Survivor All Stars Opens With a Bang !

Dude, I’m tellin’ ya………

I had to take a short hiatus the last 8-10 days as I attended to some family business out in Nevada.

Unfortunately, my father passed away on Super Bowl Sunday. He was a great man and a great father and I’ll be sharing some memories of him in the coming days as I get back into a groove here. My whole family (mom, brother, sis, an aunt & uncle who live in NV) were together out there and we told a lot of funny stories and celebrated a ton of the good times we had with dear old dad. A lot of toasts were made in his honor. So some of those recollections will be coming soon.

But after leaving you with a celebration of my brother, today I wanted to cover the premier episode of Survivor All Stars that aired this past Thursday night. It’s the 20th edition of the show and the second collection of All Stars. I previously listed who all of the participants were in a January post { See: Here’s The List of Survivor All Stars 1/6/10}. So I won’t be listing them again here in full detail. I’ll only bring up those players that had an influential role in Thursday’s show.

It started off with a Q & A session between the contestants and Pretty Boy Probst after the players were dropped off on the beach in helicopters. He asked them if they felt they were on the right or wrong side of the Heroes/Villains team assignments. Just about all of them seemed proud to be designated what they were, especially the hero squad.

Then right away, they had the first reward challenge for the prize of fire (a flint). It was a pretty simple challenge in that players just had to run down the sand and dig up a bag. They then had to run it back to their team’s mat lying in the sand at the starting line. The tougher part was that there were two players from each side for every round and you could physically prevent your opponents from getting the bag back onto the mats.

This made for quite an entertaining start to the season. I was fearful that they—-meaning Probst and Survivor in general—-would “wimp out” and not allow more aggressive play like they have done in similar challenges. But I have to admit that they let these people go at it and there were no lame disqualifications. In this first challenge alone, hottie Stephanie suffered a dislocated shoulder which the medical team popped back into place like they do in the NFL. The girl is tougher than Brian Urlacher. Although who isn’t? She not only stayed in the overall game, but also the challenge. Cute and tough !! But we kind of already knew that about her from prior seasons.

Then big, bearded Rupert broke one of his toes in another heat. This time the medical team taped a few of his toes together for stability like we all do with broken fingers and toes. Obviously, he stayed in with a somewhat minor injury like that…..although he did bitch in a later “aside” with the camera that he was in great pain.

One of the funnier parts of the challenge was when pot-bellied Russell was a giving Fireman Tom a step-over leg twist like you see in pro wrestling on Monday Night Raw. Tom was screaming in pain and Probst was yelling, “Play fair ! Play fair ! ”

In the end, the heroes won and were rewarded with the flint. It turned out that the villains didn’t even need the flint as they made fire without it back at their camp. Boston Rob got some flames going the old fashioned way by rubbing some sticks together. I’m sure that a female friend of mine who thinks Rob is the cat’s meow was very impressed with that little trick.

After that there was the usual posturing by some players and the construction of shelters. One great moment was when a rooster and a couple of hens walked right out of the woods near Fireman Tom at the hero camp. He and his teammates threw a net over them and already have had a fine meal of chicken soup.

Sugar made herself a bit of a nuisance around the hero camp by keeping everyone up all night talking and trying to cuddle up with Colby. He wasn’t having it. Then at the immunity challenge, she was part of a small group for the heroes that couldn’t complete a puzzle at the end of the challenge and blew a huge lead for the heroes. They lost the challenge and faced Tribal Council where one of them would be voted out.

In the end, it was Sugar. Her patented crying routine at the end of the immunity challenge didn’t help her cause either. She looked weak and defeated.

One element of the show that was very interesting to me and the friends that I watched it with was how some of the players spoke as if they were very familiar with pot-bellied Russell and how he played last season. There is absolutely no way they could have solid knowledge of his game-play as this All Star season started filming in August…..just a mere three weeks after Russell’s first campaign in Samoa ended.

According to USA Today, it is obviously an especially grueling ordeal for Russell Hantz because the show went right back to filming instead of taking their customary few months off between seasons. So how could these people know anything about Russell back in August 2009? Other than his endless boasting of how great he is? Yet a few of the people said things like,

“Russell is one of the most dominant players to ever play Survivor and he is a very strategic player”……blah, blah, blah.

or

“Russell is definately a good player to align yourself with based on how he played the game before and ….”  blah, blah, blah.

All indications are that nobody could possibly know how Russell played or how good or bad he is at the game. Just because you are on a show called “All Stars” doesn’t necessarily mean you were a great player. The ornery pain-in-the-ass Randy wasn’t that great of a player and he’s an alleged All Star. If Russell has recited his Survivor resume to everyone already, he is pretty stupid. He needs to learn how to lay just a little bit low and let people overlook him.

USA Today also said that the show tried to get Richard Hatch again and he wanted to play. However, he was still serving time on his tax evasion sentence when filming was scheduled to start. Apparently Colleen Haskell and Elisabeth (Filarski) Hasselbeck declined invitations to play.

Finally, they ran a teaser for next week where it appears Boston Rob has some health trouble. He either falls and injures himself or seems to have hydration problems. But from past experience, I doubt very seriously that he will be removed for injury or leave the game this week. When they tease like that, you can almost bank that the struggling player will end up just fine on the next episode. Otherwise, why would we bother to tune in if they reveal results that obviously?

So I think ol’ Boston Rob will be OK. Although my friend is probably a bit concerned for her New England boy toy.

Wooot !!