Delve Into Lunacy

Well, the season premier has come and gone and as usual I got myself all worked up waiting for it despite the fact that all of the first episodes are kinda boring since you don’t really know the people yet. At least this season started off with a really good challenge. I guess Jeff wasn’t kidding when he was telling interviewers that this was the toughest season yet.

I’m kinda torn over whether I like them bringing back Stephenie and Bobby Jon or not. I think Stephenie is one of the best players the show has ever seen and I was really wishing she had won last season. However, I’m not big on giving folks a second chance at reality shows. To me it’s kind of like they had their shot and missed and that should be the end of it. I know they got stuck with a really shitty team the last go around so you could argue that they never really had a shot to begin with, but life isn’t always fair unfortunately. At least they didn’t take the spots of two other people that could have played since they were just added to the other sixteen, but it’s unfair for the newbies since these two are familiar with the game, the cameras, the going without food, etc. Plus the fun of reality shows is learning the new people each season and when folks return for a second time (be it the same show or a different one) it makes it tougher to figure out the other people since they always have so much of the spotlight on them.

Despite all that I’ll still root for Steph unless someone else really stands out. I’ll also probably root for Danni since she’s from KC even though she didn’t do a lot in the first episode. The only others that jumped out at me so far were the ones I think I’m going to dislike. The first is Rafe. Every time I see his name I think of Raffi and that’s just not good. Plus, the dumbass is a freakin’ wilderness guide yet he refuses to even help read the compass when they are lost because he’s scared it will make him look like a leader. You know at some point they’ll find out what he does for a living and hopefully remember his lack of help on that first challenge and send him packing. He’s also my first pick for being gay, which isn’t bad or anything, but it’s an ongoing thing each season to “guess the gays”.

The second one that jumped out was Brian. He didn’t get much screen time really, but the small amount he did he just came across as kinda creepy for some reason. Can’t really explain it. He’s my second pick for being gay and my pick for being the jackass that always talks about how much smarter he is than anyone else there.

The third standout was Morgan. Again, not a huge amount of screen time, but she already reminds me of Holly from Big Brother 5 except with just a slightly less high pitched voice. She’s my pick for being the dumb one that always takes a while to get what people are saying to her. She’s a frickin’ magician’s assistant for crying out loud so you know things haven’t exactly gone like she planned in life.

Regarding the guys on that one tribe all getting sick, the consensus seems to be that they were out drinking the night before in a celebration of their final night of freedom. Just seems odd that only those guys had any problems after completing the challenge. Everyone tried to justify it by saying the guys were carrying more at the beginning but the girls weren’t carrying much less so I’m not buying that. Plus it’s 24 hours and you simply don’t have an entire group of people get nailed that badly from over-exertion unless they were already somewhat dehydrated to begin with.

Jim was a good pick to get rid of I think. Between the combination of him being older and less able to do things to start with and then hurting his arm he was the weakest link on the team physically and it looks like it’s going to be one of those seasons that focuses more on the physical rather than mental aspect of the game. While on the subject of Jim I’m getting a little tired of firemen being cast on every reality show that’s occurred since 9/11. I like firemen as much as the next person, but it’s to the point where every show feels they have to have one every season and I get the impression some of them are being picked solely for that reason. Didn’t get to know Jim well enough to say if that was the case here, but him being on the show continued the trend.