Enda didn’t do a whole heck of a lot during her season on “Survivor,” other than stick close to Coach and try not to get voted off. But her brief speech during Final Tribal Council, as seen on last night’s finale, might as well be bronzed on a plaque above every future tribe’s camp, along with the head of whoever decided “Redemption Island” was a good idea.

Basically, she said this: Why are you sitting around mortally offended by people who outwitted, outplayed and outlasted you, through the use of secrets, obsfucation and sometimes out and out lies, when you signed up for a game when those are the unwritten rules? If you were a better liar, you might be up there about to win a million dollars, too, so being mad at them is dumb. You WISH you were that good at lying - I believe the kinder word she used was “duping” – so taking this so personally makes you look like a boxer who stepped into the ring and wondered why that mean man was hitting him.

In other words: Don’t hate the “Survivor” players. Hate the “Survivor” game. And if you do, don’t play it.

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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?

This guy is probably gonna win "Survivor," because he's playing with dummies.

I am not a fan of Russell Hantz, whose over-bearing presence ate up entirely too much time during the last several seasons of “Survivor.” But the one thing you can never say about him is that he didn’t play the game. He lived to play the game. And while he was bullying his way through it, he never, ever forgot that fact. He tried to win every challenge. He tried to dominate every tribe decision. He tried to find every hidden immunity idol – and usually did. Russell did not see the point of being on “Survivor” if you weren’t trying to win “Survivor,” and he never, ever forgot that if you were there, you probably were trying to win it, too. Of course, it made him mad if you weren’t trying to help him win. But that’s another story.

Although he was thwarted three times, twice because he didn’t appreciate the social aspect of the game, Russell went down  fighting. This makes him a whole lot more interesting and compelling as a player than the Ometepe tribe, who seem to be trying to help leader and sworn Russell foe Boston Rob Mariano win. I don’t know why. And as bothersome as I found Russell, I wish he was still in the game, because if he was, he wouldn’t have let his tribe punk out and just get picked off by the Ometepes on Rob’s orders after the merge. He’d have made them fight, made them refuse to let the Ometepes cut them out of the game. And he’d have been all in Rob’s face. He would have been just as overbearing as Rob, but at least he’d have some spark. At least he’d be trying.

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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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I have watched “Survivor” for about 19 of the last 21 seasons, and I have no problem saying that the Season 22 premiere was the wackiest first episode of them all. And it’s not because of that crazy new “Redemption Island” twist, where voted-off players get to try to American Gladiator their way back in, or the fact that Boston Rob and Russell are involved.

It’s because of Special Agent Phillip, the craziest kray kray that ever krayed. Coach was a nut, but you could usually talk him down with pledges of honor and friendship, whether or not you meant them. Shambo wasn’t all that stable either, but she was mostly harmless. Randy was more cranky than anything else.

But Special Agent Phillip? He’s the loosest of cannons, the slipperiest of slopes. He will shout down anyone who tries to make an alliance with him (Francesca and Kristina), will out both their plans and their hidden immunity idol at Tribal Council, and then not seem to get that he looks like Special Agent Nutty Bar.

“You’re looking at the new leader of this tribe!” he pronounced.

No, we’re looking at the new wild card crazy pants. And we’re backing away.

Because of the new Redemption Island, we possibly haven’t seen the last of Francesca, who was the first to get booted because of her proximity to Kristina’s plan and because Boston Rob identified her early as a threat. I hope not – she’s incredibly funny and smart, and she was smart enough to come to the show with her head shaved (no maintenance).

Now that she’s gone, here are the other castaways that have made an impression on me so far. I won’t bother talking about everyone, because at this early point, it’s largely like “There’s that one guy” and “Then there’s that other skinny girl that doesn’t seem to be doing anything but being cute.”:

— Russell: He better be glad that his tribe won immunity, because they’re already smart enough to know that he can’t be a threat if he isn’t there. He says he’s changed, but everyone is already on to his tried and true strategy of “bringing someone along with him” or, as it usually works out, “making it easier for his weak social game to be exposed by the very person he thinks he’s bringing along.” And that’s because this year’s choice is…

— Stephanie: I think she wants to be the new Parvati. The jury is still out on her, because since the tribe has ID’d her as Russell’s new alliance buddy, her days could be numbered, too, unless she can win some challenges.

— Mike: Clean-cut Iraq vet, who seems to know how to be a leader without making everyone feel like they’re 12, or stupid. Phillip, look into this.

— Ralph: He’s a hard-working farmer who seems to like flying his freak flag. I like him, and am offended on his behalf that he’s being subtitled. Then again, he likes being an iconoclast so much he probably wouldn’t mind.

— Matt: The devoutly Christian Fabio.

I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting and savvy some of these players seem to be – this is the time in a show’s history where people are so self-aware and so conscious of how the game is played that sometimes it ceases to be fun. But this? This I am loving, at least until the Russell/Rob show starts eating it all. I hope the producers don’t let it. They can be fun integrated into the tribes.

Phillip, however? I don’t want him to ever be tamed. Let Special Agent Freak Show do his most extravagant worst! Just so glad I don’t have to hang out with him!

Breathe. Breathe.

I should have known it was a set-up. After months of rumors that Russell Hantz and nemesis Rob Mariano were returning to “Survivor” for the 80th time to out-smarm each other as everyone else tries to barter for screen time, the finale of the most recent season was blessedly free of such announcements. Rob was in the audience, but only to talk about his new baby with his wife, fellow repeat “Survivor” Amber. And the promos for the new season were all about Redemption Island, and nothing about returning players.

I should have known that the ratings-grubbing producers would think that “redemption” means “rematch,” and that those two attention whores would jump at the chance to come back and hijack another season. Let me explain – I love Boston Rob. Didn’t used to, but his last appearance during “Heroes and Villians” was brilliant, because he was there to play the game and change up his strategy.

Russell, on the other hand….I don’t think he’s capable of changing. This is a man who misunderstands the purpose of the other players in the game. He doesn’t believe that they’re there to win a million dollars. No, they’re there to help HIM win a million dollars, and when he basically tells them this and they’re like “Umm, wrong,” he gets the crazy eye flash and the booming doom voice and starts muttering about people being targeted and messing with the wrong one and not wanting to sacrifice being a millionaire so some little unpleasant man can have the money instead.

And I feel so, so sorry for the fresh meat (I mean, castaways) who are on the show, because they were all asked on Entertainment Weekly.com who their least favorite “Survivor” was and almost all said Russell. And that interview is gonna be fresh in their minds when he emerges to wreak fresh havoc on them. He is gonna make the whole show about him and Rob, and the show wants him to.

And if the other castaways are not smart enough to IMMEDIATELY vote him off…well, there’s no saving them.

Thanks to Jane, this burning is not an eternal flame.

I’ve always thought of “Survivor” as a grand human experiment where evil geniuses (in this case, the producers) put participants into a controlled but extreme environment and put them through a series of insane tests (like every single “climb a wall/grab a rope/find a key/pan for gold” challenge ever created) and recording the results. But here, it’s for the amusement of others, rather than scientific research.

One of the things that those sorts of experiments always yield is how much tunnel vision one can develop when your whole universe becomes this game, where it’s hard to see past your own needs and strategies to those of other people’s. Specifically, it’s hard, when you’re hungry. skinny and half crazy-paranoid, to not get mad at people for doing stuff that you probably would have done in the same situation.

As evidence, I present the crybaby whiny fits that Jane and Fabio busted out into when Chase dare take someone else on the reward challenge that would have given them some more times with their loved ones who’d dropped in. I know Chase promised Fabio, but then again Chase has a way of forgetting his promises. Not only did they miss their relatives, but they probably reminded them of forgotten memories like soap. So when Chase picked Holly and her cute loving husband, and Sash and his pretty mom, to join him and his mom, Fabio and Jane acted as if he’d also voted to string Fabio’s mom and Jane’s daughter up over a monkey-filled moat with bloody steak around their necks for the next challenge. My favorite moments of self-focused whining:

— Jane flipped out that Chase picked Holly over her and didn’t get what was so special about Holly, when that’s exactly what people said about her when Chase took her on reward instead of Sash, who he had promised;

— Fabio was such a little sad puppy dog, crying that Chase knew how much he wanted to be with his mom. I saw that. Again, he did make a promise. But this is a game, and Chase has a proven track record for going back on them. And if you really, really want to control who goes on these rewards…

— Maybe you should win one. Just saying.

Obviously, all that emotion was just a run-up to Jane’s Lifetime movie-worthy meltdown when she found out that she was being targeted to go home (at least they told her, right?) She went off. She basically banned Chase from the entire state of North Carolina. She poured a huge bucket of water over the fire that she’d made, because if she wasn’t gonna be around to use it, neither could anyone else (Can’t you imagine Meredith Baxter or Kate Jackson giving the same speech?) Then, at tribal council, she completely blew up everybody’s day by informing Dan and Fabio that their days were numbered.

She is bitter bitter blow pops, people, and it’s going to be fabulous (for us) if she keeps that up until final tribal council on Sunday. Can you imagine the questions? “So, Holly, why are you so special? Chase…Have you ever considered resettling in Nevada?”

Here’s who I’m seeing in the final — Sash, Chase and Fabio. I think Fabio’s more likely than Holly to win immunity than Holly and Dan, and now he’s figured they’re gunning for him. And if he can make it to the final, I think he’s gonna win.

What say you?

You have to wonder if Jeff Probst may be a wee bit sick of this bunch.

CAUTION: SPOILERS!

I’m not sure that this is, as some bloggers feel, the worst season of “Survivor” ever, but i think we all know that the castaways…well, they suck sometimes. I mean, they seemed shocked that this was “Survivor,” not “Comfortable Vacationer.” People kept threatening to quit, and then two of them did on the same day. They haven’t gotten rid of Dan. To paraphrase Michael Jackson, they ain’t bad. They’re BAD.

But yesterday’s episode picked things up a little, not because it featured the most stunning tribal council EVER or some crazy betrayal. NaOnka took a lot of the crazy with her. What it had were little moments that better “Survivor” seasons always include, but that this one has been missing. Together, they don’t make quite a great time. But it was solid and enjoyable.

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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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This woman is on "Survivor" this year! No, I don't recognize her either!

YOUR DAILY DOSE OF DELICIOUS SPOILERS BELOW!

Welcome to our first Marty-Free Week here on “Survivor: Nicaragua!” Yeah! Sadly, it doesn’t mean the smugness is dead. In fact, it’s become an infectious disease. And the worst part is that the person most deeply infected is so lousy with it that she sees a plot against her written in the sky, bordered by spotlights and angels, and still assumes she doesn’t have to do anything about it.

Oh, little Brenda. Perhaps you’ll have time to reflect on this, now that your high-and-mighty butt have completed the Walk of Booting. Couldn’t have happened to a more self-important person. Good thing for her that she’s still hot. She’ll need that, because apparently that thinking thing isn’t paying off for her. Read the full story