Balls

Both teams trade in thier mondo-tour luxury bus for the mondo-tour luxury yacht; Team Road Rules plays Survivor for a night.

Mission Notes

• Good News of the Week: Given how often we are guaranteed at least one mission anxiety case per challenge (a, la Montana, Beth S., Amaya, and Janet) I was pleased to see that B-M can in fact, assemble a hardy cast (the third time's the charm I guess); however, Kam and James may have to go on the anxiety watch soon: Michelle, still piecing together her shattered image from the infamous Internet scam, can't afford to further compromise her character by wimpping out, and we all know Julie (who makes NY Julie look like a saint) will try anything once. Oh, and for goodness sake, can we please put the freakin' bungee-jump to sleep already?

• Cliche of the Week: As alluded to above the producers have milked the so warn out bungee-jump for all the thrill value it's worth. Here B-M tries to further justify their rehashing of this trite mission by putting Yet Another spin on it: Bungee-jump into a ring of fire. Ironically I found myself having a similar rant over a Stratosphere bungee-jump exactly one year ago--and on the premiere no less! Is B-M flipping us the birdie or what?

• Recycling of the Week: You know it's bad enough to rehash old missions (a, la bungee-jumping), but it's downright pathetic to rehash old missions from other series. Here B-M infringes on Survivor's Copyright when both teams compete in the aforementioned bungee-jump to see if they can hold their balls. The winners are awarded a luxurious nights stay on a yacht complete with a scrumptious seafood dish that'd put Red Lobster to shame; meanwhile the losers are led to their dampy island castaway campsite to chow down on army rations not fit for a dog to eat. But the unique thing is that this is nothing more than a carbon copy of the immunity challenge awarded to the winner (Dr. Sean, "Medicine Man") and loser(s) (Team Tagi) on Survivor last season. I guess BMP's new motto is "If you can't beat'em swipe their material!"

• Graceful F/X of the Week: Nice to see that the producers took a cue from outraged viewers, over those ridiculous animated split screens last year, by axing those crack head editors. Still, this review boy can clearly see that a few were able to avoid the pink slip... hence the animated bars at the top and bottom of the screen. B-M has to stop borrowing design tips from Faux News and their overdone graphics.

• Welfare Recipient of the Week: Dang! BMP is taking no prisoners. They so wanna be associated with Survivor it's sad. As if stealing a mission/reward wasn't bad enough, they go swipe an actual "Survivor" and pacify them with a P.A. check. No word yet on whether Ramona's our Ms. Big, but she'll get a hint if her check doesn't clear by next week.

• Foreshadowing of the Week: I for one am not looking forward to any sub plot arcs involving Julie's valiant attempts to get readmitted into BYU; nor do I need to hear her remind us for the umpteenth time that she's a Mormon. It mirrors MElissa's constant announcements that she's biracial; and all the while I'm like, "Yes, yes, we know, shut up already!"

• Laugh Line of the Week: Boy, there certainly were enough to go around this week: From LTrain's "I can not force anyone to think the way that I think..." Hmm, sounds like a Folly quote to me; to Kam's "I think I've defiantly have learned 'patience'..." Good, now study some tolerance then we'll see about pulling that flagpole out of your rear end; or Michelle's "I was doing some acting, but I would defiantly say more waiting tables than acting..." Best call your agent hun, I hear there're looking for a girl to play a virgin running a DOT.COM scam; but Dan's--everone's favorite drama queen--line takes the cake "Real Worlders have sort of a history of being a bunch of losers..." Ha! Take that one anyway you want folks. These kids make it too easy for me sometimes.

• Sore Loser of the Week: James' (who I'll refer to as "Dude" for now on) behavior in this episode was downright disgraceful. It reeked of his childish performance in last season's "Gone in 60 Seconds". The objective of the ring of fire bungee-jump was for both teams to hold onto as many balls as possible--with out stuffing them into their clothes. At one point Dude accuses Team Real World of cheating by deflating the balls so to accommodate more in their grasp, however I'd call it creative thinking. After all, there were no rules against deflating balls, yet Dude felt obligated to whine the rest of the episode away. The final score was something like RW: 42 RR: 38. With a margin that close I'm surprised Dude didn't ask for a recount.

• Kim (MightyBigTv)
• Ashley (Real World/Road Rules Hot Spots)
• Guest Reviewer (The Real World Blows)
• Mrs. Filthy (The "Real World" Review)
• Billy (These are Road Rules)