It's not like there's no way to check. While this season is an extreme example of the phenomenon (if the phenomenon exists), we now have a fair amount of data. There have been 600-700 contestants over the years. Surely someone has looked at boot rate by race and gender.

First, it's Survivor — there are legitimate reasons to vote out anybody. Second, if the only proof you'll admit into evidence is an outright confession, nothing will ever rise to your standard.

The rationale several times already has boiled down to "she's an easy vote", which some of the women themselves go along with. I am not alleging intent. I am alleging unconscious-to-semiconscious bias. As Clarence once said, "You believe in angels don't you? Then why should you be surprised when you see one…

Caitlin Fitzgerald has an otherworldly quality anyway, but her character here is set so apart from the dense fabric of the rest of the show that she seems truly dropped in from outer space. She's given a motivation in that final scene, but not really a backstory, and it's the weight of backstory imbued in the other…

While we're making conflations between Survivor and the real world, the voting pattern this season is indeed difficult to ignore. First the people of color (women all, IIRC), now time to start in on the white women. A few more weeks and the island will be a truly safe space for white dudes — a microcosm of how to…

"This is a prank call…….what are you wearing?" Comedy gold, that.

Erik Satie, 20th century classical composer, whose piano pieces are used often to score quiet scenes.

Satie is overused, but I liked it here (Ted Jr. and Janet in the kitchen).

In fairness, we built the online economy because we're the generation that came of age along with it….

Or to have merely stumbled into the thing you do well enough to fake it — a.k.a. the life experience of many generational scolds….

We're so accustomed to minor antagonists popping up just to provide the sort of in-episode conflict that directs our emotions towards rooting for the main character that it's jarring when it doesn't happen. Daniel, in fact, is often the real antagonist, as his blankness unnerves those he comes in contact with (you…

"Nosedive" but with showrunners obsessed with fine-tooth-comb-wielding episode recappers. Norman Lear shows up mid-ep to say just skip to the stray observations.

I feel like you just described somebody incredibly harmful there.

On the next Survivor — the other tribes see a woman of color has been voted out, nod sagely.

I'm ok with SJP, but it amuses me to envision her refusing to work with a dog in the scene where she's driving to the kids' school. Because I don't know what that thing was in the back seat….but it was not a dog.

He's carved out a niche that's his alone, in service of two shows I love, successfully enough to now have a little fun with it. Good for him.

I'm no fancy-pants webzine editor, but my guess is someone wants people to watch the show.

Not according to the recappers, who have agonized over the "direction" of the show at absurd length. Someone should mandate that Archer recaps consist solely of Stray Observations.

What an act of love this show is. I can't get enough.

I understand contrasting Kaepernick's week with Bruce Miller's, but spare a thought for a guy who sounds like he might be succumbing to CTE. Bizarre behavior like that is usually the result of some haywiring going on in the brain — that is not learned response. By releasing him, his team washes its hands of its…