|
It did make a huge difference. In the alternate universe where Tony only has the regular Idol at Final 6, he almost certainly plays it at that Tribal Council because he was a paranoid mess (that was the Tribal where Kass and Woo were trolling Tony trying to flush the idol). Then Final 5 is completely different, since you basically had Kass and Woo in open mutiny against Tony and Trish, and if they no longer think Tony has an idol they'd probably target him instead of Trish.
|
#
¿
Aug 31, 2014 16:37
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 00:38 |
|
|
I know editing is a big part of it, but I also feel like that undersells the (generally) great casting on Survivor. During the big BB15 controversy last year, I read an article that pointed out that the cast of Big Brother is a group of people with so few life commitments that they can give up 100+ days to be on a reality show considered trashy by even reality show standards, all for a comparatively small prize and almost no compensation if they don't win. Compare that to Survivor where they are only gone for a month and a half and can still leave with decent money even if they lose, and it's no wonder that the people willing to go on Survivor are generally saner and better people. Maybe if we could see live feeds of the island I'd feel differently, but I'd bet Survivor casts are generally much less racist, sexist, and/or ignorant than BB casts. I mean as a quick sanity check for this idea, Survivor has a much higher percentage of non-white, non-male winners than Big Brother.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 1, 2014 18:23
|
|
|
Having watched all the cast interviews, the twinnies are the only ones who feel like they might play aggressively and make big moves. It's unlikely either of them will win, but from where I'm standing they're the best hope of keeping the season interesting and I hope they stick around for a while.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 24, 2014 23:14
|
|
|
The premiere was weirdly sterile. I feel like we didn't see any meaningful interactions within the tribes, just lots of solo stories and talking about their loved ones. We didn't even know about the gendered alliances until right before Tribal Council. The cast is okay, they are a bit bland but seem pleasant enough. It's unclear if anyone has the brains or conviction to actually do anything strategically interesting though. In that sense, it reminds me a lot of the BB16 cast which is not a good thing at all. Val is the only standout to me so far. I don't necessarily think she is playing well, but it takes guts to come into a tribe of strangers on Day 3 and organize an almost successful counter-alliance within hours and not even get any votes. I know there was a bit of luck involved, but it was the closest thing anyone did to *doing* something interesting the entire episode.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 26, 2014 21:30
|
|
|
Orvin posted:It's still way early in the season, and I assume kinda unlikely to happen, but will the producers do any tweaking of challenges or rewards if the men just vote off all the women? I don't have a lot of experience with Survivor, so short of a different merge timing, or just handing immunity idols to specific players, is there anything else they can or would do. It depends how big your tin foil hat is. I personally believe Probst when he says they genuinely don't interfere, and the only time game mechanics are changed are if a med evac or quit messes up the pre-planned schedule. That being said, you're right that the alliance has no chance of lasting. There have been exactly two successful mono-gender alliances in Survivor history, and one of those was in a season where the tribes were split by gender anyway.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 30, 2014 04:24
|
|
|
Anyone who says the first few weeks of Survivor are always boring needs to re-watch last season, where the majority alliance on the Brains tribe changed three times and included an idol flushing and the rice incident.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 4, 2014 06:32
|
|
|
The biggest surprise this episode was finding out that Val's plan last week actually almost worked. I assumed it was just clever editing that made it seem like Josh flipped his vote at the last second after seeing Rocker talk to Val, and that the vote was always supposed to be a 4-4 vote. Interesting that Josh really did save Baylor from his alliance's own stupidity and bad math skills. I don't know if that means Josh is a *good* player, but it at least convinced me he's the only competent guy on that tribe.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2014 00:08
|
|
|
Milovan Drecun posted:The math worked... if Val and Jaclyn were ever targeting a guy. Which is why Josh said it can't get out that Baylor was going to receive votes. The girls were playing vindictively, targeting Baylor for some stupid reason (even before they got clued in). However, Rocker's lack of subtly made it clear to Josh that potentially the wrong person would be going home. It was still a gamble if Val's claim of two idol was real, but Josh knew better than to buy that load and made sure the vote went correctly. The initial idea was that the vote would be 3 votes Baylor, 3 votes Val, 2 votes to some dude. It wasn't stupid so much as a misunderstanding how the other girls felt about Baylor. I think it was pretty stupid. It's for this exact reason that you don't split votes unless you have a solid 2/3 majority. The guys' math was fuzzy because they counted Baylor in both the majority and the minority. Putting 2 votes on Baylor and 4 on Val (which is what they did at the last second) makes much more sense with absolutely zero added risk. If the votes came out 4-2-2 for Val-Baylor-[any guy], even if Val plays an idol Baylor would still go home over the guy because they'd re-vote after the tie. I mean it doesn't matter too much if the guys' alliance really didn't care about whether Baylor or Val stayed, but the way they were acting was that Val was still the main target and ideally Baylor would stick around.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2014 02:45
|
|
|
Another reason to get rid of Rocker that no one's mentioned: given how much that tribe is losing, they can't really afford to enter the merge with the other tribe united together in their hostility against the perceived leader. Josh is more useful to a new alliance at the merge if he comes with an extra reliable vote in the form of Baylor or Dale, than he is with all the baggage and hostility that Rocker brings. A vote shield like Rocker only works in getting you one spot further; if Josh (or anyone on that tribe) wants to win he needs an entirely new alliance. Granted, this is a Blood vs. Water season, so merge alliances are probably a free-for-all anyway, but it's still something to consider.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2014 21:31
|
|
|
Met posted:You're right. They're better off with Baylor in challenges. Getting Pagonged isn't the end of literally all of their shot at the million, right? That's how it works? This has come up the past few seasons whenever the losing tribe decides to shake things up and vote out a stronger guy early on (Brad Culpepper, Garrett, now Rocker). People like Rocker are an asset in challenges only in very specific circumstances, and it's not uncommon for their big size to be a disadvantage. He was useful in climbing the walls in week 1 and throwing the ball in week 3, but actively lost them both the reward and immunity challenges in week 2. If the tribe is losing most challenges with Rocker anyway, then his biggest supposed value isn't all that useful anyway. It's not like they have to vote off less members if they come CLOSE to winning every challenge. And if he really was sucking as much energy from the tribe as some of the confessionals indicated, booting him might actually help challenge performance. Note that the last two seasons, the losing tribe WON their first immunity challenge right after voting out Culpepper / Garrett, even though both of those challenge had big physical components. The other thing to consider is that, historically speakings, Pagongings are much more likely when tribes enter the merge at similar numbers rather than with lopsided numbers (post-merge spoilers for recent seasons: compare 19, 25, and 28 with 22, 23, and 24). In some sense, it's an advantage to go into the merge with a very small, loyal, dependable core and try to take advantage of the turmoil and inner-conflict within the winning tribe. If each tribe has been to enough Tribal Councils to vote out it's inner minority alliance, there's no room to flip at the merge and a Pagonging is much more likely.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2014 18:13
|
|
|
Does Drew even have an alliance, let alone a majority??? What is he thinking?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2014 01:40
|
|
|
Immunity for rice doesn't work. They'd almost certainly require everyone on the tribe to agree to that, and Jeremy would probably rather starve until the merge than risk going home this early.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2014 00:08
|
|
|
I think an interesting twist on tribal swaps would be to announce the swap in advance (as in Jeff announcing on Day 1 that on Day 11 there will be a random tribal swap). It'd make things a little fairer if they knew it was coming, while still keeping a lot of the advantages like mixing up alliances and changing general pre-merge strategy. You'd also have the weird looming countdown to the swap which would mess with people's heads and strategies.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2014 03:13
|
|
|
Dale could have made this season amazing if he turned to Jon on the way out and said "No hard feelings. Here's my idol, good luck."
|
|
#
¿
Oct 30, 2014 02:13
|
|
|
Huge Liability posted:Someone else asked this question earlier, but it wasn't answered and I'm wondering the same thing. I think this is exactly why fake Idols were so much more common when the Idol was first introduced. There were 3 or 4 different fake idols played in seasons 15-17 and then pretty much nothing after, probably because players got wise enough to look for the scroll. Based on those seasons, the rules are probably that you can't hide a fake idol with the real scroll, though I think you can use the cloth its wrapped in and other show props. EDIT: In terms of idol bluffing, I think the only time it makes sense is if you are just trying to survive one more week and don't mind an ally getting sent home. Then your idol bluff might get the majority alliance to split the vote between you and Ally A, and if you are wise and vote for Ally A too that might be enough to send Ally A home. Even then, you need to make sure the majority alliance isn't so big that they can afford to split votes and still put the vast majority on you. Even though the editing framed it otherwise, for this reason I think Val's idol bluff was actually a much more sensical play than Dale's. Val actually tried to take advantage of the vote split, and only lost because Josh double-checked the math moments before Tribal. Dale didn't even seem to factor in a vote split in his plan. mancalamania fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Oct 31, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Oct 31, 2014 04:18
|
|
|
I also don't really understand the Missy and Baylor hate. I guess Missy seems a little annoying as a person, but in a season with very little strategic thinking the two of them have done kind of okay. Baylor was the first on her tribe to suggest voting out Rocker, and Missy was the first to suggest voting out Drew (even if Josh and Natalie seemed to actually put the votes together in time). Both have made strong alliances with some of the biggest power players in the season, and also survived a pretty tight tribal swap that could have gone either way.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 2, 2014 04:10
|
|
|
At least when Colton and Lindsay quit last year they were close to being voted out. Julie wasn't really on anyone's radar and was easily on track to make it to the end as a goat. Heck, while it would've been a long shot after the trail mix, she could have even won a bitter jury against an overplaying Jeremy and Missy.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 6, 2014 03:13
|
|
|
Maybe it was just the editing, but it was really weird that Josh was the only person in his alliance trying to do anything to salvage their numbers. It's not clear that Wes, Keith, and Alec are even aware of the trouble they're in, and if Reed's plan consisted of anything other than "hope Josh wins back Baylor" we certainly didn't see it.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 6, 2014 05:37
|
|
|
EchoBase posted:Gee, I wonder if being in a critical vote where the direction of the game for potentially up to final five or six is being decided and you're very possibly on the wrong side of a 6-5 vote and you know exactly who is being voted for is a good time to play your loving idol Keith. Oh but I guess you went and told the other side who is in danger and maybe they have an idol and could counter your ifol so I guess gently caress you again Keith. I actually think Keith is one of the most interesting players this season. He is continuously oblivious and confused by even basic strategies like vote splitting, side deals within alliances, and even alliances themselves. Yet at the same time, he has had surprisingly keen intuition about the game (knowing not to play his idol after the swap, not buying Missy's apology a few episodes ago, sensing Jon & Jaclyn weren't with him this episode). I don't think he'll win, and I hope he doesn't win, but he's definitely an interesting throwback to the kind of old-school Survivor player we haven't seen in years. ETA: I mean, it's not even clear if Keith told Wes about the idol yet, which is an incredibly strange move to say the least. Contrast that to Jon telling Jaclyn literally the moment they were back on the beach this episode.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 13, 2014 04:31
|
|
|
savinhill posted:The only thing I really liked about Josh was that he at least tried to play the game but he wasn't really any good at it. The sad thing is that this should have been very obvious after Episode 1's "I spontaneously voted for closest ally instead of with either alliance without telling anyone, all in an effort to PROTECT my closest ally." It was just so easy to forget about that when the next 3 episodes involved "I have two idols, please vote me out," "thanks for voting out the lady with the idols, also I have an idol too" and "I should throw this challenge while being the most hated member of my tribe and having no alliance."
|
|
#
¿
Nov 13, 2014 05:33
|
|
|
Shakugan posted:Surely none of these "rules" would ever stand up in court. If a contestant wins, and they are paid, it's their money at that point. So surely, if that contestant wants to then give some of that money away to whoever (including other players), they would be free to do so. The rule is that you can't CONSPIRE to share the money while on the show. It's to prevent very obvious strategies that would make for a very boring TV show, like a race-to-the-bottom prize sharing where the finalist who agrees to give the most of the money away to the jury will win. They definitely don't care what you do with the money after the show. And the rule is definitely suspended in BvW seasons, at least within the loved one pairs. The married pairs share a bank account, after all. I also remember Gervase and Marissa discussing sharing the prize if either of them won.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 15, 2014 04:31
|
|
|
What a weirdly edited episode. We only saw the plan to vote out Jeremy for like 30 seconds, and it felt more like Jon was suggesting it for next time rather than this round. We didn't even get to see Reed or Baylor filled in; who even made the call to trust Reed enough to tell him?? The leader of the majority alliance just got blindsided, this should have been the most exciting episode of the season. Instead I'm mostly just confused.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 20, 2014 03:15
|
|
|
There was a moment in the middle of One World where Sab accidentally told Christina that Christina's own alliance was splitting votes between her and Troyzan and if Troyzan played the idol she was going home. Sab immediately freaked out and realized if Christina retaliated in anyway, she'd be screwed. Instead, Christina was completely unphased and then voted for Chelsea for absolutely no reason (she was the only one who voted Chelsea by the way). Also at the Final 4 TC Probst said "Christina, it sounds like you're getting voted out" and Christina basically replied "Yup, I hope I don't though" and Probst asked what kind of deals she made and/or what her pitch was and she said she had no plan but was just REALLY hoping she wouldn't get voted out.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 23, 2014 07:18
|
|
|
As dumb as Keith was, let's be clear than Jon, Missy and everyone are even dumber for trusting Reed and Alec. "Wow, the minority alliance wants to help us get rid of one of it's own members and also flush out it's idol, how generous of them!"
|
|
#
¿
Nov 27, 2014 16:24
|
|
|
Binary Logic posted:Me too. Maybe people have already forgotten the previous season's bunch of idiots. Nuclear engineer J'tia and her continual nukular meltdowns. Lindsay, who quit because otherwise she'd have an actual physical fight with Trish, and didn't want her daughter to see it (something like that, she was kinda crazy). David Samson and Garret, who were on the same team but destroyed each other before the game even started. There were a few others who had no clue about playing (Morgan, Jefra, Jeremiah) and of course who could forget Wu, he had the $1 million in his grasp but threw it away because he was too dumb to be a Survivor winner. Five of Final Six last season (Kass, Tony, Spencer, Trish, Tasha) were extremely aggressive players that each spearheaded at least one big game-changing move at some point in the game. Those moves were bold, exciting, and fun to talk about because it wasn't obvious if it was a good move or a bad move (how many pages did we discuss whether voting out Garett over J'Tia was a smart play? Or Kass's flip at the merge?). Compare that to the Final 6 this season, and it's a much sorrier state of affairs. Part of the problem is the editing-- blindsiding Jeremy and Drew were both big moves, but it's unclear who exactly spearheaded those plays. But it's also the cast's fault, I think, both for playing in an unexciting and unsatisfying way, and for being pretty uncharismatic too. I think pointing out Morgan, Jefra, and Jeremiah also helps prove that point. Those three were some of the least interesting players last season, yet they are way more exciting compared to the least interesting players this season like Wes, Alec, and Julie. Jeremiah and Jefra were really charming in subtle ways that no one this season is, and Jefra in particular at least entertained the thought of flipping alliances once and had some interesting confessionals showing how carefully she was considering the endgame. By comparison, she was Russell Hantz compared to Wes. Even Morgan was at least entertaining in her confessionals and seething hatred for Kass, and had more personality than 80% of the cast this season. I also think reducing a season to good vs. bad strategy is silly. There's nothing wrong with entertainingly stupid moves; but not every stupid move is entertaining and some can be very unsatisfying. The Tribal Council with the idol play this season is a good example. Reed's split vote plan was clever, the stakes were pretty high, and Natalie prodding Jon to play the idol was thrilling in the moment. But the whole thing was hollow because Reed's plan NEVER should have worked to begin with. The majority alliance had NO reason to trust Reed and Alec, and it was frightening how no one in the alliance did the math to figure out how easily they could be screwed. To see such terrible gameplay not be punished because Keith couldn't shut up for ten seconds was very unsatisfying. And on top of that, I personally found Wes and Alec to be so boring and repulsive that I couldn't even get excited about Reed's plan working since I hated 50% of his alliance.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 7, 2014 09:40
|
|
|
If Natalie was smart she'd get them to vote out Jon and if he plays his idol, she plays her's on Keith and then on the re-vote they vote out Jaclyn.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2014 02:42
|
|
|
Fast Luck posted:Yeah if I'm anyone left in the game, I want to go to final tribal council with anyone except Natalie now. The question is whether Missy/Baylor would be willing to vote her out if she doesn't have immunity at F4. It's tough to say for sure, but I think Natalie has this won. Assuming Jaclyn is out next, for Natalie to not make the Final 3 at this point she needs to somehow lose Final 4 immunity AND have Missy and Baylor both agree to betray her AND have Missy and Baylor not want to pursue the strategy of one of them voluntarily leaving to have a free jury vote AND have Keith not be willing to force a tie for her. And then it's hard to imagine Natalie losing at Final 3 unless the jury is super bitter and votes for Keith out of spite. And even then, that requires Keith squeaking into the Final 3 too somehow.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 11, 2014 04:58
|
|
|
bbf2 posted:We never saw Julie say "I feel so betrayed by John right now" either. Some of that stuff was cut out along the way. I'd bet that Keith quote was from after Reed told him he screwed up and was left out of the episode, and they didn't use a clip from the finale in the preview. The big missing one is the weird Jon quote that was like "somebody has the idol, and we're going to BURN IT!!!!" What on earth was he talking about?? I don't even know which Idol he was talking about considering he had half of them! And how did all of the exit interviewers fail to ask about this?
|
|
#
¿
Dec 12, 2014 03:06
|
|
|
Worrying about bringing your loved one to the Final 3 out of fear of splitting votes is very silly. Not only has this never happened in Survivor history, but with an 8 person jury it's almost mathematically impossible. If the Final 3 were Jon, Jaclyn, and Natalie, for a split vote to affect the outcome the vote would have to be 3-3-2 (say 3 Jon, 3 Nat, 2 Jaclyn) or 4-2-2 (4 Nat, 2 Jon, 2 Jaclyn). In the former case, presumably they would revote with Jaclyn ineligible and Jon wins 5-3. The latter case is obviously more troubling, but with a vote that close it's not even clear that taking Missy over Jaclyn would help Jon. Also, historically most Final Tribals are won by very large margins, especially in recent years where the jury talks at Ponderosa and unofficially agrees to vote as a block. So the benefit of an extra vote on the jury by voting out your loved one doesn't worth it. Instead, since juries are so hard to read, I'd much prefer bringing my loved one to the Final 3 and blocking a potential winner from the finals.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 13, 2014 05:46
|
|
|
STAC Goat posted:A couple of weeks ago when Jaclyn was upset that the guys ignored her didn't Keith tell Jeff he'd never actually had a conversation with Jax the entire time? I just have a hard time thinking the guy's playing a strong social game when something like that happened. Even the thing this week where Baylor says he's a cool guy. That's on Day 30something. If you haven't showed someone your good side for that long then you're doing something wrong socially, IMO. This was probably just the first time Baylor's spent any real time with Keith where he wasn't telling her to do some work. All this is made so much more confusing by the edit (both for Keith specific and for the entire season). We've been simultaneously told Keith is a big threat to win because of his immunity wins and his personal backstory, yet at the same time we're told that he's antisocial and completely inept at the game. One of these stories is probably more manufactured than the other, and it's not entirely clear which (but it's probably the first one). The other problem is a big problem with this season in general-- we're being told about personal relationships rather than seeing them. I think that because it's a Blood vs. Water season, the editors spent so much time showing us the loved one relationships that the other social aspects are being left on the cutting room floor. We've been TOLD in confessionals about how tight Josh and Baylor were, and how close Natalie was with Jeremy, but it feels like we never saw these relationships in action. So with someone like Keith, even though we barely see him talking to anyone besides Wes, it's hard to know if that means anything since we also barely saw the other non-loved one relationships that we know existed.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 14, 2014 22:38
|
|
|
Even if Natalie loses, at least after the past few episodes she's probably won a spot on the next returning players season. Might be fun to see her play with smarter players.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 18, 2014 01:04
|
|
|
Yeah I'm sure the Final 3 deal existed in the sense that they agreed to it, but clearly Natalie was never on board and Missy and Baylor were eventually persuaded otherwise. I also think that when Jon got voted out the deal was off, and I'm surprised people think otherwise. The Final 5 Tribal Council will be one amazing acting job by all five of them if everyone was in agreement to get rid of Baylor. Anyway, I'm not surprised we never saw the Final 3 and wouldn't be surprised if it is why Jeff seems very lukewarm about ever doing another BvW season. People realized that could happen way back before the first BvW started. There's a reason conspiring to share the prize is one of the only things not allowed on this show: it leads to really obvious strategies that are really boring to watch play out, like agreeing to step aside at the end. With a BvW you have this problem built-in from the start since obviously 90% of the couples are splitting the prize (excepting weird uncle/niece pairs like Gervase last season), and it's kind of a miracle this problem didn't pop up the first time. As for why Natalie wanted to get Baylor out at Final 5, another factor is that in a Final 4 of Baylor/Missy/Keith/Natalie, if Keith wins Immunity again than Natalie is 100% out of the game, which is definitely not true for a Final 4 of Jaclyn/Missy/Keith/Natalie.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 20, 2014 03:12
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 14, 2024 00:38 |
|
|
Rupert remains awesome in the first half of Pearl Islands, even watching it years later. He's a shoe-stealing fish-catching skirt-wearing spear-finding pirate who defeats an alliance of douchebros who do nothing but make fun of him for no reason and also lose his fishing gear. The scene where Burton sits down Rupert to say "Hey, we need to throw the next Immunity Challengeto eliminate your alliance of women because they're going to come after me-- uh, and you too" and Rupert just smiles and nods and then gives a confessional about how Burton is going to be the first to go is incredible. He does definitely start to lose it in the second half though. I think Burton returning and playing mindgames with him really messed him up.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 24, 2014 22:52
|
|