Back from vacation plus Survivor Nicaragua, Episode 5

I was gone for a while, two Survivors in reality TV time.  Long enough to visit Amsterdam which either isn't as decadent as it's portrayed or I didn't see enough of the city to appreciate its sinfulness or living in Los Angeles has tainted my perception of debauchery.  But it is a gorgeous city.  Canals and bridges and quaint houses and Gothic architecture and girls in windows and lots of Bob Marley posters and, just out of the city, real towering windmills.

I'm not much of a foodie.  Don't get me wrong, I love food, but I'm not that picky and I'm not much of a connoisseur (in fact, the most impressive thing about my food knowledge is that I can spell connoisseur without looking it up).  But they have some banging cheese in Amsterdam.  Their slogan should be go for the porn and pot, stay for the cheese.

In Survivor news, I missed episode 5 also known as "Don't be that guy."  There were three instances of "that guy" on that episode.  First, you had Marty basically egging on Mark Burnett to mess with his game plan by asserting that he can see many weeks ahead and has it in the bag.  You don't give the master manipulator of reality TV lines like "I can't imagine anything going wrong," without expecting that immediately something will go terribly wrong.  But wait, there's more.  Over on the young'uns camp, we have NaOnka who also tempts the Survivor gods by proclaiming that her solid group of five "are controlling this game right now."

They didn't give the producers an option.  Even if they hadn't planned on reshuffling the tribe, when anyone claims that everything is going there way, it is mandated by the laws of reality TV that there be a shake up.  Hence, the ol' tribal switcheroo.  What was that you said, Jeff?  Oh, yeah, "Drop your buffs."  I heard that a lot in Amsterdam.

May we now have a moment of silence for the Medallion of Power.  That's long enough.  It should go the way of Cousin Oliver on the Brady Bunch as another lame example of blatant, clawing TV show desperation -- something Survivor should never feel, or at least never demonstrate.  If the show should become so stale the powers that be need to breathe new life into it by introducing something so inartfully named, so clunky and distracting, please just pull the plug. 

With the newly assembled teams, it was Tyrone's turn to show that those who forget the reality TV show past are condemned to repeat it.  Being bossy, trying to be a leader among people for whom leader is both figuratively and probably literally a four letter word (okay, maybe a couple of the youngsters can spell, but nothing as complicated as connoisseur), is a guarantee that you will not be sitting on the bottom row for the reunion show.  All Tyrone had to do was ask himself whatever happened to that tall, athletic young man who was leading the young tribe early on.  Even if he couldn't recall Shannon's name (and honestly how many could) he should have remembered that there was a younger version of him on that tribe who was immediately run out of camp.

Here's a clip of Tyrone Davis the day after, discussing his Survivor experience.


Next time on Survivor...Dan wants to go home (Dan, we've all wanted that for weeks), Marty tries to have a conversation with Fabio (Fabio, turn away from the shiny objects, I'm trying to talk to you) and there's another twist. Cousin Oliver, is that you?