Talking About Stuff, with Mike and Christiana

My favorite new show this season is Heroes

Mike's a busy guy and hasn't managed to watch it.

Studio 60 is also excellent.

If you haven't watched it, Heroes is darker than you might be expecting.

I've come to a decision that I'm going to cut back on the amount of TV I watch.

If you're always only half-watching a show, how much of a loss is it to stop watching altogether?

I'm traveling and don't have my DVR. It's like living in the dark ages.

Gilmore Girls sucks this season. It's been cut from my roster.

Veronica Mars has been cut too, but not because it sucks, just because it's lower on the list than other shows.

Shows that will not be cut: Heroes, Studio 60, Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, The office.

Survivor is a given

Mike had reached his balance point last season, with just the right amount of shows to watch, and now the new season has thrown him out of wack.

The West Wing never grabbed either of us. Studio 60 we like better.

We like that Matthew Perry doesn't just have to be a variation of Chandler.

We're less impressed with Amanda Peet, but only when compared to the others. Her character feels like they created her job before her character.

Steven Weber as the Chairman is pretty good. He plays it real.

Clever writing on Studio 60. Setting up the obvious joke then going another way.

We love it, but we are both concerned that it won't find an audience. Also, we aren't sure how many places they can go with the story.

Most courtroom dramas have good parts and boring parts. Boston Legal is all good parts.

The Star Trek HDTV commercial.

Mike likes Boston Legal, because Julie Bowen is hot, and they wear nice suits.

Mike also likes Friday Night Lights. If you're interested in the premise (small town High School Footbal), you should give it a look, otherwise don't bother.

Don't forget! It's not too late to send in an entry for Pickle Tales! Check out the promo!

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"Ready, Steady, Go!" The same phrase reminds us of two different songs.

Mike was thinking of the Paul Oakenfold song, I was thinking of a Japanese song that is the theme to an anime show called "Full Metal Alchemist"

Mike's was "in" The Bourne Identity, not "for" it.

The next film for "Hey, want to watch a movie?" will be The Bourne Identity, chosen by Aaron from The Big Show

The sort of thing that we discuss on the show is the same sort of thing that we discuss off of it.

The other day, I forgot Robert DeNiro's name.

Mike sometimes feels like his mental hard drive is full.

Survivor was a double-elimination, but then, we knew it would be going in.

Before the credits, Christina is upset and rightfully so, that everybody thought she was annoying but nobody said anything until springing it on her at tribal council.

In the context of the game, she didn't handle it very well.

The tribes seem to be divided on active personalities (Aitu Tribe), and passive personalities (Raro tribe)

Christina would have fit in better with the other tribe.

She didn't seem that bossy to us anyway.

Mike speculates that the active/passive division came from the draft/schoolyard pick merge. People pick like personalities.

I think it's an excellent theory.

Christina ended up on the Raro by default, because she was the only remaining hispanic woman.

Which of these things is not like the others? Christina is voted out because she's different, not because of strategy.

Jonathan and Ozzy sizing eachother up as potential rivals.

Holy cow, this challenge was brutal, animal even. A perfect metaphor of the game. You want to stick around, but others are trying to drag you away.

The girls wrestling kind of turned Mike on, not so much just because of sexiness, but just the animal nature of it.

Mike compares it to football, and I take a moment to point out how much I'm enjoying Scott Sigler's newest podcast novel, The Rookie. (He describes it as Any Given Sunday meets The Godfather meets Star Wars)

Candice was the MVP of the challenge

Jessica versus Christiana was rough. We thing the choking was unintentional, but it ratcheted up the tension between them.

Pulling at the clothing was unavoidable. Where else can you get a grip?

Bringing the idol to the challenge or not: Cao Boi versus Jonathan

It was a well-reasoned adult discussion, until Cao Boi withdrew with a pouting "Fine, we'll do it your way."

I respected the way that Jonathan handled it.

He's playing well, except that his game face is showing a little too much.

I kind of don't like Jonathan, not so much because of him, but because he's a threat to Jessica, who I like better.

There is tension between them, because he thought he could tell her what to do, and she resisted him.

"Project Voodoo" - I thought it was a pretty clever plan. The only problem was that the others didn't care as much as he did about flushing out the immunity idol.

A little sorry to see Cao Boi go, because he was entertaining and unpredictable, but then, being unpredictable is what got him voted out.

Jonathan says of Cao Boi, "Every so often, someone has to talk him out of a tree." He's still obsessing over the baby bird!

Jessica is in trouble.

Yul handled things well this episode. We both still like him a lot.

"Kidnapping" Nathan. An interesting wrinkle to the game.

Why did they pick Nathan? Who should they have picked?

Candice and Adam.

Does Nathan participate in the Reward challenge as part of the Aitu tribe?

Adam was lying when he said he didn't want the food.

If Nathan had refused the food out of loyalty to his tribe, would that have helped him or hurt him?

I think turning down free food would be a bad move.

If Nathan is on the Aitu tribe for the challenge, does he help them or sabotage them?

This episode's discussion went quicker than most.

Scenes from next time.

Revisiting Nathan on the Aitu tribe. The safe move would be to sit him out on the challenge.

A pointless discussion about how many episodes have included Exle Island.

Oh snap! JP voted out!

They showed actual episode footage before the credits. Not that important ultimately, but unusual.

Ozzy pouts: "I'm not going to play along anymore." Was he trying to play along before?

Hell of a swimmer though. Holy mackerel!

Redeemed himself a little, if only by not taking every single opportunity to screw up.

Candice returns from Exile Island. We feel dumb for not figuring out the real reason she was sent there, but then she tries to pretend she had no idea what was going on, and she's a BAD liar!

The reward challenge was pretty rough. Safety versus speed.

JP looking at the other tribe's puzzle wheel.

Adam goes to Exile Island, probably just based on him being strong.

Again, no footage of Exile Island this week.

Ozzy the mad fisherman. He got the pouting out of his system and now he's playing to his strengths, and we have to give him some credit for that.

King JP

I think Parvati is playing a smart game but Mike is unconvinced.

We believe she and Nathan genuinely got along, but did she have an ulterior motive? If so, what? To split the male alliance, or to join it?

Cao Boi accidentally almost kills the baby birdy, and Mike is pissed that the previews made it look like he did something really awful.

Jonathan's a softy! Who knew?

Cao Boi did a pretty good job with damage control.

Cool immunity challenge.

More on Ozzy = Poseidon

Cao Boi the Zen Fire Master

We like that Raro lost, because it keeps the tribes even and forces both tribes to be thinking strategically.

Stephanie's moment of weakness. Disappointing, but at least she recovered.

I liked Nathan's response to Stephanie's decision, even though it ended up screwing him later.

The women really had the power, five on four.

They were flexible too. Parvati hesitates, so they bring in Brad! They're playing the game!

Going into Tribal Council, it was ALL up in the air.

Adam voted for JP! How did he know the plan? How did Nathan not?

Mike was bothered by the way Parvati treated Nathan.

Parvati didn't respond well to being put on the spot, but I think she eventually did the right thing.

Did they even tell JP and Nathan than Stephanie changed her mind? We don't think so.

I speculate as to why they would do it that way.

We are disagreed on Parvati. I'm giving her more credit than Mike is. "She's a scandalous hooker." (He was kidding)

There's more to this story that we don't know yet.

In the second half of the episode, we were both utterly shocked to find ourselves liking JP!

Mike believes (and I believe Mike) that JP didn't want to vote for Stephanie, and only did because he thought everyone else was going to.

We didn't like JP before this episode, now we're sad he's gone.

If they had told JP that Stephanie changed her mind, he wouldn't have voted for her.

Even though now we feel the more interesting person got voted out, we would rather the strategy be all crazy like this than to be too obvious.

"The ball is in his pocket."

Mike is done with the "scenes from next time"

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We're recording late because I was at the Podcast and Portable Media Expo

You can watch full episodes of Survivor for free at CBS.com's Survivor site.

The episode began with discussion of Billy's confession of true love. No new information really.

At first, Mike thought the merge came too early, but we both liked the way they did it.

Merging the tribes and showing how much of a non-issue the race becomes is a nice social commentary.

Starting with four tribes is fun, but in a way, the tension ratchets up with two.

The little paint-filled egg splattering on everybody was funny.

Summing up the new tribes:

Rarotonga:
Adam (Caucasian-American)
Brad (Asian-American)
Cristina (Hispanic-American)
Jenny (Asian-American)
Nathan (African-American)
Parvati (Caucasian-American)
Rebecca (African-American)
Stephanie (African-American)

Aitutaki:
Yul (Asian-American)
Sundra (African-American)
Ozzy (Hispanic-American)
Jonathan (Caucasian-American)
Jessica "Flicka" (Caucasian-American)
Cao Boi (Asian-American)
Candice (Caucasian-American)
Becky (Asian-American)
Cecelia (Hispanic-American)

How did they choose which beaches the merged tribes lived on?

Brad's comment on Cao Boi. "Not all there and never will be... unless he's medicated."

Yul telling Becky about the Idol, and the forming of new alliances.

With a tribe of either 8 or 9, tribes need 5 for majority.

Why did Jonathan pick Jessica for their fifth? Cecilia might have been a better choice in the long run.

We speculate that he thought he could boss her around.

Flicka isn't really playing the strategic game. Mike suspects that she is actively rebelling against it, doing the anti-strategic thing on purpose, to be "different." I think she was just not emotionally prepared for that part of the game and isn't used to thinking in a political or strategic way.

Jonathan's hard sell approach was the wrong way to go with her.

Why doesn't Flicka trust Becky? Mike things it isn't so much a problem with Becky as much as an attempt to resist Jonathan's pressuring.

Could it be that she just wanted to suggest someone besides Cecilia to vote out?

We try to think of examples where someone gets voted out specifically for being a flaky swing vote.

We both still like Flicka but her resistance to playing the strategic game is a little annoying.

Flicka versus Courtney from last season.

Cecilia seemed nice, but we didn't really see enough from her to be too disappointed with her leaving.

The challenge: We've seen this one back in Survivor Palau.

It's a good challenge, with a big psychological and strategic element, more than it would initially appear.

What did Yul think he could do to "fight" the other tribe? Could the tribe in front win if they knock down the other tribe?

Candice's reaction to Billy's confession of love. Embarrassing to be sure, but probably wins her sympathy points.

Parvati's mad flirting skillz: Strategy or just plain fun?

Picking Candice to go to exile island certainly worked out well for Rarotonga, but what was their rationale for picking her?

Seen as the weakest? They know her because of the Billy thing? We can't really come up with any sensible theories.

We didn't see Candice on Exile Island at all. We might see some next time.

With Candice gone, Jonathan, Yul and Becky needed both Flicka AND someone else.

Cao Boi and Flicka seemed to bond through their non-mainstreaminess.

Does everybody know that Aitutaki threw the challenge last week?

The tribe now breaks down as follows: Becky, Yul, Jonathan and Candice are a fairly strong four. A pretty smartly handled alliance.

Flicka and Cao Boi are a strong two.

Ozzy and Sundra seem to be on their own.

Ozzy didn't seem too worried about being in the minority.

Nice to see Candice stepping up and bringing some game to the table.

Flicka and Cao Boi made the smart move. Sticking with a strong four instead of trying to build a majority out of disconnected people.

A little dismayed to see the tension between Jonathan and Flicka.

How about Nathan and his octopus? We're happy for him. Nice catch!

Next time: Parvati ramps up the flirting?

Revisiting Jeff's reaction to Billy last week.

If Aitutaki loses again, we think Sundra is probably next, but Jessica could be in trouble.

Too soon to know who would go from Rarotonga at this point.

Does Cristina have a problem with authority, or just Ozzy's authority?

Next week should be back on the normal schedule.

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