Episode 1.1

So I’m finally able to see the first season. I had missed it when it first aired. I started watching sometime into the second season after I had missed a little bit of the beginning. Now it’s around fourteen years later and I’m finally able to watch it for the first time. Keep in mind that I will only post updates about this season on Sundays, even though I will get to watch the season whenever I roll the right number until the season is done. What is the number that I have to roll? You see that depends on what show I’m watching gets off the list. Currently the list has six different options of stuff to watch with each number representing a different option. The numbers must correspond alphabetically with the shows that are on the list. Therefore, number one must be the soonest alphabetically. Number six is weird because it is for random shows that I recorded on VHS to watch later. While I know and you might know that I can record shows on my laptop, that doesn’t help me when there are three great things on TV to watch all on at the same time. So while choice six is perpetually catching up on recorded VHS shows (at the moment at least), the other five choices make sense alphabetically. The numbers must be rearranged should one be removed from the list and the next addition to the list is in another place alphabetically. You see, each number I roll means that I watch this particular show at this particular moment.

You might be wondering what the rolling list is. Or you might not care at all and wonder why I’m even talking about it can boring you to death. (Is it even possible to bore someone to death? I’d like to know if that can even happen.) You see, I want to post something in this blog before the actual post begins. I don’t know why I do this, I just know that I like doing this. You see, if I haven’t told you before, I am OCD about a lot of things. You see, there are six TV shows on DVD that I’m watching right now. I can add Survivor: Borneo to the list as soon as one of the current ones comes off for some odd reason. Each of the six things to watch is decided by the roll of a die. If I roll a one, I get to watch Futurama. If I roll a two, I get to watch Invader Zim. If I roll a three, I get to watch NCIS. If I roll a four, I get to watch Stargate SG-1. If I roll a five, I get to watch VeggieTales. And, as I’ve told you before, the number six being rolled lets me watch an old (by the time I’m able to watch it) episode of a TV show that I like to watch but aren’t able to tune into sooner until I can watch it when I find it on VHS. It can take a long time to catch up on it, but I will tell you that it gets a special exception sometimes where I’m allowed to watch it without having to roll for that option. And Survivor gets even more of an exception since I’m always making sure that I’m caught up with at least the episodes (even though I typically suck at doing various online Survivor things when the show is airing) of the current season.

(I switched this with the next paragraph so hopefully that doesn’t end up causing confusion. If it does, then read the next paragraph and then read this one.) Now, this list came with many problems. You see, I give some special priority to the shows on VHS that I want to watch. You see, when I get backed up, I really want to see what I missed. There are some very old programs on this list. Here’s a quick lesson into what is put there. Priority one shows are ones that I typically watch live. Priority two shows are ones that I typically record on my laptop. Priority three shows are ones that I typically record on VHS. I have to get caught up on the two recorded things as quickly as possible. You see, there are different rules with what I have to get caught up on. And there are different ways to ensure that I get caught up. Here’s the problem. I get bogged down with many of the recorded shows on VHS. When I have too many VHS tapes to get caught up on at once, I can’t watch any of the other five shows and thus cannot get done with one to have it replaced with Survivor: Borneo. I am also burning through all these jump aheads that I have (or used to have) for these TV shows on VHS because I feel that I shouldn’t be able to watch them all for nothing. So I have to get caught up on all of this so there are a more manageable number of VHS tapes to watch before I can go back to the random die roll list. And I really want to get back to the list. It bugs me that I want to watch this season for the first time and it is still on standby instead of on the actual list. But I’ll let you know when the problem is resolved because you’ll be seeing this when I actually can post it based on these crazy rules of mine (sorry for the long wait) and hope that it isn’t long after the 28^th season finale, if it is after it at all. Besides, the posts being during the summer may be less confusing to everyone. But we’ll see what ends up happening.

Since even an old Survivor season gets some sort of precedence on the list, I will cheat if needed to make sure that it can be placed on it. You see, for the moment at least, I’m forbidding the same letter from appearing at more than one number. But, I don’t have to have Survivor: Borneo listed as the letter s should Stargate SG-1 not be taken off of the list. It is currently set to be sent in at the letter b should s not be available when a show gets taken off of the list. These Survivor seasons don’t have to be the letter s rule is in place should I have to watch more than one old season at once. It’s only a matter of time before the next player to die has played more than one season. I hope that I wouldn’t get confused with all the various seasons that I could potentially be watching at the same time. I just hope that the letters don’t conflict with each other and all of their seasons are out on DVD (even though waiting to watch it until later when the set actually comes out may not be a bad thing). So, ultimately the thing on the list that ended up being removed first was Stargate SG-1. On 5-16-2014, I rolled the last item off of the list and it was exactly what I wanted to get off the list. I just have to roll a four whenever I want to watch Survivor: Borneo.

I’ve decided that with these old, first season blog posts, I am going to post the date that I’m doing things. I believe that I told you that I was so far behind on recorded shows on VHS tapes that I couldn’t role from the other things on the list. Well, on 5-13-2014, I was finally able to start rolling from the list again so I could work at having a choice removed from the list before I can replace it with the first season of Survivor. I’m dying to watch it and I’m sure that the few people that Google tells me reads my blog are probably interested in my thoughts on the first season. I really want to start watching the first season so I can finally find out all the stuff that happens in it, even though I already know most of what happens already. Every new blog post will come with the date that I watched this episode. When was I finally able to watch the first episode? That happened on 5-26-2014. Now let’s see what the first episode of the show is like.

In the first segment of the show, we get a brief introduction that’s nothing along the lines of what they’ve given any other season of the show. It’s so simple and brief. We then get to a ship that looks like a pirate ship. Jeff Probst introduces more activities during the mad rush of the beginning of the first game. We then get to a brief bio of each contestant. This is something that you really don’t see much anymore. It would be nice if they still did stuff like that, but it’s understandable how things change over time. But that show seems so different back then. Am I really watching Survivor? The Pagong tribe started to find life at camp difficult. The Tagi tribe started fighting amongst themselves pretty much when they first game to the beach. So between not surviving at camp and fighting within the party, which one would be worse for a tribe this soon in the game? Apparently, fighting amongst themselves was bad for the Tagi tribe, but just at the start.

B. B. and Ramona looked for a water hole and after an hour of searching, they found it. Not much was revealed there, but a longer edit of that search would be a good idea if they ever do a special DVD of B. B.’s time on Survivor using the extra footage of each season that they might still have. Rudy doesn’t know what MTV means. Nobody does. It used to be a music television channel but then they decided to replace the music with incredibly lame reality shows that aren’t on the same level as Survivor. Sonja gets a confessional in this episode which may help confirm my theory that the person who is voted out or otherwise leaves during an episode always gets a confessional. There is a rat race, or rat hunting, going on at Tagi. This caused some controversy when it happened among animal rights people. B. B. is a bit of a character when he’s on the game.

We get to the first challenge ever done in Survivor history. Jeff gave it an introduction which was probably needed the first time. Pagong already got fire at camp. Tagi tried to make it, but failed. They have to light every bit of fire that is there to help with the challenge. They also have to keep a hand on the thing with the fire on it. The challenge seems very short compared to what it becomes later. Pagong won the challenge. It looks like Gervase is already doing some of his showboating ways at the very beginning. Instead of fire in the form of flint, as we know it today, fire came in the form of waterproof matches. They then show the Tagi tribe after they lost the challenge. We then get to focus on Dirk reading a bible. He was the first contestant to be religious so you can thank or blame him for any other contestant being that way, depending on what your own beliefs are. People wonder who will get voted out tonight. Sonja thinks that she’s in danger since she was the reason that they closely lost the challenge. She was right. Jeff gives an introduction to tribal council and even sizes up how some of the contestants are faring in the game at this moment. I do wonder why he doesn’t still do that, since it can be a nice help to the game. But, you can see that other contestants size things up better in future seasons than you can now. Tribal council is different. Everyone is talking at once and they have to hit a dong when they enter the area. Jeff is actually terrible at tribal councils back in the day. We then get to the voting at tribal council and I get to hear the great classic tribal council music. Sue sort of quoted the weakest link game show when she voted against Sonja. Did that game show even exist yet? The votes were a bit scattered and random. Richard voted against Stacey. Stacey, Sonja, and Kelly all voted against Rudy. Everyone else (Rudy, Susan, Sean, and Dirk) were the majority that happened to form and voted out Sonja.

Now Sonja has earned the infamy of being the first person voted out of Survivor. Many people want first boots back because they never really got to play the game that much. But what are the chances that she returns to play the game again? I give it about a 45% chance that she’ll return to play the game again, since she is kind of old. I don’t know if she’s ever been considered as an alternate or not. But those are the odds that I’ve given for the moment.

Total confessional counts: Colleen- 0, Richard- 4, Gervase- 0, Jenna- 0, B. B.- 2, Sue- 2, Kelly- 2, Rudy- 4, Greg- 0, Sonja- 2, Gretchen- 1, Stacey- 1, Dirk- 1, Joel- 0, Sean- 1, Ramona- 2.

So, what can I make of the confessionals so far? Well, it looks like the Tagi members got more confessionals because they went to tribal council in this episode. I know that we’ll be seeing a lot more of some of these people in the future. Nobody had that many confessionals, but that’s to be expected at the beginning of the game. We have yet to see how the game will unfold since I heard that the postmerge is much more interesting than the first part of the game. I’ll let you know if the ranking of this season ever changes, since it isn’t listed that well at the moment. For now, this is Adam Decker, signing off.