Okay, I didn’t want to do two new reality-show casts in the same week over at Monkey See (go visit if you haven’t yet!), but they unveiled the new cast of Survivor. The new cast! Of Survivor!

(The embed code on the video doesn’t work — way to go, geniuses! — so I encourage you to start with the “Meet The Cast” video you can get to from here.)

I am pretty jazzed that they’re back in Africa. There have been an awful lot of similar-looking island seasons, if you leave out China, a season just about everyone liked more than I did. I also have to say, there’s rarely been an opening line that instantly turned me off quite like Michelle squeaking, “I’ve never been farther than the Bahamas!”

I love all the animals. I hope the little gorilla guys (I apologize to them if I am misidentifying them) are around a lot, and the hippos, and all that. I’ve seen more underwater shots of schools of fish in the last several seasons than you can shake a Hawaiian sling at, and I’m very ready for a change.

I’m utterly bereft that the cast bios this season on the CBS site don’t include the “Favorites” that they’ve had…I thought every season until now? I loved those! Every year, somebody’s bio would say, “Favorite book: N/A.” And I just always knew that person was going to be a pistol. How can I begin the season without knowing whether someone’s favorite snack is Gummi Bears? HOW?

I will begin my actual analysis by saying that I think Matty presents the absolute worst case for receiving a million dollars that I have ever seen. Not only does the video make him look like an utter dick, but here’s the summary from his bio: “Matty Whitmore knows first-hand what it’s like to have a lot and what’s it’s like to lose it all. At the age of 18, Whitmore inherited a trust fund from his grandparents, allowing him to live a comfortable life in paradise until partying it all away. Now at the age of 29, Whitmore wants the opportunity to find out what he’s capable of doing on his own and believes SURVIVOR holds the answer.” Oh, I would totally want to give that guy a million bucks, wouldn’t you? Inherited a trust fund and partied it away in paradise, and now wants another gigantic pile of free money? Step right up, Abs McGee, and collect your haul!

The other jaw-dropper: Crystal. Won a gold medal in the 4×400? A gold medal? Four years ago? That is by far the most impressive-on-paper athlete they have ever cast, not to mention the most recently kind-of-famous. I can’t wait to see her in challenges; I really can’t. I hope there’s a running challenge where she’s up against Matty O’Partypants.

Another observation: Look at all the (relatively) old people. Randy (who looks like Brett Favre gone to seed) is 49, Bob is 58, and Gillian is 61. Compare that to the China cast, where Chicken, at 47, was the only person over 40. Bob is actually my favorite out of the gate, which makes him an obvious target for early elimination. Go read his bio and tell me that’s not an outstanding set of qualifications for this game. Physics teacher with a degree in forestry who’s worked on a research boat? Skunk relocater? BONE COLLECTING? (Boston accent?) I’m yours, Bob.

I find Randy’s bio utterly hilarious, mostly because I can’t tell at all how it’s going to manifest: “Randy Bailey wants to be personally responsible for crushing the hopes and dreams of all other contestants with delusions of winning SURVIVOR. He considers himself a ruthless bully who enjoys picking on those that were not blessed with his strength or intellect.” Not enough for you? “His biggest pet peeves are cell phones and overly religious people, and he says he doesn’t allow either in his home or car.” Some of it is obviously attention-seeking, but that is genuinely funny, and I sort of can’t wait to meet the guy. I think he’ll get voted off in about thirty seconds, but until then, I hope he’s the good kind of ruthless bully.

The fact that Gillian has applied for the show fifteen times is of some concern to me. On the one hand, it means she really wants to do it. On the other hand, it means that they’ve decided fourteen times that she wouldn’t be a good choice. I like a good “fifteen times is the charm” story as much as anyone, but…you know what I mean?

Corinne has carefully studied the Linda Hate-O-Matic, and she is hammering hard on every point. She is catty! She’s a gorgeous bitch! She is hilarious and says what you only think! She is the hottest, baddest, spiciest zzzzzzzz… I do like the fact that she’s 29, meaning they have caught her just at the moment in her life where her entire approach to her personality is about to expire.

Aw, look how cute Charlie is. I love a lawyer who hasn’t yet soured on the human race. And he’s from the Ivy League, meaning Jeff Probst can passive-aggressively attempt to put him down for thinking he’s so smart.

Susie is depicted in the video discussing her own farts, and therefore, I will not be talking about her.

I’m not sure I understand how Paloma eats and pays rent. I’m also not sure how she survived in Kenya among the “natives and wild animals” (very, very, very unfortunate phrasing, whatever idiot wrote that passage), but she’s a very pretty girl, and at least she doesn’t announce that she will be waving her boobs to hypnotize the rest of the players.

Michelle could be kind of cool, or she could be kind of…like she is in the video, with the thing about the Bahamas. It’s unclear. I do love her swimsuit. Married and divorced by 19 sounds like an interesting story, but it also sounds vaguely upsetting. We shall see.

My guess: I’m going to love Dan, and everyone else will think he’s boring. Don’t worry, Dan. The last guy that happened to won a million dollars, and I don’t think he’s weeping over it.

I’m trying not to see every formerly homeless person with a nickname through the “Dreamz” lens, but Dannny/”GC” is kind of asking for it. I’m sort of concerned that “GC” stands for something like “Great! Cheerful!” Help me out, here, GC. Let’s hope it turns out to stand for something dignified.

Jessica, a/k/a “Sugar.” Oy. Double oy. Oy oy. What the hell is a pin-up model? How is it different from a regular model? Is there still such a thing as a pin-up? Is she a model in the ’40s? Does it just mean she wears red lipstick? I’m tired already, seriously.

Kelly sounds like a good athlete, and I love the concept of a “denim expert” (?), but the whole “don’t be fooled by her looks” thing smacks of so very many people I have not enjoyed in the past.

Good to know Survivor is on the Geeks Are Cool train, bringing in Ken the professional gamer. Unfortunately, Ken’s bio says that he is looking forward to people underestimating him. He does not explain what it is that would make people think, “Hey, that young, fit guy; he’ll be easy to beat!” It says nobody would believe he climbed Mt. Fuji; really? He looks exactly like a young outdoorsy guy to me. Do you suppose the show has gotten so out of touch with reality that it thinks that we all think that all fit guys look like they lift at the gym every day?

Marcus is cute, I suppose, and who doesn’t like a doctor? But the redundancy of “first I was the Hottest Bachelor, and now I am on Survivor” starts to make me tired. I also like the part about how he wants to be an anesthesiologist, but also is interested in “medical reporting.” In other words, “If you’d like to give me my own doctor show, that would also be fine.”

So far, Ace and Jacquie’s pages are missing in action. I promise to add them as they appear. So far, Ace looks like a stuck-up roll-on deodorant and Jacquie looks not-exciting, but perhaps their bios will suggest different.

The final two/final three

There are people for whom the fact that Parvati, Cirie, and Amanda were surprised by a final two, as in the first twelve seasons, rather than a final three, as in the last three seasons, seemed wildly unfair. How could something that’s been done in fully one-fifth of the existing seasons not be done again? How could the rules of the show be different from what the cast anticipated on the assumption that this season would be done just like last season, when all they had to go on was that in almost every season, something is changed so that this season is not just like last season?

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Luke Burbank was nice enough to invite me to discuss Saved By The Bell on his radio show on Friday, so if you’re interested in a discussion of why Screech was so freaky, it’s at the beginning of the 8:00 hour you can download at this link (the May 16 show):

http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=140&cmsid=93

Owing to the Thursday-Sunday schedule of the final week and a two-week project I have been buried in for the last two weeks, I didn’t get to the last three hours PLUS REUNION yet, and I don’t think I can face the task of making my way scene-by-scene through four hours of such a boo-inducing final jaunt. However, you guys always have such interesting things to say about Survivor that I think what we should do is just have a discussion in several parts about how all this ended up. I’ll start. (Heh.)

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The show. Grow up.

I didn’t really watch Sex And The City when it was on. My friends weren’t among the people for whom it was a major cultural phenomenon, and I only had HBO some of that time, I think. I caught it a few times, but I always found it annoying and unlikable, and every time I read about how this was so true and so reflective of what real friendships among women are really like, I wanted to throw up. I will acknowledge that it showed female friends discussing sex, and it’s true that female friends discuss sex, but not all the time, and not with such unrelenting whining.

I never liked any of the women in the episodes I saw. They seemed obnoxious, self-centered, and kind of stupid, which probably had something to do with the fact that they never talked about anything but men, ever. It felt to me like the message — culturally speaking, that is — was that the real truth about groups of women friends was that they never discussed anything except men, which I found…not so much offensive as just kind of dumb and false.

With the movie coming out, HBO rotated the final season into its On Demand lineup, and I figured that if I was going to see the movie and have an opinion about the movie and participate in the conversation, I should watch a season and understand where they were coming from.

Interestingly, as I watched the final season, I found myself more charmed by it than I expected. It was true that they spent a ridiculous amount of time talking about their relationships to the exclusion of everything else. It was also true that I had no patience for Carrie’s relationship with Mr. Big, because when you’ve agonized over the same rope-yanking dude for a certain number of years, it’s time to let go of the rope. But I understood better than I had how people found it sort of friendly and fun, and my sense was that as more of the women got into stable relationships, they were acting less like morons.

I’m always very pleased when things are better than I expect, so I figured I’d get hold of the first season and watch it from the beginning.

And immediately, I thought, “Ohhhhh, this is what it was when I didn’t like it.”

I found the pilot absolutely dreadful — clichéd and cutesy and exactly the sort of fake-snide show that drives me nuts. The women were awful and vapid and bitchy, and I couldn’t imagine why anyone would be friends with any of them, let alone why they would all be friends with each other.

If you recall the pilot, it partly involves Carrie deciding to “have sex like a man” by receiving and then not giving. This, of course, is not “having sex like a man.” This is “having sex like a jerk who’s bad in bed,” and the fact that this was presented as some sort of hard truth really baffles me. The only people I know who try to sell the line that men are hard-wired to be selfish are selfish men who want women to believe that they can’t expect anything better. “Hey,” they’ll say, “I’m not defending it — it’s just how men are.” (Subtext: “It’s how I am, and if I can convince you that it’s how all men are, then I can convince you to put up with it instead of throwing my ass out of your apartment and telling me to shove it, as you should.”)

I was surprised, I guess, by how gross and backward I thought the pilot was, considering how many times I’ve seen it praised as somehow empowering or modern. In a way, it’s a tribute to someone that over the course of six seasons, it went from something I could barely get through to something I kind of liked, but I’ve rarely seen a show where the differences between the early and late parts of the run are so pronounced. A certain amount of settling is inevitable as characters get more layered and different decisions are made about tone, but…wow.

I wonder where the movie will fall.

Hey, you know what’s awesome and sort of terrifying in person? Jonathan Penner’s big old leg scar.

THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.

I know things are slow over here — the truth of the matter is that when there are good work-related things happening, it does tend to slow me down on this end.

In news of my cultural ramblings, I am almost irrationally excited about the season finale of The Office tonight, and particularly about the finale of 30 Rock, which I hear only good things about from people who have seen it. I’ve lost the will to care about Survivor, I fear, because…of the people who remain, whom am I rooting for again? I think I don’t quite know.

Let’s throw it to you: what upcoming finales are you most looking forward to?

Previously on Flossing My Teeth With Blah Blah Blah I Am Great, Go Me!!!1!!1!: Well, first Ozzy was gone, and then Natalie “engineered” — by which we mean “managed, after almost making impossible with a singular act of idiocy” — the ousting of poor Jason. She had everything in the world to feel good about, because you have to get up pretty early in the morning to fool Jason. Seriously, you’re not there by about 11:15, 11:30? He’s going to be long gone. He’s got places to go and games of three-card monte to enthusiastically bet upon. Also, James had an owie. And Jonathan had an owie. And Kathy had a [twirls finger by ear]. Now, only James and Erik are left now to represent the penis-having community! Five on two! Ladies first! Gitchy gitchy ya ya ya!

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Let’s just make this Love The Paper Day. Joe just told you how much he loves it, leaping off of the wonderful essay at FourFour about it. And I love it, too.

I can’t really improve on what Joe and FourFour had to say, except possibly by adding that what I find so great about the show is the perspective it provides that you rarely see. Most of us were closer socially to the other kids on the paper than to Amanda, I’d guess — sort of in the middle somewhere, not friendless wads but not superstar athletes, invested in certain things with great enthusiasm but not necessarily publicly acclaimed for those things. And most kids in that position, unfortunately, fall victim at some point — not as often as these kids do with her, but at some point — to the trap of picking on somebody who’s EVEN LOWER on the totem pole than you are.

What I think the show does so well is demonstrate that these other kids aren’t really being mean to be malicious. They’re being mean socially. They’re being mean as a way of hanging out with their friends. Alex, who genuinely likes Amanda in many ways, is acting around other kids like he hates her because it’s a way to bond with them. I don’t think they’re trying to hurt her. They resent her for being in charge of them, and they find her annoying (I would, too), but mostly, they’re just indifferent to the idea that this would be legitimately hurtful.

(Oh, also hilarious? The way nerds never know they’re nerds, like when they were like, “Our incredibly cool group activity where we will mack on ladies and exclude the unclean is a Dave Matthews Band show.”)

And for kids who are in high school now, I think it’s potentially very powerful to be shown the juxtaposition of them all just hanging out and having fun, not really meaning any harm, and Amanda left at home on her own. She’s very resilient, but she’s aware of being left out. I think it’s a powerful image seeing them all having a great time together and then realizing that while they’re laughing about not answering when she calls, she’s awkwardly explaining to the camera that nobody’s answering the phone. It’s an interesting experiment in showing social consequences that usually remain hidden.

Anyway, it’s a really good show. Really good.

I didn’t really think I had it in me anymore to be shocked at anything that happened involving Paula Abdul, but I will freely admit that last night’s incident, in which she began critiquing a performance that hadn’t happened yet, gave me pause.

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