Miss Scarlet

Heidi is horrifying. She's probably the worst person I've ever seen on reality tv. Her and Spencer are perfect for each other - but not for positive reasons. They're both histrionic, bullying, immature, underdeveloped, cruel and narcissistic people who fuel each other on in all of their worst tendencies. I don't know why all the emphases in bootcamp has been on how immature Spencer is. Heidi is just as bad. I agree with the wish that they're both infertile. I hope neither of them are ever on tv again. They can either try to become positive, productive members of society or just spend the rest of their lives wallowing in their unhappiness and living off of Spencer's family.

I had an issue with the way Shirin nudity was dealt with because the way Joaquin made it sound seemed like because Tyler's married, Shirin shouldn't be naked. It just reeks of all the time men have cheated on their partners and then blamed the other women for being too attractive. Or like how there's been some craziness recently about how women shouldn't wear yoga pants because their bodies look too alluring in them. I can't even believe that this kind of bull**** exists. I don't care for the Golden Joe edit and I don't like it when they do that with any of the contestants. I liked Malcolm, but he didn't need to be shoved down our throat. And I never believed Spencer's edit. Even with the golden boy edit I still saw that he was annoying, entitled and rude (especially to Kass, who I didn't even like). And the edit tried to make Joe looked so sweet when he was apologizing after the challenge, but it was a dick move and I don't think the apology made up for it. Like I said last week, all the No Collars dealt with the problematic tribe dynamic poorly. But there is something weird about the alliance of Joe/Hali/Jenn claiming that they don't exclude Nina right after completely excluding her from the challenge. I'm not sure how they can really claim otherwise. Maybe they were referring specifically to camp life and saying they don't exclude her around camp, but exclusion is exclusion. And I remember Nina falling down once or twice in the first challenge, but I don't think she performed so badly that she should have been dismissed from this challenge. I thought this part of her EW interview shed some light on her problems with Jenn/Hali (http://www.ew.com/article/2015/03/12/pissed-nina-survivor-unloads-her-team-and-says-she-was-wrong-tribe) It also sounds like maybe she felt excluded from the very beginning because of things that Vince told her, which may or may not have been true. So the whole exclusion deal may just have started because of Vince being dishonest/gossiping/miscommunication (http://cartermatt.com/156514/survivor-worlds-apart-exclusive-nina-poersch-on-vote-immunity-idol-plan-difficulties-with-jenn-hali/) Also, apparently she got on the show because she goes to the same hairdresser as Natalie Tenerelli and Natalie recommended Nina to Benry, who works for Survivor casting. I cannot believe they gave Benry a job in casting. *shudders*

This show has been one of the worst things I've ever watched on tv. It's not even an entertaining kind of trashy, it's a "I'm horrified that these people exist" kind of trashy. I definitely should have quit after the first episode, but was curious about the bootcamp "exercises". I don't even like Aviva, but Heidi is disgusting and abusive on every level. The scariest part is how the other women flock to her and try to bully her enemies in order to prove their loyalty to her. I know that's how bullying works in general, but watching it play out in this way is awful. Heidi is 28 and Rachel and Natalie are in their 30s. They are not teenagers (and even then this type of behaviour would be horrible and unacceptable). Maybe Aviva has said truly horrible things about Heidi or other people in the house off-camera that we haven't seen, but even so, this is not the way to deal with it. I felt really badly for Rachel when Natalie and Heidi were bullying her, but she's awful too. I have no respect for her trying to bully Aviva just to get Heidi's approval. Rachel is a loser with no spine. And for her to call out Aviva as constantly playing the victim? Uh, then what does she Heidi's crying and "I hate Aviva she's so mean to me" after constantly attacking Aviva and just expecting her to sit there and take it. She said the exact same things about Rachel earlier in the season. That's Heidi's excuse for being horrid to everyone. Rachel should be ashamed of herself. When Spencer and Rachel were trying to calm Heidi down after they got back from the club Rachel told Heidi that Aviva's just jealous of Heidi and "wants to be Heidi". Wow. That is some scary delusion right there. I think Tyson doesn't want to commit to Rachel because he doesn't want to get married, but wants to keep her around because she's pretty and easily manipulated. There's no way he could ever be with a woman who was actually intelligent or personable. He's too insecure and would feel too inferior and emasculated being with someone like that, especially if they didn't try to soften themselves up by constantly telling Tyson how funny and smart and amazing he is. Plus they wouldn't he easily manipulated. And I don't think he could deal with that at all.

The most hilarious moment of the episode for me came after the challenge when Will was giving the most hypocritical voice over of the season so far where he talked about how Nina needs to go because she's weak and bad in challenges.

Rodney has such an obvious case of a Napoleon complex. I don't care what Mike's tattoo is of, it's one of the most hideous tattoos I've ever seen on this show. And that's really saying something considering that he's on a tribe with Lindsay "face tattoo" and Rodney "murdered sister tattoo that's used to manipulate other women".

Yeah, it's ridiculous. Joaquin said the reason Tyler was so uncomfortable with was because he was married. I love how the idea is that since Tyler's married, Shirin shouldn't walk around naked, even if it's more comfortable for her. Because women should always have to do what's best for the men. I don't like Tyler particularly, but I could see him going far in this game. I noticed in his confessionals last night that he was basically echoing everything Joaquin had been saying, but was saying these things in much more diplomatic ways. This diplomacy will be really helpful to him throughout the game. Him and Joaquin are definitely humourless dolts. What Shirin was saying/doing just wasn't that weird.

Rodney makes me feel like I have to take 3 showers back to back. The whole Blue Collar tribe is awful. I don't like watching them. I actually groaned every time they had a segment.

My hate for him after this episode is real after he reprimanded Shirin for being a "paranoid, panicked woman". Stopping at paranoid and panicked would have been fine, but he had to go full douche. Oh and his voice is awful. It's nasal and whiny and horrible to listen to.

No Collar is so ridiculously and ironically pretentious about their collar. Joaquin is a sexist a**hole. His line to Shirin about "you're being a paranoid, panicked woman" was horribly gross. Maybe Shirin and Nina should have switched collars. I wonder if that would have worked out better. Maybe not for Nina, but I think maybe for Shirin (unless No Collar keeps going to tribal). This was right up there with Joaquin calling Shrin the most annoyingest person on their tribe. I love it when someone makes themselves look like even more an idiot than when they're already saying something so stupidly sexist.

Jeff has been touting this cast as the best cast ever and this season as the best season ever. So as usual Jeff is wrong. This cast is horrible and these first 3 episodes have been boring. They've made San Juan Del Sur look exciting/

Yeah, it's really unfair to the older contestants to not expect some sort of division based on age when there's usually only one token older person and then several younger people. It would be more fair if there were a few more older contestants too (or like you said, have everyone in the same age range). The only recent season I can think of where there were more than a few token older contestants was Blood vs Water. And that's because it was a returnee season. If they are going to keep casting 1 or 2 token older people, casting really strong, athletic older women might help because it seems to work when they cast older men like that, since they usually aren't targeted because of their age. Keith wasn't targeted last season because by the time his tribe went to tribal council Drew had imploded, but also because he was good at the challenges. Same with Troyzan in One World, even though he was about 50. Although I'm probably just being optimistic and even casting different types of older women still wouldn't change the biases they face in this game.

I think she tries really hard to put on the laid-back/alternative girl persona like when she gave that confessional where she basically said Nina harshed her mellow after skinny dipping and in the first episode where she was way too into the idea of being a No Collar. Or when she tries too hard to be quirky like when she first met Vince and told him she felt like a kindred spirit because she used to have feathers or something or when she put on a British accent and was like "do you need me to blow on your wood sir?" I feel like she is probably laid-back and funny, but she goes over the top with it because it's really important to her that other people see her as chill and free-spirited or whatever. It doesn't always feel authentic. There definitely are other 20 something women that are like her, where being weird/quirky is "their thing". She's not unusual in that way. I mentioned in my last post that I thought Joe was a little dismissive of Nina in his confessional, but l do understand it and I feel like the only reason he was like is because his fate is in his tribe's hands at this point. I don't think he would be like about Nina in a post-merge situation or in real life. And I do think it's unfair that he and Hali are getting grouped in as "cool kids" that should be disliked or rooted against. They're just seen that way because there's this obvious age division in the tribe and it's creating artificial labels. They remind me a bit of Ian Rosenberger, who was part of a kind of misfit alliance on Koror and was thought of as a cute, lovable nerdy kid. But if he was on the No Collar tribe and aligned with the younger players, people might have labelled him as one of the cool kids. So like almost everything on Survivor, it's really situational. Like I said about Jenn, if this group was all young contestants, I don't know that these 3 would necessarily be viewed in the same way. I feel like if they were on a tribe with a bunch of the typical pageant/mactor types that Survivor likes to cast, these 3 would be too "alternative" and "granola" for the more mainstream types and maybe then they would be thought of as the outsiders. Or maybe I'm wrong and these 3 No Collars would be seen as the in-group compared to the Jenna's and Heidi's of the game because they'd be considered likable and popular outside just their own clique, whereas players like Jenna/Heidi were only liked within their group and disliked outside of it. Also, the editing for the last episode was really bad in the first half. I knew before the challenge that No Collar was going to lose because there were the only tribe shown where any strategy was actually discussed. The editing for the vote was good though. Once they got to tribal I was thinking about who it could have been and I realized that there was a possibility that it could have been any of them except for Hali. That's more exciting than when it's pretty obvious who it's going to be.

I finally figured out who he sounds like - Vytas with a bit of Tyson mixed in. No wonder I thought his voice was so creepy.

I'm really not a fan of episodes where the theme of the episode is "this person is sooooo hot". And I get that this wasn't totally true of Chris Hemsworth because he's also funny and a good sport, but generally I'm just not into it. I don't care what the hosts look like. I just want them to be funny. I will say that at least SNL seems to do this with as many male hosts as they do female hosts. Similar to this, there were comments on the internet after Dakota Johnson hosted about how she isn't hot enough to host or to be an actress and I thought those comments were gross. She shouldn't have to be hot for either of those things. She should just have to be a good performer.

Jeff was incredibly rude when he responded to Dan saying he was going to compete in the immunity challenge. Has all the hair dye Jeff uses seeped into his brain and made him forget that Rupert, another big guy, was strong and a good swimmer? STFU Probst. Now and forever.

The latest Survivor episode reminded me that I don't really like how whenever Rob does the cast assessment he usually assumes the younger players on each tribe will join together and form "cool kids" alliances. I get that it does happen on the show, but a lot of time it seems like he's just basing that off of what happened in the Amazon (and bitterness about the cool kids always sticking together) or like he's doing it purely on the basis that the players are young, without looking at if they're at all similar to each other outside of their ages or if they have anything in common with the older players on the tribe. I might be misremembering, but I feel like that's what he usually predicts.

Ugh. This episode of Survivor was awful, all around. I thought both Nina and Jenn dealt with their conflict poorly. I feel like Nina is the type to stereotype Jenn and Hali as "mean girls" before even getting to talk to them and then constantly looking for confirming evidence of this whenever she interacts with them. It's awful to feel excluded, but she dealt with that in the worst way possible. When she and Jenn were fighting Jenn made a comment to Nina about how they didn't ask her to go skinny dipping with them because they had asked her to go swimming with them earlier and she had said no. I wish they had aired that previous conversation because if that's true (or if there were a lot of other instances where Jenn really did make Nina try to feel included, like Hali did) then I don't think it's fair for Nina to be upset at Jenn for being excluded. On the other hand I felt like Jenn was way too smug about her closeness with Hali and Joe. I think she secretly likes the idea of being "one of the cool kids" even though she would deny it because she would claim that she's soooo alternative and hates labels. I also think it's pretty funny that she is getting the "cool girl" role this season because a few years ago she totally would have been thought of as a weirdo. Can you imagine her fitting in with Jenna and Heidi in the Amazon? I can't. They would have acted like she was Flicka from Cook Islands (never thought I'd be making a Flicka reference again) or Courtney Marit from Exile Island. She's being seen as cool because we're at a point where mainstream society is obsessed with weird/quirky/alternative women and so she fits into the zeitgeist right now. But, as I said last week, I think a lot of it is an act with her and she tries way too hard to be so quirky. I really liked Joe last week, but I was kind of disappointed with his attitude toward the whole Nina issue this week. He had a confessional before tribal where he was like (paraphrasing) "Nina needs to go because she's old, oh and she's deaf". Look, I get that what he's saying is true. But the way he said it just seemed harsh and completely dismissive of her. And it also made it sound like these qualities were just so awful and undesirable on their own that Nina needed to be voted out. He didn't clarify anything with the implications of her age or disability like "and so she struggles in challenges" or something else like "since we've had difficulties getting along with her it makes me feel like she could flip on us later on". Nope. She's just old and hard of hearing. Off with her head! I loved Hali. I thought she was sweet and tried really hard to connect with Nina. And I liked how she said she did it because Nina's a "nice woman" and wasn't patronizing about Nina or the situation at all. Overall, this was the kind of episode that makes me want to quit watching Survivor. I hate that the show is so rife with ageism (and sexism). And I'm saying this as someone who is in my early 20's. I'm really tired of the assumptions that older people just don't fit in with the younger people and not just from the people on the show, but fans/bloggers/podcasters/whoever. And the worst part is that it's not even like it's explained by talking about how the younger players just have more in common with each other or are at a more similar stage in life. It's not explained by saying "they don't along that well because person X is young and likes to talk about drinking and partying a lot, whereas person Y is older and likes to talk about their kids and career a lot". It's more like "older people don't fit in because older = bad and younger = good" and "ewww old people". I find that attitude pretty gross. (Side note - newsflash to all those people: they will be old one day too. And I'm sure they have older family members that they love. How would they feel if people were like "ewww old person" to them?) And I think the fact that Vince went home really says a lot about how contestants shouldn't be stereotyped by age. Because if you looked at the No Collar tribe just by age then you'd think Vince would be in with the younger 3 and there'd be no way he'd go home so early. But age didn't account for the fact that he was creepy as hell. There are also instances (sometimes on Survivor and definitely on the Apprentice) where young people are stereotyped and there's a lot of young = stupid (especially female contestants). That's not good either. It's rare that anyone considers the fact that a younger player might actually have more in common or have a more similar personality to an older player, even though it does happen (e.g. Malcolm and Denise, Tom and Ian, etc). That happens all the time in real life too. I worked at a job where there were some other employees who were in their early 20's and a few who were in their early 30's. My closest colleague/friend at that job was a 30-something because her personality was so similar to mine. It had nothing to do with age. Maybe this is less likely to happen on Survivor because there is a physical component that puts older people at a disadvantage which might negate compatibility with other players or maybe it's because all the young people that are cast tend to be extremely similar to each other in areas other than age, which is different than if a tribe had younger people who were very dissimilar and thus, less likely to work together. But the show needs to stop acting as if younger and older people can't ever form meaningful relationships with each other and that young people should think of getting older as the worst thing in the world.

Cute interview with Nathan and Andrew http://www.vulture.com/2015/02/masterchef-junior-andrew-nathan.html

I liked the first Know-It-Alls. The only thing that bothered me was how they were talking about the Vince thing so jokingly. I get that it was played for laughs on the show and Jenn didn't seem to be too skeeved out by it, all things considered, but it wasn't funny. For women that type of behaviour is actually really terrifying. Of course Rob and Stephen don't truly get what that's like, but I found they were a bit tone deaf to it. Going back to the Corinne cast assessment, I thought she (and Nicole) were unfair to Sierra. I didn't like how their attitudes were basically like "this girl has no problems in life because she's pretty". Even when Corinne was discussing how men can be really intimidated by tall women Nicole was trying to be fair and said "well, that's probably really hard for her" and Corinne was just like "nope!" and then Nicole went back to agreeing with her. Look, being pretty has its advantages, but it can definitely have its disadvantages. And their dismissiveness of her is a really good example of that. I didn't get Corinne's obsession with Sierra being 6'1 and how this means she is the prettiest/luckiest of all the prettiest girls on Survivor. I mean I guess height is associated with runway modeling, which is prestigious, but I still don't get the obsession with her height. This girl isn't even a model, as far as I know. And a lot of woman don't like being so tall, precisely for the reasons Corinne talked about in terms of being intimidating to men, etc. Corinne also mentioned that it means she's athletic and will probably be good in challenges and I can understand why that would make her more of an asset and luckier than other pretty girls Survivor has cast, but it depends on if it outweighs the intimidation factor. Also, unpopular opinion - I don't care for Nicole on the podcast. This doesn't have to do with the Corinne cast, I've felt this way since the beginning of the podcast during H vs. V. I don't dislike Nicole, but I don't particular like her either. I don't know if it's because she doesn't have opinions or because she feels she has to defer to Rob since it's his podcast and he's the expert, but I don't find that she ever adds anything to the discussion. I don't think sarcastically repeating whatever Rob has said or calling him a dork or a nerd is that hilarious. I don't think constantly commenting on the contestants' appearances (like "she has big knockers") is that interesting. I'm kind of glad she is off the main podcasts because I always found it so awkward how Rob and the guest would talk and then they'd randomly ask questions just to make her feel included. I liked her more on the Celebrity Apprentice podcasts, so again, maybe it has to do with feeling the need to defer to Rob about Survivor. I read the Reality Blurred article about the behind-the-scenes of RHAP. I thought it was interesting when Rob talked about former players who are obsessed with getting back on the show. He said it was "kind of sad". I like the podcast and I know Rob does it for the love of the game and of the analysis, not because he's desperate to go back on, but I feel like some of his detractors would probably find that comment weird coming from someone who has made a full-time career out of a show that he was on over 10 years ago.

No problem KimberStormer. I get how frustrating it can be when there's backlash against one of your favorite players and it's pretty inevitable that it happens to all of the well-known Survivor players. I do think people expressing criticism or backlash is okay though, as long as no one gets mean-spirited or vitriolic. Which, thankfully, doesn't tend to happen on this board. I totally get what you mean about the rocket scientist thing now. I've had that experience so many times too, especially when someone is describing another person and says "They have a PhD. They're so smart." and I just want to be like uh, maybe they're smart or maybe they're just really knowledgeable about one small area. I've known way too many people with PhDs who fit into the latter group. The Health Editor position does sound interesting. Props to her for using her CBS connections and making a career out of all this craziness. For a while it seemed like she wasn't really interested in a full-time career, but maybe this was an especially good fit for her. Even though Fincher didn't do as well as Parvati on Survivor, I always thought he was very intelligently analytical in many of his interviews (maybe except for one or two RHAP ones) both about Survivor and other topics. His level of analysis was something I never really saw from Parvati. But you're right, we don't really know enough about either of them in real life to say who's too good for who. As KimberStormer said, Survivor has nothing to do with love. Damn Kat for her "nobody wants to date someone who didn't make the merge" comment!

If Penny and Leonard were a couple in real life they would be divorced a few years after getting married, once they realize how bored they are with each other, or (depressingly) when Penny ages and is no longer attractive to Leonard. I know people are going to say the whole point of them is the whole opposites attract thing, that Leonard likes Penny's social awareness and thinks she's fun, etc. but the problem is they're not written that way. If they were then I would be a fan. The show pretty much always presents their dynamic as Leonard loves Penny because he's attracted to her and Penny loves Leonard because he's less of a jerk and more stable than other guys she's dated and that overall, Leonard is way more into Penny than she's into him. I get that it's played for laughs, but I don't think it's particularly funny and it makes them seem awful together.

ITA. It felt like pandering. Not even to the Penny/Sheldon as a couple fans, but fans of them as a platonic pair too. And I feel like a lot of the times the Sheldon/Penny stuff is too reliant on "look, opposites can get along!" rather than the actually quality of the material. A lot of what they covered was so repetitive. We get it. Penny is not as intellectual as the guys, but she's street smart. At least we can say yay for continuity I guess? I've thought the same thing about her breaking. I was glad that the comment didn't turn into a "Penny/Leonard having problems storyline", but this really is another example of how it might be played for laughs, but they are the worst written couple. I do like the the show takes on very interesting and topical subjects. The experiment was a good idea and they've had a few episodes with good ideas like that, such as the one with Bernadette in the science magazine (which is very timely with all of the gender issues being discussed in the media) etc. It's just the execution that is lacking.

Ty Burrell from Modern Family would be a good fit. He's funny, has great timing and is an SNL superfan.

That could be true, but I'm speaking generally about the fact that I don't agree with the idea of "this person is more well-known in the reality tv community, which means they are more successful than this other person who isn't as well known in that community (or in general) and thus, is not in their league dating-wise". Just because someone isn't well-known for Survivor doesn't mean they aren't kind, smart, interesting, etc. in everyday life. It might apply to John Fincher, it might not. And even if we're using Fincher as a specific example, getting an MBA from Columbia is impressive and for all we know maybe he is doing really groundbreaking work for his master's thesis or something.

Most of the times the tribe elect a leader it's a man. That may be good for the female contestants, since being the leader puts a target on your back, but it's also kind of depressing. I'm pretty sure when the other players are electing a person they're not thinking "we can't have women because it'll put a target on their backs". It's more "we need a strong, capable man to do the job". Ugh.