Sometimes nothing is sweeter than hearing Jeff Probst utter three delicious words. Drop your buffs. There is promise in that command and for a season like this one where — oh god, don't make me rehash it! Let's just say that realigning Moto and Ravu was the most entertaining Survivor has been since Sundra and Becky faced off over a fire-making challenge in the Cook Islands. What would we do this season if Ravu and Moto had not mixed it up with a schoolyard pick? Now the poor-camp dwellers are Edgardo, Alex, Dreamz, Mookie, Rocky and Anthony. On the rich side of the island are Earl, Yau Man, Michelle, Cassandra, Boo and Stacy. Odd-woman out, Lisi, after a stint on Exile Island, later joined the poor camp. Ravu lucked out by having Edgardo, Alex and Dreamz join their team. All three come across as decent, open-minded guys. The kind of men who would call Rocky on his disparaging description of Anthony as effeminate and boost morale by catching fish when all previous efforts to do ...
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Question: I read with interest your comment that you long for the day when gay characters on TV are treated as completely unremarkable. It occurred to me that such an event has already occurred, earlier this year, on a little reality show called Survivor. In last fall's Cook Islands edition, the same edition that initially divided the tribes by ethnicity, two male contestants later revealed off camera that they were gay, but that topic did not even surface on air. It is hard to believe that the subject never came up on the island among the contestants, and that cameras did not capture it. So I found it refreshing that producer Mark Burnett did not deem the sexuality of either contestant to be remarkable enough to fashion (through editing) a little story point about it. Certainly the homosexuality of previous Survivor contestants (Richard Hatch and many others) had been story points in previous editions. So in a way, I found that the granddaddy of TV's current reality craze broke ground ...
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Question: My question has to do with the Emmys and reality TV: After two seasons of either awful (Family Edition) or dull Amazing Races, and the conclusion of one of the best Survivors in recent memory (how great was it to see four really likable and honorable people pull off a come-from-behind win and just be happy for one another?), can the reality-TV granddaddy finally pull off a win? Or do the Emmy voters not even watch those programs and just continue to award Amazing Race out of inertia and habit?
Answer: Sorry, I'll have to disagree with you on that one. The last Race may have had an anticlimactic finish, but watching the teams race through new locales in the Far East this season was a lot more thrilling than watching tribes squabble on what looked like the exact same tropical beach as those from the last few years. (That said, I enjoyed the way the last Survivor ended as well.) This category is one of the few cases where I don't mind repeat wins year after year. Especially after
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On Sunday night's nail-biting Survivor: Cook Islands finale, Yul Kwon narrowly beat out tough competitor Ozzy by one vote to emerge as champion. The Stanford and Yale grad, who was often called "the puppet master" or "Godfather" by fellow players, was happy that his strategic game paid off and that he was able to pocket the million-dollar check. TVGuide.com spoke to Yul in the wee hours of the morning after his big win to find out how he's planning on spending his winnings, and why he looked so shell-shocked after being announced the sole survivor.
TVGuide.com: Good morning, how are you doing? Yul Kwon: Good. I'm still sleep-deprived, but I'm living the dream.
TVGuide.com: You looked stunned throughout th
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It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was a season that certainly had it’s ups and downs, but if Survivor:Cook Islands were a movie, it would be up for an Oscar.Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration, I present the best of Cook Islands.The Best Challenges:Sure, we had a few recycled challenges, but someone on that staff got a shot of creativity that brought us some truly innovative, interesting and challenging competitions.These last two immunity challenges had me literally on the edge of my seat. Squarely in Aitu’s corner, it was near torture seeing Adam as a real threat to an all-Aitu final four.Ozzy’s come-from-behind win in the spider web/puzzle challenge was reality television at its best. It wasn’t his physical prowess that amazed me the most this time — I didn’t even know he had a brain until he wowed me by solving that compass-rose puzzle.Then there was the final immunity challenge. I loved that vanishing platform. How ...
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