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I haven't checked in on this thread in years. As with many people, early in quarantine I "rewatched" Survivor on Hulu. I put rewatched in quotes because I started with All-Stars, and skipped seasons I remembered as being boring, like mostly everything between Heroes vs Villains and Cagayan. I also watched Gen X vs Millenials and Second Chances for the first time as I didn't have CBS on my cable package at the time. Quarantine has gone on long enough that I've run out of things to watch, and when I got an offer to have a free month of CBS All Access, I decided to actually rewatch Survivor from season 1 for the first time in like 15 years. I've been surprised at a number of things that I've noticed, and I wanted to share them. 1) They were really all about typecasting for the first few seasons, especially after how popular Colleen was after season 1. It's actually kind of annoying how they kept on trying to force a sweetheart type for the first few seasons after. We got loving Elizabeth Hasselback and Neleh. I did actually really like Kim P in Africa though. 2) The soundtrack has been set for so long that I forgot how much they experimented the first few seasons. They used a lot of bad techno, the faux tribal music was used to a minimum. 3) I seem to remember that people didn't really strategize a whole lot until later in the series, and that the Pagonging of season 1 was just a bunch of idiots not seeing what was coming. So I was surprised to see that people picked up on the whole alliance thing pretty early on and actually did try and organize against it. 4) Australia has not aged well at all. Colby, the golden boy of the season who I loved, was actually a loving dick. Jerri wasn't as evil as I remembered her being, I actually quite liked her this time around. They voted out anyone interesting, and by the end we were left with what I dubbed this time around the "aw shucks" alliance, just people with a bunch of faux humility who were obnoxiously self-righteous, and even worse, boring. I did not remember Keith at all, so I was shocked to see that he made it to the final 3. 5) Season 1, I was shocked at how freely Sean said the slur f*g, and how in early seasons, homophobes were played for laughs (i.e. Frank). Despite Richard winning, the homophobia was very real. In season 4, it felt very gross when John and Boston Rob got into a big argument, and at the end of the argument, out of nowhere, Rob asked John, "Are you gay?" And when John confirms that he is, Rob just kind of chuckles and rolls his eyes. 6) I enjoyed the focus on camp life that we don't see too much these days since it's now strategizing 24/7. I totally understand the stories you hear of people leaving the show in recent years and basically having mental breakdowns and being unable to trust anyone after. 7) The challenge budgets were a lot smaller. Lots of trivia challenges. Instead of picking someone to go on a reward challenge, Jeff Probst was your companion. It was awkward. 8) Marquesas loving holds up, and Kathy Vavrick O'Brien is still a queen. 9) The water situation in Africa was gross. 10) And finally, not an observation, but I learned that season 4 was apparently planned to be filmed in Jordan, and it was going to be called Survivor Arabia, but then 9/11 happened. I completely forgot that Clinton was president during the first two seasons.
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Dec 7, 2020 06:18
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ApplesandOranges posted:The tidbit that a lot of casual viewers don't know about Borneo is that for the 'Survivor bar' reward the original prize was one (1) can of beer and the players all went 'uh no that's not worth playing for' so the producers scrambled to put together something. I love trivia like this. I was reading on reddit yesterday, apparently Elisabeth Hasselback (ugh) was asked to participate in All-Stars but she had just started her controversial turn on The View. Colleen was asked, but she turned it down because she wanted to move on from Survivor in her life. Gervaise and Sean Rector were alternates to participate, but obviously didn't make the final cut.
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Dec 16, 2020 14:15
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BGrifter posted:Wasn’t really sure where best to post this but most of the Big Brother regulars also read the Survivor thread so it seemed like this was as good a place as any. Hmm. I'm coming up on the end of my free month of CBS All Access. I have 0 desire for a sports streaming service, but if I can get another 15 months of CBS for $20, I might need to do it
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Dec 29, 2020 06:01
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for 15 months access to unlimited Survivor and Big Brother streaming feels like a steal. Signed up and after a little messing around with a US iTunes account I’m watching BB10e1 now on my iPad.
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Stokes posted:This is one of the worst seasons mostly because most of the strategy talk happened unfilmed on the ride to Tribal Council thanks to Tina, which is why a lot of the episodes feel disjointed. I wonder how you talk strategy if everyone is in an enclosed space in a van. Also, I read on reddit today that apparently in Cagayan, Kass and Tasha wanted to vote out Spencer over J'Tia, and Jeff held tribal council for many hours until they agreed to vote out J'Tia. I remember the HvV tribal where Jeff chastised everyone for voting out Rob, but I had no idea he would actually keep everyone there until he got his way.
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Jan 2, 2021 05:38
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curiousCat posted:link to source? It was a comment in a random thread. I was curious about the source myself, but nobody provided it. People in that subreddit listen to every podcast that any Survivor has ever appeared on and talk about things they hear like it's common knowledge. Apparently Jenna Lewis has a podcast, and in like episode 46 she revealed that Kelly Wigglesworth in season 1 was caught loving one of the cameramen in exchange for food, which is supposedly why she dominated the later challenges, and was the real reason why everyone was so angry at her at the finale. Who knows if it's true, I feel like that would have come out a long time ago if it was.
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Jan 3, 2021 02:24
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curiousCat posted:link to source? Actually, I just stumbled across the source, which was Kass's AMA https://www.reddit.com/r/survivor/comments/33ndpm/kass_ama/cqmn8ew?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
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Jan 3, 2021 14:29
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Eat The Rich posted:I just got into Survivor and I've seen a handful of seasons in the last couple weeks. I plan on watching all of them and Jeff is king. Love the show, been watching for 40 seasons, but the more you watch, the more you'll find reasons to dislike Jeff. First, he has a strong affinity for challenge beast men, but won't share the same affection for dominant women. He's also been known to keep tribes at council until they agree to vote out the person he wants them to vote out. Kass from Cagayan said that they planned to vote out Spencer, and Jeff forced them to vote out J'Tia instead. There's also the tribal in Heroes vs Villains after they voted out Rob, and Jeff spent the entire council berating them for getting rid of Rob. Then in the Rob vs Russell season, to prepare the contestants for the season, they showed them Heroes vs Villains where Rob was portrayed as a hero, and Russell was portrayed as a villain. He has in the last couple of years admitted to some of his own biases. He's a great host, and I have a hard time picturing anyone replacing him. But he has too much undue influence on the show.
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Mar 23, 2021 04:01
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Sand Monster posted:Nah. For all her bluster about being a hot shot lawyer who could read and manipulate better than anyone, Tony played her like a fiddle. And then he comes back for "WaW" and throws a perfect game. Legend. Hmm? I don't agree that she ever could have won (too many people on the jury hated her), but she played Tony, not the other way around. She got him to blow up multiple alliances, for her or because of her, and made it to the final 3. If I remember correctly, maybe I'm wrong, but didn't she not tell anyone that she was a lawyer? Isn't that why Tony was so focused on her living on a llama farm?
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Mar 23, 2021 17:45
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BGrifter posted:I really thought the Nicaragua through One World-era was going to kill it. Oof, yeah, those were all pretty awful seasons. Was that when they were casting mostly actors/models/bartenders? It seems like the show has gotten better since they started casting diehard fans of the show.
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Mar 24, 2021 20:05
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I just remember casting being very problematic for a long time. Even though I love Parvati now, I remember being very upset at the rumors that she was very good friends with the casting director who encouraged her going into Heroes vs Villains to ally herself with Russell, giving her what I thought at the time was an unfair advantage. Now I know that Russell will never win Survivor no matter how many times he plays.
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Mar 25, 2021 04:56
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SLICK GOKU BABY posted:Survivor Australia has unveiled that the upcoming (late fall) season will be a steal from US Survivor with Brains vs Braun (but no beauty) https://www.marieclaire.com.au/australian-survivor-2021-theme-announced Should I invest in figuring out a way to watch Australian Survivor?
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May 20, 2021 14:37
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Max posted:Joe’s been falling down the right wing conspiracy hole for a while now and was supporting the “stop the steal” nonsense. His thing with Wigglesworth was strange but not what he should be criticized for. Yeah, he's joined some sort of right wing men's empowerment cult. It's also come out that Joe was very liberal with his use of the n-word in all of his seasons of Survivor. He's a piece of poo poo, and so is Sierra.
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Jun 1, 2021 13:20
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BGrifter posted:Kind of wish production had the balls to tell that story. They thought they had the next Ozzy on their hands, so they protected him at all costs. We all know Jeff has his man crushes and idolizes certain male contestants in a way that he has never done for a female contestant.
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Jun 2, 2021 02:07
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Zesty posted:and he does it despite watching him act like a garbage person. Yeah, after hearing all the stories about how Jeff has admitted to rigging the game against contestants he doesn't like, and about him throwing tantrums on set when the contestants aren't giving him what he wants at tribal, I'm realizing maybe it's time for the show to move on with a new host.
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Jun 2, 2021 03:27
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Propaganda Machine posted:As another example, their version of Masterchef usually clocks in at 60ish episodes. Something in their water must just make them more hardcore. How do they manage that? Do they have multiple episodes between eliminations?
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Jun 3, 2021 00:05
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Propaganda Machine posted:Indeed. It airs five days a week with a structure something like cook off-pressure test elimination-immunity cook-team challenge-elimination. This year right now they’re spending a full week of airtime allowing eliminated contestants to cook their ways back in. It’s a LOT, but I find it easier to keep up with than their Survivor just because their standard of cooking is as absurdly intense as their schedule. I guess the UK does that with that gently caress island show or whatever it's called
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Jun 3, 2021 02:15
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SweetJahasus posted:In non-creepy bad idea news, there's a leaked cast list for s41 that shows that they've really gone head first into having a diverse cast which hopefully will be good for the show. Cast list here: https://insidesurvivor.com/cast/season-41-cast and is obviously potential spoilers. Given that the new season is only 26 days instead of the usual 39, I wonder if we're going to get a few double boots, or if there will just be shorter amounts of time between tribal councils. Or maybe they'll pull a Palau again and just boot two people straight off the bat.
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Jun 3, 2021 20:23
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Lone Goat posted:He often would you say the survival part matter that much? They could just give them less rice if production wants to put them the players in the position of the having to barter with Jeff for more. Heh, I don't want another San Juan Del Sur situation again where they were coming to Jeff each week trying to barter. God what a lame rear end season.
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Jun 4, 2021 15:13
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SweetJahasus posted:In that same vein, in David Wright's EW quarantine questionnaire he talked about how he went out there between his 2 seasons, found the camp spot, and buried a fake idol and it's still (as far as he's aware) there. Pretty hilarious. Yeah, that was very funny. He said he and Adam went to do it. He said he was actually at the same camp when he returned for Edge of Extinction, and he considered getting it, but he decided he didn't want to anger the Survivor gods.
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Jun 4, 2021 20:54
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I'm currently in the middle of watching Australian Survivor 2016. My thoughts: I only care about Nick, nobody else. 24 people is too many, and even now in episode 10 when they've whittled it down, there are still a lot of people who are getting a Purple Kelly edit. I did spoil myself and see that Nick is the first jury member and returns for Australian Survivor All Stars (which I didn't see how he does), but he reminds me a lot of Rob Cesternino.
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Jun 7, 2021 02:11
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Australian Survivor 2016 I can't believe we're getting the merge at Day 32, and there are still 13 people left in the game. This is insane.
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Jun 8, 2021 13:40
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SweetJahasus posted:AUS 2016 is an odd season for sure - luckily for you the rest of the seasons are all better so if you like this one then you're in for a treat. I like it enough in that it feels exactly like American Survivor except for the whole Australian accent thing, but I've befriended a group of aussies lately, so it feels familiar. My main issue is that the characters who got all the screen time in the first half of the season are now all gone, leaving us with people who we're basically meeting for the first time since they had pretty much now presence in the game before.
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Jun 8, 2021 15:42
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Normy posted:Russell said on his youtube channel that contestants on Australian Survivor get fruit plates after challenges is that true? Like not as a reward, just for being there. Like orange slices at a kid's soccer game?
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Jun 8, 2021 18:21
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Zesty posted:Pretty sure Brock was dunking on Zeke. Not you. Agreed. It wasn't an attack.
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Jun 10, 2021 23:47
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Popero posted:Cast looks fun, though I'm kind of worried this is going to be a different show now. I have no idea what the hell Jeff is talking about in his pregame press. 26 days. No food rewards, and I think they're not even given any food? The season is supposed to be pretty back to basics in terms of survival.
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Aug 31, 2021 02:09
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SLICK GOKU BABY posted:And if anyone wants to pregame it up, there's a thread for Australian Survivor... which has been pretty good, even though a handful of players have dominated the screen time... https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3973906 I tried watching the first season, and there's just so many episodes. Episode 82 and they're just getting to the final 16 survivors, I skipped forward to the end.
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Aug 31, 2021 13:19
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Popero posted:Honestly that focus really isn't that interesting to me. I'll certainly give it a shot, and hopefully it's great, but I didn't generally have a problem with the core gameplay of most of the seasons in the 30s. Some sucked and some were good, but I don't need a huge overhaul of the show. I could do with fewer gimmicks and twists intended to help production's favorites.
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Aug 31, 2021 13:41
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Fast Luck posted:I think them hammering the season's theme is pretty annoying too, but Millennials vs Gen X and David vs Goliath nevertheless turned out to be top tier seasons. Unless you mean like their Extinction Island and Ghost Island poo poo, in which case yeah but that's more them just being obsessed with adding items and twists into the game Themes with casting is fine. I didn't even mind Edge of Extinction so much, just that I don't want to see it again for at least 10 seasons. But it's poo poo like Island of the Idols and Ghost Island that ruin the show.
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Aug 31, 2021 13:47
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SLICK GOKU BABY posted:Although the 1st season was a little rough on the edges as the players and the host were still figuring poo poo out... the last few seasons have easily been on par or even better than US Survivor in just about everyway... They even got Russel Hantz on and booted him off right away. Yeah, I've heard one of the seasons is among the best seasons of any version of the show ever. I was just exhausted by that first season, even with my love of Nick.
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Aug 31, 2021 13:51
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UltimoDragonQuest posted:My only complaint about food is the recent meta game of pre-merge players eating more than their rations and other people being swap screwed into starvation. Even the bird box idols in Kaoh Rong were found within like the first couple of episodes. I would like more collaborative idols though where you need two or three pieces held by different players in order for it to work. I also want them to stop immediately returning idols to the game the second they're used. End game idol rushes like what we saw in Heroes v Hustlers v Healers really sucked where Ben had absolutely zero social game, and was just able to get by every week by playing idol after idol. At this point, I'm sure the producers just make a point of placing idols where their favorites regularly travel through and search.
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Sep 1, 2021 13:36
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SweetJahasus posted:Gimmie some good ideas for thread titles. Survivor 41: I'll slap the next person who jokes, "Hur, this show is still on?"
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Sep 2, 2021 20:28
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