Get ready for more fun and frolicry. Survivor: Micronesia – Fans vs. Favorites debuts February 7 on CBS at 8 p.m. The 16th (yes, really!) season promises more back-stabbing, bitching, and beaches as one tribe of former Survivor standouts goes head to head with a tribe of newbies who idolize the players they’ll be competing against.
The Favorites tribe features contestants going all the way back to season 7, including two from the recent Survivor: China -- Amanda Kimmel and gravedigger James Clement. Others include Yau-Man Chan from Survivor: Fiji; Parvati Shallow, Jonathan Penner, and Ozzy Lusth from Cook Islands; Eliza Orlins and Ami Cusack from Survivor: Panama; and Jon “Jonny Fairplay” Dalton from Pearl Islands. You might recall he faked his own grandma’s death to move ahead in the game. Nice.
No one from Palau or Guatemala will be there, mainly because two contestants — Stephenie LaGrossa and Bobby Jon Drinkard — already appeared in both those seasons, and Palau's winner, Tom Westman, declined to participate. Who can blame him? Like starving and drowning is all fun and games.
Survivor: Micronesia was shot on many of the same beaches as the Palau season, and will also feature the return of Exile Island, which was absent from Survivor: China.
The Fan tribe includes a take-charge, tattooed firefighter (Joel Anderson), a beauty pageant coach (Chet Welch), a golf course vendor (Kathleen Sleckman), and an ice cream scooper (Erik Reichenbach) from Hell…Michigan, that is. Hey, that’s right in my neck of the woods, and I can tell you it’s nothing like Hell up here in the sticks. Especially not this time of year.
Which is why most of us in cabin-fever country will be tuning in for some much-needed Survivor fun.
