User blog comment:Gideoncrawle/LTDI Update & Call for Ideas/@comment-3350823-20131103071426/@comment-1874924-20131103213237

Rhonda, I was hoping to hear from you on this. I've learned enough about your thought processes to expect some good ideas.

1st Labor: I really like your "lady or the tiger" idea for the Nemean Lion, which also allows me to make yet another literary allusion, so you can expect to see it in some form. It sure beats my idea of herding cats. (By the by, in "The Lady, or the Tiger?" it  was a form of trial by ordeal, so it was a judicial proceeding, not a sport.)

4th Labor: I also had the "greased pig" idea. Since you've basically seconded it, that's probably what I'll go with, although I don't have any specifics yet for the setting of this sub-challenge. Episode 15 is still a ways off, though.

5th Labor: I can go in two directions with this. I could have the campers do something like shovel a bunch of manure (infused with something like rotting fish to make it extra smelly) or do something like dam a small creek. I could even have boys do one and girls do the other. In any case, this is one of several Labors that would have a time limit.

7th Labor: My current idea is a nonlethal bullfighting variant that's popular in a certain region of France, but using a moose instead of a bull. (This is TD, after all, meaning that moose and bears can stand in for pretty much any other type of large animal.) If I need this for the extreme sports challenge, though, I don't currently have a Plan B.

8th Labor: My idea was equestrian show jumping, possibly riding moose (which would still be on hand from the polo match) instead of horses, but I'm definitely in the market for something better. If I use roping for #10, then roping here would be too repetitive.

10th Labor: The only idea I currently have for this is moose roping. That'll work, but I'm not really happy with it.

11th Labor: My idea was based on the turtle hockey in the original. Chef could slap shoot apples--big, hard, green apples in all probability--at the campers, who would have to try to catch them. Or the campers could simply have apples thrown at them, perhaps with ex-camper "fastball Geoff" guest starring for that purpose.

12th Labor: This was the only one that I had no ideas for at all. Based on your suggestions, though, I think it might involve some sort of prehistoric critter brought in from Boney Island.

As for the extreme sports ideas, shooting at the campers is probably too similar to the trust challenge's "William Tell" bit, which LTDI will retain. Playing chicken has possibilities, despite the similarities to the jousting tournament planned for the bicycle challenge. Planes or helicopters wouldn't work, though, because the show simply doesn't have that kind of budget. Maybe hang gliders, or canoes with outboard motors strapped onto them.

For the challenge rewards, I don't watch Survivor, so I was mainly hoping that the people who do would offer some ideas. The Boney Island adventure will have a food-related reward, and one of the campers will observe that they're likely to see more food-related rewards going forward, now that the secret is out that Hatchet can cook well when he wants to. I'm planning a "phone home" reward for an original reward challenge that has no canon analogue, although I'm certainly not restricted to using it only once.