Australian Survivor Report Card - Titans v Rebels - Episode 10
Featuring unpleasant dream worlds, early immunity challenges and unbottled lightning
Previously on Australian Survivor: Bees were spelt, Kelli played dumb and Charles was in charge (?)
Here’s the report card for the tenth episode of Titans v Rebels
Unpleasant Dream Worlds
Grade: D-
In the aftermath of the voting out of Garrick, New Titans beach is pretty much as you’d expect. Feras is humble in defeat, Aileen is ready to jump ship and Raymond is in a dream world of his own. (A rather more unpleasant dream world than we may have previously realised based on his later confessional, in which he took a wild shot out of nowhere at Aileen, claiming that she had no future once this game was finished, unless she was a multi-billionaire.)
Over on New Rebels, meanwhile, we see Rianna trying to also integrate into the majority. At one point, she says “I still don’t know where I sit” precisely at the point where the shot cuts to her sitting behind Caroline and Kitty.
So, that’s neatly done by the editors. Slightly annoying for them, though, that they had to cut around footage where Jaden accidentally walked into shot.
Early Immunity Challenges
Grade: C
Time for a challenge. An immunity challenge! Huh, that’s a bit early, isn’t it? I wonder what that means? I guess we’ll see.
Anyway, the challenge is a Survivor classic. A simple game of Pole’n’Ball Carry, Multi-Player Extended Net Tower Ball Catch.
Feras is good at the challenge, having clearly played it before, guiding the New Titans to the brink of victory with good net leadership. (A Tim Berners-Lee figure, if you will. Am I right, tech heads?)
But Jaden is dynamite at the challenge, to an extent that I can only assume he invented it. He drops five three-pointers in a row - or perhaps three five-pointers in a row, I wasn’t paying full attention - to snatch an improbable, cackling victory.
Unbottled Lightning
Grade: F-
Hey, remember last season when we had that amazing episode where Tribal Council was, like, forty minutes long and George outwitted Simon with one of the most genius plays ever seen in the history of the franchise? A moment so jaw-droppingly incredible that it made the New York Times list of the best television episodes of 2023.
Understandably, I guess, the Australian Survivor producers decided they’d rather quite like to catch lightning in a bottle a second time around.
Instead, they catch horseshit in a bottle, coming up with an awful twist that steals the votes of six players, effectively leaving their fate in the hands of whoever happened to win this particular parlour game. Just awful, dire, dreadful game mechanics in a season that had so far been blazing along without the need for any such nonsense.
A shame, too, because prior to the Tribal Council, there’d been some fun stuff. Winna, for example, remembered he had an idol, something he, like the entire viewing audience, had forgotten until that precise moment. Aileen, meanwhile, as part of her scheme to join the majority, put together a small playbook with more than eighty hairstyles she might wear and what vote combination they’d all indicate. And, of course, Valeria claimed that Feras was only ‘trying to save his butt cheeks’.
Good stuff, with plenty of options for a fun end to the episode. Sure, maybe we’d lose one of the bigger characters. But, hey, that sometimes happens in Survivor. All part of the game.
In much the same way that, y’know, denying two-thirds of the tribe any agency whatsoever isn’t (or shouldn’t be) part of the game.
Anyway, the twist was so awful that I tapped out and went to watch the cricket instead. Sorry, Australian Survivor. I’ll be back next episode when, hopefully, you’ve got this out of your system.
