First Impressions – Survivor Guatemala

I have been a fan of Survivor since its conception. It is the ultimate competition that challenges both physical and mental abilities and because of that I come back week after week, season after season. But much like the daddy of all reality shows, The Real World, Survivor in recent season has routinely cast beauty over personality. This led me to stop watching religiously The Real World around the Chicago season. Ironically I still love the Real World/Road Rules Challenges. I have yet to reach my breaking point with Survivor because even with the recent lack of quality character, there still is the Lord of the Flies element that keeps me intrigued.

For this season’s cast, it seems to be younger than ever with only four contestants over the age of 35. Well make that three because the oldest person there was already voted off. We even have first celebrity in Survivor history, and by celebrity I mean some one who is so obscure, he couldn’t even make it on The Surreal Life. The “celebrity” in question is former NFL quarterback, Gary Hogeboom. The best part of the whole episode was when Gary explained that he changed his last name so no one else would recognize it. Seriously Gary, 90% of the other contestants were not even born when you were playing. Now Dan Marino, Joe Montana, or Bernie Kosar may have to change their names but not Gary Hogeboom. Not too mention, if he was so worried, why not change the first name too?

The first advertised big surprise happened last night with the return of Stephanie and Bobby Jon from last season’s Palau cast. Much like I hated when they brought back players that were already voted during the Pearl Island season, I really dislike this move. The already lost, it’s time to give two other people a chance. It’s not like either are likely to boost ratings as Survivor has had contestant rating no matter who was in the cast. If I were part of their tribe, they would be public enemy #1 for me.

As for the setting, Guatemala should make for a quality environment. Jungle setting always seems to make the shows better much like the Amazon. One thing that creeps me out is that one tribe will be living in Mayan ruins. That really can’t be a good idea, look what happened to the dudes that went into King Tut’s tomb. And I’m not sure it’s a coincidence that the guy, a.k.a. the warriors of the tribe, which won the chance to live in the ruins, got sick. Had I been in one of the tribes, I would have thrown the challenge because I have no desire to be cursed by some ancient Mayan curse. I would not be at all surprised if the Nakum tribe doesn’t win anything this season because of this.

Now for some prediction and other observations:

Most interesting day job: Magician’s Assistant
Will be most hated: Judd
Will be most loved: Margaret
Most likely to quit: Jamie
Most likely to hook up: Brianna & Jamie
Second big surprise: Winner of the loved one competition will join the game
Girl whom I still have dirty, dirty sex with even if she hadn’t showered for a month: Morgan
Next to be voted off: Blake
Winner: Cindy

Verdict: As much as I’ve complained about the last couple seasons of Survivor, I will still be watching this every Thursday at 8:00 as I tape Smallville and Everyone Hates Chris and will most likely rent this season’s Alias on DVD.