as I’ve tweeted recently – specifically about Utopia – what surprises me most is that these reality shows keep drafting the biggest morons to play their games. It’s just shocking to me that these shows keep bringing in the worse competitors. Rather than casting inspirational and ultra-competitive players who provide viewers an opportunity to connect emotionally to the show, they keep drafting jerks. It’s like they think we only want to see failures, conflict, and drama. And yes, I’m aware this “method” has been employed for a number of years, but you gotta have the heroes along with the villains.

And that’s why Survivor has dominated for all these seasons. They know the recipe for success is casting more than just players who’ll create drama. Sure, players like Russell and Kass will come in to stir things up, and others like Boston Rob and Tony will play “balls to the wall” and stake their own claim as “the best player of all time,” but I think many more fans prefer players like Colby, Ozzy, and Coach, because of the inspirational way they play the game. And just because their fans don’t run to Twitter to profess undying love as much as Russell’s do, that doesn’t mean they’re any less important. Let’s just pray that Jeff Probst and the Survivor brain trust are aware of this fact too.

Okay, I’ll step off the soapbox for now. Let’s move on to season 28, Blood vs. Water II, and allow me to jump on a different soapbox. I watched the cast intro videos, read their bios, and checked out some possible nude shots of Julie McGee in order to give you my insight into each “team.” However, you can’t really judge “teams” because they aren’t playing together. So I’ll offer up some limited comments on both players, and then reveal my odds of each player winning (since I love gambling!).

First though, I want to make a disclaimer that handicapping players at the beginning of the season is really pointless. Survivor is like a chess game. Each “move” – found idol, alliance made, injury suffered – affects the rest of the game. No one can predict what we befall the castaways, so trying to predict the outcome is really a waste of time. Could anyone have predicted that Tina, Todd, Cochran, Vecepia or Natalie could have won? No way. Players can say what they want about having a game plan to “dominate challenges,” “fly under the radar,” “make alliances early,” or “play an honest game,” but in the end, it’s scrambling, paranoia, numbers, and pure luck. So there can be no “favorites” going in. It’s just who you like, what tribe they end up on, and whether they have the fortune to make the merge… Then, it’s scramble, scramble, scramble.