The Survivor Thread

[RPS]

2 hours ago, Azazel said:

I agree, I mostly dislike how it replaced reward challenges.  I understand using it for this season because they want to make sure Rob and Russell are on at least a few episodes.

I think it is Rob and Russell staying on a few episodes, but it is also a little bit deeper. The thing you need to know is that Jeff Probst is an executive producer of the show by this point. Probst back around this season definitely had a "type" of player he really enjoyed - men who were leaders and did well in challenges. That isn't to say he necessarily hated female players, but he definitely preferred that a player like Tom or J.T. won a season and not somebody like Danni or Vecepia. So in addition to Redemption Island saving the returning players, I think some of it was also a case of "it'll save the men who are really good at challenges because they challenge their way back into the game".  

In a lot of ways, this all comes to a head on the following season. And I won't spoil it for you, we can talk about it after you watch it, but it was pretty important in stopping the direction of the show. 

[Azazel]

South Pacific makes Thailand look like a great season.  Please tell me this is the worst season.  I can't take more of everybody crying and the entire strategy of the game being about religion.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

You are really in the worst stretch. A lot of people don't like 24 either (I actually don't mind it). But pretty much everything from 25-33 is at least decent, if not amazing.

 

[Alex.]

25 was good. 26 was not.

but yeah you are in the dark ages. more power to you. i skipped these seasons and never intend to watch them. i watched few episodes of 26 and hated it.

Edited March 27, 2017 by Alex.

[RPS]

15 hours ago, Azazel said:

South Pacific makes Thailand look like a great season.  Please tell me this is the worst season.  I can't take more of everybody crying and the entire strategy of the game being about religion.

South Pacific is the producers at their worst. Stunt casting Brandon Hantz, Redemption Island again, why the fuck are Coach and Ozzy back and competing against each other, terrible sponsored reward challenges and specifically structuring the pre-merge so that the returnees don't get swapped and voted off. 

[Azazel]

Started One World because I needed to cleanse my brain of South Pacific.  I like the idea of the same beach thing but I think the guy/girl split was a bad idea go with it.  Sucks that one girl broke her wrist on the first challenge, but then again nobody listened about how to fall.... but then everything went to shit so fast and I have no idea what is happening.  Colton went from a pathetic and whiny person to some super evil asshole in like a day and the male tribe I think went insane.  They gave up immunity to vote out Leif because he told Bill he was next... but then voted out Bill? 

I literally have no idea what is happening or why the male tribe is evening listening to Colton and Tarzan.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

These seasons are also full of people who don't really know anything about the game and were recruited, if I remember correctly.

Season 24 is not well lied but these type of seasons have some of my favorite characters. Tarzan is fascinating, Colton is at least some interesting crash tv, Kat is a bit of wreck, and Kim is masterful. 

[RPS]

2 hours ago, Azazel said:

Started One World because I needed to cleanse my brain of South Pacific. 

You didn't even get to the best part of South Pacific before you gave up! 

[Azazel]

I finished South Pacific, what is the best part of South Pacific?  The Final Tribal was the only kind of good part.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

Sophie.

[Azazel]

Maybe I'm missing something... what exactly did she do besides beat Ozzy and cry?

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

Most importantly, she knew what a terrible movie Jack and Jill was:

[RPS]

9 minutes ago, Azazel said:

Maybe I'm missing something... what exactly did she do besides beat Ozzy and cry?

I think she is great because the entire time she is cutting down Coach and Cochran and Brandon and showing how terrible they are at the game. The first scene is Coach speaking in very basic Russian to her and her saying "he can't say much in Russian but I'll gladly let him think he is smarter than me because that is what he wants". Or the scene where they pretend to find the idol together and they all pray to God about how amazing they and Sophie is there to say "this is a really bad idea to exploit someone's religion like this". Or the fact that she was actually tipsy at the final tribal council. 

Had she not won and say Coach or Ozzy or Brandon or Albert wins - the rammifications would be bad.  We would have had way more gimmicky seasons and more dumb twists like Redemption Island. The producers of the show would basically say "well, look at this... Ozzy won! Everyone loves Ozzy, lets do another season where we bring back players like Ozzy every season! And bring back Redemption Island because it helped Ozzy win and everyone loves Ozzy" Or if Brandon wins, it's like "lets bring back Russell and Brandon and have them compete or bring back other family members of other players". Sophie winning was the best possible outcome for the show because it stopped the producers from giving into their worst instincts. In the final few episodes, she basically sets it up so Brandon leaves the game and Coach looks like the biggest piece of shit in the world, she defeats challenge beast Ozzy and he gets eliminated from the game making Redemption Island pointless and she embarrasses Coach in at the finals and wins. 

[Azazel]

So she kind of saved the show from itself?  Well that's neat.  After a second viewing I was okay with Redemption Island existing but please, no more.  Embarassing Coach is also great, but I just couldn't stand the religious aspects of the season with all the praying and people generally being complete idiots.  I don't get Brandon's hate for Mikayla, it really came across like he hated her because he wanted to bang her and that was somehow her fault.

I like Ozzy but with Cochran, Albert, Coach and Brandon being major parts of the show they made the season suck because they were terrible to watch.  Cochran the genre savvy expert that was the absolute worst, the only redeeming quality he had was that he got full of himself before realizing he made the worst decision possible and helped make Coach look like a jackass. The whole "honour and integrity" thing was outed as absolute bullshit because he supported the guy who had none of the qualities.

I did enjoy some of the final tribal council because Rick told Albert to just shut up, the Brandon/Albert interaction was hilarious and Coach got destroyed and caught in another huge lie.

I also have to feel bad that the movie rewards went from Out of Africa and Treasure Island to Gulliver's Travels and Jack and Jill.  Though at that point I would probably be happy to watch any movie.

[GoGo Yubari]

I was typing a response and then RPS typed a better response. So I'll just say her trying to make Albert quit an Immunity Challenge so he can help her win because Albert is totally useless and can't win himself anyway is hilarious. I think Albert is underrated in the sense that if he had won he'd have been an awful character, but since he didn't his repeated failures at everything are hilarious.

And while SP's cast on the whole isn't great, I loved Christine Shields-Markowski and Stacey Powell and I'm sad they never got on The Amazing Race like they were talking about wanting to do.

[RPS]

50 minutes ago, Azazel said:

So she kind of saved the show from itself?  Well that's neat. 

It is kind of an unknown. But had Ozzy, Coach or Brandon won after Boston Rob the previous season- the show would have gone all in on Redemption Island, returning players and stunt casting. The show has to walk a balance between having twists that are great television, but also sort of maintaining the integrity of the show. Like we want to see players return, but we don't want to see them every single season and they shouldn't be facing an entire cast of new players. Big Brother is what happens when you play hard and fast with the rules and you deviate too far - your fan base cannot take it seriously and it becomes a joke.  Had Survivor been validated and Coach/Ozzy/Brandon had won, the show definitely would have been like "the gimmicks work, lets keep doing them!" What draws people to the show is the core Survivor experience - we want to watch new players vote each other out of the game and one person wins at the end and every couple of seasons we want to see the old players play again. 

Even than ... Redemption Island and South Pacific did influence the show. 50% of seasons after Heroes vs. Villains will feature returning players and each season they still try some stupid twists. But they definitely don't go overboard like they did in South Pacific. 

[GoGo Yubari]

They definitely still do stunt cast more than they do in the earlier days as well. Both Philippines and San Juan Del Sur feature more significant "hey, it's a famous person" people than most of the famous people on anything up to this aside from Jimmy Johnson, and they've started regularly casting relatively major names from other CBS reality shows when it used to be that Survivor players would frequently go on Big Brother and Amazing Race but not the other way around. Their track record on those other CBS players has been pretty good for them thusfar, though.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

I found Seasons 30, 32 and 33 to be cast quite well though. A good mix of interesting new players. 

[Azazel]

I would never want to see a castaway have to leave the game for medical reasons, but on the other hand, fuck Colton and I'm glad he got really sick and had to leave.  Dude is a complete piece of shit.

[RPS]

16 minutes ago, Azazel said:

I would never want to see a castaway have to leave the game for medical reasons, but on the other hand, fuck Colton and I'm glad he got really sick and had to leave.  Dude is a complete piece of shit.

So it would be really terrible if he returned?