Survivor Crowns the Rightful Winner

Survivor: Caramoan just ended. I haven't written about it, or even shared in the weekly evening Tweet sessions much, if at all, this season.

Here's why, in a nutshell. I really got inspired a few seasons ago with the players who really showed their religion on their sleeves, showed how it got them through those long lonely days. I got spoiled on that. I could see, for a few, shimmering moments, how Survivor really could show the good in people, the quality, the integrity, the class. The spirituality. It was really blissful and inspiring.

Well, all that has gone away so far it may as well have been bludgeoned away. In point of fact, one of the architects that I'm speaking of (Brandon Hantz) went through a real spiritual journey on that first season he was on, taking spirituality to a whole new level on the show. So I was very excited to see him on this season again. However, between that first season and this one, things changed in a very negative way.

Personally, I think his uncle got to him, and advised him to be more of a dick to win. And so he did. Aside to Brandon: that wasn't the way to go.

So, what can we say about Survivor: Caramoan? If nothing else, it was indeed an exciting season. When looking at the strategy and the game play, some of the moves made caused a person to truly gasp in their seats, and it's been awhile since that has happened.

Here's the thing though. Somewhere along the way (of its 26 seasons), Survivor found its soul. It found, actually, that putting people in these crazy situations can actually lead to some insight that is much more profound than one expects when sitting down to a reality show.

And now, in the last two seasons, it's taken that back, with a vengeance. In fact, I would even say it stooped to Richard Hatch/Hantz Inc. level dickishness. The bottom line, at least for me, is that I don't want to see this whole "it's just a game" BS. I don't want to see someone friends with someone else and then slitting their throat.

The truth in life is that every moment of every thing you do affects every thing else. It should be that way in Survivor too. And, for a couple of blissful seasons, it was.

But in Survivor Caramoan, we had everyone out for themselves, back to backstabbing and blindsiding and hurting people that you were friends with and who trusted you. And I really dislike that ugliness.

Brandon Hantz, in point of fact, had one of the ugliest meltdowns ever in Survivor. In fact, if he wanted to surpass his uncle Russell in vile crassness and ugly humanity, he surely did. It took me this long in the article to even remember Russell's name, I just kept seeing Brandon pouring out everyone's rice over and over in my head. Ugly. Heinous.

I am, in fact, praying that the upcoming "Blood versus Water" season doesn't include ANYONE named Hantz.

I am also praying hard that Dawn never again graces our screens on Survivor. Certain people really need psychological counseling more than they need Survivor. I'm glad Dawn got rid of her Twitter. I hope she doesn't read this article. And I hope I never in my life see her on any TV anywhere ever again. She was a mental basket case. It wasn't pretty.

She went the opposite way, too. In the last season she played, she tried to... you know, have ethics. This time, she decided she didn't need to do that, and blithely cut anyone's throat who got in her way, with the trope, "It's only a game." And she wonders why Brenda never returned her calls.

As someone following strategy, I can see why Brenda needed to be voted out. It was a good strategy play, because certainly Brenda would've won. However, the female connection between Dawn and Brenda was really palpable. I felt pain when she turned around after her torch was snuffed, and said, simply, "That really hurt."

Integrity is more important than "playing a game." And if I were talking to Dawn right now, I would say: THAT is why you didn't get even ONE vote at tribal. You cannot forget that part of the game. Ask Russell Hantz.

Also interesting at the "Reunion" show afterwards, a show in which normally the entire Survivor season's cast is lined up from first voted off to Survivor winner, to chat about the past season, this season, for the first time ever, they only had the jury folks. 10 people, instead of 26.

Sure, perhaps speaking to every person gets unwieldy in an hour wrap-up show. Plus, the interchangeable blondes, Francesca who got voted out first twice... I mean, what is there really to say to any of them? Plus, again, I'm glad Brandon Hantz wasn't within 20 miles of those onstage.

Malcolm... *swoon* and his hair... well, I was really hoping Malcolm would win. And the reunion show really missed a trick in not having Malcolm's mother on to help celebrate Mother's Day. ("Enil Edam" was really "Madeline" backwards, for his mom.)

Philip and his Stealth R Us team was a fun aspect of this season. Philip, in quoting his strategies, mentioned one of Survivor's best players, Boston Rob.

Boston Rob, on the reunion show, brought along his new book (you heard me): "The Boston Rob Rulebook." You can purchase it here:

Boston Rob Rulebook

Congratulations, John Cochran. You did outplay, outwit and outlast. You deserved to win.

And now, hopefully on to (the Hantz-less) "Blood and Water" version in September. May it have more kindness and integrity than the past two seasons did.

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Put the Real Back in My Reality TV!

Or, How Courtney Caused the Bachelor to Jump the Shark...

Here's the simple truth of it. If I want fiction, I'll watch a fictional scripted TV show. If I want truth, I'll watch a reality show. You want DANCING? Watch Dancing With the Stars. You want to see how a bunch of different people cope when they are put together on an island to fend for themselves? Watch Survivor. That's the purity of reality TV.

Cause sometimes real people are way more interesting than scripted stuff. Truth, reality, the way people interact with each other in real ways is quite fascinating stuff. And the good reality shows play off this.

Somewhere along the way, as the moment lulled, and reality TV became huge, those writers whose jobs had been displaced (now that reality TV was so cheap to make) wanted their jobs back. They wanted part of this new phenomenon.

So we have this mixture that we have now (with some shows). Survivor will not admit to being scripted. (I actually believe them.) The most a reality show writer/producer should do is create the arcs of a show (where in the world The Amazing Race travels to, for example; and what they encounter when they are there). But the way the people themselves react to it, is the fun of watching it.

But the real rub is that you have to get 30, 15, 20 whatever schlubs every season who are willing to put up with whatever you put them through. Why would they do this? Simple. It's not just the cash prize they could win at the end. It has become, more and more, that they just want to be on TV.

Let us examine, for a moment, the two WORST examples of that, the two who have burned out my eyes from ever watching The Bachelor again: Ben F. and Courtney.

I think one can generalize at this point (and so I shall): Ben never wanted to get married, find true love, all that wooha he signed up for. He just wanted to have a TV show about himself. Every girl along the way who was going along with what the show was about ("sure, I could see myself with you," "sure, I could marry you," "Sure, I'm falling in love with you..."), once they went down that path, he kissed them goodbye.

But every girl, and I do mean every girl, starting at the very beginning of the season, who was willing to kiss, to cuddle, to snuggle, to put her sex on the line, he was down with it.

Courtney, on the other hand, who was completely open about the fact that she wanted to "WIN" this Bachelor thing, and screw everyone else who was in her way, spent the first half of the season showing her true colors. She was mean, she was condescending, she was judgmental, she was downright cruel. She was the most horrible person that the show has ever had on. Which, of course, in the cold cruel world of television, makes for great TV.

Vicious Courtney. What is Courtney gonna say next? Everyone talked about her at the water coolers. Bachelor producers must've been rubbing their hands in glee.

Except for one little thing. Ben dug her. Or, perhaps, he just saw a similar snake in front of him.

In any case, when little Miss Break the Rules showed up at his suite in Puerto Rico, and they ended up frolicking (insert the other F word here) in the ocean, it was really game over.

What I wish they HAD done, if this had really been REAL reality TV, and they were honest, was to put it back on the table. "Yeah, Courtney and I had sex. What are you girls gonna do about it?"

Although they probably would've all walked out (or most of them), it sure would've made for more interesting TV than what they tried to shovel at us next.

Because once Miss Courtney started becoming Ben's favorite, the producers had to back pedal. Furiously. They had to put words in her mouth that made me choke to listen to them.

How even though she'd been trashing everyone left, right and sideways all season, suddenly now she was "interested in falling in love." Whereas before she "had a hard time trusting people," now she was "ready for love."

It was a joke, and she was/is a bad actress. That whole nonsense of a fake wedding that they did on the hometown dates was laughable.

I won't bore you with too many details, it was painful enough to sit through as is.

My point, though, is that I was one of those who at least tried to invest in The Bachelor and Bachelorette for the romance of it.

And sure, I knew when City Hall is all cleared out and there's a band in there, for them to dance by themselves, that it wasn't Ben F. who did all that "for Lindsi." It was a team of people at ABC who pulled that and everything together. Sure, I knew there were lies (in that regard).

(And then they had Lindsi's parents say, "Oh we got married there!" (As if their 27-year-old daughter didn't know where her parents got married... I could puke...)

Anyway...

Starting from the fake ski slopes in San Francisco on, everything about this season just got worse and worse and worse.

It was almost like the rest of the country was watching the real show, with our sweetheart, Kacie B., and Ben and wench-o-matic Courtney were off doing their own "Screw everyone" show on the side.

At the end of it all, I feel manipulated. By Courtney, yes, but more by the producers and "writers" who created this fiasco. If I see one more helicopter ride, I swear I'll throw up. If I have to watch one more couple climb atop something high (bridges, Aztec ruins, gorges) and then make some LAME metaphor about how going through this together (even if you're terrified of heights) makes your relationship that much stronger, I swear I will heave.

It really was a morass of bad writing thrown at you all this season: Leap lists, and fakeness and unreality. At every rose ceremony (and I DO mean every rose ceremony), the entire country, in unison (or anyone who still cared enough to watch this madness) screaming at their TVs: GET RID OF COURTNEY!

To have to march through, like some twisted romance from hell, as one by one of the most amazing women are dumped, and the black widow spider is still standing at the end, is really beyond the pale.

And I really feel it's cured me of my desire to ever watch this show again. There's too much reality to live. I don't want fake scripted "reality."

I feel used, abused and stepped on, by suffering through as much of this season as I did. EVERY SINGLE PERSON AT ABC who was associated with this show this season SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES. Ashamed.

You will never live down the Ben-Courtney fiasco. You have jumped the Swiss shark.

*WRETCH*

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Survivor 23 (Good vs. Evil) Can you be honest and win Survivor?

As I've written in previous columns, Survivor in years past has been all about lying, cheating, scheming, double crossing others to win. This year, they've turned it on its head by having at least two people (Coach and Russell Hantz's nephew, Brandon) who have vowed to fight this season with integrity, honor and--gasp--honesty.

When I first got sober, I was forced to go from being a pathological liar to living a life free of lies. It was a difficult transition. And I'm sure I was a bit like Brandon has been in the last few episodes: brash, obnoxious, braying his honesty to everyone who'll listen, expecting everyone to conform to his rules.

There is a point to that. You know that honesty trumps everything. You also know that honesty is the only way to live, because all you really have is your own integrity.

But to bring that into the game of Survivor? It's madness.

Madness, yes, but also quite compelling TV. And mind you, the honesty thing isn't easy. Especially if you're somewhat new to it. I think it took me several years to even realize what was a lie, and that I really could live without telling one, in fact was MUCH better off without telling one. I had never conceived of such a thing.

And here is Brandon Hantz, now in our faces on our TV screens, compelling us to contemplate the question. Yes, it's true is it a "game," but isn't it also true that even while playing games we still have our own consciences to deal with? Especially when we are dealing with other people and their feelings? And is it just a microcosm of life that really no one can deal with the "honest guy"? He's so pure, he's so out there, I just love him.

Because thrown into this mix, we also have Coach. Now Coach is determined, this time, to not let his worst self get the better of him. He wants to live through this game with integrity and honor, and so far, he has.

But here's the thing Brandon has yet to realize. You really can only be 100% honest when you are in a place that's safe, with people you trust. There are fine-tunings of the honesty thing that one must really incorporate when dealing with/living with/interacting with others who are not quite so honest. The most important among them being tact.

You can't just go yelling from rooftops (although I did that very thing too): "Look at me! I'm HONEST!!! Isn't it grand?" You really run the risk of alienating others, and/or having them think you're crazy.

So I believe that discretion and tact comes with age. Yes, to answer Coach's question: Withholding IS lying. Yes, it is.

HOWEVER, sometimes, it's necessary.

In the case of Coach, he's the leader of the tribe. He's played Survivor three times now. He sees the big picture in many ways that others don't. And the way I see it, he's like Brandon's dad on this island: saving him from hurting himself, even though Brandon himself might not see it that way right now (cause he's too close).

In this last episode, Coach made it clear that he has the immunity idol, and the two people whom he wants to know about it, do. One of those is not Brandon. Brandon has the habit of spouting off EVERYTHING that's on his mind, and one thing even beginning Survivor watchers know is that you hold back some things, and play your cards when it's to your advantage. That's really all you have: the element of surprise.

Will/would Brandon be pissed to know that he looked all over the island for the idol, when it rested safely with Coach? Yes. Will he be mad that Coach wasn't honest with him? Yes. Will he have gotten MUCH farther in the game (not only he, but Coach and other members of their alliance) because Coach said nothing? YES. That's the key point.

When you are playing a game, or steering a ship, or running a corporation, you have to let someone else drive. Whoever is the leader/in charge, takes the responsibility for those under him/her and makes decisions accordingly, piecing out the information as necessary. BECAUSE he/she sees the big picture.

And hopefully, those worker bees under him/her trust enough to know they're being taken care of. And Coach IS taking care of Brandon, whether he realizes it or not. One of those, yes, I know you just learned how to shoot, but trust me, put the gun down, kind of situations.

So, it's a tough call, but I honestly believe that both Brandon and Coach are living their truth. Both of them are living honorably. One is withholding, but it's for the good of the tribe.

It's really going to be interesting once it gets down to Coach vs. Brandon at some point. How long can Coach live with integrity? I'm quite sure that both Coach and Brandon will make it at least to the merge (when they are down to 10).

And then, they have evil to deal with on the other side (in the form of Jim, who's an underhanded, low-dealing, backstabbing liar). I'm also quite sure he'll be there when they get theere. Should be very interesting.

I put my money on Coach. To win it.

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