Author: Movie Lists Man

In no particular order, here are my picks for the top ten greatest Survivor players of all time.

Cirie Fields

People cite Cirie as an inspiration to people on the couch who don’t think they can play Survivor. That’s nice, but it’s simply not true. The truth is she’s one of the best social players the game has ever seen and likely far beyond the capability of your average couch squatter.

Sorry, people on the couch.

In order to succeed in Survivor you need to be able to convince people to vote how you want them to vote. Cirie is a master at this. She once orchestrated a plan that convinced Erik Reichenbach to give up his immunity necklace. She didn’t just have the idea, she helped each person frame what to say to Erik, how to say it, and when to say it.

She seems to intrinsically understand people. Not just who people are, but what they’ll believe. And that made her very, very dangerous.

 

Yul Kwon

I loved watching Yul play Survivor. I loved watching people try to play against Yul. Nate, from an opposing tribe described Yul best: “You don’t want Yul in the challenges. Yul is intelligent. I do not want that boy thinking anymore. You know what I’m saying? You don’t want that clock tickin’ there, homey.”

Yul doesn’t get mad very often, he just calmly and logically tells people why he’s doing what he’s doing and states it in such a political, soft-spoken way that nobody feels bad.

Once Yul established power on his season you saw people immitating him. For example, Adam Gentry and Parvati Shallow asked Yul to vote out Jonathan Penner before them, in return for their jury vote. There was no point in Adam or Parvati denying Yul was going to the finals, even with six people left in the game. Yul had already crunched all the numbers.

They let that clock tick too long.

 

Russell Hantz

Cutthroat, chaotic, aggressive, egotistical, strategic, bandy-legged little troll. I’m not sure there’s anything Russell wouldn’t do to move himself forward in the game.

He makes quick, firm alliances, dedicates himself to finding immunity idols, and utilizes this foundation to intimidate and overpower the rest of the tribe.

Russell says he, “plays as hard as he can.” He’ll throw away the tribes machete just to create chaos in the camp. While being targetted, he’ll give away his hidden immunity idols. He’ll get in people’s heads just enough to sway their votes. And he invented finding idols without clues.

He’s played three times and got to the end twice. His only failing is that he plays the game so hard that he doesn’t seem to care how he gets to the end and doesn’t get enough jury votes.

 

Parvati Shallow

Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains was comprised of a number of great players who had already played and (in many cases) already excelled at the game. And on this season people spent a lot of time and effort targetting Parvarti because they said she was dangerous.

As Jeri said, “she has ways of roping people in even when they don’t want anything to do with her.”

And that’s her biggest asset. She pulls people in, she establishes power, and she gets people to vote how she wants.

On two separate seasons with players that had played before, she established alliances, stuck with them, and manipulated players all the way to the end of the game. To make it to the end on a season with no returning players is impressive, to do it twice on seasons with multiple returning players is an unrivaled feat.

 

Ozzy Lusth

Most of the people on this list (and great Survivor players in general) are very good at two to three Survivor fundamentals: strategic game, social game, and physical game. The most important one is social. I don’t think you can win Survivor without at least some social game because you need people to like you so they will vote for you in the end.

A lot of people wouldn’t put Ozzy on a top ten list because he lacks a good strategic game and his arrogance makes him iffy on the social game. But Ozzy is special. Ozzy’s physical game is so strong that it breaks the conventions of how to judge a Survivor player. And with the exception of perhaps Joe Anglim, he may be the only Survivor capable of doing this. Theoretically, you don’t need a strategic game if you stand a legitimate chance of helping your tribe win every immunity challenge and you win every individual immunity challenge after the merge. And Ozzy is a legitimate threat to do just that.

In his first season, Cook Islands, with one exception, he won every single individual immunity challenge, guaranteeing him a spot in the final three.

In Survivor: South Pacific, he went to Redemption Island on purpose and defeated six straight challengers there, earning him the right to return to the game. Once he returned, he won individual immunity once, and in the final immunity challenge, narrowly lost. Had he won just once more, he would have been in the final three.

It’s not a well-round game, nor an orthodox one, but it is an unbridled force, which, left unchecked, has the power to go all the way to the end.

 

Kim Spradlin

Watching Kim Spradlin play Survivor makes you believe in destiny. She has a multitude of skills and attributes to win: she’s likeable, she can win challenges, she appears genuine and trustworthy, she can manipulate people to do what she wants, she has these angelic eyes that draw you in, and she never seems to lose her cool.

It appears to be a very understated game. You aren’t worried about Kim at first because she’s not pushing too hard for anything. By the time you realize how dangerous she is you’re already swept up in the power she amassed.

On her season she built relationships with everyone, made two separate alliances she used to better position herself and gain information, and was the deciding force behind the majority votes.

Watching Kim do this on her season it seemed like she was always just a few feet ahead of people in challenges, a few moves ahead of them in strategy, and all with an unnerving calm that never waivered. Like it was easy. Like everyone else was just getting in the way of her destiny.

 

Sandra Diaz Twine

I don’t want to put Sandra on the list. I don’t like Sandra, I don’t respect her game, and frankly, I can’t make a strong case for things she does well, other than winning.

I’m even resistant to the idea of picking people for this list based purely on results. There’s a lot of luck in Survivor. A large portion of the game is who you’re playing with and how everyone reacts as the game changes. But the fact that, despite all the game’s swings and luck she made it to the end twice and won twice forces me to take pause. Maybe something is going on there that I don’t fully understand or appreciate.

Perhaps Sandra’s strategy of utilizing the fact that, “there are always bigger fish to fry” other than her, making it to the end, and being a more appealing choice than the people sitting next to her (and winning), makes her the best damn goat the game has ever seen — a super goat. A two-time winning, super goat.

Give it up for the super goat.

 

Tony Vlachos

Captain Spy Shack. Every time my friend mentioned Tony’s spy shack I always downplayed it. “Who cares about his spy shack, we never see him go in there!” Later I learned it was because the Survivor crew respected his gameplay and didn’t want to screw up his strategy.

Like Russel Hantz, Tony plays the game as hard as he can. He constantly searches for (and finds) idols, he tirelessly gathers information to assess his biggest threats, and then he acts upon them. The biggest way in which Tony differs from Russel is that he’s better with people. Even if Tony is loud, or too straight-forward, or backstabby, somehow people just chalk that up to Tony being Tony.

Tony’s wrecking ball style of gameplay requires a surprisingly delicate skillset that is unique, impressive, and entertaining as hell to watch.

 

Rob Mariano

A lot of people don’t like Boston Rob. I’m guessing they don’t like how popular he is, or how arrogant he is, or that it took him four times to win.

To me, Rob’s biggest problem was that the first two times he played, he was too young to temper his personality. And while in All Stars that prevented him from winning the million, his alliance with Amber, his strategic moves, and his domination of challenges got him to the end.

In Heroes vs. Villains, even though he got voted out eighth he was voted out at the head of an alliance.

In Survivor: Redemption Island, Andrea Boehlke made it clear on the reunion show that Rob built relationships with everyone in his alliance, and orchestrated his way into a final three with two other people nobody would want to vote for (just in case he’d pissed the jury off too much). He created a buddy system for his alliance so no one would go off alone to be swayed out of the group. He took all his previous Survivor experience and talent, and applied it in a way to assure his victory. At the trial he presented himself as humbly as he could.

Juror David, said it best:

One person doesn’t deserve it, so we can cut him off. The other one thanked somebody for doing it all. Who’d she thank? The guy sitting in the middle. He did everything. And most importantly, he managed to blindside Matt. And in the process of doing that he sent a message to his tribe that, “if any of you show any signs of not being loyal, you’re gonna go home.” He controlled all of you. He controlled your minds, he controlled what you did, he controlled your thoughts, you all bought it, and one, by one, by one, all of you were blindsided. A little ruthless, but brilliant.

 

Amanda Kimmel

This is a contentious choice because Amanda has never won and might be incapable of winning. To win Survivor, you gotta get your hands dirty and Amanda isn’t cut-throat enough. But there’s a reason she has the record for third highest number of days spent on Survivor.

There is value to supplementary players; people that help others progress in the game and are great to work with. Amanda has proven she is one of those people by getting a top three placing on two separate seasons.

In order to get far in Survivor, it helps to team up with someone like Amanda. These are usually people with one great Survivor tool (social, strategic, physical). Players like Trish Hegarty, Matthew von Ertfelda, Latasha “Tasha” Fox, or even Rupert Boneham (to a degree). Amanda, on the other hand, has mutiple tools. She can help win challenges (making her a strong voting buddy), or she can help you execute social strategy, and she’s likable enough and pretty enough that people want to talk with her. She’s an ideal Survivor symbiont. You really can’t underestimate the power or importance of being likable.

I continue on my journey through Smallville. While I called season two the awkward teenage years, you can see season three maturing a little.

Sometimes season three tries a little too hard and focuses a little too much on melodrama, but there are moments where Smallville‘s potential shines underneath all that, and you hope its about to blossom.

1. More Superman History I Don’t Like

I really don’t. It’s just an excuse for the cast play “different” characters and dress up.

Something about Jor-El actually being on Earth in 1961 and falling in love with a Lana look-alike, mixed with some kind of weird flashback, murder-mystery-solving-I-don’t-know-what-I-stopped-paying-attention. Tom Welling (Clark) plays Jor-El in the flashbacks and Kirsten Kreuk (Lana) plays the Lana look-alike and they’re in love, but still shouldn’t be together and blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-blah.

I can’t talk about it. It upsets me.

2. Lex Cray Cray

Either Lex is on a deserted island seeing things, or he’s in an insane asylum, or he’s experiencing repressed memories.

I’m trying to think of a good reason they did this storyline. It’s always a good idea to give characters a personal conflict to work through and it’s interesting to see Lex as a more vulnerable person, I guess?

I think that’s part of what they were trying to do with this storyline, but for the most part it simply doesn’t work.

 

3. Lana and Clark

Nothing intensifies ill-fated love like having it and losing it. Clark breaks up with Lana and the whole season is a Lana/Clark forlorn, lovey dovey extravaganza.

Lana gets a new boy. Clark gets a girl. Jealousy intensifies.

I enjoy melodrama, but this is too much.

 

4. Alicia, Alicia, Alicia

BEST. EPISODE. EVAAARRRRRRRRRRRR.

This episode introduces Alicia Baker who is beautiful and has secret powers she’s trying to hide, just like Clark!

Clark reveals his secret to save her and so she reveals her secret (teleportation) to save him and it seems like Clark finally has found a girl he can tell the truth.

Alicia is sweet. She appears to be even more vulnerable than Clark is when it comes to hiding from people and the actress portraying her (Sarah Carter) strikes just the right endearing note. So when Alicia turns out to be crazy obsessive and starts putting up pictures in Clark’s locker and trying to kill Lana, somehow we forgive her a little. Carter and Welling work well off each other. It’s funny to watch Clark be polite and evasive while Alicia is being bubbly and flirty and crazy and stalky.

There’s a mix of comedy and heart in this episode that is special. It may be the best of Smallville and is something we see more of in season four. And I think it’s due entirely to Sarah Carter.

 

5. Let’s Talk About Pete

Maybe this is inappropriate to say, but sometimes I wonder if Pete’s character is on the show just so the cast isn’t devoid of black people. Historically, Clark is white, Lana is white, Jonathan and Martha Kent are white, and Lex is white. How do we address this? Black best friend Pete.

And he’s never fit on the show. Learning about Clark’s secret gave him some new dimensions, but primarily Pete is positive, upbeat, jokey, and unnecessary.

There’s an episode this season that encapsulates the Pete problem. Out of nowhere, Pete gets into drag racing. When Clark tries to stop him, Pete becomes oddly defensive and angry. While it’s good that Pete has (and displays) other emotions and make mistakes, it’s so unusual that it just feels alien.

Sure enough, Pete’s character leaves this season as if to say, “See? we had black people on the show. Can’t say we didn’t.” Maybe that’s reductive, but that’s how it feels.

 

6. Better With Emotions

While season two had more complex story ideas with no feeling behind them, season three is much better at establishing emotional purpose behind characters and events.

For example, even though the ongoing story of Lex’s mental instability is stupid, it concludes with a concrete memory that tells us exactly why Lex and his Father, Lionel, fight so much. Which is then furthered when Chloe gets temporary truth-telling powers and Lex admits the only thing he wants from Lionel is love. Also, when Clark gets a memory flash about his real Mother, Lara, he admits to Martha that he wishes he could remember her and Martha tells him that Lara was his first word.

These are small details, but crucial to make an audience care, and season three finally starts to get it right.

 

7. It’s Still Growing

While the show is better with tension, emotional foundations, and overall structure, it still feels a bit young. The Lex insanity storyline is almost desperate and Pete’s character flounders. There’s also a concluding montage where dramatic character cliffhangers/changes are played against Mozart’s Requiem Mass as if to say, “look at my big boy pants.”

Season three is nearly grasping adulthood, but hasn’t fully matured. But you can see that it’s figuring itself out. You can see the promise in there. All you can do is hope it realizes its potential.

Movies you would watch with your bros. I tried to pick movies that were the most fun. Also, instead of filling the list with stuff you’ve likely seen, I wanted to pick movies you might have missed. So I used box office earnings in an attempt to quantify popularity, and considered any action movie that made under $100 million at the box office. (much love and thanks to my buddy Brian for the title image)

Hard Boiled

“Give the guy a gun and he’s Superman, give him two and he’s God.”

That’s how Inspector ‘Tequila’ Yuen (Chow Yun-Fat) is described. Maybe that’s why he takes on a full warehouse of mobsters with a handgun, a semi-automatic, and a shotgun. He rappels from the ceiling, wildly raining bullets down on everyone, then slides along a car roof before rolling to cover.

And then he pulls out the shotgun.

Hard Boiled is basically Tequila and an undercover cop against an entire mob organization. You’ll never see more sliding, diving, rolling, and flying in the air while shooting in any other movie. And you’ll never see as much gunfire either.

And you’ll thank me for it.

Desperado

Desperado is about El Mariachi (Antonio Bandares) looking for a man who calls himself Bucho – that’s all – but instead of helping him, everyone seems to want to do things the hard way (the way that involves lots of gunfire).

Desperado is a love affair. It is a love affair between Antonio Banderes and the audience, between the audience and guitar playing, between Antonio Bandares and Salma Hayek, and between director Robert Rodriguez and John Woo’s films.

There’s still duel-wielding pistols and flying through the air while shooting, but not as much as Hard Boiled; they had to make room for the love affairs, you understand.

 

Point Break

Did anyone ever love someone the way Johnny Utah loves Bodhi? Or the way Bodhi loves Johnny Utah?

Point Break is about an FBI agent, Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves), going undercover and trying to catch a gang of surfers lead by Bodhi (Patrick Swayze), who are bank robbers on the side. Johnny Utah is the hotshot young agent who doesn’t know how to live. Bodhi is described as a searcher, looking for the ultimate ride.

Bodhi tells Johnny that surfing is, “a state of mind. It’s that place where you lose yourself and find yourself.” Even though the two are enemies, they come to respect and bro-love each other because they share the same kamikaze spirit — they live to go to the edge, man.

If you’ve been searching movies for a sweet ride and haven’t seen Point Break yet, this is your wave, brah. Vaya con Dios.

 

Hard Target

I suppose Hard Target is about Chance Boudreaux (Jean-Claude Van Damme), a drifter trying to help a woman find her missing Father, but really, Hard Target is a love letter to JCVD’s mullet. We first see it sashay in the breeze off a roundhouse kick eleven minutes into the movie. A couple minutes later, JCVD turns around so we can see his mullet as he walks away, then the scene fades into an American flag.

Later, there’s a sequence where JCVD duel-wields pistols, unloads into guy, roundhouse kicks him, unloads into another guy, roundhouse kicks him too, then unloads a final time. Each kick, the mullet twirls. Twirls, twirls.

Supposedly director John Woo and JCVD didn’t get along, which is why we never saw them team up again. But I wish they’d set aside their differences — for the mullet’s sake.

 

Fist of Legend

Fist of Legend is about a nearly unbeatable martial artist, Chen Zhen (Jet Li), beating the crap out of every fighter he encounters. At the beginning of the film he’s attacked by fifteen guys. He breaks ten bones before the attackers change their mind, including breaking a guy’s leg in half by smashing the knee inwards.

Shortly after, he attacks an entire school of martial arts students. As Chen Zhen enters, one student tells him to leave, so Chen Zhen grabs the back of the guy’s head and slams him to the ground. As you can see, it’s glorious.

He has legitimate challenges later on, but for a long while Chen Zhen doesn’t have opponents, he has victims. And it’s very satisfying to watch.

 

Showdown in Little Tokyo

Truthfully, I put this entry on here out of sentiment. I’m a Bruce Lee fan, but the only Brandon Lee film I ever saw was The Crow. I didn’t even know he starred in a few action films as well. And seeing how good he was in this made me sad.

Brandon Lee plays Johnny Murata, a partner to the film’s star, Dolph Lundgren (Sgt. Chris Kenner). The two play the buddy-cop-comedy game while trying to take down some American-based Yakuza. Some of the jokes don’t work, but somehow that makes the film more endearing. Brandon Lee is a jokester, while Lundgren is a charmless straight man. I don’t know if that’s what makes Lee’s performance so bright, but he’s terrific.

Also, the main villain is the guy who played Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat, and his second in command is the same guy who was Shredder’s second in TMNT (1990), Master Tatsu. If that wasn’t enough, there’s lots of gunfire and nudity too. It’s as brotacular as it gets.

 

Army of Darkness

Army of Darkness is the third Evil Dead movie, where Ash (Bruce Campbell) is transported to the past where he is destined to save the land from evil.

If you haven’t seen Army of Darkness before, I’m not sure I can confidently point you in its direction. It’s weird, man. Chainsaw arms, evil twins that sprout from your shoulder, giggling mischievous mini-clones, shrieking witches, undead armies, and hokey humour. But also the best damn one-liners any movie has to offer, baby.

If that sounds like something you might enjoy, give it a look. If you ever appreciated Duke Nukem’s one liners, you have this movie to thank. And, of course, Bruce Campbell. There’s a unique quality to Campbell. Somehow he’s able to play his B-movie role both straight, while acting as though he’s in on the joke at the same time. I can’t think of anyone else who can do that.

Hail to the King, baby.

 

Hard to Kill

I like to imagine that Steven Seagal has a lot of input on his films. In Hard to Kill, Storm (Seagal) is gunned down in his own home, pronounced dead at the hospital, but somehow resuscitates and spends seven years in a coma until he wakes up for revenge. While in the coma, a beautiful nurse has a crush on him and refers to him as “her boyfriend.” She looks under the sheets at his naked manhood one day while encouraging him to pull through and says, “you have so much to live for.”

There’s a peculiar delight in Seagal movies. In every film, Seagal seems like that douchebag know-it-all. He studied martial arts and medicine in the East, he’s a deadeye with guns, and his big dick is a magnet for the ladies. But then we see him run, or practice his katas, and we get to see the man behind the curtain.

Seriously, look at those katas.

 

Universal Soldier

Universal Soldier is about dead soldiers that have been reanimated to be a superpowered army that you can command like robots. When universal soldier, Luc Deveraux (Jean-Claude Van Damme), starts to remember his past, he escapes with a reporter. The two are then hunted by Luc’s fellow super corpse, Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren), and the rest of the universal soldiers to make sure the program is kept secret.

Who would have thought Van Damme pretending to be a lifeless soldier would be so delightful? There’s some good comedy in the exchange between the reporter and Luc. In one scene, Luc asks for the reporters help. He strips naked and says, “there must be a tracking device on me.” The reporter asks, “what do you want me to do about it?” Luc replies: “Look for something unusual,” then grabs her hand and puts it on his stomach, “something hard.”

 

Jackie Chan’s First Strike

This is the fourth entry in Jackie Chan’s Police Story series. In this one, he’s trying to stop illegal nuclear arms trading.

There were a lot of great Jackie Chan films in the 90’s, and if you’re gonna say, “Why not Rumble in the Bronx? Or Who Am I? Or Operation Condor? Or Mr. Nice Guy? Or Legend of Drunken Master? Or heck, even Gorgeous?” Those are all excellent points my friends. I didn’t make Jackie Chan awesome, I’m just doing my best to acknowledge he is awesome by putting this film on the list. Because ladder fight. And yea, because ladder fight.

I’m very sorry if your movie wasn’t on here. Chances are I love and respect the movie you wanted to see. You can see the movies I considered here: http://i.imgur.com/Guyhx9V.png

If you are interested in seeing my list without the $100 mil. cap, you can see it here: https://imgur.com/a/T7sJ6

There have been a lot of moments on Survivor that have been talked about over the years, and while some fan classics are on this list, these are my ten personal favourite moments.

Chances are that the only people interested in such a list will be fans of the show, but I tried to write it in such a way that non-fans could understand what I was talking about. To give a basic breakdown, each season of Survivor typically has a theme: fans of the show versus all-time favourite players of the show, brains versus beauty versus brawn, African Americans versus Caucasians versus Hispanics versus Asians, etc.

Regardless of the theme, twenty (or so) people are divided into two tribes who compete against each other in various competitions while attempting to survive their exotic locations (Africa, Cook Islands, Fiji) with minimal resources. Each episode there is a competition to decide which tribe will go to tribal council, where one member of the losing tribe will be voted off by their own tribemates. The final survivor left wins a million dollars.

The Survivor motto is: Outwit, Outlast, Outplay, and the game requires a lot of strategy, social ability, teamwork/alliances, and luck.

Should you need them, here is a list of the Survivor rules.

1. Ozzy’s Run

I talk about this moment all the time to anyone who will listen. In Survivor: Cook Islands there was a challenge between the two tribes, Aitutaki and Rarotonga, that was made up of multiple components, including a swimming component. A member from each tribe must essentially swim across a lagoon, accomplish a task, and swim back. Rarotonga’s chosen swimmer, J. P. Calderon (a 6′ 2″ professional volleyball player) was well ahead of Ozzy (a slender waiter). In fact, J.P. was already halfway across.

Ozzy tosses off his bandana, and closes the gap by making a run through the shallow part of the water, before outpacing J.P. in the water, and winning the competition.

They often use these high shots to give you a sense of the breadth of the course, but they were never so effective as this moment when you see Ozzy awaken his natural physical abilities and start a dominating run of victories for himself and his tribe until the end of the game.

 

2. New Players Getting it Right

For awhile, it felt like Survivor was stagnating. Survivor: Philippines saw the return of some injured survivors, but not players that were extremely well liked, and Survivor: Caramoan seemed to purposefully bring back players that people did not like, including a woman who was the first to be voted off her original season.

Just as we were about to give up hope on Survivor, a tribal council in Survivor: Blood vs. Water reinvigorated the series. Three players in one alliance convinced a player in a four-person alliance to vote with them, intentionally forcing a draw. There is a rare rule (only ever used twice, including this time) where if the vote is at a deadlock, people draw from a bag of rocks to decide who leaves. The bag contains all black rocks, except one white one. If you pick the white rock, you’re out.

What was so exciting about this was that alliances often establish a cemented power, with one or two particular people in charge. It is incredibly difficult to defeat an alliance like that. And the young woman who forced the tie, Ciera Eastin, essentially forced the most powerful player in the game to take a one in three chance at losing. And there would be no alliance saving him, no idols, no schemes, no tricks – he would just be gone.

It was thrilling to watch players not only try risky strategies, but to apply reason and logic (FINALLY!).

 

3. Tyson Lesson

I believe there are uncouth people out in the world who help make us better. They do so by telling us straight to our face what everyone else is too afraid or too polite to say.

In a moment on Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains where Coach (who’s entire self worth appears to be wrapped up in his virtue) has his character questioned, he cries. Broken, turns to Tyson for help.

“Why doesn’t anyone ever say anything good about me? Am I that bad of a person, man?” Coach asks Tyson.

This a rare moment of absolute vulnerability. And what does Tyson do? He bulldozes him. “Don’t wear those stupid feathers in your hair at tribal,” he says. “Don’t tell your stupid stories, nobody likes them. People make fun of you behind your back.”

I know I’m a terrible human being for laughing at this, but there is great comedy to this situation. That’s the absolute WORST time to be so brutally honest. All Coach needed was a hug. Instead Tyson annihilated him.

 

4. “COME ON, MORGAN!”

It’s extraordinary for players on Survivor to inspire. On Survivor: Pearl Islands, Andrew Savage was appointed leader of his tribe when it was not required to do so. In an immunity challenge, three members from each tribe had to carry wooden poles on their shoulders that get weight added to it each round. The strategy was to get out the two biggest guys (by far), Rupert Boneham on the Drake tribe, and Osten Taylor on the Morgan tribe, out early. Osten dropped out fairly quickly at as soon as soon as he was at 160 pounds. Seeing that their strongest guy was out, Savage refused to let his tribe quit, and held at 160 pounds for the duration of the competition. He did so purely to inspire his tribe. “COME ON, MORGAN!” he cried.

After Morgan won, he collapsed and one of his tribemates kissed him on the forehead, and another helped him up. Everyone, including Jeff, agreed that Savage should be the one to accept the immunity idol on behalf of the tribe.

A lot of people on Survivor have carried teams to victories, few have had the heart and ability to inspire their tribemates to believe in each other.

 

5. Banana Etiquette

There’s a small moment in Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains that is endearing, funny, and a moment of personal growth. Not many adults are able to take constructive criticism. Fewer are able make changes based on that criticism.

James Clement, perhaps the largest, strongest survivor ever to play the game hurt his knee and the tribe was considering voting him off for being injured. In an attempt the get him to stay, his friend, Amanda Kimmel, tried to explain to him how he could convince the others that he should stay. She told him to show them that he could run. She also took the opportunity to inform him that he was eating too many of the tribe’s bananas. She also said that if he wanted to have one, he must ask everyone around him if they wanted one first.

James not only took the note, but put it into practice. He had a race with fellow tribe member J.T. and lost, but remained smiling. As they walked away from his defeat he asked, “Hey J.T., would you like a banana?”

 

6. Rob Establishes Leadership

Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains had some of the strongest personalities to compete in a single season. So to see a single person (Rob Mariano) take control of them was impressive.

At the start of the season, everyone on the Villains tribe was trying to make fire without flint. Randy Bailey said, “If you don’t have flint and steel you can’t make fire. Not by rubbing two sticks together.” Rob, undeterred, said he wanted to try it anyway and convinced the tribe to give it a shot. As the tribe worked together and some smoke started to billow out, the doubtful members of his tribe (including Randy) looked at Rob in awe. As Rob brought the embers down to the rest of the wood, Randy said, “You’re in charge down here too. None of us are going to do anything.”

The look on their faces said it all. They worshipped him. It’s insane to have that kind of power amongst so many strong personalities.

 

7. The Burden of Power

On Survivor: Redemption Island, Rob Mariano may have played the best game of Survivor to date. He built personal relationships with everybody, used his knowledge of past games and star power to influence them, and did an obscene amount of verbal legwork to get people to vote how he wanted, when he wanted.

And there’s a private moment with the cameras where he looks off to the side and admits just how tiring it all is that always makes me laugh. It’s such an honest moment. It not only shows us how difficult playing Survivor (and playing it well) can be, but just how tired he is. His body language and tone say it all, he doesn’t want to do it anymore. But he has to if he wants to win.

“It seems like no matter what the situation on Survivor, I have to do the dirty work because everybody else is too stupid to do it. So I basically told Phillip we’re voting for Grant. Then I had to go to Philip, Ashley, and Natalie: ‘We’re voting for Grant.’ Then I had to go to Grant, ask Grant which way he wanted to go, if he wanted to go with Philip or if he wanted to go with Natalie … It’s a lot of work. It’s exhausting. It really is.”

 

8. Spencer Carries the Team

There’s a momentum to the competition between tribes in Survivor. Early on, (especially if there are more than two tribes) one tribe typically gets dominated. They lose over, and over, and over again until their tribe is so empty that all tribes have to be broken down and reorganized just so the competitions can continue.

I suspect one of the reasons for this is that certain groups of people simply don’t work well together. And when you’re on that losing team, in the middle of a competition that’s not going well, it’s very easy to give up.

In Survivor: Cagayan, this was the case with the Luzon tribe. They got whittled down to four members, largely because they insisted on keeping around a woman (J’Tia Taylor) who threw away their rice and was an incredibly poor competitor in challenges.

In one such competition, Luzon was losing once again. And in this moment, Spencer Bledsoe, a 21 year-old kid, refused to give up. Staring down at a team that had never won and probably could never win, he didn’t quit, he simply tried harder.

The challenge was to swim underwater to a series of buoys, each at varying depths, release them all one by one, then collect them all and shoot them into a hoop. None of Spencer’s teammates could get the deepest buoys so Spencer had to get them all, back to back. Afterwards, he temporarily collapsed from exhaustion, only to get back up again and do the shooting for the team, refusing to concede defeat.

I’ve never seen a more desperate, solo attempt to carry a survivor team. And it’s precisely this unbridled determination that made Spencer a fan favourite.

 

9. Jeff Probst Talk-Back

Jeff Probst’s job is to narrate what the other survivors are doing in the challenges. Sometimes he adds some of his personal opinion. And one time a survivor took exception to it.

In Survivor: Cook Islands, there was a challenge to drop cannonballs from a boat into an underwater target. Jeff commented that the Raro tribe “just wasted a cannonball.” To which competitor Jonathan Penner said, “Oh please, Jeff.” And not missing a beat, Jeff narrated, stone-faced: “Jonathan, getting frustrated with me.”

Hilarious.

 

10. The Robfather

If survivor is in fact scripted, this was their best.

On Survivor: All Stars, after getting Lex to save his wifey, Amber, Rob betrayed the “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” nature of that deal, and orchestrated Lex to be voted out.

Before Rob did that, though, he told Lex to his face (since they were friends) that he was not going to vote with him or make an alliance with him. Lex was furious.

“You’ve got more allegiance to them than you’ve got to me? After asking me for a special friend favour,” Lex said. “It’s about being betrayed by my friend.”

Rob goes, “Honestly I don’t know what you want me to say, Lex.”

Lex: “I want you to say that you’re going to truthful to the word that you gave to me.”

Rob: “Make no mistake about it Lex, between you and I, and you want to put our friendship on the line, I’ll put our friendship on the line for this. The word I gave you was that if I could take care of you I will. I’m sorry, I cannot.”

No other survivor moment has such a mutual, raw emotion behind it, because these people knew each other; liked each other. The betrayal was genuine. The game move was personal.

Recently I started rewatching Smallville. I was skeptical about the early seasons, but discovered season one had a rare, naive spirit that was warm and healing.

Season two felt like it was trying to be better than season one and ended up being worse. Many of the problems I mentioned in the first season (formulaic, simplistic villains, single note characters) are ALL addressed this season. You can see them trying to fix those things. But while they make small advances towards being a better show, they fall short of making a season that is as emotionally rewarding as the first.

1. It Still Don’t Make No Sense

In this season they introduce Red Kryptonite, which changes Clark from cautious, polite, selfless hero into boisterous, confident jerk who isn’t afraid of showing everyone what he can do. It’s a complete shift in behaviour. He rides a motorcycle down the school sidewalk and then attacks his Father in the parking lot. Everyone close to him sees him behave differently, but somehow only a single person addresses it at the end of the episode.

That’s irresponsible storytelling.

 

2. People Are Still Pretty

Like. So pretty. It’s overwhelming.

 

3. More Father Storylines

I guess they’re trying to make “Fathers” a theme. Lex’s Father, Lionel, is in more episodes this season and he Lex have repeated, megalomaniacal conflicts. The reason why they’re fighting isn’t established in a strong, emotional foundation, so a lot of their fighting always feels like, “here we go again.”

Meanwhile, Lana makes contact with her biological Father and attempts a relationship with him. Then there’s Clark who argues with both his Fathers, as we’re introduced to (the voice of) Jor-El this season. Clark argues with Jonathan about whether or not Lex is a good guy and about what he’s allowed to do. The conflict with Jor-El is kind of similar. Clark wants to be his own man, but he isn’t yet. And see? He’s torn between what Clark Kent’s Father wants for him and what Kal-El’s Father wants for him.

Personally, the “Father Conflict” bell is rung a little too much this season.

 

4. Christopher Reeve, Man

Christopher Reeve, the Clark Kent/Superman from the 70’s and 80’s movies, has a cameo in Smallville. I never saw the George Reeves portrayal (and you can’t ignore the animated Superman voiced by Tim Daly), but Christopher Reeve’s Superman was the best. Every Superman we’ve looked at since, we compare to him.

If you weren’t aware, Christopher Reeve was involved in a horse riding accident and was paralyzed at 43. He died at age 52. I don’t put much stock in Hollywood deaths, but I did this one. I remember I forced people to gather and commemorate it.

I’d forgotten he was in Smallville. It was good to see him alive again, accompanied by the faint theme from the old Christopher Reeve Superman movies.

 

5. The Cave, The Cave, The Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaave

In episode ten, Clark discovers this cave with Native American paintings on the wall. We learn that these cave paintings describe a legend that sounds a lot like Clark. They say things like, “a man will fall from the sky” and, “he will have the strength of ten men.”

It’s a different take on the Superman mythology and it’s a little weird. My biggest problem with it, though, is that Clark is constantly going down to these caves. And he keeps bumping into people he knows. “What were you doing down here, Clark?” they ask. What is anyone doing down there? They’re staring at the goddamn walls at symbols they can’t even read. AND EVERYONE KEEPS GOING DOWN THERE.

It’s frustrating.

The unfortunate side effect is that the closer Clark moves to his alien heritage, the further the series moves from the humanity that makes the show so good.

 

6. Fewer Meteor Rock Freaks

Season two focuses less on meteor rock freaks being created and more on other threats: hostage situations, a youth-sucking woman, and teen hormones.

While there are still a lot of meteor rock related conflicts, whenever meteor rocks are involved it feels more like they happened to be a part of the story, rather than directly instigating the conflict.

 

7. It’s Trying to Grow Up

In season one, everyone gets saved and you knew everyone was going to be OK. Season two doesn’t want to do that. For example, Clark doesn’t save everyone and has to learn how to accept that. And while this is a necessary story to tell, its execution lacks pathos. In the episode, one of the characters Clark saves is dying and there’s nothing Clark can do about it. In their last moment together, the character tells Clark that he’s going to save a lot of people and that Clark shouldn’t ever give up. There’s no exchange between the characters of what they mean to each other, so there’s no sense of loss.

It kind of encapsulates the problem with Smallville‘s second season. Despite being the series’ second installment, we’re witnessing a show that’s very young. Much like its characters, it’s trying to figure out what it wants to be. It’s trying to be a better TV show and failing. And while it loses some of the purity and warmth of the first season, season two is the awkward teenage years we must all go through before we grow up.