I Missed Episode 13

Real life has intruded into the happy world of my Survivor blog.

My aunt is in the hospital and I went to visit her this afternoon. What was expected to be a short visit turned into about six hours spent at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (a very good hospital, by the way). I'll spare you the details but it looks like she will be ok.

So I missed Survivor tonight. If someone would like to write up a review of tonight's show I'll consider posting it instead of my usual piece. You can email it here: Contact Me .

What I'd really like to know is:
(you can leave responses in the comments below)

1. What were Ian and Katie arguing about? Did it seem like one was just trying to use the other?
2. Did Jennifer really work to avoid being voted off? If so what did she do and who did she try and manipulate?
3. Are they still blind to Tom's power? I still can't believe he hasn't been a bigger target so far.
4. What were the challenges like? They have been interesting so far this season.

I should be able to post my notes on the Early Show and Survivor Live some time in the next few days and I'll tape the Sunday finale if I have to leave the house for any reason.

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Survivor Fantasy: My Picks

I'm sticking with the same line-up as last week.

Tom, first question at Tribal Council
He's obviously the leader maybe Jeff Probst will put him on the spot.

points last week: 58

Ian, first interview
He's often used for an objective view of what's happened, maybe he'll start off the show talking about last Tribal Council.

points last week: 25

Katie, first question at Tribal Council
She hasn't gotten much screen time maybe that's about to change.

points last week: 58

Caryn, first interview
I think she sides with Tom, Ian and Katie to be in the final four.

points last week: 10


I think this will be the final four with Tom and Katie in the final two. Tom most likely wins the 1 million dollars.

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Tonight's Episode
It Could All Backfire, Episode #1013.
Gender lines are drawn as one group hatches a plan to vote off the Survivor who doesn't win Immunity.

One Survivor feels betrayed when the winner of a Challenge chooses a different tribemate to enjoy the Reward.

Going into Tribal Council, one Survivor holds the power and is torn between an alliance and a friendship. Which way will the vote swing?

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Survivor Firsts

At the beginning of Survivor Palau Jeff Probst (right) said in an interview that this edition of the series had a lot of firsts. Now that Palau is fast approaching its conclusion, I'd like to compile a list of these firsts.

To start us off:

No Merge
Stephenie as the last member of Ulong was "captured" into Koror (keeping with the war theme of this season). I read this was planned to happen only if a tribe got down to one member. Also I believe this is the first Survivor with just two tribe names, usually the merged tribe gets its own name.

Lone Survivor
Related to No Merge, Stephenie was the first Survivor to live by herself during the game after the rest of her tribe had been removed from competition.

Exile
First time a Survivor (Janu) was exiled. The producers wanted to give the players a reason to give their all in the competitions. Often when someone knows they're safe and don't really need Immunity they won't try their hardest. It's not so much living on your own for a night that's the punishment, it's being separated from the others so now they can plot against you. A nice twist even if it's not used every edition. It will be in the back of the minds of future contestants.

Quitting at Tribal Council
This was the first Survivor where someone quit at Tribal Council, Janu again. Players have quit before but never at Tribal Council. Also Ashlee and Jeff essentially just gave up.

Twenty Survivors
This was the first season to start with twenty Survivors, the most ever. More significantly two competitors were eliminated when they did the school yard pick'em to select the tribes.

Every Tribal Council
Stephenie is the first player to be part of every Tribal Council. Ulong lost every group Immunity challenge and Stephenie made it to the Jury so she will be at every Tribal Council on Survivor Palau.


This is what I've come up with off the top of my head. If you know of any other firsts please leave them in the Comments below and I'll compile an updated list.

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Survivor Live: Gregg

Survivor Live, the Internet Talk Show
Guest: Gregg
Hosts: Dalton Ross (Entertainment Weekly) and
Jenna Morasca, sole survivor Survivor Amazon

Gregg once again said the he should have seen it coming but he didn't; he had blinders on. He was blinded from the Reward. He innocently choose his friends Jennifer and Katie to go on the luxury yacht with him because they hadn't had a taste of Reward at that point. Gregg admits that he should have been thinking about the game at that point but it's a lot tougher when you're actually there. He just "shut down" game-wise at that point.

The Others
Gregg said that five of them were real close: Gregg, Jennifer, Tom, Ian and Katie.

Jennifer
Early on with Koror winning all of the Immunity challenges there wasn't too much to worry about and their relationship just developed. Gregg maintains that they weren't trying to be another Rob and Amber. (I believe him, Jennifer isn't as good a player as Amber.) Furthermore he says that they were a good team. She focused on the women and he on the men, "an extra set of eyes and ears" he said. He naively said that their alliance wasn't revealed until the Reward challenge last week. (Snuggle partners get noticed.) Jennifer talked with Gregg about the Girl Power alliance and voting off Tom, but it sounds like Gregg talked her out of it. A future with Jennifer? It doesn't sound likely; he said he's in Chicago and she's in Los Angeles. (As Rene Syler said on the Early Show, "that's what airplanes are for.") If he wanted to keep seeing her he could. I think this was just a Survivor relationship.

Katie
What isn't shown is how funny and entertaining she is (he used the word "hysterical"). Gregg's not sure how serious of a relationship she has with Ian. Ian did tell her brother that he would take care of her.

Stephenie
She was a real wild card that's why he wanted her gone. He was with Koror so long he knew them well, but Stephenie was new and he didn't know how to read her. If she were in the final two no one would beat her out for the million dollars; it just would have been too good of a story. Gregg wanted her to go first after she joined them but Coby "dug his own grave."

Caryn
Caryn was supposed to go after Willard and she's still there. (That's because she became a pawn of Tom's.)

Jeff Probst
Jeff is sneaky and knows what questions to ask. You have to choose your words carefully not to "give up the goods." Jeff plays games too. Dalton Ross states the obvious: Jeff sometimes asks questions to see the reaction by other people. I'm sure Jeff watches video daily while they're shooting the show. I also bet he talks with the camera crews every day so he knows what's going on all of the time. This makes it a lot easier for him to ask probing questions.

Next for Gregg: he's working to help a village devastated by the tsunami (in Sri Lanka, I think he said). He mentioned a web site ( http://www.tsunamichallenge.org ) but it wasn't up when I checked it.

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Survivor Live: Stephenie

Survivor Live, the Internet Talk Show
Guest: Stephenie
Hosts: Dalton Ross (Entertainment Weekly) and
Jenna Morasca, sole survivor Survivor Amazon

Stephenie said that being on Ulong made her look physically stronger than she really is because she competed mostly with the women of Koror who aren't really that strong. She was surprised to see how bad Gregg wanted her voted off. The Girl Power alliance was Stephenie's idea (she tried it because Ian wouldn't commit to an alliance with her and Tom) and it fell apart because someone always screws something like it up - in this case Caryn. (An alliance of more than two or three people rarely holds up for long in Survivor.) Stephenie said that she gave up in the Perch Immunity Challenge because she had a very good idea that Coby was going to be voted off. Being alone was scary especially because she didn't know how long it would be for.

Stephenie really likes Angie, but that it was not a mistake to vote off Jolanda because most of Ulong couldn't bear to be around her. There was no negotiating with Jolanda; it was either her way or the highway. Stephenie and Katie attended the same university and graduated a year apart. (Monmouth Univ. in New Jersey is listed on both of their bios at the Survivor Palau web site.)

What's next for Stephenie?
She's back to work as a pharmaceutical representative but a few universities have inquired about speaking engagements.

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