Survivor is a show that I was aware of for a long time, but I never wanted to watch it. I'd read about it. I'd hear about crazy happenings (especially during Russell's initial seasons), but I never watched it. I just didn't want to watch a reality competition show. Then last spring, curiosity got the best of me and I dove into Redemption Island. I was hooked. Between Boston Rob's complete domination of his tribe (which some people hated but I personally loved), and Phillip (another dividing figure, but I was a fan.), I just enjoyed every minute. So I watched a couple other seasons online. Coincidentally they both featured the two returning players this season, Ozzy and Coach (The seasons in question were Fans vs. Favorites and Tocantins). I was hooked even more. Survivor had become my guilty pleasure. I couldn't wait for the next season. So after a summer of waiting, Survivor: South Pacific is here. And so far, I like what I see.
Since Survivor is different from the kinds of shows I'll usually be talking about (and I won't be talking about Survivor every week. At least, I think I won't be.), I'm going to handle the format of this opinion differently. First things first, I'm going to run down a who's who of the players this season, based on what I know about them from pre-game information and from the first episode. People will be divided up based on the two tribes: Savii and Upolu. Since the most time was spent with Savii last night, we'll start here.
Savii
John Cochran: A Survivor superfan who's never missed an episode. Right off the bat, he gets Jeff Probst to refer to him by his last name only, as he feels he fits into the lineage of great players who go by their last name. He's really funny and he's probably one of my favorites so far, but doesn't seem to have much self-confidence, and for a superfan, he doesn't come off well at Tribal Council (which we'll talk about in a bit.)
Jim: Another one of my favorites so far. He's had an interesting career and currently operates two Medical Marijauna dispenseries. Not that he's going to tell anyone that. He claims he's a cool Kotter-esque teacher.
Mark AKA "Papa Bear": A former NYPD detective who's openly gay and get's everyone to call him Papa Bear. He already kind of sets himself up as the dad of the tribe. Again, another favorite of mine.
Dawn: A teacher who's been wanting to play Survivor for a while, according to the pre-game info. Unfortunately she also suffers a breakdown of sorts early on, which doesn't bode well for her.
Semhar: A spoken word artist. She sort of ruins the immunity challenge for her tribe, and has a public, heated, discussion about it with Jim afterwords. Does this ruin her chances of going far in the game? We'll talk about that when we talk about Tribal Council.
Whitney: A country star of sorts who's been on a reality show before: Nashville Star and has a bit of a following. Didn't get too much of a lasting impression from her this episode, but she's pretty attractive.
Keith: I also don't remember much about Keith. I know he's a pretty good competitor and that he has a congenital heart condition. Hopefully he'll be featured a bit more in future episodes.
Elyse: Don't recall much about her either. I remember she mentioned having "Native American blood" at the start of the episode. Again, she'll probably make more of an impression in the future.
Ozzy: I liked Ozzy in Fans vs. Favorites and he was good here. Pretty laid-back and definitely more accepted by his tribe off the back than Coach was. It doesn't seem like he'll get into a Boston Rob power position though, and that's a good thing. As much as I enjoyed last season, I don't really want to see a returning player win it again. Especially with all these interesting new players.
Upolu
Brandon Hantz: Nephew of the notorious Russell Hantz. As he puts it: "It's like being Hitler's Nephew". Of course he plans not to tell anyone who his uncle is, but since he has two tattoos identifying him as a Hantz, that may be hard. Seems nice enough, except he keeps mentioning he's Russells nephew in the interviews, which is kind of annoying. It's even listed as his occupation!
Christine: A teacher. Right off the bat, she calls Coach and Ozzy "temporary players" and begins searching for an immunity idol right away, which is a good way to get people wanting you gone.
Rick: A Rancher with a sweet stache' and cowboy hat. Seems like a cool guy. Initially against Coach, but later enters into a final five pact with him, so we'll see how that works out.
Albert: His name is the same as my middle name (and my Dad's first name.). Like Rick, he seems like a cool guy. He's a dating coach, so we'll see if that gives him an advantage in the social side of things.
Sophie: Fresh out of College. One of the things she majored in is Russian. Of course, Coach also knows Russian, and a russian conversation between the two was one of the better moments of the episode.
Mikayla: A Lingerie football player. Brandon refers to her as "Delilah" and a "Temptress" and sure seemed tempted. She should be one of the stronger females, actually.
Edna: The only one who waited for Coach and helped him after the tribe lost the first challenge. Though she wasn't part of Coach's initial alliance. Also when the returning players were about to be revealed she whispered to Brandon "I hope it isn't Russell", which I found really funny. Besides that, she didn't leave too much of an impression of me.
Stacy: Her career is Mortician, which I just find awesome. She makes a pretty big mistake though, as she is right by the clue to the hidden immunity idol and completely misses it.
Coach: The Dragon Slayer himself dubs himself Coach 3.0. He seemed to turn his initial cold tribe reception around when he showed off some of his tricks. He seems pretty normal so far, but who know's if that's going to last long?
Things that Happened
-Everyone arrived at the Redemption Island Arena, where Ozzy and Coach came and were put onto Savii and Upolu respectfully. Christine immediately made herself a threat to the returning players be calling them temporary and Cochran got Jeff Probst to call him Cochran. Then Ozzy and Coach faced off in a challenge for some helpful supplies, and Ozzy won (though it seemed designed so that would happen.).
-Coach tried to turn his cold reception from his tribe around by showing how he could be useful around camp. His tribe set up their camp right away, before doing some more "getting to know you" type things. Christine goes off on her own to try and find the idol. This is noticed by the whole tribe.
-Ozzy meanwhile got his tribe to swim and get to know each other before building the camp, which panicked some of the older people. Cochran is worried about swimming shirtless, but does it anyway.
-Dawn has a bit of a breakdown. Ozzy and Papa Bear calm her down. Papa Bear wants to keep Dawn, because she's around his age and he doesn't want all the older people leaving right away.
-Meanwhile, Coach makes a final five alliance with Rick, Brandon, Albert, and Sophie. Should be interesting to see how this plays out.
-Immunity challenge. Big obstacle course. Semhar insists that she should do the final portion. Than she sucks at it. Probably part of why Upolu ultimately wins the challenge. They also win flint, which they need to make fire (Savii won flint initially.).
-Jim gets mad at Semhar for saying she feels "sorta bad" about her part in their losing. Things do not look good for Semhar.
-Meanwhile Stacy ALMOST finds the immunity idol. She is really close and she misses it.
-Ozzy wants Semhar to stay, and starts targeting Cochran, who isn't a strong physical asset. Cochran panics when he finds this out. We hear that people are more leaning towards Semhar, though.
-At tribal council, Semhar doesn't do good, but Cochran arguably does worse. Mainly because he goes on and on and on about how if they keep him, he will improve, and he's a big fan of the game, and he'll be like a genie in the bottom. It's enough that I start to worry about him but...
-Everyone votes for Semhar, except for Semhar. So now Semhar is at Redemption Island? Will she last long when the next person comes to the island? It's hard to say but probably not.
Grade: Awesome! (Good)
Memorable Moments
-Here's the thing. I pretty much mentioned all memorable moments above. And I've been working on this for a couple days now and kind of want to finish. So this one time, I'm omitting the memorable moments section. Sorry for the lateness of this update. I'll try and be more timely in the future (though I think I can be let of the hook this time because my readership's not that high). Especially since this coming week is when we start for real with the official start of the fall TV season. So get excited for several opinions over the course of the week! I can even be really timely with my New Girl opinion because I've already seen the pilot! So get excited for that!
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