Survivor's Steeple Chase

This week's Survivor featured what may be the most thorough merge of tribes in survivor history, as it sought to balance genders and races in the new tribes. New buffs all around and people begin to strategize. In Raro, an alliance of four emerged, featuring Yul who owns a hidden immunity idol. Also finding a bond on Raro were the roller girl and Cao Boi, both being laid back. Tribes get settled then head off to challenge-land

This was an awesome immunity challenge. Tribes were chained to a rope together and each given a 15 pound weight to carry over a shoulder, like those fancy backpacks you see at Dick's. Then the two tribes line up on opposite sides of an oval track which is covered in knee-deep water. The first tribe chase down the other and tackle one member wins immunity. Now there was one more detail, any tribe member could leave the challenge, but must transfer the weight to another member of their tribe first.

When Jeff gave the sign, this is what went down. Raro, after a lap or so (as far as the editing tells me) decided to drop all five females from the chain and put their weights on the men. 15 pounds is a little under two gallons of milk to be carrying. Now, I'm not buff, but I can carry two gallons of milk for quite a while, and the longer you make yourself last the better off your stronger members (i.e. men) will be when it comes down to the wire. However Raro went with the "ditch all your girls cause they serve no purpose" strategy. Aitu held out longer, and one female held on quite a bit, helping hold the weight. It paid off and Aitu gained on Raro considerably. At this point one member of Raro had 45 pounds on him, knee deep in water, and expected to move at a pace faster than stranded-in-desert-wandering pace. That's a recipe for disaster. Or Tribal council as it turned out.

And in the end the group of four, one down during tribal council because a member was at exile island (effect of the challenge), managed to convince two other castaways to their side and Cece was voted out of the tribe.


And now for speculation. I realized in this episode that twenty people is a lot. Seriously. Survivor typically sticks with sixteen every year. This creates two options: four more episodes, or double elimination episodes. It would seem fairest to put a double-elimination round after the merge, to prevent a larger imbalance in tribes than necessary. Still, with each season of survivor trying to up the unpredictability, and with The Amazing Race pulling off a double elimination, it seems Survivor is the only show to nix it so far.

We shall see Mr. Burnett, we shall see.