TELEVISION Castaway on the rebound

HOW SHE GOT CAUGHT ON THE BACK FOOT IN SURVIVOR SA ‘I realised that the perception of the game is different to the reality.’

agiso-born radio and TV presenter Palesa Tau, 29, was acting on impulse when she entered to be a contestant on the M-Net reality show, Survivor SA-Philippines, while browsing the internet at home.

“I am a very spontaneous person, so one night when I was in bed working on my laptop, the ad popped up and I thought why not. I entered and to my surprise made it to the final round of contestants who later made it to the island.”

Having come from being in the minority Luzon team in the beginning, her group were happy to see Seamus go home.

Sensing that Ace could be turned after episode one’s events, the cunning beauty used her immunity idol just before episode two’s tribal council to sway him towards her minority group and deadlock the votes, ultimately sending Neil home.

At the tribe shuffle, Tau joined the new tribe, Visayas, along with former Luzon members Vusi, Tom and Chane and sole former Mindanao member Murishca, siding with Vusi against Tom and Chane.

While they lobbied for Murishca’s affections, she sat back and waited for an opportunity, which Tom duly presented when he described Murishca as a “dead weight” – and after an altercation with him over food.

After an eventful tribal council, Chane approached Palesa and Vusi to join forces against Tom.

But a combination of inspired immunity challenge performances, including a memorable partnership between Tom and Palesa to win the Steers Reward, and sheer luck, robbed them of an opportunity to do so before the merge.

With the blues still ruling the roost at post-merge tribe Araw, Palesa, Vusi and Chane left their approach to Tom too late, and he was taken in by the Mindanao bloc. That left them vulnerable and ultimately saw the trio picked off in three consecutive weeks.

This week’s immunity challenge saw the castaways toiling to build word puzzles on teetering platforms at the end of long ropes.

After the lead changed hands several times, Werner prevailed to claim the immunity necklace and give himself a one in seven shot at the R1 million prize and the title of Sole Survivor.

After checking in with Tom just before tribal council and being assured she was safe for another week, Tau chose not to use her immunity idol when host Nico Catch Survivor on DStv M-Net channel 101 every Thursday at 7pm Panagio gave the castaways their chance to do so.

But soon she was looking around in bewilderment as her name was read out five times, sending her to join Vusi and Chane at Ponderosa.