Survivor: Fans V. Favorites 2: Brandon Returns, Francesca Leaves

Tom Row: Corine, Phillip, Malcolm, Francesca, Erik, Brenda; Bottom Row: Dawn, Brandon, Andrea, Cochran

I am not sure if shows are running out of ideas or they are finding ideas they did a few years back was more popular than the regular show and decided to do it again. For instance, in March, Apprentice will be doing Apprentice Celebrity All-Star in which former celebrity players will be back to compete for their charity. Big Brother has had a few shows in which past players have returned and these are players we didn’t wish to see and never want to see again, and now Survivor is revisiting an old idea.

Survivor is back with Fans V. Favorites 2 in which they bring fans of the show to play against favorites of the show, and one of the returning favorites is Brandon Hantz of the Hantz clan, specifically Russell Hantz, the terror of the island. Other favorites that have returned is Phillip, the crazy guy who claims he’s was a Federal Agent, Francesca from last season, who got voted off first and again this season, got voted off first. Dawn, the Mormon lady who couldn’t lie. Cochran, not Johnny Cochran, the other Cochran, and few other people that I don’t remember. Oh there’s that one little known guy named Malcolm who is back as well.

The fans consist of..well, just that, fans. We already have a lazy marine who didn’t want to spend time building shelter on the first episode, but wanted to spend time building a fire. Mind you, it wasn’t dark or close to being dark yet. If he had gotten off his lazy behind and helped build the shelter, it would have been done in in no time and he could have spent the rest of the time building fire. But I digress.

I am a fan of the show and have been since season two. I won’t say a big fan, because someone might through a pop quiz at me that I won’t be able to answer and I will look like a fool, so I’m going to leave it at being just a fan. I look forward to the show twice a year and do think Jeff Probst makes a great host – just on Survivor, not his talk show.

I have to admit I was glad not to see Lisa Whelchel back. Although I grew up with her on the Facts of Life and enjoyed seeing her on Survivor last season, I think one time around would have been enough. I did like how she played the game, with honesty, as much as she could, and when she wasn’t honest she felt bad and began crying. She learned fast on how to play the game to get ahead and she did pretty good job. She made it to the final three.

I am still a fan of Cochran because he’s so odd and enjoys being odd, although he said he’s going to tone down his antics this season. We’ll see. If odd is a part of you, then you can’t help but be odd from time to time. I know because I am speaking from experience.

We’ll see how this season turns out, especially when the merge takes place.

Oh, I forgot to mention, I am surprised to see Stephanie is not back. She’s only returned once to Survivor and that was about, maybe four years ago. I’m guessing on that one. You remember her, right? She’s the one that out lasted her entire tribe to become the first person, not to mention a woman, to do such a thing.

As mentioned earlier, Francesca did get voted off first…again! Her problem was she came on too strong when it came time to decide who to vote off. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, The Favorites won the reward challenge but lost the Immunity challenge. As soon as they got back to camp (The Favorites), Francesca began deciding who to vote off and started conspiring with the others on her thoughts, which was Phillip. The focus then turned to voting off Andrea because she was chatter-boxing it up with everyone and this made people nervous. Soon the focus was on Francesca because of her eagerness. At tribal counsel it was between Andrea and Francesca and Francesca got voted off.

The previews for next week’s episode shows Brandon trying to be his uncle Russell and wanting to cause chaos at the camp. Brandon needs to realize he’s not his uncle. What might work for one person may not work for someone else. And if he does try to cause chaos, people are going to know it was him. But here’s my biggest question, why is Brandon back? If I remember from the last time he was on there, he said Survivor went against everything he believed in because he was trying to change his life and blah blah blah blah. But I guess the money overrode his beliefs, unless his sect is the Church of Dollar Signs. I personally think he’s going to get himself voted right off that island pretty quick if they don’t win immunity challenges.