Hall of Shame Moment: The Very First Pagonging

The Reality TV Hall of Shame does not only mark the moments of current reality TV, but also looks back to the early days of reality TV, before the Hall of Shame had been established. As I prepare this article for posting during the early goings of Survivor: Pearl Islands, it seems particularly appropriate. One tribe is absolutely destroying the other. If there are no twists (which is rather unlikely), the Drake tribe could go into a merge with the upper hand and “Pagong” the Morgan tribe. Let’s look back at the origin of that term.

In the very first season of Survivor, one tribe seemed to know what they were doing – led by a man who had planned it out ahead of time – while the other had no clue. In fact, the way they were picked off one by one led to a new Survivor-related verb: to Pagong. We have seen it happen several other times since then, but whenever one tribe would be picked off by the other without a chance to even fight back, we say they have been Pagonged.

The real question is how Pagong got so easily Pagonged. They had a number of smart people on their tribe. So why didn’t they see it coming?

Well, one of them did – and he probably wouldn’t even be included in most people’s list of the “smart people” I referenced above. In the sixth episode, Joel suggested forming an alliance. He, along with Gervase, Jenna, Colleen, and Greg, all discussed how they should stick together after the merger and vote against specific Tagi members. Gretchen refused to go along. She apparently felt it should be every person voting for the one who most deserved to go. Honorable notions, to be sure, but Survivor is a game, and games have different rules than real life.

If Gretchen had gone along, it would have been quite interesting, but without her to help lead them, the plan seemed to fall apart and Tagi became the targets instead of the shooters. Indeed, not only did Pagong fail to form an alliance, but they even voted off the guy who suggested it! Joel was sent packing for his general male chauvinist ways (even though it was Gervase who had said, "Girls are the stupidest things on the planet, next to cows").

Pagong members did not realize the error of their ways until it was too late. Ironically, Gretchen was the first to be voted out by the Tagi alliance, and she was obviously stunned. She thought votes would be based on merit, but instead they were based on strategy.

Some might say that the Pagong members don’t deserve this “recognition” – after all, it was the first time the game had been played for U.S. participants, so they had no way to see it coming. But I would disagree. There was not just one alliance on Tagi, there were several. Kelly was the first to make one – with Stacey; Susan had her separate one with Kelly for a while as well; and Rudy had his own with Rich. It was not the brainchild of one man, but was a strategy employed by several on the tribe. And, let’s face it, even the Pagong folks did think of it – they just decided not to do it!

Indeed, Greg even said, in episode 7, that he thought people would form alliances if they were motivated by fear and self-preservation. But he also added that if that happened, he hoped to be voted off quickly because he thought it would be boring. Why hadn’t he instead determined to counter such an alliance? We don’t know. Meanwhile Gretchen predicted, in the seventh Tribal Council, that strategies would shift to get rid of the strongest because they were competition. She was right. And she was gone. How could she recognize a shift in strategy but still fail to do something about it? Again, we don’t know.

So, one by one they went. After Gretchen and Greg, the alliance booted Jenna, Gervase, and finally Colleen. The five of them could have stuck together and countered the Tagi alliance. But instead they scattered their votes hither and yon, occasionally thinking that perhaps strategy might be a good idea, but never actually acting on it.

Remember that the Reality TV Hall of Shame does not just single out people who are disliked – a number of those on Pagong are indeed well-liked by viewers, but they made a horrible strategic error that deserves special recognition. While none of these players deserve a full Hall of Shame induction, their decision not to create an alliance, thereby making “Pagong” forever known as a mark of a Survivor tribe that has lost, definitely qualifies as Hall of Shame Moment.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of the Reality TV Hall of Shame, and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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