[Macie Lightfoot]

A few episodes into the merge of UK1 and I'm still enjoying it quite a bit. The merge projects as a bit anticlimactic since Ular goes in with a 6-4 advantage over Helang, and these last few episodes have been predictable, but it's still not boring. The merge episode was saved by an epic endurance challenge that went on for nearly 23 hours (!!!) and even though it wasn't super exciting all the time, the novelty definitely made it worthwhile viewing. The Andy boot was a bit of a boring episode but there were still two good things going for it: 1) Charlotte and Eve's feud over petty **** like food rations and how the rice is cooked , and 2) Pete breaking out of his UTR edit and turning into the guy with morals who loves Jesus and can't handle having to vote people out who Deserve to still be in. He's not really telegenic enough to make the role work in a way that's really dynamic, but it is a much needed development to Ular's Pagonging of Helang. He's befriending Helang as they're on their way out the door and having a hard time getting rid of people like Simon and Andy because of how deserving they are of the win, and of course Ular is taking it as well as you would expect.

My real reason for writing an update though was the auction episode there was an interesting twist where they had to do an archery contest to see how much money they would have to spend. I'm not sure if I would want this to take place every single time, but it was an interesting twist that I appreciated this one time. The actual events of the auction though... here we go:

-everyone apparently agreed after the archery contest that they would NOT outbid each other and then just share all the food with each other
-however, everyone's understanding of this was different: it seems that Charlotte and James assumed that people would hold onto the food and then divide it into equal eighths afterwards while people like Richard and other members of Ular assumed that they would enjoy some of the food for themselves before sharing the rest
-Richard wins a pizza and immediately eats a good size portion to himself before sharing it with the rest of the tribe (but apparently not everyone else?)
-Eve wins a burger, fries, and a bottle of tomato ketchup that I understand becomes VERY plot relevant in ~3 episodes
-Zoe wins two bars of chocolate and according to Charlotte, who LOVES chocolate and has not shut up about it all season, she did not split the chocolate evenly
-James is NOT happy with Ular's behavior in the auction and decides to outbid them on another burger and fries
-Since James's burger and fries does NOT come with tomato ketchup, the host encourages him to find the bottle. Apparently this leads to him using a third of Eve's bottle without asking her, and then she had to tell him to stop because they need the tomato ketchup to last them two more weeks (?!)
-the auction ends and they go back to camp, segregate as Ular and Helang, and just start bitching about each other nonstop they eventually reunite as one tribe and Charlotte and James decide to instigate a small fight with the rest of Ular and then taunts them by reminding them that they WILL be deciding the winner of the season

For a season that was filmed in 2001 I was very impressed! This season basically tries to be a carbon copy of Borneo 65% of the time and even copies exact challenges from the original season, but Borneo didn't even do an auction so the forward thinking is appreciated. Additionally, I love me a season where a bunch of petty people have pointless feuds with each other over stupid **** (one of the reasons why I'm one of the forum's biggest supports of SA: Malaysia) so this was right up my alley. I get the complaints about this season being OLD and in poor video quality, but this cast bounces well off of each other and the strategy actually is very progressive for a season that aired in 2001. Someone once said this is basically an old school BBUK season on an island and that's probably the best compliment this season could receive.