Here's what we think of the 10 who are left

Here’s what we think of the 10 who are left

The very busy Dalton Ross asked me to cover the ”Survivor” Watch for him tonight, and what did I get? A clip show. All old footage. What next, is Dalton going to ask me to review episodes of ”Match Game ’79”? But this seasonal recap seemed like the perfect time to take stock of the remaining 10 players. So here’s my take on who’s left:

BIG TOM
CREDITS Unintelligibility. If he makes it to the finals, and jurors will reflect on whether he ever lied to them, they’ll realize, ”I can’t technically say, since I didn’t understand a word he said. When he told me, ‘Well, dadgum it, I’ll be bananaframmed scrabbledabble,’ was that a lie?”
DEBITS The fun-loving jester is like a hamster: fun to play with and have around, but the minute you get bored you can let the cat eat it and not remember it two days later. He’ll be an easy vote out when things get tight.

AMBER
CREDITS In Australia, she simply took orders. But this year, she developed her own strategy: to hook up with Boston Rob? and take his orders. Well, at least it’s a start.
DEBITS Again, the Boston Rob thing. The key to a good alliance is keeping it quiet: their rustling of tongues is downright deafening in the jungle. Plus, it can only make other players bitter: Her and Rob’s canoodling will only make married players miss their spouses, and single players lonely.

BOSTON ROB
CREDITS He’s physically strong, so his team needs him for challenges (and he’ll likely win immunity often when it’s every man for himself). Plus, he’s lucked out in that apparently nobody left on this island saw any of his previous season. How else to explain their trusting the most untrustworthy person there? Nobody better complain when he screws them over, considering he did it to teammates before, ON NATIONAL FRIGGING TV.
DEBITS The Bostonian’s little Sun Tzu ”Aht of Wohwah” catchphrases might work as foreplay with Amber, but won’t necessarily get him to the winner’s circle: A blatant manipulator hasn’t won since Richard Hatch.

ALICIA
CREDITS She’s strong, and she makes necklaces. So if the rest of the immunity challenges are all abdominal and jewelry related, she’s in!
DEBITS For someone that jacked, she hasn’t really shone in any physical challenge. On the spinning log, she proved to have the balance of a dizzy senior citizen. Plus, she’s argumentative and bossy. Frankly, she should consider it an accomplishment that she wasn’t voted out in the airport before the game even started.

RUPERT
CREDITS He resembles a giant hobbit, so maybe he’ll benefit from the same goodwill that got ”The Lord of the Rings” all those Oscars.
DEBITS His stubbornness can get just as grating as his insecure-giant routine. Did he build a hut in a hole in high school, too? Because that would explain the teasing he got, and frankly, would excuse it.

JENNA
CREDITS Uhh? she once hosted at VH1. Does loving the ’80s help?
DEBITS She seems to have had no game plan beyond getting past winners out. Now that Ethan’s gone, with no real allies she might want to start sending out her résumé reel to the Game Show Network.

KATHY
CREDITS She’s markedly more shrewd than in her first go-round. Plus, she’s tight with Chapera, which is a much better ride to hop on than the Mogo Mogo death ship.
DEBITS Though Chapera might have loved her so much that Big Tom even wrote a barnyard couplet for her, the last one in to a pact is generally the first one out.

SHII ANN
CREDITS She’s smart, wily, and has learned her lesson about showing her cards too early.
DEBITS She may not show her cards, but she certainly shows her annoyance. Her bickering with Jerri, though understandable, only annoyed everyone around her.

LEX
CREDITS He takes control of the situation, but plays it quick and quiet. Some have said he was dumb to vote all the strong players out of Mogo Mogo before a merge, but I think he understood that there’s no way Mark Burnett would allow a traditional melding with such lopsided teams. Burnett prefers good television over pure television, and knows that four weeks of Chapera predictably picking off Mogo Mogo would be TV death. The surprising twist that was touted is probably some complete shift that will leave Amber without a boyfriend, and Lex on a new playing field with less physical competition.
DEBITS Well, if I’m wrong about the above, then he’s screwed. He has no friends at Chapera, and having established himself as a mastermind, he’s made the Mogo Mogo women very nervous. And all the tattoos in the world won’t save him.

JERRI
CREDITS She’s so annoying that someone might want to take her all the way to the final two. And provided that person is, say, Pol Pot, who knows? She might actually win.
DEBITS Even the greediest person in the world, when weighing a million dollars against spending three more weeks listening to Jerri’s laziness and complaining, might give serious thought to taking their chances against someone else. Hell, I’d risk going against the Pope if it meant getting rid of Her Bitchiness.