Survivor watchers, chime in!

[JasonEvans]

I am going to Tivo tonight's Survivor and will not get to watch it until tomorrow or the weekend.

My challenge to the other Survivor fans on the DBR is to have a lively discussion going about the show when I check back in on this thread in a couple days. Think ya'll can do it?

-Jason "I am betting that Kota wins immunity again and sugar gets the boot without realizing that they are targeting her and her idol-- we'll see" Evans

[DukePA]

I am going to Tivo tonight's Survivor and will not get to watch it until tomorrow or the weekend.

My challenge to the other Survivor fans on the DBR is to have a lively discussion going about the show when I check back in on this thread in a couple days. Think ya'll can do it?

-Jason "I am betting that Kota wins immunity again and sugar gets the boot without realizing that they are targeting her and her idol-- we'll see" Evans

The lively discussion begins! I also think Kota will win immunity, but that Sugar will realize that she and the idol are targeted.

[DukeUsul]

Fang: worst tribe ever?

[JasonEvans]

Fang: worst tribe ever?

Ok, my evening changed and I was able to watch last night...

Fang is waaay up there. But they are not as bad as Uulong in Palau. They were the tribe that got completely eliminated-- lost every single challenge until Stephanie and Bobby John had to battle each other in a make-fire-the-fastest elimination challenge. Remember that?

I think a ton of the blame for Fang's woes has to fall to Crystal, who pretends to be as strong as a man but who has broken down and been a burden at almost all the challenges. Meanwhile, she grouses and complains about losing and is a bee-yatch back at camp flashing her 'tude everywhere. Thankfully, I suspect she will soon be gone either pre-merge or very soon after.

Voting Kelly out was 100% the right thing to do. I could not see them making any other move. This tribe has been toast twice thanks to bad picking. At the beginning and at the switch, they grouped themselves in such a way as to be very weak physically and it constantly comes back to haunt them. When they picked Kelly over Bob in the tribe switch, you knew they were toast. At least now --minus weak Kelly-- they are getting close to being physically able to compete... close.



Ace is too haughty and tried to do waay too much control at the end of the latest challenge, that was obvious. I still think Matty is smart to ally himself with Ace. First of all, Ace is another physical threat who will be quickly targeted post-merge. Secondly, everyone knows Ace cannot be trusted so it is good to be close to him because it is easy to turn people against him. The key to Survivor on a weak tribe is to make sure there is always someone else's head on the chopping block ahead of yours. For Matty, that person is Ace. Matty needs to stay close to Ace because as soon as Matty feels real pressure he can throw Ace under the bus and Matty gets to survive one more episode that way.

That said, no one in Fang is in a good position. We are now just a couple eliminations away from the merge. It looks like both eliminations may come this coming week! No matter what, this means that Fang will be the lesser tribe in the merged group.

Here is how I see it going post-merge--

Bob, Charlie, Marcus, and Corine (yes, I had to look her name up) who have been on Kota the whole time will dominate the game from a voting standpoint. I am confident that Randy is firmly in their back pocket and I think Ace and Sugar (if they survive to the merge, and I think at least one of them will just not sure which) will try to get back together with them once the tribes are combined. They will pick off the physical threats Matty, Crystal, and perhaps Ace fairly quickly. Dan, the annoying eater, and Kenny will get the boot somwhere in here too, I suspect. It starts to get complicated at that point.



When you get down to about 6 or 7 people, alliances can start shifting cause people start wondering more about who they are going to go up against in the final vote. Sugar and her immunity idol, if she still is around and still has it, could play a big role at this point. I think the silent and weak Susie could become a huge swing vote and people may eye her as a perfect person to take to the end. This often happens with undeserving, weak females. I suspect that no one will want to face the charming older guy, Bob, in the finals but maybe he can get together with some of the weaker players like Sugar and Susie and maybe Corine to get rid of physically imposing Marcus (which would make Charlie cry). I am betting no one wants to go up against Marcus in the late challenges or the final jury vote. Randy could become a key player. He seems like a guy who is good at making enemies, but he may be a crucial swing vote and he is certainly a schemer. I also think he sees what is going one really well. He is someone folks will want to go up against in the final jury too.

Anyway, if I had to pick a final four right now, I am gonna go with-- Susie, Corine, Bob, and Charlie or Randy. Bob will be the sentimental favorite to win it all but I am not sure he will get there. Watch out for a Corine win.



--Jason "wild speculation-- for sure" Evans

[JasonEvans]

Props on the great discussion guys. Ya'll rock.

--Jason "" Evans

[DevilAlumna]

Survivor's still on the air? Is this its 40th season? Are they still on CBS, or has it moved downstream to like the ABC Family channel?

Sorry, JE, I haven't watched the show since 2000...

[JasonEvans]

Survivor's still on the air? Is this its 40th season? Are they still on CBS, or has it moved downstream to like the ABC Family channel?

Sorry, JE, I haven't watched the show since 2000...

You've missed some good stuff, though I have to admit that show now follows a very predictable pattern. It is rare for something truly original to happen, though last season (fans vs. faves) had some great moments involving the use (or lack thereof) of the immunity idol.

Survivor still gets fairly strong ratings. It is among the 15 or so top shows on TV pretty consistently, which is good. The demographics are ok, but not great as it skews a bit older. It easily wins its timeslot at 8pm on Thursdays (a quite lucrative timeslot).

Still there is talk that Survivor only has a couple seasons left. Jeff Probst is said to be tiring of it and its is hardly the cultural phenomenon it once was. I am betting they do something somewhat dramatic next year to send it out-- maybe another true all-star sorta setup or, and I think this would be very cool, a larger format with a trio of teams or something else that shakes things up in a significant fashion.

We'll see. It does remain an extremely lucrative part of CBS' family.

--Jason "at least you -- a non-viewer -- said something. The viewers in this forum suck!" Evans

[DevilAlumna]

Survivor still gets fairly strong ratings. It is among the 15 or so top shows on TV pretty consistently, which is good. The demographics are ok, but not great as it skews a bit older. It easily wins its timeslot at 8pm on Thursdays (a quite lucrative timeslot).

This comment reminded me of an article on AMC's "Mad Men," - that for its low numbers, it's having a great impact in other cultural realms.

http://www.salon.com/wires/ap/entert...men/index.html

About 1.5 million U.S. viewers tune in weekly, with another half-million watching later on DVRs. That compares with the 19 million-plus audience for last week's No. 1 program, "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" on CBS.

I'm a Mad Men watcher; can't think of the last CBS show I followed regularly.

[mkirsh]

I haven't had time on thursdays to watch regularly and instead have been letting the episodes pile up on the dvr, but I did get caught up through a mini-marathon this weekend.

Unfortunately, these two tribes are so mismatched that it is pretty easy to see how this will play out, with Fang continuing to lose, and Marcus-Charlie-Corrine having a very dominant position in their tribe and once the merge happens (assuming they can keep Randy, Dan, and Bob). The only things that could derail this would be the producers throwing some more wrenches at them to shake things up (another tribe shuffle, more immunity idols, rewards with picking one or 2 people to share, etc), or the tribe in control getting too confident and starting to think way ahead to the final 2/3 and backstabbing their allies early. I also agree with you that Randy may end up as a key player as he's headed for the "fifth member of either alliance and therefore the vital swing-vote" role, if he can pull it off successfully.

I was pretty frustrated by Fang blowing the opportunity to flush the immunity idol in last week's vote when they voted out GC. At that point, Matty, Crystal, Kenny, and Kelly should have said "Sugar, we know you have the idol and we want it out of the game - we are voting for you tonight." At that point they could have still voted for GC, but Sugar would have had to either call their bluff (in which case nothing really lost) or played the idol to be safe. Now with GC and Kelly gone, Sugar and Ace are in a much stronger position, even though teasers make it seem that Sugar is ready to turn on Ace (and his phony Connecticuit-British accent which drives me crazy - who does he think he is, Madonna?).

As for the survivor finale, I would love it if they brought back every winner (or even every final 2/3) for a Survivor: Champions Edition send off, but would imagine that would be logistically impossible.

[JasonEvans]

I was pretty frustrated by Fang blowing the opportunity to flush the immunity idol in last week's vote when they voted out GC. At that point, Matty, Crystal, Kenny, and Kelly should have said "Sugar, we know you have the idol and we want it out of the game - we are voting for you tonight." At that point they could have still voted for GC, but Sugar would have had to either call their bluff (in which case nothing really lost) or played the idol to be safe. Now with GC and Kelly gone, Sugar and Ace are in a much stronger position, even though teasers make it seem that Sugar is ready to turn on Ace (and his phony Connecticuit-British accent which drives me crazy - who does he think he is, Madonna?).

Of course, that strategy begs the question -- why would they want the immunity idol no longer in play? They are members of a tribe that is rapidly going down the tubes. They are almost certainly going to enter the merge with fewer members and in a tough position versus the core of the Kota alliance. The idol is something that could easily work in their favor and help them to gain control of the game.

The better move would be to go to Sugar and say, "we know you have the idol. That is great!! Congrats! We were considering voting you out to either take the idol out of play or force you to use it, but we have a better idea now. Lets work together and we can use the idol after the merge to get rid of those folks in Kota who we know are going to pick you and the rest of us off. If you agree to do this, then we will agree not to vote you out and force you to use the idol. If you agree to this and we protect you but you then backstab us by not using the idol to the benefit of this entire group, then it would be the ultimate backstab and you can rest assured that none of us will ever vote for you to win the game. We will actively lobby against you to other members of the jury too."

Now that is the kind of strategic thinking you never see players on Survivor use (except for Rich, the ultimate god of Survivor).

--Jason "Sugar could go really far in this game if she plays it right" Evans

[JasonEvans]

As for the survivor finale, I would love it if they brought back every winner (or even every final 2/3) for a Survivor: Champions Edition send off, but would imagine that would be logistically impossible.

When they did Survivor All-stars, the problem for the past winners was that everyone said, "They already won so they are undeserving and we must vote them out early." I hated that.

I am with you that it would be cool to invite back all the previous winners. If you only had past winners on the show, the "we can't let someone win again" thing would go away as a motivation. It would be a fabulous way for the show to go out.

This is the 17th version of the show. We get #18 in the spring. That means there are enough winners so that even if a couple of them turned you down you could still have enough for a good show. Heck, I think they should not even bother to invite Vecepia, who may have been the least interesting winner ever.

--Jason "make first prize 2.5 million dollars-- the biggest prize in the history of reality TV" Evans

[mkirsh]

Your point on Fang hanging onto the idol and using it post merge is interesting, but I still think that if I were Kenny, Crystal, or Matty, I think I would prefer that the idol be used for a few reasons: first, I would expect my tribe to continue to lose reward challenges, so if for some reason the other tribe were to send me to exile I would love to be able to look for an idol rather than sit by myself for a day. Second, I would assume that we're going to lose the next 2-4 immunity challenges before the merge, and I need to survive until the merge, and someone else having the idol makes my chances worse. Third, I have no idea how many allies Sugar and/or Ace have with their old tribe, so after the merge I may be on the outside of that alliance looking in, and would not want them to have the idol as well.

Basically, I think the Fang tribe probably needs to worry about short term survival more than post merge strategy, and in that regard the idol is a threat. Agree with you that if the merger is close (and it may be given how one sided the challenges have been) they do have a chance to use the idol to go far, but I think it may be too risky for them to plan that far in advance, and requires a lot of coordination and trust which I don't really see from the Fang tribe. Actually, the more I think about it, I can't recall anyone really using the idol effectively other than Yul. Everyone else who has it seems to get blindsided and sent home early (especially last season), but there may have been some seasons that I missed or am forgetting where it was more of a positive.

Changing gears, I think Kenny may be a sleeper to go far. He hasn't been close to the chopping block yet, is non-threatening enough that someone might want to go against him in the final two, and I think he's smart enough to understand what's going on around him and keep under the radar.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

When they did Survivor All-stars, the problem for the past winners was that everyone said, "They already won so they are undeserving and we must vote them out early." I hated that.

I am with you that it would be cool to invite back all the previous winners. If you only had past winners on the show, the "we can't let someone win again" thing would go away as a motivation. It would be a fabulous way for the show to go out.

This is the 17th version of the show. We get #18 in the spring. That means there are enough winners so that even if a couple of them turned you down you could still have enough for a good show. Heck, I think they should not even bother to invite Vecepia, who may have been the least interesting winner ever.

--Jason "make first prize 2.5 million dollars-- the biggest prize in the history of reality TV" Evans

Jason, I like your ideas for the series finale - winners only. Will Richard Hatch be out of jail by then? I sure would hate for him to miss it!

[JasonEvans]

Actually, the more I think about it, I can't recall anyone really using the idol effectively other than Yul. Everyone else who has it seems to get blindsided and sent home early (especially last season), but there may have been some seasons that I missed or am forgetting where it was more of a positive.

Well, they changed the rules on the idol so that you had to use it before the votes were read, not after you were already voted out. When it could be used after the votes it was a super-powerful tool. I recall Terry on Survivor 12:Panama getting the idol and surviving a lot longer than he probably should have because everyone was afraid to vote him out. He ended up finishing 3rd because he could no longer play the idol at that point.

The next season was the one where Yul got the idol and it basically made him the most powerful person in the game and steered him to victory. I think that is when they decided to make the idol a little less powerful.

Gary Hogeboom successfully used the idol to save himself in Guatemala. That was very well done as I don't even think the audience at home knew he had it when he played it.

But, you are correct that in recent seasons possession of the idol has put a real target on your back. You gotta know how to use it -- and I think you either need to be incredibly open about having it and using it or (probably better) you need to be 100% quiet about it and TELL NO ONE and keep it hidden.

Changing gears, I think Kenny may be a sleeper to go far. He hasn't been close to the chopping block yet, is non-threatening enough that someone might want to go against him in the final two, and I think he's smart enough to understand what's going on around him and keep under the radar.

Yeah, I can see Kenny being the person from Fang that survives the longest. He is not a physical threat in any way and he seems to be a smart player from the standpoint of seeing what is going on, making friends, and being persuasive. It appears he is starting to get in tight with Sugar, which would be a powerful thing.

That said, I see no way he can break the solid alliance over in Kota that will control the game post-merge. He will last until the final 7 or so, but unless Kota tears itself apart, he will have a hard time going further than that.

Crystal, by the way, is toast the moment there is a merge and perhaps even sooner. She seems like a physical threat and she is a real rhymes-with-witch around camp.

--Jason "I think Randy will take joy in voting Crystal off ASAP" Evans

[JasonEvans]

One of the things I hate about Survivor is that the show is always working so hard to trick you with the vote that whenever anything looks really obvious, it is almost always a misdirection.

So, when they revealed Marcus' apparently fatal vote for Susie, I paused my DVR and said to my wife, "well, that means Dan is toast." Sure enough, moments later I was proved correct.

I must say at first blush I really liked the fact that Marcus, Corinne, and Charlie (the trio that I see as controlling the game at this moment) were strategic enough to pick Dan as the guy to take out but to also have a backup plan by putting some votes toward Susie just in case Dan did have the immunity idol. It appeared to be good strategic decision-making on their part. But, in retrospect, I am not so sure.

Is it possible that they alienated Susie by throwing 3 votes her way? Did their votes against her show her that they cannot be trusted and perhaps set the stage for her to go back with Crystal, Matty, and Ken -- who were her original tribe-mates? If she defects to the other side (who probably have Sugar with them as well), that makes the voting block split 5-to-5.

And that is how Randy suddenly becomes the game's king-maker.

Randy, who would stab anyone in the back to get ahead in the game, is gonna realize that if he can get one person from Kota to be with him -- whether it be Bob or Susie, he can swing things from one side to the other. He must know that he is, at best, the #4 guy in a group of very strong players if he stays in an alliance with Macus, Corine, Matty, and Bob. Might he be better off as part of a group with weaklings and difficult-to-like people such as Susie, Crystal, Ken, and Sugar. Plus, that is a group he can lead and potentially dominate mentally. It might be very tempting to him.

We'll see how it turns out. It would appear a merge is coming this week and the merge is the time things get really shaken up some of the time.

--Jason "talking to myself because the rest of ya'll are mostly silent " Evans

[riverside6]

I'm loving the analysis, but I really can't pick that game apart like you can, but I'll try. I really think the two people controlling the game from a strategic standpoint are Randy and Corinne. If Randy could make a final two agreement with her, I think he would be sitting pretty. Corinne appears to be the person who isn't tactful enough to get votes in the end while Randy will come off as the guy just playing the game.

[OZZIE4DUKE]

I'm loving the analysis, but I really can't pick that game apart like you can

Jason, I'm with Riverside. Keep up the analysis. I watch for the enjoyment and don' try to out think the writers. Oh, wait, that really has more to do with Lost (and formerly Heroes) than Survivor. But I enjoy reading your thoughts afterwards.

[JasonEvans]

I'm loving the analysis, but I really can't pick that game apart like you can, but I'll try. I really think the two people controlling the game from a strategic standpoint are Randy and Corinne. If Randy could make a final two agreement with her, I think he would be sitting pretty. Corinne appears to be the person who isn't tactful enough to get votes in the end while Randy will come off as the guy just playing the game.

Firstly, thanks to the folks who say they enjoy my analysis. I will keep it up. I am nothing if not verbose, eh?

As for your thoughts on Randy and Corine-- hmmm. I could see that as an interesting possibility. The thing that could really work for Randy there is that it would sorta require Corine to turn on Marcus and Charlie at some point late in the game. Those three, I think, feel so solid that if Corine went with Randy it would feel like a betrayal and could swing more votes toward Randy. Then again, Randy has to wonder if Corine can be trusted.

Randy has a real problem at the end, I think, because he has played the mean bad guy so much. I mean, the folks currently on Fang who keep on losing challenges must hate him because he has taunted them left and right. I cannot see Crystal ever voting for Randy for the million $, no matter who Randy is running against. If Randy sticks with the Kota group then there will be a lot of folks from Fang on the jury, especially if we get a 3-person-final group as they have done several times recently.

One more thing-- why would Corine make this deal with Randy? What does she gain from it? She strikes me as a pretty savvy player. Making a finals deal with Randy is at least a mild betrayal of Charlie and Marcus. I see nothing in it for her -- unless she suspects that Randy is defecting to the other side and going to vote her alliance out. If she suspects that I think there are far better ways of dealing with it than making a deal with the person stabbing you in the back (Randy).

By the way, the person who is going to last a while at this point is Ken. He is not at all of a physical threat post-merge so no one will target him for a vote out (Crystal and Matty are toast unless they can get someone to flip). I think Sugar will have a target on her back too because everyone is going to know that she has the idol. I also like that Ken can lie with a straight face and be really convincing about it. His lie to Sugar this past week was just outlandish enough for her to turn on Ace but just believable enough to get her to buy it. Players who can do that are a force to be reckoned with in this game-- that's for sure.

One last thing-- I really want Crystal gone soon. Her strange tirade at tribal about spilling the rice and no one getting mad at her about it was one of the most bizarre tribal council confessions I have ever seen. It is up there with Sue Hawk's story about the snake dying by the side of the road or something like that.

--Jason "sad to see Ace and his fake accent gone-- he was a competitor even if he was absurdly cocky" Evans

[mr. synellinden]

I read an interesting comment from Probst's blog which suggests that there will be some sort of interesting twist this week - most likely about the merge.

Next week we finally pull one over on this group of Survivors. A small victory, but it felt so good that I want to brag about it early. I think you'll love it and you will shake your head in amazement at the "never happened before" moment that occurs as a result.

I also read a few months ago where he said that idol play this season was the dumbest in the history of the game. Considering James got voted out with two in his pocket, that's a big statement.

I like Bob's position right now. If the merge is at 9, it will be either 6-3 for Kota or 5-4 for Kota. Either way, Bob is likely to be #5 on the Kota alliance list. If he recognizes he is #5, Bob could control the game - if it's a 5-4 split, he could switch to the Fang 4 and start picking off the Kota alliance. Unfortunately, this will mean Crystal stays around for a while. But it will put Bob as the Cirie of the season - the swing vote at the 9 person mark and the 5 person mark.

Even if the merge is a 6-3 split. Bob would still be #5 in Kota and could be a swing vote if Corrinne realizes at 5 that she can't beat Marcus - she, Randy and Bob could pick off Marcus and Charlie.

I think the wild card in the game right now is Sugar and how the idol could alter things.

[JasonEvans]

I just don't think anyone will voluntarily take Bob with them to the end. He is a dead cinch to win if he gets to the finals... unless he starts really stabbing people in the back mercilessly, which just does not seem to be his character.

Still, I think Bob may stick around a while as we have gotten to know very little of him so far and he seems to be a fairly intriguing character. The editing of the show so far has focused so much on Fang I feel like we really do not know many of the Kota members very well at all. If you subscribe to the belief that everyone gets some kind of story arc on the show-- especially someone who has been on this long and who appears to be interesting, then I think Bob is at least a couple weeks away from being eliminated.

The members of Kota who have gotten a good deal of screen time so far are Randy, Corine, and maybe Susie and Marcus. Bob and Charlie have been side-characters so far. Recall that we saw a fair amount of Dan being annoying and paranoid the past couple weeks before he was voted off this week. That is yet another reason why I thought he was more likely to go than Susie, who we had only barely met.

We have seen tons of everyone in Fang, so they are all in potential danger.

I had not heard Probst comment about tricking the contestants. Perhaps they will do something where the tribes think there is a merge but there is not or where they think they are competing for tribal immunity but it is really individual immunity. Hmmmm. Something new would be nice, that's for sure.

You know what would be cool? A combined individual and tribal immunity where the winning tribe got to vote off a member of the losing tribe - though some member (s) of the losing tribe could win some individual immunity. Wow, that would really shake up the game!

As for the immunity idol being played strangely, he may be talking about Sugar giving it to Ace!!! I sorta can't believe he just put it in his bag where she could get it back. He should hidden it from her too

-Jason "if the other folks in your tribe can look for the idol in your stuff, can they steal it from you too?" Evans