I'm a Survivor

So, you know, I tend to watch a lot of television. And I mostly watch it by myself, while I'm working, as background noise & light that I can sort of half-focus on. But so there's nothing quite like watching TV with friends, particularly friends who are all into a particular show (or, at least, who like to protest too much about it, like Anil).

Last night, Anil, Alaina, and Krissy came over to watch the first episode of this season of Survivor: Guatemala with us. It was a lot of fun, partly because of the group viewing experience & commentary, but also just because it was a particularly good first episode.

Generally, for me the first episode is always a bit of a letdown—I'm excited because the season's starting, but I'm also not into any of the characters yet, and everyone is still just too fucking robust & healthy for it to be that interesting. But this was one of the better first episodes I've seen, and based on that, I'm actually pretty excited about this season! [1]

Bringing back Stephenie and Bobby Jon (both from Survivor: Palau last season) was a brilliant move, I think—not only because they were two of my favorite players, but because having identifiable, known people on each tribe really got me more immediately invested in the show & the game. I generally tend to spend the first 6-8 episodes of the season just waiting for the merge, because that's when I can actually keep track of people, & when I start to root for individual players. The addition of recognizable faces gave me immediate reference points to identify the tribes.

Good things:

• When Mena, a quarter of the way through the show, said, "I forgot to put on my buff!", and we all laughed, because it was funny—and then she ran upstairs to get her buff, and we all realized she was serious (well, I already knew she was serious, but still).


• Bobby Jon's eyes rolling back in his head.


• The fishmonger (wtf?), Lydia


• "Gary Hawkins," a man so famous that he needs an alias to stand a chance on the show!

[1] It's been (not so politely) suggested to me that I use too many exclamation points in my posts, so I'm now really self-conscious about it. Not self-conscious enough not to use exclamation points, though.

Comments

[justinpward]

I'd LOVED every second of the season premier. My wife and I get so excited when the Survivor season begins, and I think a lot of our friends think we're nuts...

It's okay. It's our dirty, little reality TV show. No one else needs to know.