Static Zombie

Speaking of Survivor, big, big props to Yau Man for having the wit to create and hide a false immunity idol. I really hope that gambit pays off down the road, but with the seeming merger on Exile Island looming this week and nobody else from his tribe having been there to get clues, it seems unlikely. A shame, because it's sheer genius and the moment at Tribal Council when someone tried to use a fake idol would be priceless. Conversely, good riddance to Lisi. She foolishly gave away her only advantage-- knowledge of the idol's whereabouts-- and then proceeded to sleep through its discovery mere yards away. Moreover, she was clearly out of her league and displayed no sense of how to play the game. To paraphrase Ghostbusters, when someone asks if you're a God, say yes.

Over on The Apprentice, Christine made a brilliant tactical decision that backfired. Separating herself from Trump's pet Heidi to demonstrate her superiority was a great move, as long as she had the goods to walk the walk. In the boardroom she got a bum deal when Trump summarily fired her. Sure, she made a mistake with the phone number, but from all accounts Nicole contributed almost nothing to the task. An argument could have been made that Christine only made the error because she was doing the work of two people, and the blame for that is on Nicole. Heidi, on the other hand, had no excuse. It's hard to know how well Frank or Heidi did on the task, because the editing in this episode was especially suspect. But in the boardroom Heidi flamed out spectacularly. She visibly fell apart while Frank rallied to the fight, and her own doubletalk doomed her. Had Christine and Heidi teamed up, I'd have expected them to be the final two. Now all odds are on Stephanie, whose presentation skills are clearly the best of the bunch and who has none of James' annoying personality traits.

And finally... I'm a little behind on Lost, but the episode from two weeks ago with Paolo and what's-her-name was brilliant. Loved that they were smart enough to introduce the characters earlier in the season so the audience would actually be interested in knowing who they were. Loved the subtle touch of having virtually all of their flashback moments interact with the other dead characters, and that they took the opportunity to flesh out Arzt a bit more. And the whole device of restaging scenes from earlier in the show's history to include those two characters was clever and successful. Sure, the story itself was disposable, but it was well-executed and entertaining. Kudos.