Ding, dong, the witch is dead. The original Survivor, Richard Hatch, has been voted out of Survivor All-Stars. And I can’t say I’m terribly surprised.

Hatch, while he made for great TV as a heel, reminded me of a baseball player from the 1930’s trying to play the game today: Survivor has changed so much over the course of – what, seven series now? – that his playing style, which might have been effective when everyone in the world was still trying to figure out what Survivor WAS, was just so out of touch with what the game has become that he simply didn’t have a hope in hell. Remember, he surfed into the initial million dollars on an alliance back when nobody knew what an alliance WAS. The game just doesn’t work like that anymore.

Interesting side-note. Of the four Sole Survivors who started this game, Ethan Zohn is the only one still remaining. And he seems to be in a pretty good situation right now, if he stays hooked up with Lex and Colby.

Also interesting: CBS has it screwed up on their website right now, they list Jerribitch as a member of Chapera, but I could swear that Mogo Mogo took her in the draft. CBS shows Jenna L. on Team Green, and that’s not right, because I remember a big to-do about Colby and Jerribitch being reunited.

Regarding Dick’s, well, um, dick, and it’s proximity to Soozin during that fateful part of the immunity challenge: if this is what she’s going to bitch vociferously to Probst about next week (no spoiler there, a pissed-off Soozin was screaming at Jeff about being humiliated in the promo for next week’s show), then I dun wanna hear it. She drives a truck, fer God’s sake, she hauls around concrete, she’s more man than Hatch is. He wants to expose his nutsack in a physical challenge? Grab him by it, and throw his dumb ass off of the rigging. I promise you he won’t try to do it again. Us guys learn early on in life never to show our balls to anyone in a position to kick them. You’d think Hatch would know better.

So, looking at the new teams, Chapera appears to be in real trouble, despite their genius of letting Boston Rob run the platforms when they figured out that he BY FAR was the best at it (Duh. Construction worker. High steel. You think he doesn’t have some balance skills?) He’s clearly in control there, since he’s doing Amber, who we already knew was incapable of original thought, and since Big Tom is quickly turning into a boorish drunk. Best thing that could happen to them is to run out of whisky. On top of that, Jenna and Rupert are fighting for their lives as outsiders – there just isn’t a cohesive unit anywhere in there, aside from Rob and Amber. Chapera blew their chance to break them up last week, and they’re gonna pay for it.

That said, I think the eventual champion is gonna come from Mogo Mogo. My money is still on Lex, but any of the Holy Triumverate of Lex, Ethan, and Colby could go the distance now that Hatch isn’t around to stir up the shit, and all three of them are too smart to trust Boston Rob any further than they can throw him.

So, play on…