Sarah Stewart Holland has nagged me repeatedly to blog about Survivor All-Stars. I have evaded that nagging for weeks but since I said I’d take topic suggestions I feel compelled to oblige her.

There is not a thing about Survivor as a form of entertainment that I don’t like. I love the whole enterprise and all of the people involved with it. I am amazed and awed by what people will say and do on television and how much sharing and revealing takes place during the 39 days of their incarceration in the wilderness.

I like the challenges–even when they’re old rehashed games from previous seasons–in fact, I like rehashed challenges almost as much as I like new ones. It adds a level of familiarity to the show from season to season and lets us see how different people handle different tasks.

I like the rewards. And I like all the obnoxious product placement that the rewards invariably involve. The product placement works because it is completely overt. This franchise revels in its sponsorship and makes no bones about it. Jeff rings his commercial schpiel off with a gleeful gleam in his eye and a half-cocked smile, plugging Coke and Home Depot without a hint of artifice.

I like the personality conflicts and arguments. Alicia’s finger in the Kimmi’s face, Rupert threatening Johnny Fairplay, Johnny and Sandra going a round. I like the dirty dealing and bold-faced lying–Rob and Lex this season was the best yet. I like to hate the villains so much I love them and to love the underdogs so much I hate them.

I like everything. Except Sue Hawk. I don’t like her at all and actually, she and her extreme makeover give me the creeps. But she’s a part of the show that will never go away and so, I’ll take the bad with the good.

That having been said, much of the All-Stars round was boring. People quitting the game in dramatic fashion was kinda lame (Sue). I wasn’t nearly as engrossed this time around as I have been before and I really didn’t change my opinions about anybody from their previous stints on the show. Mostly those opinions just firmed up (Sue).

But I am, as always, looking forward to a new season, a new island, and a new batch of exhibitionists to root for, hate, obsess over, etc. And another coupla months of Jeff Probst sticking it to all of them over the flames of tribal council.

As for the America Votes tribal council: It was an entertaining twist that resulted in a good guy winning a ton of money. And I think that’s very cool. However, as Shannon pointed out over lunch one day, an even better twist would have been for the Survivors to have had to re-vote during the first live Tribal Council, after having watched the entire season play out. This was something we discussed before the show aired and knowing that Amber won the million, I doubt if anything would have changed except the voting spread. But one year, I kinda wish they’d throw that twist in.

Okay, there. Happy Sarah?