CBS) There was a big power shift on “Survivor: All-Stars" and Colby paid the price.
Fans of "Survivor" remember that Colby Donaldson dominated the challenges during "Survivor’s" second season and apparently the other all-stars were watching, too. Thursday night, his tribe sent him packing before he could run away with the million dollars.
At tribal council Shii Ann singled him out as the one with the most strength, something Colby tells The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith he knew it was going to be an issue down the line.
“Everyone knew how far I had gone in Australia as far as the challenges,” he says, “I didn’t think it would happen so soon.”
Though they were in alliance, it was Lex who came up with the plot to get rid of him.
You would be a fool to trust him all the time. I was hoping I could,” Colby says about his pal Lex. “But deep down inside, I didn’t know if I could. He was a great player. He was strong, because he had me convinced that I was OK at least for one more Tribal Council. I knew I was on borrowed time. I just wanted to make it as far as I could and try to get into an individual situation where then we could all compete toe-to-toe but it didn’t work out.”
In the past couple of weeks, Colby stood out as the one making the decisions about who to bring in and who to kick out, as well as having frank discussions with Shii Ann, who was the swing vote.
At Tribal Council, she stated while writing his name down, “You have underestimated my powers. Maybe you should spend some time analyzing your own."
Asked about that quote, Colby says for him a more interesting one is the one she made while on the beach wishing Kathy was with her and saying: “’My one ally,’ meaning Kathy, ‘is off on a boat somewhere enjoying,’” Colby says recalling and interpreting Shii Ann’s words, “which should have been: my one decision-maker is off on a boat enjoying something because that’s where I think she was lost. She is whom Shii Ann would have gone to asking: who are we voting for? Without having Kathy decide for her, she was up in the air. She talked about throughout the episode her feelings about Jerri and how distraught she was about that and then ultimately voted for me.”
It came down to a tie between Jerri and Colby. While talking to Ethan, Colby had even bragged about what he was going to say to Jerri when he voted for her, but at the end Colby just shrug his shoulder.
Asked by a caller why he decided to stay quiet, Colby says,” The reason I didn’t, not to sound cliché, but if you don’t have anything good to say, just don’t say anything at all. A lot of people use that time when they cast a vote to get malicious or say things that are negative. I didn’t know if Jerri was going to get voted out. I didn’t know if it would be me or her. I wasn’t going to get cocky and say: see ya later.”
So with a big smile he says he is glad now he doesn’t have to eat humble pie. But he tells Smith. “I’m just glad after 3 1/2 years Jerri finally got her revenge. A lot of sleepless nights I’m sure she had waiting to take it out on me.”
As for his game, he explains to a caller he used the same strategy as before. “I wanted to play it as straight up and as hard as I could. It is the competition that drew me in. I just caught a lot of flack after the first show for quote/unquote giving it to Tina and letting her win. I have never lost a night of sleep thinking about that. I don’t regret anything. That was one reason I wanted to go back, was to play it the same way again and show that it could be done. Didn’t work out.”
He points out the alpha-male image he portrayed was not about control. “It was maintaining strength in the tribe. So what kind of appeared as me being a puppet master or really calling the shots was a situation where it was Lex and Kathy and I the strength and then bringing Ethan along, you know, making things work in our benefit.”
Ethan voted in agreement with Colby not knowing what was going on behind his back. Colby tells The Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen, “I think it was as big as a shock to Ethan as it was for me because obviously they left him out of the loop when they made this decision to get rid of me. As Lex pointed out in the show, they didn’t need him. They knew they had three votes. Which direction Kathy would have gone, we don’t know and we’ll never know.”
And although his strength was his demise, he tells a caller he is not so sure without him now the Mogo Mogo tribe will go down.
He says, “Just depends on what the challenge is. I think I was an asset to the team. But I guess next week we’ll find out. I don’t know how they’ll do. They do still have Ethan and Lex. They’re amazing. They’re great in the water.
“That’s one thing I wish we could have seen more of as a viewer is just how much fun we had. We were going out every day and clamming and bringing back dozens and dozens of clam to eat. The three of us would. That was something we had a lot of fun doing. There was a lot of camaraderie between Ethan and Lex and I,” he says.
As to why he decided to bring Ethan to the tribe, Colby explains, “We brought him on mainly so we didn’t have to compete against him anymore. He is such an athlete and such a competitor.”
And yet it was Ethan who in part was guilty of losing the reward-immunity challenge. Colby however does not put the whole blame on the Survivor: Africa winner.
Colby says, “As soon as we got back to camp, he not only apologized to the entire tribe but he and I talked privately and he said, ‘I muffed it.’ But we had a chance to win. We came back and our raft was side by side and we didn’t pull it off. So the blame can’t all go to Ethan.”
Another particular challenge, some say Mogo Mogo should not have lost and even Jeff Probst admitted he had made a bad call, was the one when Colby and Boston Rob were on the balance beam and it looked like Colby had fell into the water first but after careful viewing, it was Boston Rob’s foot that hit the water first.
But Colby tells Chen, “I may have won that particular battle with Rob, as that footage showed. But that doesn’t mean our tribe won that challenge. I think we got beat by three flags.”
So Colby says he harbors no hard feelings against his good friend Probst. “Super Bowls are won and lost on judgment calls. That’s what Jeff is there to do. We know that as players. It was up to him. Unfortunately, that was a call that he missed. But I’ll take it out on him on the poker table,” he says with a big confident smile.
In a way he can’t complain, Colby is the guy on the Schick razor ads. Ironically, he says he hardly ever shaves. Interestingly enough he points out, “After the game, I shaved my head. There were so many sand fleas over there; the bugs were so bad I couldn’t ever get them out of my scalp after the game. I took a razor, Schick Quattro, mind you, and shaved my head. We should have done that for a commercial.”
And that is not all, Colby was recently seen on the TV show, “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” which he says was a lot of fun.
He says, “There have been some victories. I’ve been out there two years pursuing acting. This was a blast to do Larry David’s show and be in that company.”
