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Post by bbg95 on May 29, 2021 22:17:04 GMT -5
Fiji is a weird season of Survivor. It has 19 cast members, which I think is the only time Survivor has ever had an odd number. The reason for this is that one player had to withdraw right before the season started because she was having anxiety attacks. All 19 players were tasked with building a lavish shelter and given a couple days to make relationships and alliances before they were finally split into two tribes. One player, Sylvia, was picked to be the leader, and she divided the two tribes into nine each. She was then sent to Exile Island and told that she would replace whoever got voted out. Also, the first immunity challenge determined who got to stay at the great shelter and who had to move to another part of the island where they'd have almost nothing.
Somewhat predictably, the "have" tribe (Moto) won every challenge in the first four episodes. Ordinarily, this would put the losing tribe (Ravu) in an enormous hole, but the numbers are now even at seven apiece because the first immunity loss didn't result in an actual loss of numbers, one of the Moto members got injured and had to withdraw from the game, and Moto was given a choice after "winning" the most recent challenge of either getting to stay at their shelter and vote someone out or swap shelters and keep immunity. They opted for the former, which is questionable, as a swap seems imminent. I would say that this is kind of an unfair twist, but then again, this tribe benefited from one of the most unfair twists in Survivor history already, so I'm okay with it.
Another interesting thing is that apparently during the part of the game before the tribes were formed, there were two alliances of roughly equal numbers. There were the "builders," who were the ones who stayed at camp to build the shelter and were largely older. And then there were the "explorers" who went out looking for food and supplies and were largely younger. One player, "Dreamz," was a double agent who was part of both alliances. When Sylvia divided the tribes, she intentionally put a combination of the strongest and weakest players on Moto because she thought she would get to pick the tribe she was on, and she wanted to maximize the tribe's chances of winning challenges while also providing shields for her in case they did go to tribal.
Well, that actually worked out pretty well except for the part where she ended up on the weaker tribe. Some people think that she got "screwed" by production, and I guess they're not really wrong. But she was a very weak player physically and also was quite awkward socially. So I really don't think it would have mattered that much which tribe she was on. She was likely getting voted out pre-merge regardless.
Anyway, these pre-tribe alliance dynamics dictated a lot of what happened before the merge, and they're pretty interesting, except that none of this was shown in the edit. I just stumbled on this information on Reddit when I was trying to figure out why Moto would vote out Liliana, who was one of the strongest people on the tribe. Apparently, it had a lot to do with her affiliation with the explorers. I have no idea why any of this wasn't shown.
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Post by bbg95 on May 31, 2021 22:41:32 GMT -5
For anyone interested, apparently CBS someone leaked half the cast of Survivor 41 (no spoilers about the boot order, etc.). Supposedly, the season is 26 days long instead of 39, probably because of COVID. And supposedly there's no theme for the season that Jeff will shoehorn into every tribal council. I also watched the first episode of Fiji. So far, this cast seems pretty bland, but I guess we'll see. The link in the quoted post has been updated, and now the entire cast has been leaked for anyone interested.
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Post by bbg95 on Jun 5, 2021 0:46:47 GMT -5
I finally got to the merge in Fiji, which was a pretty interesting episode (even bad seasons of Survivor often have interesting merge episodes). Right before the merge, Lisi asked to be voted out before changing her mind, but Alex and Edgardo still voted her out over Dreamz, which was a major mistake, as she would have absolutely been loyal to them. At the merge, it seemed likely that Boo would be voted out to give control to the original Ravu plus Cassandra and Dreamz, but the immunity challenge saw the tribe split into two teams with the losing team going to tribal council with no time to strategize beforehand. This led to Michelle getting voted out. This was unlucky for her, but I don't think it's as bad as what happened to Aaron in China, Sandra in Game Changers or even Silas in Africa. In all three of those cases, their new tribes threw a challenge to get rid of them. Michelle's team could have won the challenge.
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Post by Hawk Attack on Jun 5, 2021 12:37:15 GMT -5
This led to Michelle getting voted out. This was unlucky for her, but I don't think it's as bad as what happened to Aaron in China, Sandra in Game Changers or even Silas in Africa. Michelle provided me with what's easily one of my top 10 favorite Survivor moments: Actually, the two best moments of Fiji were just people falling over. This is really all I care for from that season.
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Post by bbg95 on Jun 5, 2021 12:49:10 GMT -5
This led to Michelle getting voted out. This was unlucky for her, but I don't think it's as bad as what happened to Aaron in China, Sandra in Game Changers or even Silas in Africa. Michelle provided me with what's easily one of my top 10 favorite Survivor moments: Michelle falling over was pretty funny. I think my favorite Survivor falling down was Sandra faceplanting in Heroes v. Villains:
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Post by Hawk Attack on Jun 5, 2021 13:45:58 GMT -5
Michelle provided me with what's easily one of my top 10 favorite Survivor moments: Michelle falling over was pretty funny. I think my favorite Survivor falling down was Sandra faceplanting in Heroes v. Villains: That is a FANTASTIC compilation series.
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Post by bbg95 on Jun 5, 2021 14:02:03 GMT -5
I honestly can't believe they still do those blindfold challenges. I'm amazed that they haven't let to multiple medevacs. It seems so dangerous.
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Post by Hawk Attack on Jun 5, 2021 20:08:41 GMT -5
I honestly can't believe they still do those blindfold challenges. I'm amazed that they haven't let to multiple medevacs. It seems so dangerous. Those challenges are really hard to watch. There was one (can’t remember if it was Cagayan or Second Chance) when one of the blocks was dropped and scraped down Spencer’s shin. Also in Worlds Apart when the lift thing dropped down on Kelly’s head and busted her up pretty good. That’s why Michelle, who was not blindfolded, falling off the platform is so fantastic.
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Post by huskervolleyball on Jun 5, 2021 22:25:43 GMT -5
Fiji was a mess IMO but had its fun moments. Also it was supposed to be 20 castaways but one pulled out just before the marooning because she was suffering a series of panic attacks.
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Post by bbg95 on Jun 6, 2021 23:49:31 GMT -5
Fiji had another interesting episode, which was sort of the de facto merge vote because of the weird team immunity challenge in the previous round. On one side, there were the "Four Horsemen," which were Alex, Edgardo, Mookie and Dreamz. On the other, there was Earl, Yau-Man, Boo, Cassandra and Stacy, who failed to give her original Moto allies assurances that she was still with them. Both sides had an idol, and the original targets were the people who were believed to have the idol, Mookie and Earl. But then both sides realized that it wasn't optimal to vote for someone who might play an idol or have an idol played on them, so they switched the votes to Edgardo and Cassandra. Specifically, Stacy and Edgardo seem to have originated the "safe" vote idol counter.
This was actually really impressive strategy for the first season ever to feature the traditional immunity idol (the previous versions were underpowered in Guatemala and overpowered in Panama and Cook Islands) and was a cast of almost all recruits. I was wondering why they wouldn't just vote for Cassandra, and I was impressed when Edgardo suggested exactly that. Unfortunately for Alex, Edgardo and Mookie, Dreamz flipped and told the other side everything, including that Mookie had given the idol to Alex. If Dreamz hadn't done that, I'm not sure Stacy thinks to vote for Edgardo, and there's a decent chance we get the first-ever variation of "Russell/Wentworth...doesn't count," Cassandra goes home, and Earl's side is in big trouble. Instead, Earl's side votes for Edgardo, and he goes home. And they also leave Dreamz out of the vote, as he votes for Mookie instead (similar to Adam voting Parvati when Ethan went home).
Dreamz flipping here is really underrated for being one of the dumbest moves in Survivor history. He lit three jury votes on fire with this, and really, it's probably worse than that, since Alex, Edgardo and Mookie were sure to influence some of the other jurors like Lisi. His going back on his deal with Yau-Man later in the season is more famous, but I don't think Dreamz had a prayer to win the game anyway, as he likely even loses a final two against Cassandra, who also got no votes against Earl. Dreamz was better off sticking with the other guys, as he was likely to make it to at least the final five if Stacy had stayed with them and likely the final four or better if their idol gambit had worked out. And though I think it may have been hard for him to actually win, I don't think it was impossible. He certainly had a sympathetic backstory, and I think he could have had a chance if he made the right moves.
In general on Survivor, I think it's better to lose the game before Final Tribal Council than to make it there and get destroyed by the jury. I'd much rather be Kass in Cagayan or Holly in Nicaragua (both of which had zero chance to win the game) than Dawn in Caramoan or Katie in Palau. Better to get voted out and still try to delude yourself into thinking you could have won if you got there (or in Holly's case, have a bunch of people online insist that you could win because they didn't watch your Ponderosa video and realize how disliked you were by the jury) than to make it to the end and get annihilated.
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Post by bbg95 on Jun 8, 2021 2:39:28 GMT -5
Dreamz is really something else. After he lit half the jury's votes on fire by flipping, he approaches Alex and Mookie to ask them why they don't hang out anymore, and they sarcastically ask, "Why do you think?" and kind of let him have it for his betrayal. But then he gives a confessional about how he still wants to be friends with the people he betrayed because he'll need their jury votes at Final Tribal Council. Good luck with that, Dreamz. I haven't seen such a laughable attempt at damage control since Hannah continued to badger Adam and especially Zeke after her idiotic flip on Mari. Fittingly, both were zero-vote finalists. But as bad a look as that was for Hannah, at least it happened pre-merge and the people she flipped on weren't all guaranteed to be on the jury. The time for Dreamz to think about jury votes was before he decided to flip. If he had really thought about it, he may have realized how dumb it was.
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Post by bbg95 on Jun 18, 2021 16:03:23 GMT -5
I've reached the final of Fiji, and the Final Immunity Challenge was really something. The players had to lie on their back on a plank that was at a 35-degree angle and had to hold onto a wooden handle overhead. At the same time, water was slowly poured onto their plank, and every five minutes, Jeff used a crank to increase the angle by five degrees at each interval. When the players could no longer hold on, they would slide down the slippery plank into a pool of water below. This looked extremely difficult for a final immunity challenge, and it was over in less than 25 minutes. I like final immunity challenges like this one a lot more than just a boring "keep your hand on an idol for hours" as was seen in some of the early seasons.
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Post by bbg95 on Jun 21, 2021 15:03:36 GMT -5
I finished Fiji, which I actually thought was a pretty decent season. The pre-merge was pretty bad, but the post-merge was pretty interesting. Yau was rather foolish to believe that Dreamz would honor the truck deal, especially when Dreamz took a shot at Yau at the very next vote. To Yau's credit, he admitted that he made a mistake and took responsibility for putting Dreamz in a bad situation. I still don't think Dreamz handled it very well, though. He could have approached Yau and told him that while he couldn't give up the necklace, he could at least let Yau face off against Cassandra or Earl in a fire making challenge to get his way to the end. I also think perhaps Yau should have approached Dreamz with the same idea. That way Dreamz gets to make it to Final Tribal Council, and Yau has a fair chance to get there also instead of just getting voted out. And Dreamz wouldn't look as bad in front of the jury as he did.
The Final Tribal Council itself was a bit of a mixed bag. Lisi was all over the place and her performance is on the short list for among the worst ever by a juror. Earl had a wonderful performance, as I think he nailed his opening statement and every single answer to a juror. He even managed to handle Lisi reasonably well. On the other hand, Dreamz and Cassandra did quite poorly. Dreamz wasn't willing to admit that he betrayed the other alliance. His answer to Yau was also poor, as Yau forgave him for voting him out, but he just wanted to know why Dreamz changed his mind. And Dreamz wouldn't admit that he had. Similarly, Rocky asked all the contestants to say how they manipulated other players, and Cassandra laughably tried to claim that she never had. Rocky even gave her a second chance, and she botched it again, so he moved on and then praised both Dreamz and Earl for actually answering his question.
Given their performances and overall games, it's no surprise that Earl became the first unanimous winner and was only held back from a "perfect game" by a throwaway vote before the merge. He was almost never even brought up as a target for elimination, he controlled nearly every vote, and he obviously had the best social game of the finalists by an enormous margin. He played one of the five or six best Survivor games ever in my view.
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Post by bbg95 on Jun 21, 2021 15:05:18 GMT -5
I have updated my ongoing season rankings as follows:
Tier 1 1. Winners at War 2. Pearl Islands 3. Cagayan 4. Heroes v. Villains Tier 2 5. David v. Goliath 6. Cambodia 7. China 8. Tocantins Tier 3 9. Philippines 10. Blood v. Water 11. Millennials v. Gen X 12. Panama 13. Samoa 14. Kaoh Rong 15. Nicaragua Tier 3.5 16. Vanuatu 17. Amazon 18. Australia 19. Borneo 20. Africa 21. Cook Islands Tier 4 22. Game Changers 23. Micronesia 24. San Juan del Sur 25. Fiji 26. Caramoan 27. Guatemala Tier 5 28. South Pacific 29. Gabon 30. Palau 31. All Stars 32. Thailand 33. Marquesas 34. Redemption Island
Next up is One World, the only season of the first 29 I haven't seen yet. We'll see how Kim's game stacks up with Earl's and the other elite winners.
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Post by Hawk Attack on Jun 22, 2021 21:29:10 GMT -5
Next up is One World, the only season of the first 29 I haven't seen yet. We'll see how Kim's game stacks up with Earl's and the other elite winners. This will tell a lot about what you value in ranking your winners! I see a lot of talk of strength of cast when stacking winners against each other and I'm not sure how fair that is.
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