-EPISODE ONE: SECOND CHANCES-

First off, I have a bunch of people to thank for this episode. The big two are Gabriel Cade and Diane Ogden. I randomly drew names for the captains of the two teams, and was fortunate that those two came up as the male and female captain. It was lucky because they are two of the more accessible Survivors to track down, and both of them were more than happy to help out when I asked. And yes, they DID pick their own teams. We had a draft over the phone, and those are the exact teams they picked, for the exact reasons. They helped write their own stories, and I think they did a great job. Furthermore, they helped me with a lot of the characterizations of the people, giving me all sorts of stories and anecdotes that really helped. And when possible, I used their exact words, particularly with a lot of the Gabe stuff. His speech about wanting to give the money away and why he picked Sonja were almost word for word the way he described it to me. But thanks again to both of them, they really helped out! And yes, Gabriel, the story is FINALLY out and now you can read it! He has been very excited about seeing it come to life.

Another person who helped out a lot was Teresa Cooper. She was a big fan of Alaska, and offered to help out with the characterizations of the Greece players as well. I spent about an hour on the phone with her, getting details about the people in the story. Thanks T-Bird!

There are a few others who helped out, but I can't name names right now. You'll find out why later.

And no, nobody told me that Stephanie was crazy. That was just something I thought Ryan might think up.

The writing style for this story is different than the past two. For one thing, there is no writing team. I am doing 100% of the writing myself. I planned it out myself, and wrote it myself. But I have had a good deal of assistance from Murtz Jaffer (S-C webmaster), who has offered strategic advice and story ideas at the end of each day in the story. He has helped quite a bit, and this is the first time we have ever successfully worked together!

Ep1 is the longest of the series, until the finale. I apologize for the length, but think of it as the 90-minute premiere. The eps get shorter, but I think they get better. I think the first four episodes get progressively better, so enjoy the story as it unfolds... I have 8 episodes written as I write this, so I know what happens for a while. It is a fun story...

Episode two will be out Wednesday, June 4.

-Mario

One of my favorite episodes in the series... two great challenges and some hardcore hostility between the teams. And don't think it ends here...

Two of my favorite characters to write are Stephanie and Dirk. You can see why here. They were both picked to be the Minotaurs for a reason.

This was a pretty straightforward episode, although I did make one change. There was some criticism that I made Jessie unlikeable in the first ep, so I went into detail in this ep about how close she was to Diane and didn't want to vote her out. I don't want Jessie to be a villain, no one should be a villain. I wanted to make sure people don't think I hate her.

One final note on this ep: Thank you very much to fan named Veera on the S-C message board. She volunteered to make a Greek logo for me and came up with the kickass one I used on my Greece page at http://members.aol.com/AllStarHawaii/greece.htm. Thanks Veera!

Episode 3 will be up Sunday morning, June 8. It is another good one!

-Mario

-EPISODE THREE: PUSHED TOO FAR-

Okay, I kind of slacked on my notes from last episode so I will be thorough this time. First off, this was the first episode of any of the series where I really really ran into an ethical dilemna. Basically... I was booting one of the people who helped me write it. And I knew it would happen eventually, I just didn't think it would be so difficult. You see, Gabriel and Diane helped me with so much planning at the start, and we had a few phone calls, that I really felt like I knew them pretty well. And as people too, not just as characters. I kept them abridged of the project status as I was writing, and would give periodic updates, such as "Okay, two episodes down and both of you are still safe." But of course those updates mysteriously stopped after ep2, because I figured out Diane was going. So rather than tell her, I just said no more updates. I warned her that she was in danger, but in truth I just didn't want to deal with the guilt of it.

And really, it wasn't hard to when I was writing. Oh well, Diane is gone. Sucks to see her go, but that's the story. At the time, no big deal.

But right before POSTING the episode, suddenly then it became a big deal. Suddenly my mindset was... "Wait a second, people are going to crucify me for booting her this early. She is the story's biggest fan! What am I doing??" And of course when you get to THAT level, it makes it infinitely more difficult. Once you start personalizing the events, it becomes a little tougher. So I just sat on it for a day or so, and then sent Diane an email, warning her. I figured she would at least want to know, rather than get the shock from the story. And to her credit, she was great. She has never once had any problem with anything I wrote, and even wrote me saying that it was fine, she didn't mind, it was just a story. And to further drive home Diane's awesomeness, she even wrote her own final words! So if you read this, take a chance and thank Diane on the message board, she was a delight to work with. And she helped the story as much as anybody.

And her final words are pretty funny.

I would like to thank two more people for this episode. One is Murtz Jaffer, our S-C webmaster, who has helped with a ton of the strategy and little character details for this story. He is very good at the little character quirks, the little stuff you may have forgotten but he remembers. This episode has a great one. There was a scene in the Australia reunion show, where Debb was sitting next to Kel. Debb started crying, because of her experience, and everyone felt bad for her. And of course, Kel was sitting next to her, and ended up having to console her. Now if you remember, Kel waited like a few seconds before doing it, and did it very robotically, in a manner that said "Well, I'm expected to do this since I'm sitting here, but I'm not sure what to do." So Murtz told me... PUT THAT IN THE STORY! IT WILL BE FUNNY! And sure enough, in this episode, it shows up. Debb drops her rock and loses the challenge, so when she gets back to the beach, she is consoled by her team. And then, Kel walks over and pats her on the back, a half second too late, like a robot. That is one of those jokes that maybe five people will get, but it made us crack up. Hey, we have fun writing these things!

The second person I would like to thank is All-Star fan Jenne, a poster on ez board and a longtime nitpicker. In fact, she wrote me my very first All-Star nitpick email, back in Hawaii, where she pointed out that the castways were eating rice even though they had not been given any. Oops! But she has really become the official Greece editing expert, she reads the episodes before I post them and points out little details I have missed. She caught eight of them in this episode, and really helped make a difference! So thanks Jenne, your efforts have been greatly appreciated.

There is one little joke that I thought was really funny in this episode, and that is where Dirk thinks the Zeus status looks like Kenny Rogers. I just thought of that one night... I was trying to think of a goofy thing to compare the statue to. I said, who is someone famous that has a beard? And perhaps someone who owns a chain of Chicken Roasters? And sure enough, Kenny fit both those criteria. That joke made me laugh for at least two days, the fact that Dirk (and Taygete) would call the statue Kenny. So watch for that joke in the next episode, the Kenny name will be a running joke throughout the series.

Two final notes on this episode... first off, it has a lot of language. In the original draft there were two f words, a few s words, Diane said "tits" and Carl called Kel a "pussy." That is generally more language than I like per episode, and a few people pointed it out to me. So I toned it down a little. I left in the last two, mainly to give Diane and Carl some good sound bytes. I don't know if anyone noticed, but I tended to write Diane like Sue Hawk. I just pictured a line Sue would say, and gave it to Diane. I always saw Diane as Sue's little hippie sister, a little better mannered but with the same mouth if you piss her off. At least, that is how I wrote her.

The final note was that this episode is dark. Dark, dark, dark and depressing. It was kind of sad to read. I always call this ep my "Empire Strikes Back" episode, where you know it is setting up some future plots, but it ends on a downer and really isn't all that fun to read. Oh, and of course in an earlier draft, Peter gets his hand cut off by Darth Vader and Dirk gets frozen in carbonite. But I wisely cut those scenes out in final edits.

Episode 4 should be up Saturday morning. It features Gorgons, sheep, mirrors, a new island, and a virgin or two. Oh, and Britney Spears makes a surprise cameo. You'll see!

-Mario

-EPISODE FOUR: NOT THAT INNOCENT-

I think the story really kind of kicks into a higher gear with this episode. I think a lot of the underdeveloped characters kind of get a boost, particularly Hunter, Kel, Ryan and, most importantly, Peter. This is Peter's big episode. Which is great because I recently found out that Gabriel turned Peter and Tanya onto the story, and they are reading it. Peter and Tanya, write me! Maybe you can help with some of your storylines!

Speaking of Gabe, I was a little shocked when people on the message boards were calling him the villain of the story. I had NEVER intended that to happen, but sometimes I get blinded when I write the story. Oftentimes, I get lazy with the characters that I know really well, and just forget to develop them. So he is coming off a little cocky for my tastes. Gabriel actually noticed this as well, and wrote me, so I have tried to soften him up in this ep. I just don't see how he could ever be a villain.

There are a bunch of little scenes in this one that I love. The Britney Spears singalong is one of my favorites, even if I debated cutting it at the last minute. It may be a BIT over the top, but people said it was funny, so I kept it in. And I go to midnight bowling all the time, I know that Britney is a musical favorite at said event, so it was natural that Peter would know the song. BTW every so often I get a song in my head and it becomes my favorite for like a month, and at the time I wrote this ep, you can guess that "Oops I did it again" was my flavor of the month. See, that's the fun with writing these stories. You get to put your new favorite song in, just because it would make a funny scene.

And I wonder why Survivor has never used music as a reward, I bet that would be a very popular item. Murtz says it is a copyright thing, they couldn't buy the rights to any songs. *sigh* Oh well, it would be a good idea if they could get the rights.

I like the two challenges here, particularly the Medusa one. That was an homage to my ALL TIME FAVORITE challenge in Survivor history, the blind obstacle course one that Nick Brown won for Kucha in Australia. That challenge kicked butt, and I wanted to recycle it. The virgin cart one was good too, but the challenge really had nothing to do with virgins. I just thought it was a funny conversation to have, who will be our virgin?

And I ALWAYS intended to have Ryan take a swing at somebody in an episode. Ryan has slowly been building up into a dangerous person, I thought it was time for him to cross the line. Poor Dirk seemed like a good target. And it isn't over between them. Just wait.

I practiced my Jessie dialogue a lot in this ep. I think I have her voice down pretty well now.

Poor Carl. I felt bad losing him, he was so fun to write for. I could write a whole story just about him, he is really easy to write dialogue for.

Jeff Probst gets some great quotes at Tribal Council. I have made him more snippy in this story, and I think it works. And he is going to get worse.

One final note to the spoilers: HA HA! FOOLED YOU! When you guys saw the Medusa challenge I know ALL of you thought "Well, it's a weird one, Taygete will win." But they didn't! I did that just to throw you guys off. I was getting too predictable. That will change...

Sorry for the long wait for ep4. I had a busy week. Ep5 will come much faster. It should be out Tuesday or Wednesday. And YES there is something unexpected... not to mention challenges involving Atalanta, The Trojan Horse, and Jessie and Dirk heating up. Should be a good one!

-Mario

-EPISODE FIVE: BACKBREAKING-

First off... no twist! Everyone expected a twist, but I never had any plans to use one. I always intended to just go straight up to episode six, old school, and what happened would happen. So Taygete really had to pay for their early mistakes, and they are in deep, deep trouble. So you can look at it this way: The twist was that there WAS no twist.

This was really the great Kel downfall episode. Now, Kel is an unbelievably difficult person to write for. I got SO many opinions on what he is like in real life, no one could really agree on what he is like. So I kind of wrote him as a sensitive, quiet guy. A capable leader, who doesn't realize he comes off as annoying. And eventually this did him in, as Jessie just couldn't take him anymore. I am pretty proud of how Kel came off in the story. I don't know if he was accurate at all, but I think he worked as a character. And that's really I care about in Second Chance. And I wanted his exit to be sad, but I'm not sure if it worked. It is hard to make him sympathetic, since he is such an introvert and so guarded. But I tried.

I really tried to expand on three characters in this episode, and I think I succeeded. John Raymond was one, I really wanted to give him some depth. Tanya Vance was another, I had done pretty well with her so far, but mainly by just having her hide behind the others. She kind of peeked her head out in this episode, and you got a look at her true strategy. And the third was Ramona Gray, I really wanted to show her true nature as well. So all three of them got the star treatment this ep, just because I felt they had been lacking.

The two challenges were both pretty good. Atalanta and the Golden Apples is one of my all time favorite myths, and I knew I would use it before I even started the story. Plus it was an excuse to show off that Tanya was an All-American track star, not a lot of people know that. And sure, she lost, but it wasn't her fault. I like the scene where Jessie cheers and it makes Dirk run a little bit faster. Just a nice little touch, I thought.

The second challenge was the Trojan Horse. I KNEW I had to use a Trojan Horse challenge at some point, but I had no idea how to do it. I came up with this compromise, a building challenge. Basically it was because a lot of the earlier challenges had been brutal and hard to do, this one was easy and a bit different. Plus it was just fun to write. I had a good time coming up with different methods of shellack that Alkyone could use. My favorites were the fruit juice or the fish guts, I bet those would work.

I had a fun time reusing the "burn down Alkyone's shelter" reward. I always wanted to reuse a reward, I figured it would be extra demoralizing to have it happen twice. Besides, Alkyone is nearly unstoppable at the moment, it was just a way to take them down a peg. Fun times for all.

And Jeff gets really, really snippy at the end. He doesn't like Taygete. And I don't think I do much either, although they are fun to write for. Writing turmoil is ALWAYS fun.

Oh, and the episode title is a dual meaning. It refers both to the destruction of Taygete's horse, and the overall mood in Taygete. This episode may have broken their backs for good.

Episode #6 will be up this weekend, probably Sunday night. It features two of the best challenges of the series... but no hints! Well, okay one hint... Bring a shovel!

-Mario

-EPISODE SIX: AWESOME SAVIOR-

Okay, first of all I have to explain the title and give thanks to someone. My friend Anna happens to share a similar upbringing with Dirk Been. The two of them have almost the exact same religious background, and when I found that out I knew she could help with some of his dialogue. I knew that he was going to have a big prayer moment, where he asks God for help in leading his team to victory. I thought that would be a nice scene. The only catch is... I don't know how to write a prayer! I can write a lot of stuff well if I research, or if I just fudge it a little, but a prayer is something you can't really fake. My first attempts were laughable, not even close. I think Dirk maybe dropped a few f bombs in there in one draft. Ok, just kidding, it was never THAT bad, but it didn't sound like a prayer. But then Anna gave me a couple of "prayer tips", and it all came out okay. She even said "Dirk used the word awesome a lot, so try to use that," and thus his plea to the "Awesome Savior" above. Thanks Anna!

And the Awesome Savior came through in the end. Dirk ended up winning the cattle sh*t challenge for his team. Whaddya know...

Awesome Savior also refers to John's saving of Ryan at the end. It turns out there was a heavy religious undertone to this episode, what with John's use of Christian guilt on Ryan and all. But anyway, the title was a double meaning.

There's kind of a goof in this episode, where it rains, then it is clear, then it rains, then it is clear again. The big storm at the start never really shows up. That is a problem with writing an episode over the course of a few months, little stuff like that gets dropped. Oops!

The two characters who got the star treatment in this episode were Gabriel and Peter. I felt they had kind of been neglected prior to this, and so they got a lot of good confessionals and quotes. The whole opening section is the two of them talking. Although they are similar, they do have important differences, and I tried to kind of bring them out as characters. Gabriel I know pretty well, so it wasn't too difficult. Although we did exchange a few emails about his vegetarianism, and under what circumstances he would eat meat, etc. That actually worked itself into the story, he has been a great resource thus far, he reads every episode and makes comments as needed. Every time I need some input, he is glad to help out.

Peter, I found out, ALSO reads the story, although I have yet to have any contact with him. I was told that he and Gabriel were bummed that they did not get picked for the real All-Stars, so they have invested their emotional energy into this story instead. (True!) And the confessional on day 16 where Peter starts talking yoga stuff and realizes he shouldn't is one of my favorite pieces of the story thus far. That is the first time I have really moved away from "goofy" Peter and into philosophical Peter, and I hope it gives him some depth. Because honestly, I still don't know much about the guy. I am just making it up as I go along here, people.

There's a scene with Ryan and Gabriel talking on the beach during the hunt that I like. I didn't know what those two would say to one another, so it was a fun writing experiment. Oh, and Ryan REALLY REALLY makes Gabriel nervous. Every time he writes to me, he comments on that. "Get rid of Ryan! He makes me nervous!" So I imagine the ending to this episode is really going to make him sweat it out. And Gabe doesn't know what happens next... he is going out of town for a month and will miss the ending of the series. Poor guy, it is going to drive him nuts having to wait until he gets back to find out how the story ends. *evil laugh*

You may notice I didn't describe the sheep hunt or the eating of the lamb at all. I felt it was redundant after the first try. So for time and space reasons I just referred to it in the past tense.

Okay, on to the two challenges. The Augean Stables one was fun. I debated with my editor Jenne if we should use real cattle crap or not. I wanted to use mud, she wanted poop. So I compromised in the end, although 100% cattle poop probably WOULD make them sick. Especially when Dirk takes a faceful of the stuff. I was trying to think of some way Taygete could win the challenge, and I came up with the eavesdropping thing. It seemed to work pretty well too. Trust me, it is hard to think of ways Alkyone could ever lose.

...such as, throwing the Olympiad. That was actually a strategic thing, I knew they would throw that one on purpose. After Ryan beat the piss out of Dirk in wrestling, that is. Ryan is really, really into pro and backyard wrestling in real life, I was scared Dirk would die, honestly. But there was no way I could do the team portion of the game without some sort of Olympiad. This is Ancient Greece, you know! They are just lucky I didn't make them do it naked.

Okay... on to the booting of Hunter. This is really the first episode where I knew the ending would be controversial. Normally most of my boots are the obvious choice, despite all my packaging of them otherwise. But Ryan was clearly the obvious one here... until I sat down to think about it. Actually, Murtz Jaffer helped me with this, he was a big fan all along of keeping Ryan. I said since day one, 'Ryan is dead meat. He can't possibly survive." And Murtz would repeatedly say, "No, he is desperate! If he is desperate, a good strategist would use that!" And it really didn't hit me until I started writing the end of this episode, and realized, you know what, he is right. You go into a merge with Hunter around, that is just one more strong guy you have to beat. Add to that the fact that Peter-Tanya-Gabriel are all good buddies in real life, and I thought John had a great idea in getting a third on his side. I knew it was a bit unconventional, but I figured if I explained it well and sold it the right way, people would understand why it would work. And I think I did. I can honestly see a lot of logic behind the Hunter boot, since he is uncontrollable and uber-competitive.

Hopefully no one calls B.S. on me, because it WAS done for a purpose. And not just to save Ryan. It actually worked, strategically, or I wouldn't have done it. John is looking out for himself, and Ryan is the beneficiary of this most Awesome Savior.

Although when I told Gabriel that Hunter was going... he was VERY nervous that he was now the strongest player in the game. I actually worked his fears into the story, all the stuff at the end, Gabriel basically wrote himself. He said he would warn Hunter, but late enough so that Hunter couldn't change anything. Thanks again, Gabriel!

Episode #7 will probably be out Friday night, late. I am nearing the point where the episodes need to be written again, I have eight of them done, and then I have to start writing again. Ugh. But seven is a fun one, maybe the most memorable of the series. It has my ABSOLUTE favorite challenge of the series, one of the most nasty, life threatening ones I have ever done. Sorry but no hints on this one. You won't forget it though.

And do you know the story of Medea? Start studying it if you don't...

-Mario

-EPISODE SEVEN: GOODBYE, LITTLE CHILDREN-

Wow, I have been writing some long notes lately. I guess I better tone those down somewhat. After all, I have to start writing eps 9-13 soon. I need to save my words!

To begin with, I had the idea of a no-merge twist in mind before I even started the story. That was going to be the key to the story, no twist when you expect it, but it will show up later, in place of a merge. And luckily, Gabriel WAS around to tell me what he would do in this situation, he picked his own "sacrifices." Although to be fair, it was a pretty obvious choice. I would have sent Stephanie, John and Ryan away if I had written it for him. But it is always nice to get some expert feedback.

Also, when I describe Gabriel as "A Buddhist kid from a commune", that was a term he used to describe himself in an email, so don't jump on my case about it. I didn't know he was Buddhist either.

Hunter and Peter really DID have some issues in the Marquesas. That was a subplot you only really heard about in interviews, it was never on the show. Peter was more alpha and dominant than he let on, and it caused friction with Hunter. I kind of touched on it here.

Gabriel asked Peter in real life what strategy he would use if he played again, and Peter said "I would offer absolute forgiveness for all." That was the only answer I had to work with, so I managed to fit into this ep. Peter is opting for the live and let live strategy... we'll see if it works.

I am very happy with how the twist came out. I had to capture that part perfectly, because it was a key moment in the story. And the story of Medea just fit perfectly, so I managed to work some Greek history into the twist as well. Although, as you can see, sometimes I have to stretch it a little...

The immunity challenge in this episode is my favorite of the series. I was trying to figure out how to get Tantalus into the story somehow, and I came up with this one. Plus it served the secondary purpose of showing that Gabe is tough to beat in the water challenges.

Episode #8 is right around the corner, it should be up Tuesday night. It features our first look at public intoxication and... more of Jimmy the teddy bear! And after that, nothing is written. I have to get on my butt now and start writing. Wish me luck!

-Mario

-EPISODE EIGHT: RED, WHITE AND BLUE-

First off, I forgot to write last week about my reason for having a non-merge. Basically, it was to keep the teams small. I LOVE writing Tribal Councils with a small amount of people. Because it makes the councils that much more tense, and every vote that much more important. Writing a Tribal Council with ten votes is terribly uninteresting to me, plus it takes too long. I would much rather have every Tribal Council with 5 people or less for a while. So that was my main reason for keeping the teams separate. I just wanted the Tribal Councils to be more tense.

There's a lot of Debb and Ramona stuff in this episode. And I had never really touched on their relationship much before this, so it was clear they would have major roles. I knew it would be down to one of the two of them, but the catch was that neither of their characters were very well defined. So I needed to find a way to make it dramatic.

And then, a little luck fell right into my lap.

Someone pointed out on EZ board that Debb and Ramona DID have issues in real life. They really had badmouthed each other in the press, back during S1 and S2. Debb really did say Ramona was a whiner, and Ramona really did laugh at Debb. That really happened, and I had no clue. So it absolutely made the setup for this episode better... sometimes things just work out better that way.

I was at a loss as to how Debb and Ramona would handle the ending. Would they team up, and face the Alkyones as a pair? Would they hate each other? Would they backstab? I was really at a loss, so I asked a few people, mainly my friends Jamie and Anna. And they both came to the same opinion that I did... that the women would be outwardly friendly, and sincere, but deep down would try to get the other one out. And Debb tried... she really did (like she tried with Varner back in S2), but Ramona was just better at it. I knew it wasn't the most exciting ending in the world, but every episode can't end in a showstopper. Poor Debb, and off to the jury. Well... at least she made it that far. But in truth I am not that disappointed about losing her as a character, I don't think I had a whole lot left to do with her. I think her story was basically over. But that didn't help sway my opinion, I knew Debb was going from the start. You'll see why later.

And my editor Jenne demanded that I take out all the Ramona vs Debb in the press stuff. Sorry Jenne, I had to keep it in! I needed to explain why they had issues. Forgive me!

"The Great Exchange" was an idea dreamed up by famed webmaster-to-the-stars Murtz Jaffer. He had an idea where the tribes give up their luxury items for a reward. I just upped the stakes, and had them bid for reward with ALL their stuff. And I personally liked the running subplot where Alkyone wants to give Britney's CD away.

I never asked Gabriel if he would give his teddy bear away. I just assumed he wouldn't. But Jimmy definitely made it into the actual plot of an episode. Go figure.

I wrote the whole chicken feast while at work one day during lunchtime, back in April. And I remember I taunted myself so badly with the description of the roasting smell that I had to go get chicken strips for lunch. Just thought you would enjoy knowing that.

The scene with Stephanie talking to the chickens is possibly my favorite one in the whole series. I could seriously write a whole novel just about Stephanie. I hope she reads this some day. Oh... and for some reason I thought I had ripped that off from Thailand. I had to go back and watch Thai eps 4-6 to make sure she didn't talk to the Sook Jai chickens. And she didn't. That was Robb. So I was safe.

The scene with Yertle at Alkyone seems unfinished. But I wasn't sure where to go with it, and I didn't want to cut it. So there it is. Enjoy.

Ok... the immunity challenge. This was a fun one to write. I knew we would have a drink-off, but there was one catch. I don't drink, I have never drunk, and indeed I have never tasted alcohol in my life (not a religious thing, just me being stubborn). So it was interesting to try to describe what drinking ultra potent wine would be like. I hope I fooled people into thinking I had done it before. I have no idea if authentic Greek wine is that strong, but what the heck, I said it was and people usually believe me. :)

There's some stuff about Ryan at the end which is pretty funny. First off... the quote where Steph says that Ryan was too busy watching Smackdown to ever see Survivor. This is a really funny quote... and I cannot possibly take credit for it. That is a quote that was told to me by Rob Cesternino. I asked Rob once, "How on Earth do I write Ryan?" And he responded with that quote. All you need to know about Ryan is that he had never seen Survivor, because every Thursday he had to watch Smackdown. I used the quote almost word for word in the story. Thanks Rob!

I wasn't sure whether to use the stuff about Ryan commenting on Jessie's ass and headlights. I thought it was a little over the top. But what the heck, gotta take chances in life. I left it in. And if you are curious what headlights means... um... let's just say it might have been a bit chilly out.

Lastly, this was the final episode I wrote before the series started posting. I kind of rushed it at the time, but through a lot of edits and time put in last week, I managed to make it look pretty good. I don't think it is the best episode of the series, plot wise or drama wise, but I think there is some good character stuff and it is pretty funny at times. I will understand if people comment that it is kind of lackluster compared to the last few. A Debb boot will tend to do that. She's just kind of boring. But it turned out well, in my opinion, and how can you not like Stephanie and the chickens?

Episode 9 should be out Sunday. It is being written as you read this. Watch for a big episode from Tanya... and a fun thunderbolt challenge. And the name of the episode is 'Things Fall Apart", so expect some nasty fireworks to ensue...

-Mario

-EPISODE NINE: FOUR LITTLE DAGGERS-

Wow, a lot going on in this episode. First off, it WAS played completely fair. I drew a random name out of a hat to see who would get the dagger, and John came up. I hated to do it, but there was NO WAY that tie would ever be broken. I could have cheated, and just said "Well, who do I want to go?" In fact, when I first sketched out this episode, that's exactly what I did. I picked a name, and said they would be leaving. And I'm not telling you who it was, but let's just say it wasn't John. In fact, I thought John was going to win prior to this episode. But I decided to leave the boot up to fate, and John's came up. Sorry, that's just the way random chance works. Although it is a bit ironic that the pastor goes out as a martyr.

The original title of this episode was "Things Fall Apart." And I was gonna use that, but it was a bit vague and boring. So at the last minute I switched to "Four Little Daggers." I figured you would remember that title, which is good because this is probably an episode people will remember.

Ok... one confession to make, plus some really neat backstory. This is in regards to Tanya's secret. You know... how she and Steph have been faking it all along, and are really friends. Well, in the world of writing, this is known as CHEATING. I wrote one thing and then said, oops, I was wrong, I lied. Actually it isn't that bad. But there is some great history to this subplot. First off, when I was doing research for the story, I heard that Steph and Tanya had some problems in real life. I heard they didn't get along very well. And I'm not telling you who said that, so don't ask :) So I just wrote it into the story. Although I was very very vague as to WHY they didn't get along. I just said they didn't. And that wasn't a plot device, that was simply because I didn't KNOW why they didn't get along. No one told me. I just needed some conflict, so there it was.

So fast forward about a month. I hear from our webmaster (Murtz) that Tanya Vance is a big fan of All-Star Greece. I hear that she loves the story (and she even wrote about her Britney Spears impression in her online journal!) So I wrote Tanya at her website to see what she thought. And she wrote back a very complimentary letter, saying she loved it, it was a hoot, etc. But then she said "Oh, and Steph and I are friends in real life."

Now, this hit me like a punch to the gut. I had been wrong?? I had written a major subplot around a feud that did not exist? But rather than panic, I decided to spin it into a plot. I thought... wow, wouldn't that be cool if they were faking all along? No one would ever see that coming. And since I was so deliciously vague about the origins of said feud, I could probably get away with it. I thought about it for a long time, and debated if I could pull it off. Would it work? Was it cheating?

And really, it came down to one person. I asked someone who knew Tanya pretty well. I asked Gabriel if he knew that Steph and Tanya were friends. I wanted to know if they could realistically fool him in the story. Because, obviously, if he knew they were friends in real life, it kills the realism.

So I sent off an email: "Gabe, are Steph and Tanya friends?"

And he wrote back something like : "Um... I'm not sure. Are they?"

Which was perfect! So once I knew they could hide their friendship from people, I decided to use it. And here it is. Hopefully it will give the two of them some very extra added dimension in the story.

Oh and thanks Tanya! She has helped a lot with her character in the past week or so.

The challenges in this one were pretty standard. The run and row was just your standard relay race, nothing special. But I had a hard time coming up with an immunity challenge. I was stuck, until fellow Tongan Anna Novak stepped in and came up with the thunderbolt challenge. It was pretty neat too, I asked her for a Hephaestus Challenge, and she came up with this one. I'm not entirely sure it would work as is, but if they used soft metal, I think it would melt. I liked it a lot. Very creative. Thanks Anna!

There's a big fight in this episode, between Jessie and Stephanie. And I didn't write it on purpose. It is left out, and we only hear it alluded to later. This is because I don't like writing mean, nasty fights. It is hard to roleplay those, you feel icky afterwards. I learned with Gretchen and Alicia back in Hawaii. So I left it vague on purpose.

There are two inside jokes in this episode. The first is directed at my editor, Jenne. She happens to have written me the very first negative email I ever had, back with Hawaii. She pointed out that the contestants were eating rice, even though they were given none at the start. She wrote "What, did they just invent rice?" So I have Ramona commenting that Gabe should invent rice in this episode. See, aren't you a better person that you get that joke now?

The second inside joke is the name of the cruise ship. It is the POSEIDON. Poseidon was the Greek god of the sea, of course, but it also comes from a movie. My wife and I just watched the movie THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE last week, in which a cruise ship flips over due to an underwater earthquake. So I named the boat after that. Plus, we are going on a cruse next week, so I wanted to use a cruise ship in the episode. Yay for inside jokes!

Oh, and to all you who said Greece needed a villain... welcome Mr. Ryan Aiken. I hope you enjoy him.

Episode ten will be a ways off. I apologize for this, but I DID mention it on the message board, so it shouldn't be a surprise.. I will be on an Alaskan cruise from July 7-14, and then will need a few days to finish ep10 when I get back. It should be up two weeks from today, on Sunday, July 20. I know the wait is gonna suck, especially after this cliffhanger of an episode. But there's not much of a way around it.

Oh, and Narcissus makes his appearance in episode 10. Plus some other fun surprises... :)

See you in two weeks!

-Mario

P.S. I came up with the dagger draw at the last minute. No planning whatsoever, totally off the top of my head when I got to Tribal Council. I love to work spontaneously like that.

-EPISODE TEN: LEFT FOR DEAD-

Okay, back from my Alaskan vacation and ready for more episode notes. First off, a word of thanks is in order. A reader named Tom Mosby wrote me to explain that you can't wash clothes in sea water. Apparenly they get all salty and dry out. So I added the stuff at the start where Steph has to rinse them with fresh water afterwards. Thanks Tom!

Basically, I was on a cruise ship last week, with nothing to do. At night, I would go up to the top deck, sit in a hot tub, and sketch out the last few episodes. This is the first of the sketched out episodes, so if you think it had more detail and depth than usual, you are probably right. I normally write so spontaneously and by the seat of my pants, that when I get time to plan ahead and work stuff out, the pacing is better, as well as the detail. As you can see.

One thing I forgot to mention with last episode. There was an Oedipus theme running through the episode. At the challenge, Peter made a joke about an Oedipus challenge... which was a small precursor to the end, when Ryan got John eliminated. If you remember, Oedipus was prophesized to one day kill his father. That is a common theme in Greek myth, a father will one day be killed by his son. Keep that in mind :)

Thus ends the sorded story of Jessie Camacho. I felt bad making her so disliked in the story, but sometimes you can just tell when an episode is getting tense, and this one needed it. She was fun to write for, but really had a strategy that could anger a lot of people. And as she predicted, she WAS dragged down by associating with Ryan Aiken. She called it.

I loved the whole scene at the start where Tanya's stomach drops when she sees John is gone. I love that image.

Normally I don't have the real world intrude on the story too much, but the whole section with the producers prodding Stephanie I thought was pretty well done. In fact those goes back to something I was told once. Rob Cesternino read Alaska and said that a few times, I had the camera crew talking to the players during confessionals, and asking them questions. Rob pointed out that the cameramen NEVER talk to the players, they are not allowed to. When players do confessionals, they are actually talking to a producer behind the camera, and it is a sort of dialogue sometimes. So I made sure to change that in this story, during confessionals it is the producers who are asking questions, not the cameraman. Thanks Rob, that is something I never would have known if I hadn't actually played the game.

The merge was fun to do. None of the readers really predicted it. But I was gonna have it at seven all along. Two reasons:

1. It is an odd number, and I wanted to make it stressful for a losing team. I didnt want a tie.

2. I delayed it as long as I possibly could. Theoretically, the smallest a team can be before a merge is 2 players. You can never go below 2. So the smallest you can ever go without a merge is 7. Worst case scenario, you have a 5 person team and a 2 person team. So I planned all along to have it at 7. Just in case it was 5-2 I didn't want to have to deal with that. I didn't cheat to save Stephanie, that's just where the story happened to be at the merge.

You will note that the Greek logo has a good deal of violet in it. That was always going to be the merge color.

Picking the tribe name is always fun to do. Other choices I considered were Andronikos, Xanthra, Metaxas, Eriphos, Stavros, Xanthippe and Oestremis. As with Alaska (where I picked Qinaliut simply because it started with Q), I had to use an X word because you don't get many X words in your life. I liked Xanathos the best, even if it means nothing. It just sounded Greek.

I wrote the whole section on the boat, and my editor Jenne said "Wow, it sounds like Big Brother when they are all crammed together like that." So sure enough, I used that quote later on, by Tanya during Tribal Council.

At one point, Ryan tells Jessie that Stephanie is going to "gank" them. I have no idea if this is a real slang term. I vaguely remember hearing it before, and I think it means backstab, or sabotage. And if it isn't a real word, it at least SOUNDS like a word Ryan would say. Ryan tends to speak his own language. I don't know if you remember in the Amazon reunion show, but Ryan said that Jeff's jetski entrance was "cheap." Now, NOBODY knew what this meant, they assumed Ryan was making fun of Jeff. But I found out later (thanks again, Rob Cesternino) that cheap is a slang term for cool. Ryan was saying he liked the jet ski entrance, by using a term that few people on the face of the earth would understand. So I decided to start making up slang terms for Ryan, just to have fun with it.

The Immunity Challenge one was tricky. I thought it would last over three hours, because I envisioned it as a balance thing. But my editor Jenne claimed it was more like a push-up and no one would last thirty minutes. So I compromised and shortened it to fifty minutes. I have no idea how long people could do this position, and I am too lazy to try. Anyone want to test it out?

One last comment. This is a real obscure joke and move reference but if you like that sort of stuff, you will like this. There is a really cheesy sword and sorcery movie from the 80's called Deathstalker 2: Duel of the Titans. For whatever reason, I caught this movie late on TV one night and I fell in love with it. It sucks, and is cheesy as hell, but has really corny dialogue and the actors break character every scene because they are having so much fun. In fact, the movie opens with Deathstalker fleeing from a castle, and then his archrival says to the camera: "I'll have my revenge. And Deathstalker too." And then the credits flash up "Deathstalker 2". Too.. Two. Get it? I love the sheer audacity of that opening. Anyway, in the movie at one point, Deathstalker is told he has to fight and kill an evil sorcerer, so he rolls his eyes and says sarcastically: "Is there any other kind?" So I am writing this episode, and I come to the point where Jeff says the challenge is based on "another tragic Greek story." And then I immediately thought of the Deathstalker quote, and used it, where Peter replied "Great, is there any other kind?" Well, I thought it was funny, anyway. This is what happens when you think in movie quotes.

Episode 11 will be up next Sunday, July 27th. It features our first real mental challenge, as well as a particularly fun crossbow battle. You will like it. I love crossbows. I use them in stories as often as I can.

Sorry for the wait, but we are back on schedule now. An episode every Sunday until we have a winner!

-Mario

-EPISODE ELEVEN: SMACKDOWN-

Okay, clearly the title gives away the bootee, but it was too funny not to use it. Sorry, but I couldn't resist. Sometimes you just have to do an obvious episode, to cleanse the palate.

I will miss Ryan. He was a lot of fun to write for, even though I couldn't have cared less about him at the start. He really grew on me at the end, even if the other players weren't particularly nice to him. Oh well. Hope he was fun to read.

The side deal between Gabe and Tanya was something Gabe really DID tell me he would do if he ever felt he was in danger. Cut a deal with the person who was most threatening. He never said he would feel guilty though, that is my own interpretation of how I felt he would handle it. We'll see if Gabe can figure out some way to reconcile it in his head. His psyche is something that was fascinating to me as a writer. Much like Gretchen in the Hawaii story, I knew that eventually he would get himself into an ethical pickle and it would be hell on his sense of right and wrong. I knew that Gabe's morality would be a major plot point from the moment I started the story.

The paintball challenge was basically something I came up with when I ran out of myth ideas. Instead, let's have them try to shoot each other! It was fun to write, hope it was fun to read. It was kind of like the canoe wars challenge in Alaska, only without Tammy trying to murder people. Oh, and my editor Jenne's favorite colors are pink and yellow. Her favorite characters in the story are Gabe and Stephanie, so you will note that Gabe and Steph got pink and yellow paintball pellets. Anytime you see pink or yellow in the story, that is by Jenne request. See how many times you can catch it.

I saw a special on PBS just the other day about the island of Delos. Apparenly it IS a very sacred place, no one is allowed to die or be born there, and they have lion statues sitting around. God bless public television.

Delos also happens to sit very near where my mythical islands are, in the central Aegean sea. And yes, I just admitted my islands are mythical. There are no Pleaides islands. The Pleaides were seven sisters in mythology, and are also a constellation. But I just made up my island chain, don't go looking for it or anything. But Delos is real. And pistachios are a big Greek crop, too. All that was real.

All the riddles for the Oedipus challenge I swiped from the internet. I was too lazy to think of my own.

The thing about Ryan comparing himself to Jed is apparently true. I have heard first hand reports of him having this bizarre fascination with Jed Hildebrand, and he repeatedly asks people if he is better looking than Jed. Apparently the two of them have some sort of rivalry. Don't ask me why, but more than one person told me that story, so I used it here. Just a little FYI if you like inside jokes.

I was lucky enough to speak to Tanya Vance for about an hour this week, and it was very helpful in getting her speech inflection and word choice down. If you thought her character was more developed in this episode, that is why. I really wanted to work on getting her speech down, since she had been quite underwritten up to now, probably the most of any character in the story. I always have a problem writing younger females, so I tend to give them less dialogue than anyone else. But hopefully I have her down now, I just needed to hear her talk first. Thanks Tanya for the phone call!

The episode was two days early this time, since I will be out of town. I am currently doing a job search (yay, unemployment!) so I sometimes get called to go somewhere on short notice. I will be in Sacramento all weekend for a job interview so you get the episode two days early. It was either Friday or Tuesday, hopefully you guys don't mind the early posting.

The next episode (#12) will be posted on Sunday, August 3rd. You don't get any hints for this one, but it is the last normal episode before the finale, so expect some fireworks!

-Mario

-EPISODE TWELVE: FOUR ISLANDS-

Poor Gabriel. He is such a big fan of this series, and now he gets the boot while he is off on vacation. That's right, he has been out of the country for a while now, and so he missed his big boot episode. Oh well. I'm sure I will hear from him when he gets back, and hopefully there won't be too many F-Bombs in his reply. (Just kidding!)

The theme of this episode was very simple: Will Tanya turn on her friends, or won't she? Everything else in the episode was filler. That was the whole plot of the episode, and I did my best to fill in a whole story around a very simple choice. And really, the answer was easy. Would Tanya turn?

Heck YEAH!

I knew this before I even asked her. You simply aren't gonna keep Gabe around if you don't have to, he is final two kryptonite. I think he would beat anybody. But since I have talked with her before, I DID ask her through email, and she said the same thing. In fact, a lot of the dialogue here is stuff she wrote to me, word for word: "Catch ya on the flip side," "You're too wise and strong to keep around," "I'm a realist here, I'm never gonna be rich," and all the stuff about Gabe traveling so much, so he really doesn't need the money anyway. Although in fairness to Tanya, she DID feel bad about voting her friend off... for about .08 of a millisecond, anyway. Nah, I'm just kidding. She said it would be hard for her to do, and she requested "At least make me feel sad about it." But then again, Tanya is Tanya. She plays to win.

Besides, she knows Gabe in real life, and she can explain it to him later. That would be fun to see.

This was the first episode I wrote without the services of Jenne, my editor extraordinaire. Due to the time crunch, I didn't have time to get her an advance copy. So if there are more spelling/grammar mistakes than usual, blame me. I suck.

The reward challenge is what I call a lazy writer challenge. Basically I didn't want to think up a new one, so I used parts of old ones. It happens every story, I always run out of challenge ideas.

The reward was a Cadillac Escalade. My friend Anna researched cars for me, since I wanted to use a big shiny truck. I have no idea what kind of trucks there are in the world, so Anna found the Cadillac (along with a picture at http://www.ridejudge.com/rideDetails.asp?RideID=2755). It sounded pretty good, so I used it. Note that I misspelled it as "Esclade". Oops. And I have no idea if there are 2003 models available, the webpage was for a 2002. Oh, and did you notice that the winner of the new car got voted out in the same episode? I think it is funny to do that in every series. It is the kiss of death.

I loved the idea of making them drink before every task. Just something fun to make them do.

Ok... here is a reference that I bet nobody got. The riddle that Gabe had to solve was :

"What is better than the gods, yet worse than death itself? If you eat it, you will die, yet dead people eat it always."

I was searching for riddles, and I wanted a good one. I am a BIG fan of Stephen King books, and I remembered the book DARK TOWER 3: THE WASTELANDS. You see, only a nerd like me would remember that one chapter in that book involved a riddle contest, where people were trying to fool a computer by giving it the ultimate riddle. So I opened the book and started looking for riddles. The one listed above was mentioned as being one of the best, so I used it here as well. The answer is "nothing."

Oh, and as for Peter's riddle:

"You see nothing else when you look in my face. I will look you in the eye, and I will never lie."

The answer is "a mirror."

On day 35, we see that when Stephanie drinks, she gets flirty and she likes to take off her clothes. Please note that I did NOT make this up. I was told by somebody that this happens in real life. I was also told she claims she has a crush on Mark Burnett. Don't ask who told me, cause I'm not saying.

The Prometheus challenge was a bit of a stretch.. it was basically fire building. That was it. I kind of fudged it to make it into a myth. Funny thing though... the challenge ORIGINALLY was a mental one. I had it sketched out as a "King Midas Touch" type of puzzle, where you had to turn the squares gold to win. The only problem was, I couldn't figure out what the rules should be, and I was in a crunch to get this episode done. So it switched to Prometheus instead. I think it would have worked best the other way... Ramona was supposed to beat Gabe in a mental challenge, it was going to be a big moment for her. But instead it became one based on balance, which she would be good at, anyway. So yay Ramona.

There's a weird section towards the end. Ramona says Tanya is the only one she trusts, and then a few paragraphs later, says that Tanya can't be trusted. Oops, I should have read that more carefully.

Gabe wasn't here to tell me how he would respond to Tanya, but I thought he would find it funny. I just pictured him giggling at it all, the fact that no one realized Tanya-Steph was an act. So thus the ending. Gabe had said repeatedly that he wouldn't take it personally, and disliked when people felt like they deserved to win. I figured once he was out, he would be a good sport about it, so that's why he came out the way he did at the end. Personally, I think he'd be rooting for Tanya and Steph to pull it all off now.

Gabe's expulsion also showed one thing though... I show no favoritism. I wanted Gabe to win, but once it was his time to go, it was his time. Same as Diane. I won't cheat to save my favorites. There was really no way around this boot in my mind, once Ramona was determined to win immunity. Gabe simply had to go, even though he helped me so much with the story. Out of the final four, Tanya is the only one I have spoken to now, although I know Peter reads the story too. We'll see if one of them can pull it off...

Oh, and the twist. I knew I was gonna put people on their own islands a while ago. In fact, I wanted to do it at seven, at the merge. But some people I asked felt that was too unfair, so I decided to save it for four. You know, give the final episode a little more spice. Plus, it makes ep.12 end on a cliffhanger, and I LOVE cliffhangers.

I am quite pleased with the finale. Um... it isn't WRITTEN yet, per se, but it will be very good. Lots of good drama, and two kickass challenges. One of them involves Pandora. The name of the episode is "Challenging the Gods," so that should be something to think about. Remember, there has been one running theme all season...

I start a new job tomorrow (Monday) so I may not have as much late night writing time as I am used to. The episode SHOULD be up next Sunday, but I can't guarantee it. It may be delayed by a day or two, but not by much. I will keep you updated, read the ez board discussion thread for updates. Oh... and make sure to make your predictions for the winner (and the F2!)

- Mario

-EPISODE THIRTEEN: CHALLENGING THE GODS-

Wow, a lot to say about this one. The finale notes may be 8 parts, like the episode itself.

I'm only half kidding.

First off... I'm not sure if it is possible for me to write a story that produces a male winner. I have no idea how I got two females in the F2 again, but that's what happened. And that was certainly not the story I had in mind when I started, that's just the direction it took once I started writing. I even stacked the game at the start so that a male would probably win, and it still didn't help! In fact, when I started picking the cast it looked so incredibly lopsided that I didn't think it was fair. I subtitled it "Alpha males against sick and older females." And look at the first three boots... all female. I thought the whole story would go in that direction, but alas.

Not that I have a problem with Tanya winning. I actually think she was the most deserving winner I have had thus far. It's just that I know I could get some flak for having:
A) Another female winner
B) Another winner who writes for Survivor-Central
C) A winner who helped me write parts of the story

But at a certain point in the game, it was pretty obvious that Tanya was going to win. There were very few other outcomes that you could make a realistic case for. In fact it was SO obvious in my mind that I started giving her obstacles to overcome. You will note that she had a particularly harsh time at the end, and that was intentional. She got left out of the loop on decisions, she got hit on by Ryan, she got sick, she lost her F2 partner, and then Gabe and Peter were totally onto her. But none of it mattered, she still waltzed to a win.

In fact, the illness thing should have been a HUGE clue. I was afraid that would give away the fact that she won, but nobody seemed to pick up on it. Because at the start of the season on the message boards, I repeatedly said that "NOBODY WILL GET SICK. THERE WILL BE NO ILLNESS THIS TIME." I meant it too, I wanted to make it fair, and just assume everyone was healthy this time.

And then midway through the story, Tanya gets sick. And the readers started to worry if she could make it to the end. Well honestly, that was a HUGE clue. I didn't want you to think she was an easy win, I wanted to make her struggle a little, even if it never really factored into the story. Her illness was never anything more than filler.

Sneaky, huh?

Ok, I will now just go through the episode from start to finish and comment on it. There's some interesting stuff in this one.


---Opening Montage---

This montage wasn't planned ahead of time, it was just a brainstorm idea I had about 24 hours before posting. I was trying to think of a way to spice up this finale, and give it something the Hawaii and Alaska ones never had. I wanted to get you into the story before you even hit the first word, so I planned a recap montage, like on the real show.

One of the biggest fans of All-Star is a guy named Henry Jenkins, who goes by the name Ender on Survivor-Central. I knew he wanted to write something, so I asked him to write this montage for me. He did a great job, although I added stuff at the beginning and ending to make it more dramatic (my specialty). So the montage is about 50% mine, 50% his. I think it turned out pretty well.

Although the montage DOES forgot to mention the fact that they are living on four islands now. This is what happens when you write the montage after the episode is already done. Oh well, it was kind of rushed as it was. I ended up doing the final edits on the montage about ten minutes before the episode was posted.

For the next story, I think I want to spice up the finale even more. Maybe I can put together a little flash movie, like an opening credits sequence. You know, with pictures, music, all that... hmm.... anyone know how to do that? Cause I certainly don't.



--- Day 37 ---


The episode starts with a lightning storm, which was another idea from Henry. He was talking to me on instant messager the other night while stuck in a storm, and he said "You know, lightning is much scarier in the country than it is in the city." So I just took that and ran with it.

Plus there is an added metaphor of Zeus hurling his thunderbolts down and marking Ramona for dismissal, if you want to look at it that way.

By the way, I worked some nice reverse psychology with this episode. Day 37 starts with Ramona, and she gets a big scene, only to be voted off. On day 38, Peter has a big scene at the start where he knows the day will go well... and then HE is voted off. So if you were paying attention, you would think I was following a pattern. Sure enough, day 39 starts with Tanya, and I wanted you to think she was the next one gone, but I pulled the old switcheroo on you. Yay!

Oh yeah, let me point out that I was pleasantly surprised last week by an email from Peter Harkey. I knew he read the story, and I knew he wanted to get in touch with me. But up to this point, I hadn't heard a word from him. I found out later that his attitude was "Well, this guy knows what he is doing, why does he care what I think?" But anyway, once Gabe was voted off, Peter wrote me and said he wanted to talk to me about the story.

Sweet!

So we talked on the phone for a while, and I got some good stuff about his character from the conversation. If you are wondering why his character suddenly seems more developed in the finale, that's why. I got a lot of good insight from the chat. A lot of the quotes from this episode are exact stuff he said, like "The law of the universe only requires you to tithe 10% to charity" and "I've learned more from Gabriel than from anyone else in my life." He also said that Burnett told him the game would be harder for him than for most anyone else, which also made it into the episode.

But the most interesting thing he told me was about Vecepia. He said he knew she was going to win the Marquesas the moment he looked in her eyes. He said he just knew it, the way you know the sun is out. So I kind of slipped that into the story where he says he knew Tanya would be in the final two back on the first day.

Oh, and for the record, he does NOT know the lyrics to the Britney Spears song "Oops.. I did it again." I knew that was kind of a stretch. In fact, he says he barely even knows how to bowl. But he did say (and his wife confirmed) that most everything else in the story was pretty true to his character, so I was pretty proud about that.

Thanks, Peter!

The immunity challenge (Pandora's Box) was another contribution from my friend Anna, one of the many muses that helped with ideas for the story. Although her original idea was pretty harsh-- she wanted to use tear gas. I thought that was a -tad- brutal, so I tried to make it more fun and playful instead. Although just to humor her I had two balls filled with a mild form of pepper spray.

And I suppose you want to know how I determined immunity in this story? After all, I teased you all season about it. Well... it was one of three ways:
1. Random selection
2. Pick the challenge first, and THEN decide who would likely win it
3. Or just say, I want this team to win now.

The season STARTED with random selection, for the first two episodes anyway. Taygete was picked to lose the first IC, and Alkyone the second. But then... I ran into a problem.

Alkyone wasn't going to lose anymore!

Seriously, the teams were such a mismatch that I couldn't think of many challenges that Alkyone could lose. I had to stretch it as it was on some of them (Jessie and Ramona overhearing the Alkyone answers in the Hercules challenge). But it was like, man, Alkyone can't lose for a while. So they didn't. Up until the merge, I basically just used the best, most physical and memorable challenges I could, since Alkyone would probably win anyway. I just decided the heck with it, let's have a blowout.

About the time of the Hunter boot, I decided okay, enough with that, let's even it out a little. And the Hunter boot DID make sense, strategically, right before a merge, so I had Alkyone throw the challenge.

After the swap, I went back to random, and both teams lost one challenge. And then, I was left with a choice. Taygete had a really nasty potential split with John/Steph vs Jessie/Ryan. I knew that showdown would be memorable. So I just said... you know what? One episode before the merge, and I want to milk that for all it's worth. So I just gave immunity to Alkyone that week, for dramatic purposes.

Although the dagger pull was completely random. John lost that one due to random chance. Interesting to note that had I just made up a dagger victim, I would have picked Steph. I felt she had the least to contribute to the story at that point. But I decided to let fate decide instead, and John went. Sorry John!

After the merge, it was clear that Ryan and Jessie would be the first two gone. And common sense said it would be Ryan, but I didn't want to lose him. He was too fun, so I just gave him immunity. Jessie went, and then Ryan went the next week. No biggie, they would have gone anyway.

So then we were down to five. And at this point, I didn't want to start messing with fate. So I went back to random. All the immunities were random for the last two episodes. Peter was picked to win immunity at final four, and the Pandora's Box challenge worked great. Well done, Peter.

For the record, my favorite ball was the one that wouldn't break. Tanya got that one.

At Tribal Council, we have probably the best scene I have ever written. The Peter vs Tanya mindgame showdown. And that one was such a blast to write. Basically, I wrote it two ways. In one version, Tanya is very meek, and won't give Peter a straight answer. In the second version, she lies and says she is aligned with neither Steph nor Ramona. So I emailed Tanya and asked what she would do. Needless to say, we ended up talking on the phone and she gave me the idea that she could bait Peter, and try to get him to vote for her. I loved that, so we roleplayed most of the conversation and I took notes. All the stuff she says is word for word what she told me, and it really added a lot to the scene.

Well okay, she didn't tell me the "Just have faith" line. That was my idea. It was evident that Ramona would ask, and I needed to have Tanya give her a non-commital answer. That was the best I could come up with.

Ramona is gone, three players left!



--- Day 38 ---


The day starts with a trip to Aeaea Island. This is named after the island that Circe holds Odysseus hostage in the Odyssey. I don't think it is a real place, but it worked. Plus I just liked the name. Oh yeah, and the word "Aeaea" literally makes your spell-checker explode. Just thought you should know that.

The pre-challenge ritual was something I had planned for some time, where the players grease themselves up with balm and then dress like warriors. I LOVED the idea of Steph stripping down and then arming herself like an Amazon warrior. That was a great visual.

Here is a really funny inside joke... get ready for this. I have said on the message board many times that the movie Clash of the Titans is a big inspiration of my love for Greek mythology. And if you look at the cover of the movie, you will see Harry Hamlin wearing a red robe fastened with a golden sun brooch. Sure enough, Peter is wearing the exact same thing here.

I didn't know how Greek people dressed, so I just looked at my copy of the movie and stole the costumes. And Peter is dressed just like Perseus. He even kind of has the same hair.

Okay, the torch walk. Err... statue walk. I had two ideas for the torch walk. One was to use statues. And one was to use the actual people. My first idea was to have a really big staircase, and have the actual voted off people there to wish the final three luck, one by one. It would have been a cool moment. But... honestly, I can't see CBS being able to drag the bootees back to Delos just to do a meet and greet. It didn't seem like it would work. Would Linda want to come back? Would Carl? Hunter??

So I used statues. It sounded very Greek to me. One would just point to the next. And a few people have asked... how did they have statues of Gabe and Ramona already? Well, my idea is that they made statues of all 16 people, and only had to use 13. But on the plus side, I bet those statues would make killer souvenirs on Ebay.

I personally liked the Ryan statue still trying to hit on Tanya.

I'm not sure why Gabe has his eyes closed. But I figured people would try to interpret that. For me, I just liked the image.

The final immunity takes place in a ruined temple. I liked that, and "challenging the gods" was always my idea for the final IC. I wanted Jeff to go all season saying "If you challenge the gods, you will lose!" and then at the end, to switch to "You have to challenge the gods to win!" And my idea for the challenge was different than it ended up in the story.

Originally, I wanted each player to challenge a god, and try to perform a set task. For example, Stephanie you must spend 10 minutes in this casket, or you fail. It would have been individual. But for time reasons, I didn't do that. The episode was just so long as it was (70+ pages), I knew that to make it individual would tack on another 20 pages, easy. Besides, I didn't have the rules down as to how many you had to win, what would happen if you failed, etc. So I basically turned it into an olympiad instead, best of 5.

I had a fun time coming up with challenges, although the Artemis one was originally a Poseidon one, where you had to catch fish. But I liked the bow shooting one instead, since I knew Steph was gonna win. She could shine at that one, being an Amazon and all.

The Hades one was my favorite, for obvious reasons. I have been told it is a ripoff of an Edgar Allan Poe story, but I don't know any Poe stories, so it was just a coincidence.

Oh and I misspelled "helmet" at the start of the challenge. I have Peter no longer carrying a "helment." I hate misspellings, that sucks.

Okay... the end of the challenge is interesting, because it is not what I originally intended to happen. You see, in my random drawing for the final IC winner (done via three scraps of paper while sitting in a hot tub just off the coast of Alaska), I chose Tanya as the winner. So it was clear that she would take Steph to the final two, case closed.

But when I started writing the challenge, I realized that Tanya wouldn't win this. She wasn't going to win three events, not against Peter and Steph. And I didn't want to scrap the challenge, so I just altered it a little. Instead of Tanya winning, Steph wins. After all Steph didn't have a big moment yet. And she would take Tanya to F2 anyway, so it didnt change the story. The compromise I came up with was the 2-2 showdown, where Tanya just cuts a deal to give Steph the win. It worked for me, and didn't change the integrity of the ending, so I used it.

And I never came up with an Ares challenge. I just threw that in there to tease you. I imagine it would involve beating the piss out of each other in some way.

There is a funny inside joke at the end of the Zeus challenge, where Peter loses. And I hate to spill this now, but I suppose it doesn't matter anymore. You see, I was in an online game called Survivor: Tonga a few months ago. It was supposed to be written up as a story, but isn't going to happen. It died in the water and has been pulled from the S-C site. But there are a TON of Tonga jokes in this series. And now I'm free to start pointing out some of them.

At the end of Tonga, I was in the final three. And I lost the final immunity challenge to a girl named Isabella. You see, it was an endurance challenge, and she beat me (by seconds!) because she could do yoga breathing. That was how it was written up, "Isabella is able to stay focused due to yoga, and Mario falls." She beat me, and then she voted my ass off. And so this became a big inside joke in Tonga, that I always cursed yoga afterwards. I think my final words in Tonga were "Fucking yoga!" So go back in Greece and see how many yoga references I make. And watch here at the final IC, where Peter does yoga breathing, but it is unable to help him. He loses... because yoga fails.

That, my friends, is called catharsis.

F#@*ing yoga.



--- Day 39 ---



I really like the idea of them filming their own goodbye message. They get little handheld cameras and say their goodbyes. They should do that on the real show.

The very last thing I added to the episode last night was Tanya's goodbye message to Yertle. I thought that was a nice scene, we kind of forgot about our sea turtle friend a few episodes ago.

Oh, here's a Yertle trivia note. Yertle the Turtle is a real Dr. Seuss book, my daughter loves it. Only I forgot the story was about a mean turtle. Yertle is a turtle who wants to rule the ocean, and stand on the backs of his fellow turtles. I thought he was nice and sweet, so I used his name in the story. I was unaware that Yertle was an a-hole. Had I remembered that, I would have had Peter name the turtle "Gamera" instead. If you enjoy Japanese monster movies, you would have enjoyed that reference.

The final Tribal Council on Mount Olympus was an idea I had early on. True, there are lots of places that would have worked, like oracles or temples or the Acropolis or the Parthenon. But I wanted somewhere remote, and the mountain was perfect for the gods theme that has been running all season.

And I loved the image of the staircase. The big white stone staircase, and three people walking up it.

I ALMOST had Helen and Alicia at the top of the stairs, to escort the final two to their seats. But I dropped that idea. I wanted to keep this story about Greece and Greece alone.

I wanted to make sure the final jury was seated ABOVE Tanya and Steph. I wanted the idea of them looking down, passing judgement. The rings idea was the best I had although in retrospect, they wouldn't be able to recrate an open air Tribal Council like that on a soundstage. Not during the daylight. Oh well. I basically just wanted lots and lots of white. And I COULD have had the jurors dress like gods too (in white robes) but I can guess that John Raymond would have theological issues with that, not to mention Ramona, Peter and Gabe. So no white robes.

One of the hardest parts of the story is coming up with jury questions. I was fortunate this time in that Gabe and Peter wrote their own jury questions. I asked them a while ago to send their F2 speech and their jury question, just in case, so I had their exact words, and what they were looking for.

Tanya wrote her own F2 speech, most of that is word for word from her email. I had to come up with Stephanie's and I think I did a pretty good job. She is hard to write for, and I figured by making her funny I could cover up some of her awkwardness. She actually has some pretty good lines here, she is basically doing a stand-up routine.

My personal favorites are "You probably already voted for me once, so it won't hurt to vote for me again" and "I just hope you aren't too pissed about losing to someone with an accent." That last line may be the funniest in the whole series, although I screwed up and added an extra "to" in that sentence. Crap.

I don't know if John would have voted for Brian. But I wanted to make a Tanya = mini Brian comparison, and he was a good choice to do it.

Ok, here's another Tonga inside joke. The final two in Tonga was Isabella and Ronan, and I had a pretty nasty jury speech where I called one a cherry-picker (Isabella) and one a big nobody who got lucky (Ronan). You will note that Ryan's jury speech is VERY similar to that. Since the Tonga finale will never be written, I just swiped my own jury speech to use here, although I made Ryan nicer than I was. Ryan actually comes off pretty well.

And someone pointed out Tanya DIDN'T vote for all the people she claimed she did. Oops! I didn't go back and check, I guess I screwed up. She never voted for Hunter. But you can easily say she lied here and claimed she did. No one knows otherwise. Yeah, that's it.

Ok, Tonga inside joke number two. Jessie's question to Tanya is the exact same question Anna asked to Ronan at the Tonga final Tribal Council. Once again, it was a good question, so I decided to use it here instead. It fit.

Tanya promising not to give any money to Gabe is another favorite part of the final TC. That was something I thought was funny so I had her say it.

Ok... as to the voting... here's how it broke down. It was very hard to make it even remotely suspenseful, but I tried. I think a lot of people actually thought Stephanie could win. Sorry, but it wasn't gonna happen. Here's the breakdown:

GABRIEL - Would vote for Tanya without question. She outplayed him, and did it with class. She is his close friend, plus he wouldn't want to be seen as a poor sport. TANYA gets his vote.

JESSIE - Hated Stephanie. Didn't interact with Tanya too much, but I think Steph and Jessie were way beyond the point of reconciliation. She didn't even ask Steph a question! TANYA gets her vote.

RYAN - Could go either way but honestly I think he has a crush on Tanya. If he gives her his vote, she may hook up with him after the show (doubtful). But he always went to Tanya first over Steph, it seemed like an easy choice. Plus Tanya never told him to f**k off. TANYA gets his vote.

RAMONA - She was the trickiest one. She really got screwed by Tanya. But at the same time, she explained it in her jury question. Stephanie just did not do anything. Ramona was mad at Tanya, but just didn't respect Stephanie. And I can't see her voting AGAINST Tanya, just out of spite. Ramona is more mature than that. I think she would just throw up her hands like Colleen in Pulau Tiga and say "There, you got my vote. Do what you want with it, make yourself happy." So due to a lack of respect for Stephanie, I think Ramona begrudgly casts her vote for TANYA.

JOHN - John was tight with both of them. Both were his friends, as well as alliance partners. But I think he was really impressed with Tanya on the boat. Plus, as an inside joke, I have heard from a few sources that John was kind of sweet on Tanya, even though it would obviously never go anywhere. It is kind of a running joke among the Thailand cast. So I had him factor this into his decision as well. Another pretty easy vote for TANYA.

DEBB - Debb I felt was the most emotional juror, her or Jessie. And really her main beef was with the Alkyones, and the way they dumped her. Tanya is kind of guilty by association. Since Debb never met Stephanie, it is hard to say what she would think of her. But I felt she would respect Steph's tomboyish nature and the way she tells it as it is. I felt this was a pretty safe vote for STEPHANIE.

PETER - I thought Peter was a slam dunk for Tanya, and I am kind of half-expecting him to write me and say "I wouldn't vote for Steph!" But he once told me he would look for honesty in his jury question, as well as humility. And I felt Steph not thinking she could win would appeal to him. Tanya EXPECTS to win, and Steph doesn't, so I used that argument to have him vote for Stephanie. And honestly, I decided to go this way to at least give Steph 2 votes. I didn't want a 6-1 ending. So maybe I fudged his vote a little, but it was for dramatic purposes. Well, and Steph WAS more humble than Tanya, so anything is possible. He could have gone either way, but cast a humility vote for STEPHANIE.

The ending is kind of anticlimactic, since it isn't close. And it is live. I really hate the live endings in print. On TV, they work great, but in print it is just weird. If I do another story, I may have the votes revealed on the island instead of on TV.

Oh, and I set the finale in Los Angeles for a reason. I always get mad when they do the live finales in New York in real life, because it means I have no shot at going. So in my stories, the finale will ALWAYS take place in L.A. I live in L.A. and I want to go to the show too. Screw New York.

One final Tonga inside joke, which will be meaningless to most people who read this... but I modeled Tanya's character after Isabella from the game. She was really the best player in Tonga, and I felt bad that she didn't win. I told her at the start of Greece too, watch Tanya, I modeled her after you. So there you go, Isabella, your girl won this time. You're now 1 for 2 this year, that's still pretty good. You fricking cherry picker. :)

So that's it. Hope you liked it. The finale was produced over the course of the last week in a frantic burst of writing. It is a robust 75 pages and was written in seven days, with none of the pages being written before midnight. Yikes! I don't recommend that to anyone, it will be nice to sleep now. Finally.

Oh and if you print out the entire Greek story, it is probably around 375-400 pages. Bet you didn't realize it was that long!

Ok, before I sign off, a few shout outs and thanks are in order.


* Thanks to Jenne Lotz, my editor and longtime reader. She was unavailable for the last two episodes, and of course there are far more typos and misspellings because she was gone. Do the math, she knows her stuff. She put in a ton of work getting these episodes to look perfect, every week. Thanks Jenne, and I ALMOST feel guilty about voting you out of Tonga now. Almost.

* Thanks to Anna Novak, who is simply the biggest fan of All-Star and my weekly column at S-C. She came up with a lot of good ideas for Greece and could almost be considered a muse, although she doesn't fly around or play a harp. She is also the only person I know who has ever fallen off a cliff. Thanks Anna, and I don't care what anyone says, you and I should have been the Tonga final two.

* Thanks to Gabriel Cade, who was a HUGE fan of this story (and I believe the other ones too). He was the first Survivor I ever wrote to through email (I actually wrote to his parents first) and he helped me plan this story out from the very start. He also got me in touch with Tanya and Peter, after turning them on to the story. He also happened to be out of the country when he was voted off, which I did in as cowardly and callous a manner as was humanly possible. Sorry Gabe!

* Thanks to Diane Ogden, who helped me with more characterizations and inside dirt than anyone else. The story wouldn't exist without her. And of course, the minute I picked the storyline I did, it was evident that she would be an early martyr. But she took it with good humor, so thanks Diane for all the help.

* Thanks to Tanya Vance, who I didn't get in touch with until late in the story, long after I knew she would win. Thanks for your help and the inside info. I hope you and Ryan Aiken have a long and successful future together. If I ever meet you at a Survivor function, I will be sure to present you with your fake million dollar check.

* Thanks to Peter Harkey, for helping a lot with his character. He was the LAST person I expected to be in touch with when I started this, his character was so elusive for me to grasp since day one. But in time, he said I had him down perfectly. Thanks Peter, I'll be sure to send you that Britney Spears CD in the mail real soon.

* Thanks to Teresa Cooper and Rob Cesternino, who both gave me some dirt on people, although I'm not entirely sure they realized I was taking notes. Teresa helped a lot with the story at the start, although I don't think she has read it yet. And Rob gave me the Ryan Aiken smackdown quote, which is possibly the best quote in any of my stories ever.

* Thanks to Murtz Jaffer, who runs S-C and was integral in helping with the plot of most of the episodes. He was the one who first told me that this was "the best story yet" so I knew I was on the right track at the start.

* Thanks to everyone who reads the stories and gives me feedback. And I would thank you more if you sent me EMAIL, so I know how many people read these stories. I never have a clue! I know they are big, but I want numbers, darnit!

* And very special thanks to my wife Diana, who hasn't seen me much in the past three weeks. And who is now thinking "Thank God you are done. Please stop writing such long stories." I promise to take out the garbage tonight.


Thanks!
Mario