If you happened to scroll through the skin flicks on Cinemax last week, you might have caught a movie entitled “Passions Obsession”. Then you might have said, “Hey, I know that guy from somewhere”. While looking at the naked chick, you might have even said, “Hey that’s the girl who wouldn’t eat the gross stuff on Survivor”. At thought point, you had made the connection. The used car salesman known as Brian Heidik who doubles as Dave Roth (among other phony names) in “soft core” porno flicks, won the fifth edition of survivor. His real life wife is also an actress in the films.

How did he do it? Good question, because by all rights when it boiled down to a final group of five everyone on that island knew Brian was pulling all the strings. All, I suppose, except the biggest nitwit ever to finish in the top three, the geezer known as Jan. For a teacher, she didn’t come across as all that bright, and was even convinced to vote off her dearest friend on the island (Helen) instead of taking out Brian’s weasel henchman Clay. Maybe I’m too tough on old Clay, but I’m guessing it’s not a good idea to berate the folks who are voting for you just moments before they cast their ballot.

I think I was most disappointed that Ted was unable to pull Jan and Helen into a three against two and knock off Clay, ensuring that one of those three “good” people would be in the finals. In that scenario, there is no way on earth Brian would have walked away with the seven-figure paycheck. At any rate, not since the original champ Richard Hatch, has the player who best played the game won it. Ethan in Africa played a pretty game as well, but he had a lot of help.

Over on the Amazing Race, Team Quit, Team Cry, Team Whine, whatever you want to call them based on Flo’s mood swings, walked away with five hundred thousand dollars each. Just one leg after failing both ends of a detour miserably, and with Flo basically encouraging teammate Zack to pack it in and quit, they pulled off the most unlikely of wins. In the process, it was the first team to win that wasn’t both men.

The runner-ups were audience favorites (at least in my house) Teri and Ian. No older couple had even made it past the first couple of eliminations on the first two seasons of the show. Team “Oh Brother” finished in third because in the prior episode the most dangerous team (Team Twins) was eliminated when they couldn’t find a confusing route marker. That was unfortunate because the markers were flat yellow instead of yellow and red because of political issues in Vietnam relating to the national flag colors of North Vietnam. With the final leg consisting of a ton of running on foot, the young studs surely would have continued the trend of 28-32 year old dudes walking away with the money.

Of the many great moments, my favorite had to be when the team of Harvard Law school graduates was eliminated. They took a cab to the pit stop because they couldn’t read the clue. Did I mention they are blonde? I guess Harvard’s academic standards have slipped.