I’ve written about “Survivor” and its weird hold on me before like an unhealthy romantic relationship, and as I read about the new twists and casting news for its upcoming season, premiering Sept. 14, I am considering a break-up. Again. Now, it might be one of those yo-yo breakups where I show back up again. But right now, I’m pondering packing up “Survivor”‘s stuff and asking it to call Tyrone to tell him come on, just like Erykah Badu did.

Here’s my basic issue: The show keeps relying on stunt casting, like returning players (we’ll find out who they are later) and someone who bears the same last name as one of “Survivor”‘s second-favorite repeat offender/fame hooker. And while I know it’s all about ratings, those twists are not only unfair to the other contestants, but cheapen things for the true fans, too. Read on. Am I wrong?

- Returning players have an unfair advantage: A lot of game shows have celebrity editions, where those famous folks give their winnings to charity. That seems fair to me, because we assume that those people don’t need the money. And even if they did, they wouldn’t be trying to make it this way. Reality TV changed all that, mostly because reality stars are on these shows to make money, or book “Playboy” or their next reality show. Thus, we have “Bachelor Pad,” which besides the tackiness, I have no real problems with, because they’re all in the same fame whoring boat.

Not so much on “Survivor,” where the new returning players, much like Russell Hantz, Rob Mariano and others before them, are playing with newbies for the same money. It’s ghastly – under any normal circumstance, anyone who has played a mentally and physically challenging game like that would have some sort of advantage. But last year’s vets are so identified with the game, particularly eventual winner Mariano, that the other players got all awestruck and relied on them as leaders (Note to future Survivors: Your job is not to help someone else win a million dollars. If all you do is help them, you can’t help you. For real.) They’re professional Survivors, basically. They could list that under “profession.”

We have no idea who the returning players are, but the rumor is that it’s Ben “Coach” Wade and Ozzy Lusth, both previous repeaters who are arguably polarizing (Coach was a freak the first time, and a puppy who got his fanboy head chopped off by Rob the second time; Ozzy’s just sort of a playa). And that sucks, because once again, these new Survivors don’t have the opportunity to just focus on the game and what these new strangers are up to. They have to deal with the cult of personality that the stars represent. And that’s an extra game. Ozzy is a great competitor physically, or at least he used to be, and Coach…well, you can’t predict anything about that kook, can you? All I know is that they’ve got an advantage, and if these new folks don’t get rid of them IMMEDIATELY,  then they’re idiots. Ask Rob’s tribemates from last season if they’d have done that. (Another note: Don’t fake the funk just to vote someone out, like Russell’s tribe last year. You can’t win everything. The minute you lose, one of those jokers gotta go.)

2) Russell’s Nephew: Can’t you imagine poor host/Russell fan club prez Jeff Probst mulling this season  in the confines of the air-conditioned palace where he must live when the Survivors are a bug buffet? Russell has vowed not to come back, and you can’t call him the greatest player ever since he’s never won once in three tries (Well, you could. But you’d look stupid). So, you invite his 19-year-old nephew Brandon. Unless you’re gonna fan wank all over him and bring his uncle up all the time, why bother? And for all of you readers who think I’m obsessed with Russell – If they stop bringing him up, I’ll stop writing about him. But don’t keep him in my face and not expect me to write about him. He’s a great player. But he’s helped the producers hurt my show.

3) “Redemption Island”: I kinda thought that last year, the whole point of “RI” was to make sure that Russell or Rob, should they have been voted off, had another shot back into the game. But they’re doing it again. I sort of liked it at first, because of the domination of Matt for so much of the season. But the big problem is that players like Matt, particularly if they hang out for so long on “RI,” don’t have the chance to get to know the rest of the tribe, to become “one of us” or to understand the politics. They have a target on their back immediately, and it’s predictable that if they win their way back, they’re gonna be the first ones out again. That’s not a lot of fun.

I have not yet decided whether or not I’ll be blogging “Survivor” every week if I decide to watch it - this is going to be a busy fall and I don’t know if I have the time. What do you think about the changes? And the things that never change?

Terrifying Hitchcock film or Russell's alliance? You be the judge!

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

You have to hand it to those “Survivor” producers. They can make anything sound life-or-death melodramatic, like the duel to return to the game from “Redemption Island” requires sharp sticks, poisoned darts and a flaming lake of fire. Or a day with Coach in your ear talking about that duel he had once with the pygmies who wanted to eat his feet. Either option…frightening.

To review: Francesca is living in isolation on Redemption Island. New Fabio got blindsided and was sent to join her instead of Phillip, who’s nutty, or Kristina, who was led to believe that she was going home and played her Idol but got played by Rob. Ha ha ha.

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Joining the Reality TV 'What Were You Thinking?' Hall of Fame this week are NaOnka (right) and... I'm sorry, girl on the left, who were you again? (CBS)

CAUTION: SPOILERS!

Normally, any week on “Survivor” without a proper vote at Tribal Council is a giant emotional letdown. Sometimes, it happens because a player gets injured or sick and just can’t go on. But last night, we lost two – count ‘em – two players because they both decided that after 28 days, they just couldn’t bear more one night of getting rained on, wind-blown and being malnourished.

So NaOnka and Purple Kelly (who never got to be called just Kelly, even weeks after the other Kelly got sent home) just quit. And surprisingly, it made for an exciting episode.

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America's new Mr. Rogers?

THERE ARE SPOILERS BELOW. JUST LETTING YOU KNOW.

So this week, I’m not gonna do a recap so much as just drop some thoughts on you that bubbled up while watcing yesterday’s episode. And what a delicious episode it was – pretty much, everyone hewed even closer to the impressions you already had about them, and America learned a new word – “Dirt weasel.” And with corresponding weasel sounds! Oh, the riches we’ve been bestowed! Here are just a few:

— NaOnka keeps on NaOnka-ing, and it’s both highly uncomfortable and fascinating to watch. Jeff Probst, in his excellent weekly blog on EW.com, writes today that the key to dealing with that wacky PE teacher/hater of prosthetic limbs is to remember that she operates like a seven-year-old. She does crazy, indefensible things like stealing fruit that the tribes got when they merged, without thinking how she’s going to explain it, and then lashes out when people don’t believe the stupid excuse she came up with. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to her decisions because they seem to be guided by anger, impulse, hunger and just enjoying cheesing people off. Why she’s still around, I can’t figure out. She’s super fun to watch, though. I’m just glad I don’t have to deal with her.

— Jane and Chase are the new power couple: Show! Thank you for merging just so that these two good ol’ North Carolina dynamos could find each other and bond over their shared heritage, family losses and combined awesomeness. Evil Marty and his Salt-N-Pepper Spike of Doom are right – that’s a bond that’s gonna be impossible to break. And I love it because I love Jane and her shotgun-toting, dog-loving, P90x-doing self, and because it drives Marty mad. Anything that drives Marty mad is A-OK with me.

— Speaking of Evil Marty, somehow he lives to scheme another day, which I think is dumb – Alina was no threat. Marty isn’t as strong as he used to be, as he has no idol and no real allies. But the longer he’s around, the more he could worm his way into people’s heads. Right now, he’s just annoying everyone, particularly because he is targeting Jane, everyone’s favorite down-home grandma. He does have a point that she’ll be hard to beat at final Tribal Council. But, as Probst points out in his blog, Marty’s like the Jerk Who Cried Wolf. Keep on crying, man. Nobody’s listening.

— Sash reminds me, for some reason, of 90′s pop star Eagle Eye Cherry, who sang “Save Tonight.” I have a very funny story about a drunk dude at a bar in Harrisburg in the mid-90s who came up to my friends’ band and asked if they knew that song and if he could sing it with them. But he only knew one line – “Girl you know I got to go/How I wish it wasn’t so” – and he sang that like 12 times over and over before they realized that he wasn’t going to sing anything else. And there are few people harder to distract than drunks with microphones. This has very little to do with Sash, except for this point – he’s dangerously focused at this point and he’s gonna be hard to shake. I have no confirmation on his feelings for Eagle Eye Cherry. But I’d watch him and Brenda. Girl, you know they got to go. And I’m not sorry that it’s so.

— Benry: Don’t like him. He’s a bully and he seriously miscalculates his own coolness. I’m ready for him to go. There’s something ever so bully-esque about the way he made those “dirt weasel” sounds when voting Alina off, like a frat boy in an ’80s movie.

— “Uncle Fabio’s got tree mail!” Don’t you kind of want Fabio to get his own kid’s show called “Uncle Fabio’s Tree House,” where he reads notes that hang in trees, shakes his hair a lot and tries not to burn himself or impale himself on pieces of his own tree house?

This is one of the best episodes this season, because people are struggling to think for themselves, when they really have to. It’s an individual game now, and group think might get you voted right out by the group.

What do you guys think?

Don't eat me, bro.

When last we saw our wacky  band of generationally-separated castaways, Jimmy T. tried to convince his tribe that they should be Jimmy T. fans and boot lame-ish Dan instead of him. The tribe responded by voting Jimmy T. out anyway, apparently confirming that those Jimmy T. Fan Club T-shirts shall go unused.

The Old Espada tribe’s Marty, who believes himself to be the king of the world right now, says that even though it’s wrong to get cocky in this game, he knows he’s in control. Sir, I’m not sure if you know what the word “cocky” means. He says that unless something “completely whacked-out” happens, Jane and Holly are next to go, because that’s his plan. He sounds a little like Russell Hantz last year, with one difference — Ol’ Russ delivered his Pronouncements O’ Doom in an excited, gleaming-eyed cackle, while Marty states his with a disturbingly dispassionate clarity like he’s reciting his lunch order. His cold-blooded matter-of-factness is almost more creepy. And you might remember that Russell creeped me out PLENTY.

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Psst...Jeffy...the tribes have names!

SPOILERS! LOTS AND LOTS OF SPOILERS!

So I go on vacation for a week and we lose Jimmy Johnson, Probst still refuses to call the tribes by their actual names, and NaOnka bumrushes our dear Kelly B. for the clue to the immunity idol? Yikes. I’m never going away again. Even if you want me to. You’re welcome!

We join Espada, the real name of the older team, after their dumb decision to vote Jimmy Johnson off. And for some reason, Jimmy T. is summing up this moment with a tuneless version of Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s “American Girl” during an apparent torrential downpour. I’m not sure why, but he’s expressing his feelings that Jimmy J. had to go because he was not a Jimmy T. fan or something, You know who else isn’t a Jimmy T. fan? EVERYBODY! But it’s the Jimmy T. show, as Marty says, and “it’s just obnoxious.” And that’s the first time I’ve agreed with Marty, who himself is chock full of obnoxious. And possibly chock full of nuts.

While Jimmy T. was singing about the waves crashing on the beach, a lot of rain, debris and general grossness was crashing on the “Survivor” beach after some massive storms. It looks like something out of a “Mad Max” movie, very apocalyptic and bleak. Even the birds look scary. And unless they can get the aforementioned bird in a trap and onto a spit, there’s no food, because the water seems to be gone. But Jimmy T., who happens to be a fisherman, notices that our bird friend is finding fish, so why can’t they? Read the full story

“Survivor!” It’s the most wonderful time of the year! Who needs Yuletide when you have Jeff Probst standing on a scary-looking cliff in the middle of a scary body of water, trying to get all philosophical and deep amid the ankle sprains and bikinis? This rugged land has survived for centuries, Probst says. But will it survive the chaffing and showmances?

Apparently, we know something the contestants don’t, which is that they’re going to be on tribes defined by age. As usual, they’ve not been allowed to speak on the way in, but have a lot of opinions about each other, most of which will be proven wrong. I missed this show so much! I love how people are like “he’s on my nerves already” and they’ve never even spoken. And there’s no one with more assumptions being made about them than Kelly B., our Palm Beach County “Survivor,” and an amputee since childhood. They’re already thinking that she’s gunning for the sympathy vote, without knowing that she’s a frigging Iron Man triathlete.

SHE IS IRON MAN! Eat it, bipeds!

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If this met you in the jungle, where you were starving, and asked you to take it home, would you reject it? Or would you be a big candy slut?

DANGER: SPOILERS DOWN THERE AT THE BOTTOM. THAT IS ALL.

I returned from a week and a half off to find Cirie gone, and aren’t that surprised, because anyone who paid attention to her game play in her last two seasons knew that it was a smart thing to have her out of contention. Smart move.

Unfortunately, that means that the Heroes keep losing, and that Russell’s still hanging around. He apparently cheesed his tribe off by searching for the hidden immunity idol when they’d agreed not to. I’m not sure why a team called the Villains would be surprised that one of them was sneaky – that’s his job – but I kinda figured that his brand of mean would make him a target. And this week, there he is again, looking for the HII while everyone is doing yoga. Drat. He found it. The thing of it is that these other villains didn’t get a chance to see him play the game, so they don’t know what a HII magnet this dude is. Smart of him to play that to his advantage. I still hate his smugness, but in this instance, he has a reason to be smug.

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Wow! The Heroes of “Survivor: Heroes Vs. Villains” have gone  from heroes to infighting zeroes in one week! It’s ugly and shocking, but pretty great television.

I’m not sure why I hadn’t considered beforehand the possible downside of having all those exaulted good guys in the same space, fighting for relevance, cash and prizes. See, part of “herohood,” at least on “Survivor,” seems to be a strong self-awareness of one’s supposed goodness, which also often translates in a lot of self-righteous showboating. There is nothing more tedious than one person in a group who thinks they’re right about everything. And in a tribe full of them? Yikes!

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Woah, here she comes, watch out! She's a maneater! And the player the villains should fear.

Welcome to the first episode of “Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains,” or, for those of you raised in the 70s, “Survivor: The Scooby Doos versus the Really Rottens.”  (Look it up, kids! It’s totally applicable.)

A few minutes in, and I’m missing first winner/villain Richard Hatch, who was unavailable because he was, as my family says, working with the police on an involuntary basis. I caught his act on the “Surviving Survivor” special where he and Russell Hantz, last year’s bitter runner-up and power player, riffed on who was the better player. Hatch played with him for a little bit, letting Russell lay down his rap about how much more awesome he was, and then, because he’s awesome and doesn’t have to try, went in for the kill, reminding Russ that Hatch wins for this simple reason – he won.

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