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Post by bbg95 on Oct 14, 2021 0:12:26 GMT -5
That was a very good episode of Survivor. I'll hold off on my detailed thoughts until tomorrow, as it hasn't aired on the West Coast yet. I'm still not a fan of the editing. It's so unbalanced. Are you talking across the entire season or how the focus really seems to shift from episode to episode? For example, Eyyvie had a whopping 19 confessionals in the first two episodes, but she's only had one confessional in the subsequent two episodes.
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Post by avid 2.0 on Oct 14, 2021 10:53:54 GMT -5
I'm still not a fan of the editing. It's so unbalanced. Are you talking across the entire season or how the focus really seems to shift from episode to episode? For example, Eyyvie had a whopping 19 confessionals in the first two episodes, but she's only had one confessional in the subsequent two episodes. Both. The season has been a mess. But even this episode.... so much time was spent on Blue throwing the challenge to get out Erika... and we never got a concrete reason to why they even wanted her out. We dont even know alliances on the blue tribe yet. And it doesnt even work lol Tiffany's editing is weird too... Like flat out embarrassing her sometimes... only to give her a lot of positive content (that goes a bit deeper into Edgic) .... its just strange lol maybe it'll be better in hindsight
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Post by bbg95 on Oct 14, 2021 12:01:34 GMT -5
Are you talking across the entire season or how the focus really seems to shift from episode to episode? For example, Eyyvie had a whopping 19 confessionals in the first two episodes, but she's only had one confessional in the subsequent two episodes. Both. The season has been a mess. But even this episode.... so much time was spent on Blue throwing the challenge to get out Erika... and we never got a concrete reason to why they even wanted her out. We dont even know alliances on the blue tribe yet. And it doesnt even work lol Tiffany's editing is weird too... Like flat out embarrassing her sometimes... only to give her a lot of positive content (that goes a bit deeper into Edgic) .... its just strange lol maybe it'll be better in hindsight With Erika, I think the reason was because she targeted Sydney, but Deshawn (and Danny from the looks of it) is much closer to Sydney. Deshawn also mentioned that Erika was really quiet, which makes me think that she hasn't spent enough time developing relationships. I think the main blue alliance is Deshawn, Danny and Sydney, with the others being free agents. As for Tiffany, I think her edit has zero-vote finalist written all over it.
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Post by carsonvega on Oct 14, 2021 13:45:50 GMT -5
I finished the most recent episode. In terms of the vote, yeah, that was really good! They (both the players and the editors) were definitely selling that the vote was going to go in a way that it didn't actually go, and it was effective. And at the same time the strategy behind why the vote went the way it did made sense (even if there probably was a lot more to it than what was shown by the editing) - I would say the person who stayed is more predictable (in terms of future gameplay) than the person voted out, and if I was playing the game that predictability would offer potential value moving forward.
As for the season in general: I would say the editing has seemed weird to me this season, but they said at the beginning of the season that they are trying harder to let the audience feel like they are seeing different angles of various situations/feel more like they are actually in the game (and they have that "game within the game" thing online going too). So I guess it's possible that some of the unbalance (especially how we know relatively little about what was going on with the blue tribe Luvu leading up to their discussion and efforts to throw the challenge) is because no one on Luvu has had to actually vote yet. Maybe when one of the Luvu tribe members is actually at risk we'll learn more - I hope. I definitely like the editing of this season better than 19/Samoa (let's watch Russell Hantz tell us one million times how much he's dominating the game!), 22/Redemption Island (let's watch Phillip be delusional and Rob tell us one million times how he's playing with amateurs...oh wait, he's playing his fourth time and their casting decisions for the first-timers left a lot to be desired!), and 23/South Pacific (let's watch Cochran get built up despite giving all the power to the other tribe and Coach use religion in an ultimately failed attempt to justify tons of cringeworthy gameplay, meanwhile we learn very very little about the actual winner!)
avid 2.0 I never really participated in Edgic anywhere, but I read about it enough to know basically how it works. Wasn't one of the Edgic ideas that they rarely give lots of positive and lots of negative content to the winner at the same time? That is, they like to portray winners as being fairly consistent/even throughout the game, and "mixed" ratings for winners sometimes arise but rarely span three or four episodes in a row and generally don't coincide with a lot of high visibility? It's been a while since I've tried to read anything about Edgic so I may be totally wrong, or right for 5 years ago but not right now.
Both from Edgic and from discussions about editing outside of Edgic, I have read that people feel like quite a few seasons with a female winner are edited more strangely than seasons with a male winner. And I can see some merit to that - 6-Amazon-Jenna, 8-All Stars-Amber, 11-Guatemala-Danni, 19-Samoa-Natalie White, 23-South Pacific-Sophie, 32-Kaoh Rong-Michele all kind of fit that idea, to a greater or lesser degree (as well as possibly some of the other female winners). There are of course counterpoints and counterexamples - Rob Cesternino was one of the first contestants to play his strategy to the cameras (if not the very first) and therefore got more attention than he likely would have otherwise, Danni intentionally hid her strategy from the producers in her confessionals, 24-One World-Kim seemed straightforward in terms of the editing, and 17-Gabon-Bob/21-Nicaragua-Fabio seemed kind of all over the place at times. Anyway...all of this is to say that I think this season could easily have a female winner. Given that the last female winner was 34-Game Changers-Sarah...it's overdue.
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Post by bbg95 on Oct 14, 2021 16:08:41 GMT -5
I finished the most recent episode. In terms of the vote, yeah, that was really good! They (both the players and the editors) were definitely selling that the vote was going to go in a way that it didn't actually go, and it was effective. And at the same time the strategy behind why the vote went the way it did made sense (even if there probably was a lot more to it than what was shown by the editing) - I would say the person who stayed is more predictable (in terms of future gameplay) than the person voted out, and if I was playing the game that predictability would offer potential value moving forward.
As for the season in general: I would say the editing has seemed weird to me this season, but they said at the beginning of the season that they are trying harder to let the audience feel like they are seeing different angles of various situations/feel more like they are actually in the game (and they have that "game within the game" thing online going too). So I guess it's possible that some of the unbalance (especially how we know relatively little about what was going on with the blue tribe Luvu leading up to their discussion and efforts to throw the challenge) is because no one on Luvu has had to actually vote yet. Maybe when one of the Luvu tribe members is actually at risk we'll learn more - I hope. I definitely like the editing of this season better than 19/Samoa (let's watch Russell Hantz tell us one million times how much he's dominating the game!), 22/Redemption Island (let's watch Phillip be delusional and Rob tell us one million times how he's playing with amateurs...oh wait, he's playing his fourth time and their casting decisions for the first-timers left a lot to be desired!), and 23/South Pacific (let's watch Cochran get built up despite giving all the power to the other tribe and Coach use religion in an ultimately failed attempt to justify tons of cringeworthy gameplay, meanwhile we learn very very little about the actual winner!)
avid 2.0 I never really participated in Edgic anywhere, but I read about it enough to know basically how it works. Wasn't one of the Edgic ideas that they rarely give lots of positive and lots of negative content to the winner at the same time? That is, they like to portray winners as being fairly consistent/even throughout the game, and "mixed" ratings for winners sometimes arise but rarely span three or four episodes in a row and generally don't coincide with a lot of high visibility? It's been a while since I've tried to read anything about Edgic so I may be totally wrong, or right for 5 years ago but not right now.
Both from Edgic and from discussions about editing outside of Edgic, I have read that people feel like quite a few seasons with a female winner are edited more strangely than seasons with a male winner. And I can see some merit to that - 6-Amazon-Jenna, 8-All Stars-Amber, 11-Guatemala-Danni, 19-Samoa-Natalie White, 23-South Pacific-Sophie, 32-Kaoh Rong-Michele all kind of fit that idea, to a greater or lesser degree (as well as possibly some of the other female winners). There are of course counterpoints and counterexamples - Rob Cesternino was one of the first contestants to play his strategy to the cameras (if not the very first) and therefore got more attention than he likely would have otherwise, Danni intentionally hid her strategy from the producers in her confessionals, 24-One World-Kim seemed straightforward in terms of the editing, and 17-Gabon-Bob/21-Nicaragua-Fabio seemed kind of all over the place at times. Anyway...all of this is to say that I think this season could easily have a female winner. Given that the last female winner was 34-Game Changers-Sarah...it's overdue. I agree that the vote was the right decision. I agree that who goes to tribal often dictates who gets confessionals. Since Luvu hasn't had to go yet, it's not terribly surprising that we haven't seen a lot from all of them. Michele had this issue in Kaoh Rong, though she got enough early confessionals that the Edgic people identified her as the likely winner. Someone like Sydney could have a similar path, though I like Shan to win. As for Samoa, I think part of why Russell got so many confessionals is that Foa Foa had to go to tribal so much pre-merge. I understand why people don't like the edit in Samoa, but I personally don't have an issue with it, as I think it is sometimes refreshing to watch a season about why (an entertaining) someone lost rather than why someone won. I completely agree on Redemption Island, though. That's my choice for worst season ever, as it was just a television disaster on virtually every level.
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Post by bbg95 on Oct 14, 2021 18:00:42 GMT -5
Spoilers for last night's episode ahead:
All right, I'll get into the details now. I liked that the episode wasn't so focused on advantages the way the previous ones had been. Deshawn fell into the classic dominant tribe trap of wanting to throw a challenge to get rid of someone, and he was going to a lot of effort to try to get rid of Erika, and I don't think it was worth it. At any rate, Naseer basically pulled a Cliff Robinson in Cagayan (in a similar situation) and largely won the challenge by himself. Yase didn't get a ton of screen time, but I like that Xander has turned into a bit of a challenge ace. He needs to, since he still doesn't have a vote.
Shan had a tremendous episode for the most part. I did think she made a mistake by telling everyone that she was Brad's No. 1, but according to JD's exit interviews, Genie's blowup after the Brad vote was much worse than what was depicted, lasting over an hour. He said that Shan just got so fed up that she made a rare mistake. It ultimately didn't seem to cost her, though, as Genie was unwilling to target Shan or Ricard. Since JD is more of a wild card, he's hidden an advantage from Shan, and he clearly wants to make "big moves," I can see why she thought he had to go. Genie reminds me of Denise in China in that she isn't very game savvy and is probably easier to control for an excellent player like Todd or potentially Shan.
Shan had an all-time great confessional in which she complained that JD was trying to look like Allen Iverson and that he called out, "Money!" before missing the final ring toss. She noted that he should have called out "Tribal!" instead because that's where they ended up. She then convinced JD to give her his extra vote for a second time before sending him to the Erik Reichenbach club. I feel for poor JD. Re-watching the episode, some of his confessionals were brutal. Most notably, he had one about how he was fooled once but won't be fooled again and another about how he didn't want to be one of the dummies that got voted out with an advantage back at camp. I appreciated that he was remarkably introspective in his exit interviews, and I hope he gets a second chance. He gave good confessionals and made a lot of mistakes, which is very good TV. He will be missed, and my Danny/Xander/JD Three Amigos 2.0 dream is dead.
Finally, I think that it's pretty likely that there won't be a swap this season for the first time since South Pacific and the first time ever in a three-tribe season. Frankly, I think this is a good thing, as pre-swap gameplay had gotten a bit predictable. I wouldn't want there to be no swap every season, but having at least one season in recent memory like this will hopefully give future players pause before they vote out their strong challenge players right away. I also think it works better on a three-tribe season than a two-tribe season, since it will be nearly impossible for one tribe to have the numbers at the merge all by themselves, so people will still need to work across tribal lines after the merge. Speaking of which, I don't think the merge will be next week, but I think there's a good chance that they'll merge the following week at 12, which would mean that Xander only needs to survive one more round to get his vote back.
Edit: After reading and watching some more exit interviews, it's clear that the people that Shan has voted out have all felt pretty hurt by her, at least in the immediate aftermath. Now, this isn't such a big problem pre-merge, as these people won't be on the jury. But I do wonder if she'll have a problem getting votes if she gets to the end of the game. Getting really close to people emotionally and then voting them out is inherently dangerous, as it can often cause real pain on the part of the blindsided. On the one hand, there's Sarah, who won fairly easily despite a wounded jury. On the other hand, there's Dawn, who got zero votes and was completely raked over the coals by the jury. It will be interesting to see if Shan takes a bit of a lighter touch post-merge.
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Post by carsonvega on Oct 16, 2021 13:14:37 GMT -5
As for Samoa, I think part of why Russell got so many confessionals is that Foa Foa had to go to tribal so much pre-merge. I understand why people don't like the edit in Samoa, but I personally don't have an issue with it, as I think it is sometimes refreshing to watch a season about why (an entertaining) someone lost rather than why someone won. I completely agree on Redemption Island, though. That's my choice for worst season ever, as it was just a television disaster on virtually every level. I don't mind edits explaining why someone lost rather than why someone won. I like Guatemala more than you, and that was more of why Stephenie lost rather than why Danni won. But beyond Russell's repetitive control confessionals, there are several other reasons why Samoa's editing was bad:
*If I remember correctly, Natalie White's first confessional wasn't until episode 4. That's 3 episodes too late for any player, much less the winner, regardless of how much any one player drives the action of the season. *This may be a personal problem on my part, but I have a really hard time enjoying a season or the edit of a season when certain really bad players get a lot of screentime and seem like they might actually get to the end and win. In South Pacific, I felt that way about Coach - he had some moments that were laughable in Tocantins and Heroes vs. Villains, but in South Pacific his tribe seemed so much like zombies for a while that it seemed like he could actually win, and the way he was using religion was not fun to watch. Back to Samoa, I felt similarly about Shambo - it seemed like the edit wasn't allowing anyone other than Russell to really make a case for themselves, and they gave lots of unnecessary attention to Shambo, who...ugh. I suppose it's more amusing to re-watch seasons when you know certain players are going to crash and burn (this is the approach the Funny 115 lists seem to take a lot of the time)...but I also value my first impression of any season quite strongly and there are so many other seasons which I liked the first time.
*The edit did not explain why Mick ended up getting even fewer votes to win than Russell, except with comments from the jurors at final tribal council. Even then, Shambo calling him "feckless" and Erik saying that he had an aura of "delusional entitlement" seemed to come out of left field.
*I've read that Natalie White had a really impressive final tribal council, being able to list lots of information about the jurors and their family members. They could have shown even 30 seconds of that and not diminished everything they'd built up about Russell throughout the rest of the season. *Taken as a whole, Samoa was largely designed to put forward a strong case for Russell to be on the Villains tribe in Heroes vs. Villains. No season should ever be in the service of another season. I'll admit that I was extremely amused when everything came full circle and Sandra burned Russell's hat on her way to winning Heroes vs. Villains - but I would have been equally amused if everything else was the same but Samoa had been more balanced.
Spoilers for last night's episode ahead:
All right, I'll get into the details now. I liked that the episode wasn't so focused on advantages the way the previous ones had been. Deshawn fell into the classic dominant tribe trap of wanting to throw a challenge to get rid of someone, and he was going to a lot of effort to try to get rid of Erika, and I don't think it was worth it. At any rate, Naseer basically pulled a Cliff Robinson in Cagayan (in a similar situation) and largely won the challenge by himself. Yase didn't get a ton of screen time, but I like that Xander has turned into a bit of a challenge ace. He needs to, since he still doesn't have a vote. Shan had a tremendous episode for the most part. I did think she made a mistake by telling everyone that she was Brad's No. 1, but according to JD's exit interviews, Genie's blowup after the Brad vote was much worse than what was depicted, lasting over an hour. He said that Shan just got so fed up that she made a rare mistake. It ultimately didn't seem to cost her, though, as Genie was unwilling to target Shan or Ricard. Since JD is more of a wild card, he's hidden an advantage from Shan, and he clearly wants to make "big moves," I can see why she thought he had to go. Genie reminds me of Denise in China in that she isn't very game savvy and is probably easier to control for an excellent player like Todd or potentially Shan. Shan had an all-time great confessional in which she complained that JD was trying to look like Allen Iverson and that he called out, "Money!" before missing the final ring toss. She noted that he should have called out "Tribal!" instead because that's where they ended up. She then convinced JD to give her his extra vote for a second time before sending him to the Erik Reichenbach club. I feel for poor JD. Re-watching the episode, some of his confessionals were brutal. Most notably, he had one about how he was fooled once but won't be fooled again and another about how he didn't want to be one of the dummies that got voted out with an advantage back at camp. I appreciated that he was remarkably introspective in his exit interviews, and I hope he gets a second chance. He gave good confessionals and made a lot of mistakes, which is very good TV. He will be missed, and my Danny/Xander/JD Three Amigos 2.0 dream is dead. Finally, I think that it's pretty likely that there won't be a swap this season for the first time since South Pacific and the first time ever in a three-tribe season. Frankly, I think this is a good thing, as pre-swap gameplay had gotten a bit predictable. I wouldn't want there to be no swap every season, but having at least one season in recent memory like this will hopefully give future players pause before they vote out their strong challenge players right away. I also think it works better on a three-tribe season than a two-tribe season, since it will be nearly impossible for one tribe to have the numbers at the merge all by themselves, so people will still need to work across tribal lines after the merge. Speaking of which, I don't think the merge will be next week, but I think there's a good chance that they'll merge the following week at 12, which would mean that Xander only needs to survive one more round to get his vote back. Edit: After reading and watching some more exit interviews, it's clear that the people that Shan has voted out have all felt pretty hurt by her, at least in the immediate aftermath. Now, this isn't such a big problem pre-merge, as these people won't be on the jury. But I do wonder if she'll have a problem getting votes if she gets to the end of the game. Getting really close to people emotionally and then voting them out is inherently dangerous, as it can often cause real pain on the part of the blindsided. On the one hand, there's Sarah, who won fairly easily despite a wounded jury. On the other hand, there's Dawn, who got zero votes and was completely raked over the coals by the jury. It will be interesting to see if Shan takes a bit of a lighter touch post-merge.
Shan is definitely entertaining and a major player this season. But I think it's more likely that Evvie will win at this point. Though JD did plenty to cause himself to be voted out, the editors also spent a significant amount of time playing up his desires to fulfill his dreams. Ricard comes off as kind of smarmy, certainly more negative than Shan, and so obviously takes some of the blame for crushing JD's dreams...but Shan does too. They obviously had to include her role in getting JD to give up his extra vote for the second time, but if they had wanted to shield her from some of the negativity they could have left out the part about her talking about acting scared so she could get JD's extra vote and just showed the part where she seemed scared. With the way they edited it, she's the mastermind, but the audience isn't supposed to be really happy that JD was voted out.
Meanwhile, it seems like Evvie has been shielded from negativity. When she and Deshawn went to the prisoner's dilemma in episode 2, they didn't show Deshawn saying anything about how he was going to use all the information she gave him, or that he questioned the wisdom of Yase's voting strategy. Also in episode 2, they didn't show Xander or Voce even wondering if Evvie might not be with them. The baby turtle hatching scene in Episode 4 further drove home the point that Yase has had a fresh start and the audience is supposed to see it as a positive thing. Between Liana's doubts in Episode 3 about not making the right moves and not seeing the advantage that led to the tarp/steal-a-vote summit, Tiffany claiming that she is the reason why Yase has turned things around (even acknowledging it was a joke, but it still made her seem like she thinks too much of herself), and Xander having no confessionals at all after Voce got voted out...Evvie would seem to be in the best position to take advantage of Yase's resurgence.
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Post by bbg95 on Oct 16, 2021 14:34:19 GMT -5
As for Samoa, I think part of why Russell got so many confessionals is that Foa Foa had to go to tribal so much pre-merge. I understand why people don't like the edit in Samoa, but I personally don't have an issue with it, as I think it is sometimes refreshing to watch a season about why (an entertaining) someone lost rather than why someone won. I completely agree on Redemption Island, though. That's my choice for worst season ever, as it was just a television disaster on virtually every level. I don't mind edits explaining why someone lost rather than why someone won. I like Guatemala more than you, and that was more of why Stephenie lost rather than why Danni won. But beyond Russell's repetitive control confessionals, there are several other reasons why Samoa's editing was bad:
*If I remember correctly, Natalie White's first confessional wasn't until episode 4. That's 3 episodes too late for any player, much less the winner, regardless of how much any one player drives the action of the season. *This may be a personal problem on my part, but I have a really hard time enjoying a season or the edit of a season when certain really bad players get a lot of screentime and seem like they might actually get to the end and win. In South Pacific, I felt that way about Coach - he had some moments that were laughable in Tocantins and Heroes vs. Villains, but in South Pacific his tribe seemed so much like zombies for a while that it seemed like he could actually win, and the way he was using religion was not fun to watch. Back to Samoa, I felt similarly about Shambo - it seemed like the edit wasn't allowing anyone other than Russell to really make a case for themselves, and they gave lots of unnecessary attention to Shambo, who...ugh. I suppose it's more amusing to re-watch seasons when you know certain players are going to crash and burn (this is the approach the Funny 115 lists seem to take a lot of the time)...but I also value my first impression of any season quite strongly and there are so many other seasons which I liked the first time.
*The edit did not explain why Mick ended up getting even fewer votes to win than Russell, except with comments from the jurors at final tribal council. Even then, Shambo calling him "feckless" and Erik saying that he had an aura of "delusional entitlement" seemed to come out of left field.
*I've read that Natalie White had a really impressive final tribal council, being able to list lots of information about the jurors and their family members. They could have shown even 30 seconds of that and not diminished everything they'd built up about Russell throughout the rest of the season. *Taken as a whole, Samoa was largely designed to put forward a strong case for Russell to be on the Villains tribe in Heroes vs. Villains. No season should ever be in the service of another season. I'll admit that I was extremely amused when everything came full circle and Sandra burned Russell's hat on her way to winning Heroes vs. Villains - but I would have been equally amused if everything else was the same but Samoa had been more balanced.
Spoilers for last night's episode ahead:
All right, I'll get into the details now. I liked that the episode wasn't so focused on advantages the way the previous ones had been. Deshawn fell into the classic dominant tribe trap of wanting to throw a challenge to get rid of someone, and he was going to a lot of effort to try to get rid of Erika, and I don't think it was worth it. At any rate, Naseer basically pulled a Cliff Robinson in Cagayan (in a similar situation) and largely won the challenge by himself. Yase didn't get a ton of screen time, but I like that Xander has turned into a bit of a challenge ace. He needs to, since he still doesn't have a vote. Shan had a tremendous episode for the most part. I did think she made a mistake by telling everyone that she was Brad's No. 1, but according to JD's exit interviews, Genie's blowup after the Brad vote was much worse than what was depicted, lasting over an hour. He said that Shan just got so fed up that she made a rare mistake. It ultimately didn't seem to cost her, though, as Genie was unwilling to target Shan or Ricard. Since JD is more of a wild card, he's hidden an advantage from Shan, and he clearly wants to make "big moves," I can see why she thought he had to go. Genie reminds me of Denise in China in that she isn't very game savvy and is probably easier to control for an excellent player like Todd or potentially Shan. Shan had an all-time great confessional in which she complained that JD was trying to look like Allen Iverson and that he called out, "Money!" before missing the final ring toss. She noted that he should have called out "Tribal!" instead because that's where they ended up. She then convinced JD to give her his extra vote for a second time before sending him to the Erik Reichenbach club. I feel for poor JD. Re-watching the episode, some of his confessionals were brutal. Most notably, he had one about how he was fooled once but won't be fooled again and another about how he didn't want to be one of the dummies that got voted out with an advantage back at camp. I appreciated that he was remarkably introspective in his exit interviews, and I hope he gets a second chance. He gave good confessionals and made a lot of mistakes, which is very good TV. He will be missed, and my Danny/Xander/JD Three Amigos 2.0 dream is dead. Finally, I think that it's pretty likely that there won't be a swap this season for the first time since South Pacific and the first time ever in a three-tribe season. Frankly, I think this is a good thing, as pre-swap gameplay had gotten a bit predictable. I wouldn't want there to be no swap every season, but having at least one season in recent memory like this will hopefully give future players pause before they vote out their strong challenge players right away. I also think it works better on a three-tribe season than a two-tribe season, since it will be nearly impossible for one tribe to have the numbers at the merge all by themselves, so people will still need to work across tribal lines after the merge. Speaking of which, I don't think the merge will be next week, but I think there's a good chance that they'll merge the following week at 12, which would mean that Xander only needs to survive one more round to get his vote back. Edit: After reading and watching some more exit interviews, it's clear that the people that Shan has voted out have all felt pretty hurt by her, at least in the immediate aftermath. Now, this isn't such a big problem pre-merge, as these people won't be on the jury. But I do wonder if she'll have a problem getting votes if she gets to the end of the game. Getting really close to people emotionally and then voting them out is inherently dangerous, as it can often cause real pain on the part of the blindsided. On the one hand, there's Sarah, who won fairly easily despite a wounded jury. On the other hand, there's Dawn, who got zero votes and was completely raked over the coals by the jury. It will be interesting to see if Shan takes a bit of a lighter touch post-merge.
Shan is definitely entertaining and a major player this season. But I think it's more likely that Evvie will win at this point. Though JD did plenty to cause himself to be voted out, the editors also spent a significant amount of time playing up his desires to fulfill his dreams. Ricard comes off as kind of smarmy, certainly more negative than Shan, and so obviously takes some of the blame for crushing JD's dreams...but Shan does too. They obviously had to include her role in getting JD to give up his extra vote for the second time, but if they had wanted to shield her from some of the negativity they could have left out the part about her talking about acting scared so she could get JD's extra vote and just showed the part where she seemed scared. With the way they edited it, she's the mastermind, but the audience isn't supposed to be really happy that JD was voted out.
Meanwhile, it seems like Evvie has been shielded from negativity. When she and Deshawn went to the prisoner's dilemma in episode 2, they didn't show Deshawn saying anything about how he was going to use all the information she gave him, or that he questioned the wisdom of Yase's voting strategy. Also in episode 2, they didn't show Xander or Voce even wondering if Evvie might not be with them. The baby turtle hatching scene in Episode 4 further drove home the point that Yase has had a fresh start and the audience is supposed to see it as a positive thing. Between Liana's doubts in Episode 3 about not making the right moves and not seeing the advantage that led to the tarp/steal-a-vote summit, Tiffany claiming that she is the reason why Yase has turned things around (even acknowledging it was a joke, but it still made her seem like she thinks too much of herself), and Xander having no confessionals at all after Voce got voted out...Evvie would seem to be in the best position to take advantage of Yase's resurgence.
As I said, I understand why people don't like the editing Samoa, but Russell is such an entertaining narrator that I don't have a problem with it personally. I agree with you about Coach in South Pacific. The Brandon blindside in particular is one of the more troubling things I have seen on Survivor (excluding things like the Zeke/Varner situation), right up there with what Dawn did to Brenda in Caramoan. I don't disagree with you about Shambo, as I don't find her very compelling. I honestly didn't know who Brett was until he started winning challenges, and he was one immunity win away from winning the whole game. I agree that the Final Tribal Council edit could have been better, as apparently, the single biggest factor (Natalie's personalized speech to the jury) was not shown. I think it's just a matter of personal preference that kind of depends on how entertaining you find Russell as a narrator and overall character. As for Shan, I'm not certain she will win, but I have a hard time imagining her losing if she makes it to Final Tribal Council. I can't think of another player who had such a positive edit (socially and strategically) through five votes that lost when they got to the end. So I think she either wins or gets eliminated late in the merge. I'm also not really sure I agree with your interpretation about how the JD vote was presented. The Black Widow Brigade fleecing Erik out of his immunity necklace is one of the most celebrated moves in Survivor history, and I think Shan conning JD was evocative of that more so than Albert and Coach using religion to get Brandon to give up his necklace (to be fair, Brandon suggested it first, but still) and then voting him out. Shan's move was also reminiscent of Sarah voting out Sierra in order to get the legacy advantage (which Sarah needed to win, or else she goes home at final 6). I really don't see it for Evvie to be honest. They had a whopping 19 confessionals in the first two episodes, but I think that was largely a function of their tribe having to go to tribal, and they also went on the trek with Deshawn. Evvie only having one confessional in the last two episodes is a red flag, and I think some of their decision-making has been very questionable, and I don't think the show has really tried to present it as otherwise. I guess it's true that Deshawn didn't immediately give confessionals undercutting Evvie, but I wouldn't say that presentation was positive. I'd say it was neutral at best. I actually think Sydney has a better chance at this point than Evvie does, as she has had a consistent confessional presence in the same way that Shan does, and that's without Luvu ever having to attend tribal council. That is reminiscent of Michele in Kaoh Rong. Tiffany has had a consistent presence as well, but I don't think her social game is good enough to win. But that doesn't mean she'll get voted out. She has major zero-vote finalist potential. It will be interesting to see what happens at the merge. Right now, there are a lot more women in the game than men, at eight to five, and I think there's a reasonably high chance that the women will work together to get rid of the men. On the other hand, I think Shan is the best player in the game by a significant margin, and I think she will have a major say in what the post-merge alliances look like. Ricard is her No. 1, so I can see her continuing to protect him as they navigate to the end of the game. Ricard reminds me of Albert and Gervase, two guys who got to the end and got no votes because they weren't as respected by the jury as the person who was actually calling the shots (Coach lost, but only because he didn't own his game at FTC, and he still got more votes than Albert). I think Ricard is widely viewed as slimy, and people like that almost never win. I think Shan is confident she can beat him. At this point, I think the winner will be either Shan or Sydney, and I think Tiffany will be a FTC goat. If it's Shan, I think she will try to take Ricard to the end of the game where she can defeat him soundly in front of the jury. If it's Sydney, I still think Tiffany gets to the end, but I'm not sure who the other finalist would be. It's possible that it could be Deshawn, who seems to be her No. 1, but it's also possible that she works with some of the other women. Or maybe it's still Ricard, as I think Shan will be able to convince people to keep him around as someone that will be easy to beat at the end.
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Post by avid 2.0 on Oct 20, 2021 13:21:35 GMT -5
any predictions for tonight?
is it too early for a merge? (probably) will we see a swap
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Post by bbg95 on Oct 20, 2021 13:33:08 GMT -5
any predictions for tonight? is it too early for a merge? (probably) will we see a swap I don't think there will be a swap this season, as the preview for the episode didn't hint at it at all. I looked into it, and I believe the latest there has been a swap is after six eliminations, though I think some of those may have been medevacs/quits. I also don't believe there has ever been a swap that late in a season with 18 or fewer players. I actually like no swap for this particular season. I think we'll get one more vote and then the merge next week.
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Post by avid 2.0 on Oct 20, 2021 13:34:28 GMT -5
any predictions for tonight? is it too early for a merge? (probably) will we see a swap I don't think there will be a swap this season, as the preview for the episode didn't hint at it at all. I looked into it, and I believe the latest there has been a swap is after six eliminations, though I think some of those may have been medevacs/quits. I think we'll get one more vote and then the merge next week. I saw the preview... I wonder if that's Genie finding the stupid idol thing that Xander did... definitely one of the worse twists in recent memory maybe she can get Ricard out lol he annoys me
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Post by bbg95 on Oct 20, 2021 13:37:06 GMT -5
I don't think there will be a swap this season, as the preview for the episode didn't hint at it at all. I looked into it, and I believe the latest there has been a swap is after six eliminations, though I think some of those may have been medevacs/quits. I think we'll get one more vote and then the merge next week. I saw the preview... I wonder if that's Genie finding the stupid idol thing that Xander did... definitely one of the worse twists in recent memory maybe she can get Ricard out lol he annoys me Yeah, it definitely hasn't been a good twist apart from the awkward lines at challenges. With Genie specifically, it will be interesting because she knows exactly what Brad found because he told her. So she'll have to decide if the risk is worth the reward. If the merge is next week, Xander is so close to getting his vote back. He seems to have decided that the only way he can survive is to put the tribe on his back in challenges. It's worked so far.
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Post by bbg95 on Oct 20, 2021 13:47:30 GMT -5
Based on what's happened so far, these would be my predictions for who goes home for each tribe if they lose the challenge:
Yase: Xander Ua: Genie Luvu: Naseer/Erika
Now, obviously, things can and likely will change during the episode, and if anyone gets an active idol and/or their shot in the dark hits, then almost anyone could go home. I think Genie would target Ricard over Shan. I'm less sure on Xander, though I think he'd target Evvie or possibly Tiffany. And I have no idea who would go home on Luvu, as Naseer has talked about targeting both Deshawn and Danny at different points, and Erika has talked about targeting Sydney. The one person who seems completely safe is Heather, as she isn't even hurting them in immunity challenges, as they can just sit her out. I suspect that the trio of Sydney, Danny and Deshawn will pull Heather in as a number. She seems like a pretty ideal ally, as she's probably loyal and not a post-merge threat. I also think Liana is relatively safe, as I don't think there's any indication that Xander would target her over Evvie and Tiffany, but it's hard to say.
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Post by bbg95 on Oct 21, 2021 0:16:59 GMT -5
I don't think there will be a swap this season, as the preview for the episode didn't hint at it at all. I looked into it, and I believe the latest there has been a swap is after six eliminations, though I think some of those may have been medevacs/quits. I think we'll get one more vote and then the merge next week. I saw the preview... I wonder if that's Genie finding the stupid idol thing that Xander did... definitely one of the worse twists in recent memory maybe she can get Ricard out lol he annoys me Not sure if you've seen the new episode yet, but I think the "Beware" advantage has been supplanted as the worst twist of the season.
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Post by carsonvega on Oct 21, 2021 1:46:56 GMT -5
I call foul! According to Xander's note, someone had to say "I didn't realize this till now...broccoli is just a bunch of small trees." And yes, the statement is in quotation marks.
At the challenge, Shan said, "I didn't realize it until just now, but broccoli are just small trees." Shan's statement adds an intensifier (just) and is missing a noun (bunch) - definitely more significant than, for example, simply changing a singular to a plural or using a contraction. Xander, Shan, and Naseer should still not be able to vote - but that did not happen.
Genie should sue...jk...but I wouldn't mind it if it got them to never do the beware twist again...especially given the other advantage twist that entered in this episode...
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