Thanks to the ineptitude of the CBS employees in charge of the official "Survivor" Web site, anyone who was online Wednesday afternoon knew that Greg, the deceptively kooky, coconut-shell-phone-yakking castaway, was getting the boot in that night's episode. A Richmond, Va., writer looking for "Survivor" information Wednesday afternoon discovered that CBS had prematurely gone live with the summary for Episode 8; within minutes, the news that Greg would be voted off the island was all over the Web.

CBS took down the site completely for a portion of the day to remove the fun-spoiling information. But the damage was done: The Greg gaffe lends credence to another, more serious goof that surfaced late last week -- a hacker poking around in the "Survivor" Web site code supposedly found a page confirming the identity of the $1 million winning survivor. Viewers who at first dismissed that story as a hoax because the alleged winner was somewhat surprising might think otherwise now.

Anyway, Episode 8 began with the group rehashing last week's shocking ouster of Gretchen by a voting alliance of former Tagi members Richard, Susan, Rudy and Kelly. Jenna astutely noted, "Last night looks like a conspiracy." Well, duh. Rudy told the camera, "It was my idea to get rid of Gretchen because I thought she was gonna be the next leader."

The logical thing for the five remaining non-alliance members (Greg, Sean, Jenna, Colleen and Gervase) to do would be to form their own voting pact, knock out the Gang of Four, and then go into the end game. Instead, their naiveté in the face of certain doom is shocking; they fail to form a united front.

Jenna's strategy involves palling around with Susan trying to get on her good side. Susan tells her that no women are going to be voted out for a while; it's the women vs. the men now. But she's lying, as usual, chortling to the camera later, "As far as the women formin' an alliance, it ain't gonna happen." Sean continues with his Einsteinian "alphabetical order" voting strategy. Greg tries to befriend Richard, even engaging in some homoerotic flirtation with the gay nature boy. But Richard is laughing at Greg behind his back.

Even without the CBS leak that afternoon, it would have been obvious that Greggie was going to be on the next plane back to civilization; not only had the Gang of Four pegged him as a potential leader, but his potential alliance-mates were whining about the change in his behavior since the tribes merged. "I'm seeing Greg in a much more devious way than I have before," said Jenna, in another astute observation. The former Pagongsters still don't get that it's every castaway for him or herself now.

To make matters worse, food is running out; rice rationing is instituted. Richard remains the only one of the tribe who can actually catch fish; he, Rudy and Susan are clearly peeved about having to feed island layabouts Colleen and Gervase. Gervase continues to snooze or play cards. He is under the impression that his role on the island is to "entertain" the others. But Susan begs to differ: "Gervase is not that charming, trust me. He's a slacker. He won't be around that long."

Setting up the reward challenge, Jeff Probst shows up with a TV and a VCR and plays snippets of tapes made by the castaways' family members. It's truly a Gilligan moment -- like, where did he plug the stuff in? We get to see Richard's adopted 10-year-old son sending wishes that his dad would come home soon. (This is the same kid who Richard was arrested for allegedly abusing when he got back by making him go on a predawn run to lose weight.) We get to see Mrs. Rudy, who is as taciturn as Rudy. We get to see Colleen's cat, Susan's chubby hubby, Gervase's girlfriend and daughter, Sean's car, Kelly's laid-back boyfriend dude ("Peace"), and, in a harrowing scene, Greg's sister, who confirms that madness runs in the family; she blathers on and on in some strange baby talk sort of language. Alas, poor Jenna, who has been moping around because she misses her two daughters, did not get a tape from home. She breaks down and cries because she misses her "beauties," and it would have "done wonders to see my kids." Yeah, well, you should have thought of that before you left home for three months, missy.

For the reward challenge, the castaways have an archery contest; the winner gets to see the full tape from home and make one to send back. Greg wins, and we see more footage of his psychotic sister. This week's immunity challenge: a rope course through the jungle. Gervase takes this one, so he can't be voted off the island tonight, but he'll be the Gang of Four's target next week, and he knows it; soon after the rope course, Gervase is seen trying to convince Sean and Colleen to form an alliance for that night's vote.

But stupidity prevailed; Greg was voted off with six votes, the Gang of Four's, plus Jenna's (because she doesn't like him) and Sean's, which would have gone to Gervase under his alphabetical order "strategy," except Gervase had immunity. "Good night, sweetheart, it's time to go," sings a gleeful Richard as he drops his vote for Greg in the bucket.

There was no word on whether any CBS Web site employees had been voted off the island for their screw-ups.

(J.M.)

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