The Survivor Research Project: Ep 5

A twist this week, with no IC and both teams having to vote someone off. I don't much care for the idea of having to vote people off if you haven't lost a challenge. Koror won the reward challence (well, it's getting to be a pattern now) as Ibrehem screwed up for Ulong. Their reward was beef stew and more importantly, a chance to sit in on Ulong's TC. The big twist was giving each Koror member a chance to vote for immunity to be granted to one member of Ulong. They did not have the chance to discuss this as Jeff Probst just sprung the news on them. I am not quite sure what to make of the immunity- granting votes. Ibrehem was granted immunity, which to me is a smart tactical move. The Ulong TC had obviously shown him to be targeted and granting him immunity throws a big spanner into their plans. But Koror's votes were all over the place, with only 3 of 8 voting for Ibrehem. I am not sure that all the votes for Ibrehem were strategic, either. However, it was great TV that Ibrehem was spared and the other Ulongers had to resort to a non-existent Plan B.

This episode also revealed in more detail the dynamics at Camp Koror. Gregg is turning out to be quite a player and Coby's also one to watch. I think they still don't show enough of Koror members for us to really tell what wheeling and dealing may be going on. For instance, they showed Gregg approaching Coby, and Coby being all gleeful afterwards about the "game starting". He could have been gleeful because not only Gregg approached him, but maybe someone like Katie or Ian, as well. Because they only showed Gregg, we think that he's the move-maker and that Tom-Ian-Katie are in peril. I am not sure I would trust the editing here. We will need to see in the coming weeks.

After the snore-inducing Vanuatu season, in which hateful Ami was by sad default the most interesting character, I had almost given up hope on the Survivor franchise. This season, only in its fifth episode, is already so much better than Vanuatu, I think I can say that we shouldn't write Mark Burnett off yet (and his new series, The Contenders, is also rather good).

Player Ratings for Episode 5:

ST: Screen Time ; Im: Impression Left ; Lk: Likeability

Ibrehem - Ulong
ST: 4 (lots of anguish over his RC failure)
Im: 4 (a major player in the surprise immunity granting exercise.)
Lk: 2 (not much good at water challenges, but his biggest crime is basically being rather dull)

Bobby John - Ulong
ST: 2 (with fewer players, everyone gets more screentime. BJ had a couple of moments during the aborted cave-hike and post RC camp politicking)
Im: 3 (relatively quiet this week, but was tied with Angie to be voted off, before the re-vote spared him)
Lk: 3.5 (I really liked how he spoke to Stephenie when she was all bitter about losing the RC. He appears to be level headed about accepting defeat)

James - Ulong
ST: 2 (some camera time during the cave-hike)
Im: 1 (can't remember him much this week)
Lk: 1 (not sure why it came down to BJ and Angie; why did no one except Ibrehem vote for James the first time out? Angie could have been spared)

Stephenie - Ulong
ST: 4 (loads of camera time interviewing about how she's bad at losing)
Im: 4 (well, she hates losing, and she made it very, very clear)
Lk: 2 (I think my previous sense of her as a "mean girl" is on the nose. She took losing so badly and her frustration resulted in a championship display of eye rolling and eye-brow raising. I don't think being an athlete all your life makes you someone who hates losing. She seems to have confused being competitive with being a sore loser. Also, she voted for BJ then changed her vote to vote for Angie the second time around. WTF? Why did she and Angie not vote for James? She's gutsy and plays hard, but not that bright)

Angie - Ulong (voted off Ep 5)
ST: 4 (stood her ground to return to camp instead of continuing to look for the cave, shown many times expressing her distress and despoondency at the reduced state of Ulong)
Im: 4 (obviously feeling miserable and was not shy to show her emotions)
Lk: 2.5 (she's likeable when not in a position to be a bully. I liked her gracious exit. She did seem rather devastated throughout this episode, and seemed a little relieved to be voted off.)

Caryn - Koror
ST: 0
Im: 0
Lk: 1.5

Coby - Koror
ST: 4 (given several interview slots on the evolving game-play at Koror)
Im: 5 (positioned as the major player, plus he brings some fun to the proceedings with his campness and bitchiness)
Lk: 3 (still not sure if I like or dislike him in the sense of finding him likeable, but I love his entertaining interviews )

Gregg - Koror
ST: 4 (plotting with Coby, interviewing about him and gf Jenn switching alliances)
Im: 4 (emerging as the big game player of Koror)
Lk: 3 (he's playing, but is not going out of his way to be an asshole about it)

Ian - Koror
ST: 3 (trouble in the RC, then redeemed himself by going down a second time)
Im: 3 (mainly for his RC performance, plus his celebration of victory back at camp - which I think some people found cocky, but which I felt was a non-issue, at least as shown to us)
Lk: 4

Janu - Koror
ST: 0
Im: 0
Lk: 2.5 (still not getting enough from the producers to know if my initial impression is correct)

Jenn - Koror
ST: 2 (her relationship with Gregg is made obvious in this episode, even though she doesn't speak)
Im: 3 (again, not anything she said herself, but we will remember her as Gregg's girl, the one whom he plans to take to final 2. )
Lk: 2.5 (seems likeable enough, but I hope she's not going to do an Amber and rely on Gregg to carry her through the game. She did perform well at the RC, so I think she does pull her weight. But she really has to cut out that annoying laugh/giggle of hers; it's amazingly grating.

Katie - Koror
ST: 1 (being talked about by Coby and Willard)
Im: 3 (again, she didn't say much, but she's been targetted by Willard as the mean one, and Coby clearly dislikes her and thinks that she is the camp lazybones. This is an interesting development, because we know she is tight with Tom and Ian, and it's surprising they would tolerate laziness, being such busybees themselves.)
Lk: 2.5 (the jury is still out on her, but I think Caryn might have a point about Katie being "tart". I think she may be one of those really caustic-tongued people, from what she said when voting off Willard.)

Tom - Koror
ST: 3 (talking about tending the fire when Willard did not do it, discussing voting off Willard)
Im: 2 (a quieter week for Tom but he did speak up at TC about how Koror's composition of physically weaker players forced him to step up during challenges despite his original plans to blend into the background. Again, the impression is of Mr Dependable, Responsible Firefighter)
Lk: 4

Willard - Koror (voted off Ep 5)
ST: 4 (lots of scenes once it was established that he was Koror's choice to go. Interviewed several times, shown talking to Coby)
Im: 4 (he used the word "Cumudgeon" to describe himself, which got a nice laugh out of Coby and me. And I really enjoyed his riff on the inevitability of his departure, evoking the image of King Canuut not being able to turn back the waves.)
Lk: 2.5 (He appeared to have a good attitude about leaving, admitted that he was physically not up to the challenge and even confessed to his own crabbiness. That mitigates somewhat the fact that he did not contribute much to the tribe.)