Survivor 39.7 “I Was Born At Night But I Wasn’t Born Last Night”

Jack, the first member of the jury

I have to admit that I found myself getting really annoyed with Survivor last night.  It took me a while to figure out just why exactly I was so annoyed and finally, I narrowed it down to two things:

First off, I don’t feel like I know any of these people.  I’m still not sure who is who or how they all feel about each other.  Trying to keep track of who has an idol and who doesn’t has become nearly impossible.  So far, the show has been dominated by Boston Rob and Sandra, hanging out on their island and being snarky at tribal council.  Seven episodes in and I still don’t have any sort of emotional attachment to anyone on the show.  (I had totally forgotten Janet was even on the show until she got sent to the Island of Idols tonight.)  I don’t care about these people and, as such, I really don’t care who wins or who goes home.

Secondly, this episode featured one of those moments where Jeff Probst tried to make the argument that Survivor is a microcosm of the world at large.  This happened during tribal council, when Kellee said it was sexist for Jamal to fear an all-women’s alliance and then Noura said that there was definitely an all-women’s alliance.  Instead of asking Kellee how she felt about Noura directly contradicting her claim that there was no all-women’s alliance, Jeff went on a tangent about how Survivor really is a social experiment and how everything in the game reflect society as a whole and blah blah blah.  No offense to Jeff, who I normally adore as host, but Survivor‘s worst moments are always when it pretend to be about anything more than a group of people competing for a million dollars.  Survivor has not been a social experiment for a very long time.  It’s a reality competition show.

As for tribal, it was weird.  Kellee didn’t want her idol to go to waste so she can gave it to Dean.  (I had totally forgotten that Kellee even had an idol and I’m probably not alone in that.)  Dean was the target but, since he played his idol, none of the votes against him counted.  As a part of the deal with Kellee made with Dean, Dean then proceeded to join with Kellee in voting out Jack.  Kellee felt that Jack had too many friends and that he was a threat to make it to the end.  Kellee was probably right but it was still a shame to see him go.  Of course, Jack really isn’t gone.  He’s the first member of the jury so he’ll be around for the rest of the season.

For reasons that I still don’t get, Jamal used his idol to keep Noura safe.  No one voted for Noura.  No one was planning on voting for Noura.  Noura said she wanted an all-women’s alliance.  Jamal’s main fear is that an all-women’s alliance with take him out.  I’m not sure what was going through Jamal’s head.  Maybe he thinks Noura and the all-women’s alliance will want to work with him now.  Who knows?

Anyway, next week — it’s time for the merge!  Hopefully, after the merge, we’ll get to know these people.  Because, so far, I’m still fairly indifferent to the majority of them.

We’ll see what happens next week!

Lisa Marie