Month: June 2009

Keeping Maralyn around weakened Ogakor in the challenge, causing them to return to tribal council again where this time they decided to vote Maralyn out in Survivor: The Australian Outback Episode 3.

Tina and Keith, the first ones awake, wanted to go fishing, but Jerri doesn’t want them to do that. She’d rather take the canoe with the others, the ones that she said she bonded with at tribal council. Jerri realizes that she may have stuck her foot in her mouth, as Tina and Keith realize they may be outsiders.

Treemail tells them to build a chicken coup. Kimmi hopes that helping to build will help remove her from the chopping block she put herself on during the eating challenge. When they arrive at the challenge, they must solve a sliding puzzle telling them where reward is. They are playing for three egg laying chickens and a rooster. Kucha wins reward. Kimmi already doesn’t want to kill them.

Michael feels he’s no longer necessary. They can just eat a chicken every day until the merger and be fine for food. He wants to consume the chickens as quickly as he can. The next morning, Mike already wants to take out the rooster, but Nick and Rodger stop him.

Ogakor hears a forest fire, and they can see ash blowing in the wind. They just hope it doesn’t reach them. At least it has to cross the water to get to them, so they feel they should be safe, but they’re still concerned.

Tina is trying to convince Mitchell and Colby that Jerri cannot be trusted. The good news for Tina is that she’s not next up on the pecking order. That would be Keith. The bad news is that she’s not helping herself any with this anti-Jerri strategy, but if she keeps going with it, it may work.

Kucha will be eating their rooster as planned. This is an entirely traumatic event for Kimmi, and Mike is still paranoid that he’s going to be replaced by some egg laying chickens.

Mitchell thinks that Keith is plotting something with Colby. If Keith manages to get Colby and Tina onboard, that would make it a tie, sending Jerri home because she’s got the most votes. Amber, Jerri, and Mitchell aren’t so sure that they can trust Colby, who doesn’t trust any of them (or anyone else either).

Colby has decided he will go pig hunting. Unlike on Kucha, his team supports him. Because of the forest fire, which has pretty much stopped at this point, the wildlife may have been flushed toward them. Now they just need to find one.

Over on Kucha, Nick spots a pig in the water. It’s on now. Mike’s the first one there. With Nick’s assistance, Mike corners him and goes in for the kill. Not so crazy now. Okay, maybe he is still a little crazy. Meat for everyone, except for Kimmi who wants to distance herself from the meat eaters.

The immunity challenge is a question and answer game. They’ll go two at a time.

It is possible to improvise a compass by magnetizing a needle with what?
Silk. Michael and Mitchell are both correct.

The number of flies in Australia increased after the arrival of Europeans. True or false?
True. Elisabeth and Keith both get a point.

In order to safely purify water it must be boiled for at least how long?
10 minutes. Amber is correct; Alicia is incorrect.

Then they answer a bunch more questions we don’t get to see.

Of the ten most venemous snakes in the world, how many live there?
9. Both Alicia and Tina are incorrect.

Then a couple more questions are answered, bringing us down to a tiebreaker. Whoever between Alicia and Mitchell is wrong first loses immunity for their tribe.

Which of the following animals have toxic eggs that should not be touched?
Cane toads. Both are correct.

When building a fire, you should never do what?
Place wet rocks near the fire. Alicia is right. Kucha wins immunity.

Keith has the biggest target on his back, but he doesn’t appear to think he’s going home. What Colby’s struggling with is that he doesn’t agree with voting for Keith.

Votes
Keith
Keith
Keith
Mitchell
Mitchell
Mitchell

On the way to tribal council, Colby came up with a new plan, turning on his alliance to vote for Mitchell. Since there is a tie, the other four will vote again. Before they vote again, Keith says he won’t quit. In response, Mitchell agrees with Keith. He wants them to win, but he’s drained physically, mentally, and emotionally. He can’t compete with Keith’s strength, which will be bad if the challenges are strength-based.

Votes
Keith
Mitchell
Mitchell
Keith

It’s tied again. Keith has had no votes cast against him previously. Mitchell has had one cast against him. That one vote is enough for Mitchell to be eliminated. Keith lives to see another day, but he’ll be living with Jerri still (and vice versa). The only person who got everything they wanted out of this vote was Colby, and perhaps Mitchell, who seemed like he was throwing in the towel.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of Survivor: The Australian Outback Episode 5 The Gloves Come Off.

Kel was tried and convicted of having beef jerky witout any evidence other than Jerri’s word, which was enough to get him voted off the island in Survivor: The Australian Outback Episode 2.

Mike wants to go hunting for a pig. Nobody else is interested in participating. His plan is to build a spear. He really doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he will just make it up as he goes. Jeff hopes he loses the knife (their only knife) so he can go off on him.

Reward is an outback fishing package complete with line, hooks, lures, and a net. The challenge is for both tribes to get all the buckets of water loaded on the shoulders of the other tribe’s strongest member. One person will load the water on the opposing tribe’s water bearer, while the others run across a balance beam with buckets over their shoulders. Michael and Colby will be the water bearers. Rodger and Michael are the loaders. Amber is first across with Elisabeth behind her. Keith falls off, and Kimmi follows him in. Then the challenge gets all blurry as bucket after bucket makes its way across. Once they run out of buckets, it’s about who can hold on the longest. At least that’s the plan. They are each holding over 400 pounds. The individual aspect of this challenge is pretty rough this early in the show. Michael’s pole ends up breaking in half because it was not strong enough to hold that weight, so there is no winner yet. They will do a 5 minute timed race. The tribe that gets the most buckets on the other tribe’s water bearer wins. With 2 minutes left, they’re even at 10. Ogakor leads by 2 with 20 seconds remaining, and they retain their lead to win reward.

Now that they’ve got the proper equipment, they’re able to catch their first fish (granted, Michael was catching fish without this equipment). Jerri’s mostly just happy that Keith and Kel were wrong when they said there are no fish there. Now that they’ve caught some fish, it’s time to let Keith be the chef again. Colby noticed that Keith has merely played the role of instructor on how to cook fish, with many others looking on to see how they could do it themselves.

Elisabeth and Rodger are bonding right away. She’s going to protect him, whether it’s a wise idea or not. In his favor, his weak challenge performances may possibly be balanced by his outdoor knowledge.

Over on the other side, Maralyn and Tina are bonding because they are closer in age. Then there’s Jerri and Colby. She’s been crushing on him from the beginning, and he’s starting to like her no matter how much he hates her.

Jeff wants to go to the final four with Alicia, so they need to find two people to go with them that they could beat. They definitely don’t want to compete against Elisabeth, and they’re also concerned about Nick, who’s lazy anyway.

After a rough night of rain without much sleep, Ogakor’s worried how they will handle the immunity challenge. The challenge is an obstacle course. They will race through a log chute, down a steep sandslide into the river, through a series of obstacles on the other side, and then sprint to the finish line. The twist: they will be tethered as a team. Everybody from the winning tribe must finish, one way or another. The tribes are pretty even as they get to the river. Kucha overtakes Ogakor as Maralyn struggles with one of the obstacles. Colby decides to get behind her and start pushing. This helps a little, but it doesn’t look like Ogakor has any prayer. Then Rodger falls. Then Maralyn and Rodger both fall some more. In the end, Kucha edges out Ogakor to win immunity.

Ogakor realizes they made a stupid decision last time. Had they voted for Maralyn last week instead of Kel, they probably would have won. Now they know they have to get rid of Maralyn.

Jerri, Colby, Mitchell, Amber, and Tina have formed an alliance of sorts. That means they can choose between Keith or Maralyn, and voting Keith doesn’t make sense.

Keith has his own agenda. He’d like to keep Maralyn around, instead getting rid of Mitchell due to his work ethic at camp. He discusses this plan with Colby, believing he won’t tell anybody. Colby goes right to Mitchell to tell him what’s up.

Colby and Mitchell say it’s too early to trust anybody. Maralyn has decided they’re all her buddies, especially Tina. Jerri has bonded with Colby, Mitchell, and Amber.

Votes
Jerri
Maralyn
Mitchell
Maralyn
Maralyn
Maralyn

With 4 votes, Maralyn has been voted off the island. As she’s leaving, she gives her Mad Dog hat to Amber. Keith stuck to his guns and voted against Mitchell without any support, while the Jerri vote was from Maralyn.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of Survivor: The Australian Outback Episode 4 The Killing Fields.

Debb immediately rubbed her team the wrong way and was the first one voted out in Survivor: The Australian Outback Episode 1.

Early in the morning before anybody else is awake, Mike wakes up to start cooking some rice. Hopefully everybody else is hungry because he didn’t ask. He thought he was just being helpful, since they’ve been having rice first thing in the morning every day. Because he left the rice to sit when he went away, it cooked too long. The net result of this is that people are upset with him. He hopes that maybe he can catch a lot of food to make everybody happy.

Kel is the fisherman of his group. Well, at least he’s the guy who’s trying to fish anyway. While he’s doing that, the rest of the group is hanging out like they’re on vacation. He’s going to keep fishing until he finds something that works, even though he realizes that he really doesn’t have the equipment to be doing this. The rest of the tribe doesn’t think he has the knowledge to be fishing either.

Since they have all these cliffs around, it’s time to take advantage of them. The reward challenge is to jump off a cliff one at a time, swim out and grab on to a crate, and then bring the crate through the rapids and up the beach. Mike takes the lead for Kucha. Then the challenge becomes a big blur until finally we see that Ogakor has a pretty sizeable lead. Rodger can’t swim, so the lead becomes even bigger, but for him his goal is to merely complete the challenge, rather than winning it. Ogakor wins reward, which is blankets.

Keith is a chef, or so he thinks. The rest of the tribe is not so convinced. They are unhappy with the way he’s cooking the rice. In an attempt to switch things up, showing up Keith in the process, Jerri has made tortillas. Tina and Amber are thrilled by the change, and they’ve decided she is the new cook.

Michael doesn’t want to be seen as the leader, but he does want to be useful. His plan is to just be seen as the food guy. Unlike Kel, he’s had no problem catching fish. Kimmi and Alicia don’t view him as the leader, regardless of what may have been said at tribal council.

Jerri told her tribe that Kel is chewing a brown substance, which looked like beef jerky. They even look through his backpack while he’s away, but they don’t find anything. Kel overhears the ruckus. He returns to defend himself, saying he was chewing on a blade of grass. In an attempt to get in good with the tribe, he’s offered up his razors for the tribe to use. Maralyn doesn’t appreciate the invasion of privacy from the rest of her tribe, but they really don’t care and refuse to apologize.

The immunity challenge is a gross eating challenge. Will vegetarian Kimmi participate? They have put together one of the finest samples of pure aboriginal food (bush tucker). The aboriginals eat everything in order to survive, with nothing going to waste. The lucky people may get the apple or the candy bar that have been placed into the mix. One member of Kucha will have to eat twice. Whoever doesn’t eat or can’t finish will lose a point for their tribe. Michael and Maralyn get mangrove worms. Maralyn removes her teeth to get ready. Mike easily finishes his, and after much struggling Maralyn gets hers down as well. Kimmi and Keith get cow brains. Kimmi’s not even going to try, but Keith has no trouble. Jerri and Nick get shellfish, and both of them finish it. Kel and Elisabeth get apples. Mitchell and Jeff get live wichetty grub larva, which they finish fairly easily. Amber and Alicia get some sort of bug, which they both finish. Colby and Rodger get the chocolate bar, which they manage to force down. Because Kimmi was the only person to not eat anything (or even try), if Tina eats this next food, she wins immunity for her tribe. She and Michael get tripe, a cow’s stomach lining. Mike easily finishes, but Tina is unable to keep it down. That brings them to a tie. Each tribe can pick one member from the other side. Tina and Kimmi will participate in the tiebreaker. They must eat a mangrove worm. Apparently, eating a worm is acceptable for Kimmi as a vegetarian. Not real clear where that line gets drawn, but there you have it. Kimmi finishes first, and Kucha wins immunity. That sucks. Kimmi deserved to lose this for her tribe.

Keith realizes he’s made some enemies and is vulnerable. On the other side of the coin is Jerri, who also is causing friction within the tribe. Then there’s Kel and that whole beef jerky thing, even though eliminating him would be removing a strong physical component that is useful both at camp and at the challenges.

Jeff asks: why is Jerri cooking if Keith is the chef? She didn’t like the rice, and she wasn’t alone, although Colby didn’t mind it.

Tina says that, since she’s the one who screwed up, she should be the one to go. She doesn’t even attempt to offer a reason why she shouldn’t go, but the good news for her is that nobody is thinking about voting for her.

Votes
Kel
Jerri
Kel
Kel
Kel
Kel

Kel has been unanimously voted out because he may or may not have had beef jerky with him, as dumb a reason as any I’ve heard.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of Survivor: The Australian Outback Episode 3 Trust No One.

The first season of Survivor was merely a summer experiment for CBS, but it gained more and more steam until 51 million people watched Richard Hatch be crowned the first sole Survivor, capping off a run as the #2 show for the 1999-2000 season and creating the basis for more reality TV to come. Season 2, The Australian Outback, once again gathered together a group of 16 strangers, this time heading south of the border.

The Survivor: The Australian Outback cast consists of:

Alicia Calaway
Amber Brkich
Colby Donaldson
Debb Eaton
Elisabeth Filarski
Jeff Varner
Jerri Manthey
Keith Famie
Kel Gleason
Kimmi Kappenberg
Maralyn Hershey
Michael Skupin
Mitchell Olson
Nick Brown
Rodger Bingham
Tina Wesson

The contestants hop onboard a plane on loan from the Royal Australian Air Force. They’re not being rescued, though. They’re being dropped in the middle of nowhere. Their run has been extended from 39 days to 42. Those using air sickness bags already are going to need to shake it off. One crate of supplies awaits each tribe, and they have 5 minutes to salvage whatever they can. From their landing point, they will hike 5 miles to find their camps.

Kucha (blue): Kimmi, Michael, Alicia, Rodger, Elizabeth, Nick, Debb, Jeff
Ogakor (green): Maralyn, Colby, Amber, Mitchell, Tina, Keith, Jerri, Kel

They are warned that they must take as much water as they can because the river water must be boiled, and they may not have fire for a while.

Their first unofficial challenge is to find their camps. That would include being able to read a compass, which they apparently don’t teach at Harvard since Nick is unable to do it. Within the Kucha tribe, it’s already breaking down. Kimmi has decided she can’t stand Debb before they’ve even figured out how to get where they’re going to live.

Maralyn, the oldest member of her tribe, is afraid she won’t be able to keep up with the younger people.

Jeff is already sick.

Both tribes have managed to arrive at their camps without much incident, although it was a tiring trek. Kucha has foolishly decided to jump into the river to celebrate, a decision they’re going to regret later when they’re cold.

Kucha gets right to work building their shelter. Mike takes the lead because he’s done some construction. Debb is not happy because she considers him bossy.

Over on Ogakor, the top of their shelter will be Colby’s Texan flag. While building the shelter, there’s already tension between Keith and Jerri. She thinks he’s condescending. She says she’s not the kind of person to just let it slide off her back. Talk about your foreshadowing.

Kimmi’s starting to rub people the wrong way. She hasn’t yet developed that censor in her brain that says that something may not be the right thing to say, and she’s extremely loud and doesn’t shut up to boot. Debb and Jeff are going crazy.

Kucha has found fruit. Mike bites into a fig right off the tree. Might want to cook those, unless you like eating live bugs.

Both tribes try starting fire. That usually proves to be a great big waste of time. Unless you have some form of magnifying glass with you, it ain’t happening (only one Survivor ever has managed to start a fire without anything manmade, Hein from Survivor South Africa: Malaysia, who lived in the bush for 20 years).

With that failure behind them, they get some good news. The winner of the immunity challenge will get waterproof matches. They will first go over the bridge using planks, to a small torch carrying raft, on another raft operated with ropes, and then assemble and climb the ladders to light the fire. If their torch goes out, they lose. Ogakor takes the early lead. Ogakor still has a lead after the second leg, reaching the larger raft first. Unless their torch goes out, there’s really no way they can lose. Speaking of torches going out, Kucha’s does when their raft flips over, but it doesn’t matter because Ogakor already has immunity in the bag.

Debb thinks it’s between her or Rodger, or the sickly Jeff. She told Alicia that Jeff wants to go home, but he says that’s just a lie. It concerns him, as everyone looks like they’re scheming.

Tribal council takes place on top of a granite waterfall overlooking the cliff. Rodger says that Mike is the leader, which he’s fine with. He says he likes everybody and they all get along just fine. The others don’t all share his sentiments.

Votes
Debb
Debb
Jeff
Debb
Debb
Debb

By a unanimous vote, Debb has been voted off the island. In order to get all 7 people to vote against you, you’ve gotta do something really wrong. In addition to getting rid of Debb, the Kucha tribe gets fire.

Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another recap of Survivor: The Australian Outback Episode 2 Suspicion.