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Hello, good people, and welcome back to the first in a three-part series previewing the 30th season of the reality juggernaut known as Survivor! My name is Jim Van Nest and after taking a season off, I'm back and better than ever; getting ready to break down every moment of Survivor 30: Worlds Apart with you!

I have to say I'm thrilled to be back. I've been checking out this cast and I'm super excited about what I'm seeing and reading. I did not care for last season or last season's cast. I think it was a lackluster season, with little to no strategy. It was only saved by having a solid last few episodes and a quality winner. But when you think of how close we were to having Muffin and Baylor in the final Tribal together, I mean, we were THIS close to absolute disaster.

As I said, I have high hopes for Season 30, even though the White Collar, Blue Collar, No Collar setup is kinda dorky...the cast itself looks stellar. And after last season's dud, they need it. Also, our good buddy Jeff Probst is telling everyone that will listen what a great season this is. Last season, you would never have heard such high praise. Part of the success is that they cast people this season, instead of casting a theme. You could tell in Blood vs Water 2, that they probably liked one person in each pair and just settled for the other one. That was because they made the decision to retread Blood vs Water before they selected any of the cast. THIS time around, they picked the cast and then came up with a way to divide them.

It's for this reason that you'll see an unemployed ex-secretary on the White Collar Tribe and a silver-spoon law student on the No Collar tribe. Just like Cagayan, they did their best to group the Brains, Beauty and Brawn and mostly got it right. Though, whoever thought Garrett the poker player was a Brain might want to rethink that one.

So, with all of this in mind, I'll be breaking down all three tribes over the next couple days to get us all ready for the big 90-minute premiere on Wednesday night! Today's tribe: the White Collar Tribe, aka Masaya. They'll be wearing yellow buffs to start the season. And right off the bat, I think producers missed a golden opportunity to use the first ever white buff. Sure it'd be dirty and grey within minutes... but not on the CBS Store shelves, it wouldn't be. It'd be sparkling white and the first of its kind. I might also suggest that this would have given them the opportunity to do a tie-dye buff for the No Collars, but I digress.

I'm going to talk about each member of each tribe in the order I think they'll finish in the game. So, let's get to it!

1) I'm starting the White Collar preview with one of my favorites in the cast: Shirin Oskooi. Shirin (pronounced Sher een') is a lifelong Survivor fan. At 31 years old, she says she's dreamed of being on Survivor since she was 16. She's currently a Yahoo! exec, but her claim to fame is helping to create the Google Calendar. She says she's goofy and quirky and I can definitely see this. She seems like a very fun person who could go very far in this game. On a personal note, I love that she's really looking forward to the gross food challenge. She has basically dared producers to disgust her. She claims to be able to suppress her emotions and she is counting on being underestimated. In this cast, I think that's a very solid possibility. She says her biggest concern is how she'll do on little to no sleep. She is ready for the lack of food, but the lack of sleep has her a little worried. She seems like a very peppy person, which is probably great working at Google and/or Yahoo!, but can become annoying on Survivor. Another concern with Shirin is her abilities in challenges. This is a pretty fit group and she could potentially end up the weak link. But, if she makes it past that first vote, I think she's the White Collar most likely to make the finals. She'll definitely meet Survivor Kat's definition of "datable" and make the merge!

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