Survivor: Philippines **SPOILERS probably*

[GoGo Yubari]

Cast has been announced, and it's... man, they must have really hated One World. Not only will there be three returning players but while I haven't seen full bios anywhere, they've announced who the new players are and they include Jeff Kent, who I guess is a famous baseball player, and Lisa Whelchel, who was Blair on Facts of Life. Pretty odd.

Also, I'll put returning player IDs behind a spoiler cut and I've never really bothered to confirm, but I'm pretty sure they're

Michael Skupin, Jonathan Penner, and Russell Swann. So at least two of them have only played once and then there's Penner and Penner is awesome.

Anyway, it can't be worse than One World. Right? ... right?

[The Quasi Juice]

Yeah those returnees seemed pretty obvious when they showed t' promo vid of guys being taken out of t' game for injuries. I just looked at t' photo's of t' other contestants and I know photo's don't mean much usually, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say one of t' returnees is going to win, those new people don't look like strategic players at all.

And I actually liked One World pre-merge somewhat, but after t' merge it got too predictable with t' girls and t' winner couldn't be more obvious like 6 episodes before t' end.

Edited August 21, 2012 by The Quasi Juice

[RPS]

I'm not very hopeful for this season, to be honest. I love t' idea of 3 tribes, but I'm burned out by returning players. I might just take a break from Survivor this season.

[GoGo Yubari]

Okay, yeah, it's Skupin/Penner/Swan. I'm going to watch for Skupin and Penner, basically. None of the new players seem all that fascinating.

[DYSI]

I'm not very hopeful for this season, to be honest. I love t' idea of 3 tribes, but I'm burned out by returning players. I might just take a break from Survivor this season.

This.

Although I'll probably end up giving in and watching.

[Pleatherface]

I'm watching because I'm an addict.

And really... Blair? That's a weird choice of celebrity. I mean I got Jimmy Johnson, hell I even get the random country singers/wives of foot ball players... But I can't imagine that they expect Blair to bring in the viewers.

I regret them using Penner on this season, because yeah... It's Penner. I would've loved the opportunity to see him one last time in an all stars or a fvf. Putting him there with a bunch of newbs that don't know or give a shit about him, and Russell Swann? Seems like a waste.

Atleast they're not bringing in Redemption Island, so I'm good.

[RPS]

I'm watching because I'm an addict.

I'm an addict too, but my buzz has been killed as of late. I've seen every season when it aired and gone back and watched most seasons a few other times. I can't really remember a time feeling so not attached to the show any more. One World, for how boring and predictable it was, was nice because there was no returning players. I really really really do not like returning players in the format of bringing a few of them back with a whole lot of newbies. The same thing happened in Guatemala, Redemption Island and South Pacific - the returning players have a HUGE advantage (they are celebrities to Survivor fans, they have the experience, they know what to expect, they have the ability to learn from their mistakes, they are usually great competitors who's tribe will have to rely on them to win challenges) and the downside (the targets on their backs) is definitely outweighed by the advantages.

[GoGo Yubari]

I agree in principle but that agreement is dulled a bit by the fact that I thought South Pacific was great and One World was fucking awful. Of course, the reasons for that have a lot more to do with strong casting vs. incredibly weak casting, and the One World twist being hilariously botched than anything else.

Regrettably, I really don't think the new players this season show that much potential in their pre-interviews, so I'm way more excited to see Skupin and Penner again than any of them. There's a... lawyer, I think, who reminds me a lot of Eliza and I like her. The tattooed chick excited me briefly until she kept talking and I realized that this is just Kourtney Moon Part II.

[RPS]

Yeah, I actually enjoyed South Pacific a lot too, but in retrospect, the thing I dislike about the whole season is Ozzy. The guy lost twice in a row, one time by jury vote and one time by his own stupidity. Him returning was awful and he was probably the biggest dud out of the entire cast and really offered nothing to the whole season. If anything, you take out Coach and Ozzy and I'm pretty certain South Pacific would have been a really great season.

I think One World was okay, but they got screwed by casting really dumb men, very smart women, had their biggest character get removed from the game and really really poor editing that revealed Kim was winning from day 1.

[GoGo Yubari]

I kind of enjoyed watching Ozzy fail repeatedly. Had he actually made Final Jury and won, though, I would have hated it. Instead, Sophie owning his ass at the puzzle whilst he finally crumbled was delightful.

[RPS]

There was that element of seeing him fail, but I was meaning more in terms of television presentation. The guy just is really boring television. His interviews were so clearly rehearsed and over thought, his obsession with just swimming and climbing trees, his retread of the showmance with the hot girl, his monotone voice... by the end of the season I just wanted the guy to shut the fuck up.

Edited August 23, 2012 by RockPaperScissors

[GoGo Yubari]

Yeah. The presentation of Ozzy as a hero and cool and whatever is super off-point. But as a guy who thinks he's above it all and clever and just consistently gets upended by people who are smarter than him he's pretty hilarious.

[The Quasi Juice]

Ozzy sucked, just like in Micronesia he came off as a too confident douche. And he didn't seem to have learned at all from his previous games, his strategic game was still horrible. I really enjoyed seeing Coach actually be normal and play the game, I always thought he had it in him when I watched HvV but in HvV he again wanted to be the Dragonslayer and hog the camera, which is a shame. The constant praying that season was annoying as hell though, but characters like Brandon and Sophie made up for it. One World started well and ended bad. I feel like we've had too many seasons now that an early alliance just motors through the game, Boston Rob's season, Coach's season, One World. Nicaragua looked to be the same but it went crazy after a while. I don't like predictability. Especially last season it was painfully obvious Kim had the game in the bag, and none of the girls even remotely tried to get rid of her.

As for the cast; I like the returning players, they are all leaders and game players. Of the three I like Swann the least, because in Samoa he was waaaay too focused on being the leader, tending the fire, shit like that. He needs to let loose a bit more. Malcolm seems like a chill dude. Artis doesn't want to see Philip back because he doesn't know anything about Survivor....pretty sure Philip's strategy worked

You guys should watch the meet the cast videos in which they talk to this guy from EW (I think), it's better than the CBS interviews.

[GoGo Yubari]

I was randomly thinking and had to point something out;

The same thing happened in Guatemala, Redemption Island and South Pacific - the returning players have a HUGE advantage (they are celebrities to Survivor fans, they have the experience, they know what to expect, they have the ability to learn from their mistakes, they are usually great competitors who's tribe will have to rely on them to win challenges) and the downside (the targets on their backs) is definitely outweighed by the advantages.

Guatemala is not a good example of this. Bobby Jon went out a couple places higher than he would have otherwise out of pity so he could make the jury, and Stephenie played a horrible game where she effectively placed herself into position to be a goat by final five. If anything, Guatemala is an example of how being a returning player can go horrendously wrong because Stephenie not living up to her edit in Palau was a big factor in the way she was perceived.

[RPS]

The only reason Stephanie made it to the final 2 was because she was a returning player. Remember Gary's hysterical line of "you can get her autograph after the show". Her horrible game ruined it for her, yeah, she was given a huge advantage of being a Survivor celebrity and the fact people looked up to her because she had gone through the experience. Bobby Jon definitely does go against the theory, but I'd argue that he had the least advantage because Stephanie was far more of a celebrity than he was and the producers probably knew he wouldn't make it far, but cast him anyway because they wanted Steph to make it far.

EDIT: Russell S coming back is kinda how I feel about Bobby Jon. He's only being brought back because they came up with the gimmick for other people (in Guatemala, Stephanie and in Philippines, Skupin and Penner) and they just got brought along for the ride. It is probably also why a guy like Swan is going to end up like Bobby Jonn and not make it to close to the end - he's not a celebrity, he's not charismatic, he's a huge physical threat, and he didn't set the world on fire last time.

Edited August 27, 2012 by RockPaperScissors

[Pleatherface]

This cast is going to be overall painful for me based on first impressions.

I'll be rooting for Zane until he does something dumb or offensive, he just seems like he has what it takes to be a good player if he gets decent tribal placement, and the accent is perfect.

[The Quasi Juice]

For fuck sakes Zane why did you volunteer to go home? That's just ridiculous. Based off of ONE challenge? He could be good at puzzles for all we know, not every challenge is endurance and physical like this one was. Not to mention the blonde made a good point; she wanted to run but Russell refused. Even though he made alliances with everyone ala Russell Hantz, the people still liked him and had he told Malcolm and the other 2 girls that he saw Swan tuck something in his shirt from the rise bag, I think he would have stayed.

And NO Lisa you are NOT going to quit next week! Ugh.

Liking Skupin, RC, Malcolm and Jeff Kent so far. It's going to be funny when someone outs Kent. Was liking Zane but.....le sigh.

Edited September 20, 2012 by The Quasi Juice

[GoGo Yubari]

Zane was hilarious. Great character, hilariously stupid plans, the best first boot Survivor's had in a very long time (beating out Franchesqua).

I really liked that episode. It took the time to establish very interesting strategic dynamics going on in all three tribes and only a couple players got invisible edits (poor Artis, no confessional whatsoever). If you actually decided to skip this season, RPS, you might have picked the wrong one.

[Blehschmidt]

Malcolm is my pick for the season based off Episode 1.

and I hope we go from 3 tribes to 2 quickly, or Penner isn't going to last long.

[Pleatherface]

Zane won me over, right up until he decided to insist he was useless.. I don't know what the hell kind of strategy that actually was... Maybe he saw fans v.s. favorites and decided Fairplay had the right idea? I don't get it at all.

Survivor is a game of voting people out, if you even HINT that you want to go home, they'll vote you out because it's easy and you're not fighting. Unless they hate you and want to keep you in the game, but that's pretty rare.

Reminding everyone at tribal council how much he sucked and wanted to leave probably wasn't smart.

But I loved that make an alliance with everyone on the island was his plan, and that it worked until he met Malcolm, who I have to respect for immediately running up and snitching to try and cut down Zane's power base.

Penner shattering Jeff's knee makes me happy. Jeff then organizing the anti-Penner club does not. I don't see Penner being able to worm his way out of this without an idol or the pre-merge merge.

RC's "Don't trust the nice old lady, she's evil because I say so!" pitch was painful for me to listen to.

I don't really care about Lisa, but I can almost see her being isolated and haraunged to the point that she flips, and I wanna see that. Flips that make sense are the best bit of this show, and so very rare.