Here we are, back for another season of Survivor. Didn’t the last season just end? How in the hell is it already late September? Looks like this season we are going with Millennials vs. Gen X …I thought this was great until I realized that if I played I would be with the “old” team having just turned 36 years old and I realized I’m at the very end of the Generation X scale. I was temporally horrified knowing that to the younger generation I would be seen as old. Like, there’s nothing quite worse than thinking that the character on Family Ties that I would be most associated with age-wise is the dad, Michael Gross…How did this happen?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuAVDN0A7hk
Do the Millennials see this and think of this show like I would with shows from the ’60s??? Somehow, time has passed me by and now I’m with the older crowd on Survivor and I guess I need to be okay with it.
First episodes of Survivor are never the most entertaining, as usually it’s just one of sixteen confessionals we get from every player in the game and how each of them are unique and different in their own special way, and it’s tough to get a real sense of who the true players are going to be this season. Usually though, at the very least, we will get two to five players that we know will have absolutely no chance at winning the game. With that said, this first episode is a necessary evil to get us going on the vibe and flavor of this season. Every season, the “bloggers” for this site write a season preview that has us guessing who we think will win, who we think will make the merge, and things of that nature. Usually, there are two or three players that stand out who get you feeling like they could win the game, but this season I didn’t get that feeling about anybody. Seriously, none of them seem capable of winning, but I know by default that somebody does have to win, so I guess that makes this season great so far …Somebody has to win and who the hell knows who it will be? I think I picked Mari to win. Why? I have no idea. I literally can’t think of a real legitimate reason. I just liked her intro video and I thought: “Why not her?”. So really, that leads right here to 8 pm, Survivor time.
It’s 8 pm Portland, Oregon time.
8 pm
Okay. Here we go– Jeff’s voice-over as he explains the Fiji terrain.
Next, we get what will be one of probably 76,000 references to the difference between Generation X and Millennials. You guys can stop now…We get it…We get it…We get it.
Next, we get the “let’s meet everyone” and have each person from either Gen X or Millennial explain why their generation is better than the other. If this was a drinking game, where you drank every time someone made a reference, you would be hospitalized with alcohol poisoning. Don’t play the game, please.
8:03
Everybody meets Jeff at the beach. Everybody gets put onto their two tribes, pretending they are surprised by this year’s gimmick.
8:05
Okay. Jeff starts explaining the difference between Generation X and Millennials.
Jeff shows off a little bit of those famous acting chops when asking who the youngest player is on the tribe. Will with his Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs voice speaks up. Everybody is even more mortified to find out that Will is in high school. I picked Will, by the way, to be the first one voted out…I just have a feeling that everybody else is just going to be “F**k this! On pure principle, we’re voting out the high school kid first.” Either that is happening or he’s going to be protected for a while…OR even more likely, I have no idea what I’m talking about.
8:06
Jeff next asks for the oldest person on the Gen X tribe and it’s Paul at 53. This leads Paul– almost on cue– to give his “back in our day” speech, which feels like he is actually two generations older than Gen Xers, but okay, I will just ignore that Paul was at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
8:07
We get taken to the first little competition, where they get to grab supplies and food, choosing between short-term and long-term options for their camps.
8:08
Gen Xer Jenn finds a hidden immunity clue or something like that.
Gen Xers go with the long-term plan, while cliché as it is, the Millennials go for the short-term satisfaction. I bet Gen Xers all got an under the table 1,000 dollar bonus for going that way. Millennials vice versa.
8:11
We go to the Millennials new stomping grounds. One by one, everyone introduces themselves to each other.
Taylor and Jay immediately decide that they are going to bro-out this season, so this should be something to look forward to at the very least. Then, Taylor utters: “I’m a sucker for pretty girls”…..as opposed to being a sucker for “ugly girls”?. I tell you, this Taylor…watch out for him. He’s a character.
8:13
This guy Zeke looks like he’s at a Magnum PI fan convention with his Hawaiian shirt parlayed with the mustache.
Zeke tells us that he feels like he’s on a tribe with a bunch of kids that have never had to work before. So I guess Zeke is gunning to be this season’s villain…Noted.
8:14
We next join the Generation Xers, which clearly is a more mature operation than the other camp. Paul takes it upon himself to make a speech that everybody else is confused about. The guy who wants to force himself into the leadership position at camp via an inspirational talk day one always works as a tactic, right?
Ken then takes it to the next level, telling us how he has lived “off the grid” the past few years and knows how to build this civilization. Whenever you try to be “that guy,” I feel like it never works out. Maybe I’m wrong, but it feels a little douchey. What does “living off the grid” really mean anymore? I mean you can get wifi anywhere these days. Does that mean you just stay off Facebook and Twitter?
Commercial Break:
Do Millennials see Tom Hanks as just the old guy in movies and the guy with the awful haircut in The Di Vinci Code movies? Do they have any understanding of the movie Big? Is Big totally dated now? Is there any way this movie could be made today without it feeling really awkward when the “12-year-old” soul has sex with the thirty-something-year-old woman. I always wanted a follow-up to Big. When the kid returned to being a kid after he started getting laid and drinking, did he start smoking cigs? Did he get a girl pregnant in junior high, have to drop out of school and get a job? Did he start looking for the 30-year-old when he got into high school and were they the first Mary Kay Letourneau situation? Is this relevant to Survivor?…No…No, it isn’t.
8:15
Back from commercial and Figgy on the Millennials tells us that she’s good at “flirting” with men…..Well then, watch out for Figgy and her flirting…. Seriously, though, doesn’t every woman basically say her plan is to flirt with guys and doesn’t this always lead to everybody else deciding that her flirting with said men is the number one reason why we need to vote her out? Has anyone ever flirted their way to a Survivor win…ever?
Figgy, Taylor, and Jay, I guess, are making an alliance. This seems doomed to backfire…I mean, I hope I’m wrong, but it seems like they think they have this game figured out already. The Survivor gods usually will find out about these plans and decide to piss all over them…
8:16
Hannah laments that she isn’t fitting in right away, so she targets Michelle to have a forced, awkward conversation to try and build rapport. Michelle, because of her religious background, is gathering trust from all places she thinks…I think…to be determined.
8:19
Back to the Xers, Sunday is not feeling Rachel, who thinks she is overeager, but that quickly leads to Dave trying to fit in with the shelter builders, but suddenly, this unravels as he can’t stand the loudness of bamboo being struck….Bret, in his 1976 Boston accent, tells us that there are “girls with more testosterone than Dave”…Well then, so much for first impressions for Dave doing well.
With his lack of testosterone, he quickly tries to claim that Ken has found an idol with little to no evidence as to why. This leads to Bret and Chris’ automatic bonding and they formed an alliance strictly to get Dave out, I’m guessing. Have there ever been two more natural players to bond together than Bret and Chris? They have the look of two men that escape their wives on the weekend to go to some clubhouse to drink and watch Trump rallies.
8:22
The Millennials’ shelter is looking sketchy at best…and by sketchy, I mean unbuilt. This, of course, happens to be a night of an awful storm. So everybody is just kicking it in the rain, and honestly, it looks like hell.
8:25
Commercial Break:
Oh, look! CBS is bringing back MacGyver….Is CBS even trying anymore? Let’s bring back a show that was ludicrous and dated the first time around and bring it back again. No other show led to more hack jokes than MacGyver… “This guy could build an airplane out of a (fill in the blank random object) and a(fill in the blank random object)….Pause for laughter.
Let’s bet on how this show lasts….I say one season and it’s done…if that.
8:31
Back from commercial and everybody is miserable because of the weather. So the producers decide to give them a tarp for their shelter, I guess out of fear that everybody is going to have a mental breakdown. They might need to fly Jack Shephard in from Lost to give the old: “Live together or die alone” speech.
8:33
The Millennials continue their team goal to build the worst shelter in the history of Survivor…It’s great to see a team come together on a common goal like this.
8:34
Next, Jeff Probst comes riding in on his speed boat and tells the players that the storm has been upgraded to a cyclone warning and they are getting evacuated. Jeff’s getting into “hero” mode is always one of the highlights of any Survivor season. I mean, seriously, did you see the way he jumped off the boat?
8:36
Jeff then relays the same message to the Gen Xers, so everybody gathers their belongings and I guess we will play this season of Survivor at the nearby resort Hilton Hotel? I mean, this wouldn’t even be the worst gimmick in Survivor history.
8:38
Commercial Break:
I think I’m almost at the point where I feel online dating is the worst development in history. The odds are so stacked against guys on online dating because every girl that isn’t a train wreck at least gets the option of probably ten to twenty decent guys to go for. If you’re a normal looking, good guy trying to find a girl, it’s even tougher because the girls on there that aren’t these train wrecks get to act like they’re on the Bachelorette since there are so few of them and you feel like you have to try and stick out in some way. This leads to the worst forced, awful icebreakers in the history of mankind. Since there are so many creepy guys on online dating sites, you basically have to start off at a place of proving you’re not a registered sex offender, all in an effort to find out if you can go out, have dinner and get hopped up enough to make some bad decisions…It is summed up perfectly here:
8:42
Back from commercial and everybody, I guess, is back from whatever mysterious place they went to get evacuated from. The Gen Xers return back to their camp and their shelter got destroyed.
David again tells us that he is terrible at building shelter. It seems like David is going to be the target here episode one. Ken takes it upon himself to baptize David by fire by bringing him a walking stick bug to hold. Thank god for Ken…Actually, Ken is kind of growing on me, because although it’s clear he has some douche-like qualities in him, you can tell that he generally is trying to be a good guy…I guess…actually, I’m going reserve judgment at this time.
8:45
So David decides: “Screw it.” I’m just going to look for the idol even if it’s the worst possible moment to do so. Everybody else agrees that David would go first if it comes to that.
8:46
Back at Camp Millennial, Zeke is taking the lead this time around, and we get a nice montage of the team building the shelter. Zeke declares himself the leader of the tribe. Day three Zeke already declares himself a changed man….Okay, let’s get to at least day seven till we make those types of declarations.
8:47
Hannah notices that Figgy, Jay, and Taylor are a thing and that she needs to break it up. She approaches Mari, who is down to split the “cool kids”. Mari is ready to form a gang of misfits, and shockingly, the brain trust of Figgy, Taylor, and Jay looks doomed as they are not being stealth with their alliance…Crazy, those three seemed like the types to be able to be covert.
8:50
Commercial break:
Looks like we got a new comic book movie coming out with Dr. Strange. This will lead to a majority of people claiming they have been reading that comic their whole lives and have always been waiting for this movie to be made, only they will be just like me and not know what or who Dr. Strange is. I guess that guy Benedict Cumberbatch is going to be playing the lead role. Why do all these British actors have such fake sounding names…Jude Law??? Fine. That’s the only other example I could think of, so my whole theory is weak. I still haven’t seen Batman and Superman Are BFFs Forever or whatever the hell that movie was called. I just can’t go all in with Ben Affleck as anything other than his character from The Town. In everything else, I’m just rooting against him at all times throughout the movie.
8:56
Here we go– time for this season’s first immunity challenge. For some odd reason, I think the Millennials are going to take this one.
The twist on this challenge is that throughout the course they can decide to take a “short cut”, but if they do decide to take that short cut they get a larger puzzle to complete. So I change my mind, I say the Gen Xers win this one.
8:59
Chris, who looks like a man among children in the competition, boxes out Taylor and Figgy from being able to get what they need through the rope maze. Chris looks like he is barely even trying to…It’s like man strength against little boy strength.
9:01
The Gen Xers take both shortcuts, the Millennials take one, but both teams are almost tied as we get to the puzzle portion of this comp and it looks like the Gen Xers are going wet the bed here.
And just like I said the Millennials win this competition! Stick with me people, I know my Survivor.
9:06
Commercial break: Geez CBS must be as disappointed with this season of
Geez, CBS must be as disappointed with this season of Big Brother as everybody else in the country is. They sandwiched it in tonight’s TV lineup at 9:30 pm….Yikes! I have to admit, Big Brother will always have a special place in my heart, as it’s how I got my start with Rob on this site, but this season has been just dreadful. Like, imagine Survivor with a cast of all idiots and four returning players that most people the first time around were barely lukewarm about. Then, parlay that with just boring predictable week after week episodes…That is what we got this season of Big Brother…Yuck.
9:09
Back from commercial, the Gen Xers are reeling from their loss. Paul again takes it upon himself to sum it up for everybody, adding nothing to the moment but sideways looks. Looks like Rachel is taking the blame for bombing on the puzzle. Bret appears, so far, to be the leader of things.
David is paranoid that it’s him going tonight and so he is going to take it upon himself to make sure people understand that he is trustworthy and will vote how they want him to. This always seems to work, right?
Bret isn’t buying that Dave doesn’t have an idol, which again, there always seems to be an older male in Survivor who thinks he knows more than he does and usually they have the worst instincts possible when it comes to the game and Bret is really doing nothing to prove that theory wrong.
9:14
We go to Tribal and it looks like it will be Rachel going tonight, as she broke the first commandment of Survivor: Thou shall not claim to be good as puzzles when thou is quite awful at them.
9:15
Dave again acts like he’s carrying two kilos of cocaine about to go through customs at a foreign airport as Jeff addresses him at Tribal. Dave really needs to take a deep breath and pull it together.
9:16
Rachel makes her pitch to stay, which looks like it is going to fall on deaf ears tonight…
9:18
We go to the votes:
Dave
Rachel
Sunday
CC
Rachel
CiCi
Rachel
CeCe
Rachel
First person voted out this season: Rachel. Okay, so not surprising all things considered.
Recap:
So again, this is the first episode–who the hell knows how this thing is going to play out? It’s clear that the Gen Xers have an old-school Survivor vibe where their leaders are going to be the older, bigger males who build things. I’m going to say for sure that Sunday, David, and CeCe have no chance of winning this season. Everybody else, I guess, you could still maybe hold out hope for. The Millennials seem like a bunch of dopes. I mean, seriously, I can’t be alone here with that opinion, right? In fact, who actually seems like they look like a Survivor winner? I actually feel better about my Mari pick because she seemed like one of four players this season with a brain geared for this game. I could be wrong, but it feels like this season is so, so , so up for grabs! Who does everybody else think out of this cast they could see as a potential winner????
Thanks for reading. See you next week!
For the complete schedule of Survivor blogs: RHAP Survivor Blog Schedule.
