This season on Survivor: Epcot Island, 20 castaways are tossed off Probst’s snooze cruise and loaded onto four rafts. After a couple of minutes of looking around, the castaways look at their raftmates and say, “Hey, you look like me! 어이, ê·¸ 사람은 우리들 보지 않는다!

I think the only stereotypical joke the three non-Caucasian teams (am I supposed to be capitalizing ‘Caucasian’?) did not make en route to Epcot Island was something about how all of their families paddled away from islands and not to islands…oh wait, I spoke too soon. I try to be so clever but, I now know that I can never outwit heavy metal guitarist Billy!

Epcot Island has something for everyone…the frat guy, the sorority chick, the angry black woman (”Black people do more than run track!”) and my personal favorite…the Vietnamese nail salon manager!

And for you ladies…we have the guy from Lost! As I was snooping around the castaway bios, I discovered the eclectic tattooed rollergirl was from my neck of the woods! Go Redding - there’s more to Northern California than San Francisco!

So after all of the “backlash” and “controversy” and “buzz” surrounding this season, I was really hoping splitting teams across racial/ethnic/whatever lines wouldn’t just be a stupid stunt. I read (or heard, can’t remember) an article earlier this week where Jeff Probst (or Rob Burnett, can’t remember) said the one great thing about this season of Survivor is that historically, Caucasians make up the overwhelming majority of applicants. Because of that, the producers had to go out and actively recruit non-Caucasians who wouldn’t normally have applied to the show. What we wind up getting…I heard…was a group of folks aren’t “Survivor savvy” at all and as such, would bring something new to the show.

I have to agree. I quit watching Survivor with the zeal and googliness of earlier seasons because everyone turned into a member of The Real World. Everyone fit into some pre-conceived stereotype (dumb blonde! lesbian truck driver! fireman with killer abs!) and it just got…so…old.

Blah blah…build camp…build toilet…oppress minorities…rice jokes…someone’s playing with the Korean guy’s chicken…then, Prince Probst appears to speak to his minions.

Our first immunity/reward challenge is to go find the teams from The Amazing Race over on the other side of the island…and speak to them in one of our team’s native tongues. Don’t speak Korean? That’s okay…I doubt they do, either.…so fake it! The first three teams to completely befuddle TAR teams and acquire a pair of Phil Keoghan’s panties will win some sort of fire set. Yay! Personally, I think Phil’s panties would be reward enough, but I suppose the winning team needs something which would theoretically benefit all of them.

Actually, it’s a challenge involving building a boat (insert refugee joke here), paddling out to retrieve fire, following some insane obstacle course and then they have to solve a puzzle. At one point, I thought Jeff might actually say, “PICK UP THE PACE AND MOVE YOUR LAZY ASSES, MANIHIKI TRIBE.” What he wound up saying was, “No fire for you! Vote someone off at Tribal Council!” then rewarded their losing effort by letting them send one member from one of the other three tribes to Exile Island. Huh?

“Um…we pick…that guy. Red Rover, Red Rover, send the guy in the blue who stole the Korean guy’s chicken right over!”

The Menihikis decided they were in charge and promptly took two steps forward to unilaterally make their Exile Island choice, with no input whatsoever from the womenfolk. Yeah, that was smart. No great surprise to see Mr. Congeniality was the first one to go home.

And…hookups, folks! We have hookups this season! Maybe it’s not that far from The Real World: Epcot Island, after all.

Next week…Cao Boi’s jokes fall flat and Billy’s jokes drives team iTunes to “drastic measures.” Can’t wait.