Surviving the Early Show: Stacy’s Interview

Stacy was voted off of Survivor: Fiji Thursday night after Yau-Man made the right move and played the hidden immunity idol. That means Stacy gets to sit down with the wonderful people at The Early Show and be interviewed by somebody who doesn’t even really watch Survivor. Indeed, this week I was warned by a reader before I even saw the segment that host Harry Smith did something once again to show he doesn’t watch. Let’s see what happens.

Smith opens the segment by telling us Stacy knew she was in trouble, so she and Dreamz “launched an attack on Yau-Man, but it backfired when Yau-Man played his immunity idol.” OK, let’s start by analyzing this statement. First, Stacy didn’t “launch” anything. By her own statement to me in my interview with her, Stacy was perfectly content to be voted off and was at peace with it. Dreamz was the one who came to her and got things moving.

Second, the plan didn’t “backfire.” That implies that Stacy would not have been voted out if it had not been for the plan. In fact, the plan simply didn’t work. Stacy would have been voted out without the plan, and she was voted out with the plan.

This is not a good start for Harry Smith, is it? And we haven’t even gotten to Stacy yet!

Leading into the interview, we see some clips of Dreamz talking to Stacy about the plan, Stacy talking about why she was worried at Tribal Council, and her torch being snuffed.

Now we’re in the studio. Well, we’re outside the studio, surrounded by an audience of people waving at the cameras, instead of in the usual Survivor set. Smith says she made it a long way, so close to the final four or three. Glad to see he can do math.

He wants Stacy to take him back to last night (probably because he didn’t really watch the show). Boo had immunity, but did she know how many immunity idols were out there? Stacy says she knew for sure Yau-Man had one, but she wasn’t sure about Earl.

Smith wants to know who would have been the best person to get out besides her. Stacy says she thinks Boo, if he had not had immunity. Did she have a feeling going to Tribal Council that her number was up or did she think maybe somebody would vote for somebody else? Wow, he really didn’t watch at all, did he? What a completely clueless question. This was not a situation where people were debating, “Should we vote for Stacy or should we vote for [insert name here]?” This was a situation of, “Will Yau-Man use the idol or won’t he?

Stacy is more polite than I am and tells Smith that when Dreamz approached her to get Yau-Man out, it was a fifty-fifty toss-up. So she had a pretty good feeling it would be her. She knows Yau-Man is an intelligent guy and he was likely to play the idol.

Smith says in all of the seasons he’s watched (what, zero?), he may be one of the most unique characters of them all from the standpoint that he’s taking the game away from the show, almost. No, I don’t know what that means either. So what was it like to play with him?

Stacy says he’s great. He’s a thinker and a strategizer. He was the one who told her midway through, after the merge, that Alex was going to vote her off. Smith keeps interrupting and saying, “Right, right,” as if he has the foggiest idea what he’s talking about. She continues and says Yau-Man was the one who caused her to shift alliances. He’s a good player. She jokes that underneath the shirt we see, she has an “I Love Yau-Man” shirt on. Hey, where can I get one of those?

Time for the secret scene. Stacy is cooking some plantains, and she has put in some for herself and her allies, but the idea is to hide them from Boo so he won’t get as much food and thus won’t have as much of an edge in the immunity challenge. Cassandra says she went along with it.

Stacy tells us, still in the clip, that they really don’t want Boo to win. So whatever she can do to help, she’ll do. Today, that meant not giving him as much food as the others.

Back in the studio, Smith says she was taking food out of people’s mouths and Stacy laughs. “It looks so cruel,” she says, but at the time, she was trying to let Cassandra in to some of her scheming and reinforce their bond, while also letting her allies know she was looking out for them and weakening the strongest player. She says they were trying to do anything they could at the time to weaken him, “short of pulling a Tonya Harding.” Heh.

Smith switches subjects to discussing how Yau-Man won the reward challenge and gave the truck to Dreamz. What was Stacy thinking? She thought he was a player, and there was a fifty-fifty shot of Dreamz actually coming through on his word (she seems to like the “fifty-fifty” phrase).

It looks like the segment is about to end, but Smith sees that Stacy has something in a bag for him and asks about it. She pulls out a coffee press and hands it to him. He has no idea why she’s giving it to him. She tries to help and says to prove she’s not cruel, she has also provided the instructions on how to use it. Still clueless, Smith says that Lord knows they need more coffee around there. Then he thanks her and says it was so nice of her.

This was the part I mentioned previously, that a reader had e-mailed about. As reader Leslie said, “the joke went right over his head – you could almost hear the joke crashing and burning.” Indeed, it proves beyond any doubt that Harry Smith has not watched Survivor this year and doesn’t really have a clue what’s going on. Yet that doesn’t stop The Early Show from having him interview contestants and try to bluff his way through it. Here’s a clue: It doesn’t work. It just makes him look stupid.

But if you want to read a full interview where Stacy was able to talk about all sorts of things – including the coffee press – with somebody who does watch and pay attention, please click over to my interview with her. She really had quite a bit to say, and some of it will surprise you.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out these other recent Survivor: Fiji articles here on RealityNewsOnline:

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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