Producer ex machina

Boy, I don’t know. On last night’s _Survivor_, it looked a lot like Stephe­nie was going home. But at Tribal Coun­cil, Jeff led them on a merry ques­tion and answer chase that ended up with Janu lay­ing down her torch (quit­ting) and Stephe­nie liv­ing to see another day.

I don’t quib­ble with the result. Stephe­nie is far more enter­tain­ing than Janu. She’s plucky, which goes a long way towards win­ning over tele­vi­sion view­ers. She clearly deserves to be there, whereas Janu clearly does not, even with her “one with the beach bon­fire” solo adventure.

But Probst’s lead­ing ques­tions, end­ing with his men­tion to Janu that she could serve on the jury, even though she quit–where was such mag­na­nim­ity when Osten quit a cou­ple of sea­sons ago? Jeff just about kicked him in the butt on the way out, and igno­min­iously tossed his torch down on the ground. Janu’s torch he did lay down, but not with the venom he reserved for _Survivor’s_ first quitter.

It leads you to believe that the pro­duc­ers had a hand in the deci­sion last night. I don’t think they would have gone as far as to man­date Janu quit (or rather, man­date that Stephe­nie not be voted off), but Jeff eas­ily led Janu to that conclusion.

If I were Greg (quoted last night and in the pre­views for next week as fear­ing Stephenie’s prowess) I would be roy­ally pissed at Probst.

Still, I think it has only put off the inevitable. Stephe­nie is much like Rupert: charm­ing, fierce com­peti­tor, fan-favorite, but dumb as a box of rocks when it comes to strat­egy. She can out­last any of them, pos­si­bly even uber-fireman Tom given the right chal­lenge, but she couldn’t out­wit her way out of a wet paper bag. The pre­views sug­gested that she’ll try next week, cozy­ing up to the women to vote a man off, and it may work once or twice (Tom must loom as an awe­some threat to any­one with a brain), but I think it will ulti­mately be in vain. The alpha-males see her as a threat, and the women can’t help but see her as a threat, too. Jen is jeal­ous of her, Katie is wor­ried she’s next to go, and Karen is a snake in the grass just wait­ing to strike.

Alas, poor Stephe­nie, we actu­ally knew ye pretty well. The pro­duc­ers are in a bind, because with her tribe star­ring in “Can’t Win Sur­vivor for Try­ing” she’s emerged as the star this sea­son. I guess I can’t blame them for doing what­ever they can to keep her around as long as possible.