James Miller. You aint lyin'.
The Funny 115
#106. James Miller, The Oracle of Ulong
Palau - Multiple Episodes
James Miller. You aint lyin'.
This is one of the moments on my list that not many people would have
caught, because it takes place over several
episodes and is only funny if you go back and look at it in retrospect.
It's also a good example of why I say that
the second viewing of a season is way better than the first, because
the second time around you can catch many
of the subtle things you missed while the season was going on.
Or in this case, you can catch what the editors were trying to do with
Redneck James.
James Miller was one of my very favorite characters ever on the show.
The guy was a steel worker from Alabama,
he talked with a very distinctive twangy Southern drawl, he looked a
little bit like Gilligan from Gilligan's Island,
and he was one of the cockiest little mofos you've ever seen on the
show. James had an opinion about everything,
he loved to talk about what the other players were doing wrong, and in
interviews he talked a very, very, very
big game. He talked so much, in fact, that the producers had a lot of
fun with his editing along the way.
Why do I say so?
Well because everything that James predicted during the course of Palau
ended up being wrong. And I'm not kidding.
Nearly every single time he says something will
happen during the season, it ends up not happening. He's
wrong nearly every single fricking time. And like I said, it's not
something you really notice until you go back
and watch the season a second time. James is a know-it-all, James talks
quite confidently about how the game is
going to develop, and James is wrong nearly every single time.
In other words, James Miller ends up being the single worst Oracle in
the history of western society.
James making a prediction in episode one.
In anticipation of writing this column, I actually went through Palau
and wrote down every single James declaration,
just to illustrate my point. And you'll be stunned at how often his
predictions failed to come true. So here we
go, it's time to play the James Miller prediction game. Just sit back
and enjoy the ride.
1. SETUP: After Ulong loses the first immunity
challenge, James is speaking to the rest of the tribe.
STATEMENT: "We gonna win some matches (challenges).
We just didn't do it today."
OUTCOME: Wrong. Ulong never won a single immunity
challenge.
2. SETUP: In an interview, James comments on how
Ulong doesn't need a leader; they'll do just fine working
as a team.
STATEMENT: "We're Americans. And we're gonna do
democracy."
OUTCOME: Wrong. Ulong's lack of a leader doomed them
time and time again.
"We're gonna do democracy."
3. SETUP: Before Tribal Council #2, James
confidently states in an interview that he knows who will be going
home.
STATEMENT: "So I'll tell you how it's gonna happen.
Kim is gone. Oh yeah. For sure."
OUTCOME: Wrong. Ashlee ended up going home. Kim
lasted six more days.
4. SETUP: Ulong is crushed that they lost their
third straight immunity challenge, so James tries to bolster
their morale with a rousing Colby-esque pep talk.
STATEMENT: "We're not going to Tribal again. You
guys understand me?"
OUTCOME: Wrong. Ulong went to Tribal every single
week.
5. SETUP: Ulong and Koror compete in a reward
challenge to build the best bathroom. The winning tribe will
know they've won when they get a visit and a homemade shelter from the
Survivor construction crew. So the Ulongs
are waiting for the construction crew to arrive in a boat, and James
confidently predicts to his team that it's
going to happen.
STATEMENT: "I think we won. No doubt. Look at it,
it's perfect! They'll be back in about... I estimate
two/three hours."
OUTCOME: Wrong. The construction crew never came
back. Koror won the challenge.
6. SETUP: James is upset that he lost the
construction challenge, and he vows in an interview that Ulong
will get revenge against the other tribe.
STATEMENT: "But that's alright. It just makes us
more angry that we lost. We're ticked off, so we're
goin' after them and we're gonna run right through 'em like a dang
bulldozer."
OUTCOME: Wrong. Ulong continued to lose. No revenge
was ever had.
"We're gonna run right through 'em like a dang bulldozer."
7. SETUP: James tries to rally his tribe before the
fourth immunity challenge.
STATEMENT: "They won the first three times. It was
their time. It's our time now."
OUTCOME: Wrong. It continued to be Koror's time.
8. SETUP: The sixth immunity challenge involved
tying knots, and James confidently proclaimed that Ulong
would win. James was going to see to it himself, because he was once in
the Navy and could create a special "unbeatable"
knot that nobody on Koror would ever be able to untie.
STATEMENT: "I know a few things about knots."
OUTCOME: Wrong. Jenn and Janu had no trouble with
James' uber-knot and Koror easily won the challenge.
9. SETUP: James knew he was in no danger at the
sixth Tribal Council because he had very solid allies on
Ulong.
STATEMENT: "Bobby won't vote for me. I'm sure."
OUTCOME: Wrong. Bobby Jon voted for James at Tribal
Council.
10. SETUP: Muslim contestant Ibrehem was spared at
the fifth Tribal Council, but James stated in an interview
it wasn't going to happen again at the sixth.
STATEMENT: "Ibrehem's overstayed his welcome. He was
meant to go last time, and by the grace of Allah
he didn't go. Now my God says he is today."
OUTCOME: James and his God were wrong. James was
voted out at the sixth Tribal Council.
James' inability to predict the future was one of the funniest running
subplots during Palau. It happened time
and time again, and was made even funnier because James was just so
darn confident. Okay, I'll say it, he was downright
cocky. In fact, I've never seen a player so confident and so sure of
himself, yet so consistently wrong, and the
combination of the two was something the editors must have been loving.
They turned to James time and time again
during Palau because they knew he would always deliver the goods. James
Miller confessionals were always Survivor
gold.
And even though I'm making fun of the guy, I do have to hand it to
James at the same time. He was one of my favorite
characters of the season, and it was because the guy was absolutely
resilient. He never gave up, he never surrendered.
Because even when he was wrong (and he was always wrong!) it never
really seemed to faze him. James would just
mutter a quick "Hell yea" and then it was right on the next day's
predictions. He never got down or got
mad at himself in the slightest.
It was just another day's work for James Miller... the reliably
unreliable Oracle of Palau.
"Mario's gonna put my ass in the top 10. No way he drops me all the way
down to no 106. Hayullll no, come
on."
(Special note: For the nitpickers, yes there was
actually one prediction that James made in Palau that ended
up coming true. He predicted that Kim would go home at Tribal Council
number four, and astonishingly he turned
out to be correct. I guess the editors wanted to throw him a bone that
week, because it's the only time in Palau
he was ever actually shown to be correct. Hell yea!)
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