The trek by the Thal tribe back from the Dark Tower was through a fantastic meteor storm, accompanied by enormous gusts of wind and of course huge chunks of rock falling from the sky. "Sure," groaned the Monk, "they have their nice big deflector shield up over the Capitol, but not out here. High Council nitwits."
The next day was unpleasant for both tribes, as they were forced to huddle in their shelters waiting for the bad weather to abate. Bernice noted that, had Azaxyr followed her original suggestion of building their lodgings farther back into the woods, they would have at least had marginally more protection from the elements.
"It was the worst night I've ever spent," moans Liz. "No, wait, second-worst... there was that one night with Sergeant Benton..." Liz has earned the resentment of her fellow tribemates, many of whom feel that she has contributed nothing to their time in the Death Zone. "I feel badly about that, but I was very sick with some strange alien virus. Hopefully I can start making up for that now," Liz said before rolling over and going back to sleep.
The meteor storm finally abated during the night. The Monk took the opportunity to go spear-hunting in the wilds of the Death Zone, using the spear the Thal tribe won at the last Reward Challenge. The Monk has proved a surprisingly adept hunter, regularly bringing back a handful of grunge-hares with each trip. "Hopefully this cements my position in the tribe a little more," says the Monk. "I think I got off on rather the wrong foot and everything I can do to make myself seem valuable is important."
Meanwhile, Adric complains about the Rani going off and hunting for keppanuts in the areas around the Thal tribe's hillside camp. "It's a waste of time!" the Alazarian whines. "Do you realise how many keppanuts it takes to fill my tummy? There wouldn't be any left for the rest of the tribe!" The Rani has to be physically restrained from de-nutting Adric.
Over at the Kaled tribe, Bernice has convinced the others to help her dismantle the current shelter and build a new one with better natural protection. Liz offers to pitch him and show her the tribe what she's really made of. Bernice suggests she help log the building materials to the new campsite. "What? Manual labour?" Liz replies. "But I'm a research scientist! My graduate students do that sort of thing!"
At this point, our host, the inestimable Jeff Probst, arrives in both camps hologram-style to announce the latest Reward Challenge. He reveals that the reward in question will be a bevy of new food and camping supplies, plus one item of each tribe's choosing. Ever practical, the Thal tribe chooses a miniaturisible shelter unit (after dismissing Adric's request for "A really big satellite TV and Tlotoxl's suggestion of "The blood of a thousand calves"). The Kaled tribe asks for a spice rack. Sometimes, stupidity is truly universal.
The challenge itself is called "Presidential Fly-by". "The idea," explains Jeff is that the President of the High Council is passing by your campsite one day in a hovercar. You have to create a signal on the ground which would get the President to land at your site."
The two tribes are given the rest of the day to come up with an idea which they will execute early the next morning.
Jeff, accompanied by very special guest President Romana, flies high over the Death Zone in the luxurious presidential hovercar. "We're coming up now on the Kaled creation," Jeff tells her. Or us. Who knows.
The Kaled tribe has tried spelling out the words "Welcome President Romanadvoratrelundar" in rocks and branches, but apparently ran out of supplies or time (or probably both) around the third 'r'. "Hmmm, not bad," notes Jeff.
The hovercar flies on for a while, then approaches the location of the Thal WHOvivors. Coming up over a ridge, it becomes apparently that the Thals have made a big model of K-9 -- which the Thal castaways themselves moving as though they were the tail and ears! It even looks like the enormous K-9 is about to roll over Adric. "I think we have a winner," smiles Romana.
The dejected Kaled tribe returns to moving their shelter, absent one spice rack. To perk up his fellows, Soldeed amuses them all by pretending to contact "Lord Nimon" using half a large keppanut shell as though it were a communicator. "That nutty Soldeed," notes Ben. "Always trying to get a rise out of us with that Nimon stuff. He's great fun."
Meanwhile, Adric has unveiled a new invention to the Thal tribe. "It was going to be a hyper-inducation matter-energy generator," he explains, "until I realised that I'd need a neutron coil device. So then I decided to try to turn it into a miniature hydroponic reservoir, but it would take about seven years to build up enough solar power."
"So what is it now?" asks Leela.
"It's, um, a bowling alley. But it's really nice and smooth! Does anyone have a ball? Or tenpins?"
Shortly thereafter, Jeff appears again to announce the latest Immunity Challenge. "This one is called 'Archaeological Dig'. You should have a good time with it, eh, Bernice? One person from each team will start off at a Time Terminal hooked up to the Matrix in the Capitol. You both have to find the coordinates for an artifact we've got buried somewhere in the Death Zone. The Thal tribe has to find the Rubber Boots of Rassilon. The Kaled tribe has to find the Spare Dentures of Rassilon.
"Once you've got the coordinates, print them off and hand them to another teammate, who will then drive back to your camp in the provided hovercars as quick as possible. This person then hands the coordinates to two new people who have to locate the position of the artifact and dig it up. Then one last person has to drive the hovercar out to the dig site, pick up the artifact, and run it back to the starting point."
The Thal tribe picks the Rani to do the computer work, the Monk to do the initial driving, Adric and Tlotoxl to do the digging and Leela to take the anchor leg. The Kaled tribe picks Susan to handle the computer, Peri to drive, Ben and Bernice to dig, and Glitz to take the final part of the trek.
Both tribes start off very evenly, with Susan barely beating the Rani to the punch when the older Time Lady takes time out to try to hack into some Matrix secrets. Peri pulls the Kaled tribe even more out in front when she handily beats the Monk in the first driving portion, being well-educated in the vagaries of reckless American freeway driving. The digging takes about equal measures of time, and the Kaled tribe goes into the home stretch with a several-minute lead over their opponents.
But things go disastrously wrong when Glitz quickly loses his wind trying to run the Spare Dentures of Rassilon back to Jeff. This comes despite the fact that he had assured his teammates he was as fit as when he was twenty. "Of course," he muses, "I neglected to mention that I was pretty badly out of shape back then, too. Probably should have brought that up." Leela easily catches up to Glitz and speeds past him, winning the Immunity Challenge for the Thal tribe.
That night, it is the Kaled tribe which must make the long trek to the Dark Tower to vote one of their own out in Tribal Council...
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