Jan 3 Sat Season 3 – Africa

January 3, 2026Uncategorized

The phantom menace

By: Jeff Pitman | Published: October 12, 2001

Boran, doing what they do best Mark Burnett promised the first three minutes of this show would be edge-of-your-seat exciting, and boy, did he ever deliver. First there was the ever-so-slightly altered Survivor theme song, now stretched out for added annoyance. Coupled with this was the fascinating visual imagery of sixteen pampered, overfed Americans riding in a truck emblazoned with the show’s title, as it moves past native Kenyans, specially bedecked in traditional tribal garb for the benefit of the ubiquitous TV cameras. And, in the long-awaited foreshadowing of the show’s “explosive dynamics,” hordes of hungry-looking village children raced out after the truck, begging for food, trinkets, anything. The truck responded by kicking up a cloud of dust in their faces. Host Jeff Probst yelled out to the worried contestants, “Never fear, our driver has a machine gun!” Without further ado, the Survivors proceeded to the Shaba National Reserve, which had been “virtually untouched by humans,” except, of course, for the massive production camp containing water purification and sanitation systems, an internet cafe, and legions of reporters and camera operators from entertainment news shows.

Upon arrival, the gun-toting driver orders everyone off the truck, quickly, because he’s in a rush to get home and spend the next six weeks not getting paid to drive tourists through the park, thanks to CBS shutting down Shaba for “security” reasons. The tribes split up, and begin the long trek to their respective camps. The Boran tribe, wearing a festive yellow, quickly starts bickering. Diane, apparently intent on proving that the U.S. Postal Service is in fact speedy and reliable, grabs the map, and swiftly sprints off out of visual range of her tribemates. Sadly, in doing so, Diane expends all of her energy in the first three minutes, and spends the rest of the next two-and-a-half days laying around. Ethan, who built up massive arm strength kicking soccer balls and jumping around to prevent them from going into the net, responds by throwing down the supplies he’s carrying. The tribe quickly decides that, since they can’t drink the local water, they should dump out two-thirds of the free, drinkable water the show gave them. They look to Kelly, who Mark Burnett describes as “off the charts” in intelligence, despite a merely above-average 1520 SAT score, and she agrees this is an excellent idea. Meanwhile, Samburu, clad in red scarves that Brandon somehow finds a way to make look pink, scampers along to their campsite, chattering like a squadron of rabid chipmunks.

After reaching their camps, the two tribes are faced with three tasks: (1) rebuild the thorny fence around the camp, to cause lions wandering through to get stickers in their fur; (2) find the water conveniently shown on their maps, and (3) boil the water over a fire. Both tribes remarkably accomplish the first two objectives with seeming competence, although not without extensive bitching and moaning about not just having the water conveniently packaged in clean, disposable plastic bottles. Then both tribes proceed to further demonstrate that, despite the fairy tales told by the Boy Scouts, Americans are genetically incapable of starting a fire by rubbing two sticks together. But all is not lost.

Spurred on by the extensive complaints of their teammate, Tamponia Richter, Samburu rifles through their first aid kit, looking for a muzzle. Unfortunately, all they find is a telescope, but they use this to start a fire. Having completed the planning part of the project, Kim P nobly steps aside, and allows Silas to do the actual work. Suddenly, a crisis emerges. As smoke begins to rise from the tinder, Kim P frantically warns Silas, “Don’t inhale the smoke! We don’t want you passing out like that Skupin guy, and falling face-first into that slightly-warmed pile of dried elephant dung!” Thankfully, Kim P’s quick actions avert certain tragedy, flames billow from the burning dung, and Samburu all take the hits of ecstasy Linda found in the first aid kit, and commence dancing around and hugging each other. Lucky for them, because now it’s time for the immunity challenge, where they win fire anyway. More dancing around, chattering, and hugging ensues.

Meanwhile, back at Boran, things are not looking good. Because Lex is developing a blister, the tribe decides to just give up trying to build a fire, and instead just sit around the campsite, mistrusting each other. Mark Burnett seizes upon this opportunity to revisit his favorite theme, “The guy with the dark skin just can’t be trusted.” Passing around a can of delicious cherries, the Borans decide that, even though the first people in the circle are going to end up eating more than the last people, Clarence is an evil, selfish troublemaker, because he took two (despite weighing more than twice as much as Kelly, who weaseled her way into the head of the line). Everyone decides to sneak off to the water hole, and talk about Clarence behind his back. They leave Clarence behind to watch Diane, who, despite her claims that her job has given her lots of experience walking fast while carrying heavy loads, collapsed at the challenge. Everyone agrees that, damnit, they just can’t trust Clarence, and that they had better hustle back to camp before he eats all their food. But first they pause to enjoy the delightful antics of singing Tom, who we suspect may actually be a CG character like Jar-Jar Binks, or may perhaps have been digitally spliced in from an old episode of “Hee Haw”.

Tom provides the insight that, from the smell, they could tell Clarence had been eatin’ some beans. Being the brilliant tacticians they are, instead of forcing Clarence to squat over the fire while they rub sticks together, Boran decides to just spend the rest of the day yelling at him. Especially Tom, whom we now suspect may have been digitally spliced in from an old episode of “Sally Jessy Raphael.” Then they’re off to tribal council, where, despite the last 15 minutes of misdirection due to Mark Burnett’s editing, they near-unanimously vote off Diane.

Brave new hurl

By: Jeff Pitman | Published: October 19, 2001

Drink up, baby Did anything actually happen in this episode? We must have blinked. There seemed to be a lot of talking, and tension, and drama. But that was in Samburu, who were shown because, well, we’re not sure why. In between winning both challenges, Silas writes a completely original play called “Romeo and Juliet,” casting himself as both leads, two star-crossed almost-teen actors deeply in love with each other, yet torn between the families who claim them as their own. To the right, the gray-haired Montyburns family, whose aged members grouse continuously about the slackitude of “those teenagers over there. Silas, say you won’t associate with their kind,” the Montyburnses implore our hero. On the left, the Crapulet family, three youngsters who feel entitled to sit around and bitch and sigh about bossy Colonel Frank. “Did we just see you talking to one of those old farts, Silas? Pray, let it never happen again!” Tamponia Crapulet commands. Torn, Silas, and his lover Silas, are doomed to an inescapable tragic end, as they go off by themselves, and…. oh wait, they won immunity again, so this was all meaningless. Still, Silas, the brilliant auteur of this tragicomedy, is convinced that no person on earth has ever thought of such a brilliant concept, and is deeply enamored with his spectacular script. “Nobody is ever going to be able to tell I’m acting,” he says, looking rakishly, deep, deep into the camera.

Hmmm, now that we think about it, there was some other stuff that happened. In a shocking revelation, we learn that Clarence was nervous about going to tribal council after the bean incident. Who knew? After killing twenty minutes, slowly, delicately revealing this compelling piece of insider information (you can see two more hours of it if you pay $20 to CBS) – apparently included to assist all those who were finding out who knocked up Rachel last week – there is a brief but unremarkable reward challenge, in which all of Samburu’s Christmas wishes are granted. This week, Mama Kim gets to be The Boran Who Falls Down A Lot, after rochambeauing Ethan for the honor.

Meanwhile, back at Samburu, we finally get to see Carl and Frank in action, and quickly learn that both are completely insane. Carl is convinced that, not only is Silas absolutely, positively going to help vote off Lindsey and Brandon, he’s also interested in buying some magnetic insoles and some dietary supplements. Frank, oozing the smooth, subtle charm of the loud, ranting homeless guy on the corner, spends a lot of time screaming at the top of his lungs about cement and dams, and how much he hates that bitch Lindsey, who is standing two feet away. But this is just between us, right Silas, old pal? Linda and Teresa help build a shelter, while Brandon makes a little fort, consisting entirely of his body, two sticks, and the log he’s sitting on. Lindsey pouts a lot, and Kim P gets to play the Samburu Not Appearing In This Episode.

More big, shocking, amazing surprises await at Camp Boran. They don’t trust each other! Who knew? Everyone seems to be in alliance with everyone else, but is paranoid about all those other guys. Except Jessie, who bravely vomits until her lips peel off, then refuses to replenish her bodily fluids with the freshly-boiled water, because it’s, well, in strict medical terms, “icky.” Ethan rolls his eyes a lot. Clarence, desperate to move the subject away from beans, spends two hours in his confessional regaling the cameramen with fascinating stories about the importance of water. This week, the character of “Tom” has been cut-and-pasted from an old John Wayne movie, but Mark Burnett had the audio spliced in backwards, so as to avoid any copyright infringement lawsuits.

But the biggest, shockingest, amazingest, suprisingest surprise is still to come. That’s right, it’s the predictable revolting diet challenge for immunity, which for added suspense, has been shown twice an hour in commercials for the last week, written up in US weekly, and for good measure, given an hour-long preview on the Early Show. For the two people hiding in a cave in Afghanistan who did not know this ahead of time: they drink blood. And they like it. This of course took several takes, because Mark Burnett kept running onto the set yelling, “Cut! Cut! You’re supposed to recoil at this, people! What the hell is wrong with you? You’re not allowed to have fun here! This is Survivor! You’re supposed to suffer!” Nonetheless, it all comes down to a drink-off (shocking!) and someone wins. Fortunately for Boran, that person is Linda, giving them an excellent opportunity to take a nighttime stroll with their torches.

In a remarkable turn of events, Boran finds itself once again voting off the woman who was sick. This is, of course, news to Jessie, who has fully recovered. For this segment, the character of Tom is spliced in from a previous episode, the one in which he voted for Carl Bilancione. Clarence vows to spend at least four hours tomorrow telling the cameramen how much he loves water, what its molecular formula is, and other useful forms of water, such as ice. Viewers around the world gnash their teeth, lamenting the fact that there is only thirteen hours, plus a recap episode, of this sterling entertainment product left, unless they fork over twenty bucks to CBS.

Bonus coverage!

Cranky Andy’s bullet-riddled analysis!

By: Cranky Andy | Published: October 19, 2001

I think Tom keeps voting for Clarence for two reasons:
(1) Clarence is the only name he can remember
(2) Thanks to the availability of initials, Clarence’s is the only name he can spell.
Tom stated that he voted for Clarence to remind him of his transgressions. Hello Tom, you only talked about it two minutes ago. I think he knows.
Frank keeps a secret about as well as a hair dresser. Telephone, Telegram, Tell-a-Frank. I guess when you are locked away in your cabin preparing for Ruby Ridge II, it doesn’t matter how loud you talk.
Teresa is no Tina. Note to Teresa: When someone asks you if you are in an alliance that does not involve them, you say no!
Carl gets the award for the first person to trot out the “They knew what they signed up for when they came here and so I am lying to them all” speech. Way to go, Carl! Welcome to the world of Jeff Varner and Richard Hatch.
Silas is about as smart as a bag of hammers. Hey Silas, what is better, to be the leader of a group of chumps who would never vote you out, or to be the token muscle in a group of wily vets who will vote you out in their first chance? Never mind, just smile and look pretty for the cameras.
Kim P. rocks. She is smart and athletic and durable and quiet. She is so gone after the merger.
If the trend of kicking off Boran members continues, they are going to have all the food they need. Have another can of beans, Clarence!