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But Colton does a fair job of owning it. "Last time, I was completely erratic and filled with hate and anger, and I had adopted this mentality of bite before bitten." "My lashing out... it was out of fear and way I had been treated, and I thought, 'I have got to come across as a bitch or people will walk all over me.' And I realize that's not an effective method in Survivor or life in general." Of course, none of that really explains why he convinced his tribe to go to Tribal Council.

Colton and Caleb have a plan – their goal is to get to the final four, and then they will assess the jury because they appeal to different demographics. Then, because who are we kidding, Colton will be voted out to be a guaranteed jury vote for Caleb, and maybe Colton will convince a couple of the more impressionable jurors to vote for Caleb too.

When asked about the other castaways from the One World season, Colton says he is not completely opposed to working with Monica, which doesn’t show much confidence. He says it would be a great ruse to have two people who didn’t like each other the first time working together. It probably would be a decent ruse if anyone actually remembered that season. He adds that “Kat will try to play like Kim,” which he compares to “giving an eight-year-old a machine gun. Duck!” is his advice. Fair point.

Assessment: Colton continues to think he’s a lot more charming than he is. It’s possible he'll be voted off early because of his history. But maybe he’ll be as successful a Survivor player as Phillip Shepherd. There was next to no time spent with Caleb, who seems quiet and more supportive than Colton deserves. He and Rupert's Laura will probably get along great.

So those are our 10 pairs of returning castaways and their loved ones. When I first heard about the loved ones and read the casting spoilers, I thought this was going to be a total disaster of a season. Then I thought more about the dynamics of pairs in an individual game, and heard about some of the set-up and twists and started thinking “maybe this could be OK after all”. But now I’ve seen the cast videos, I’m back to “yep, total disaster."

The returning castaways are barely whelming, with most wanting another crack at being noticed on the street, or living in just plain denial. Aras and Tina are the obvious front-runners to me, but we saw last season some of the unmemorable returnees were actually more interested in playing Survivor than getting camera time, so I am hoping for more of that this season.

As for the loved ones, they don’t get much of a chance to shine in the interviews, but I don’t see much reason why this season should go any differently from past seasons where the experienced Survivor veterans were able to run rings around the newbies. If I had to pick one, it would be Vytas. The rest seem very nice people, but in terms of their chances of winning, they seem very nice people.

But nothing is set in stone. We’ll see how things turn out when our latest batch of castaways hit the beach next week.

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